Animal Attacks

Animal attacks news

December 3, 2012. Martin Weil, The Washington Post. Arundel police shoot, fatally wound 2 dogs after attack
Two dogs were shot and fatally wounded by an Anne Arundel County police officer over the weekend after they severely injured a 7-year-old boy.

The dogs, which apparently lived at the house where the incident occurred, were later euthanized by the county animal control department, police said.

Officers were sent about 5:30 p.m. Saturday to the 3400 block of Barnsley Court in Pasadena, where they were told that a woman and her nephew were being mauled, police said.

An officer saw the two under attack on a back porch. The dogs were described as American bulldogs. References characterize them as stocky and muscular, sometimes territorial, but usually not aggressive.

In a statement, police said the officer “was forced to shoot” one dog “to prevent further injury to the woman or the child.”

As the officer began to examine their wounds, the second dog lunged at all three, police said.

The officer shot the second dog to protect himself and the two other people, police said.

Police said the dogs began attacking the boy in the house. His aunt grabbed him and fled. But, police said, the dogs followed and continued attacking.

The child was taken to a hospital in critical condition, police said, but news media accounts indicated that he was improving.

Police said the woman suffered minor injuries but refused treatment. It was not clear whether the child lived at the house. Neighbors said they understood that he was visiting.


December 2, 2012. Curtis Morgan. The Miami Herald. Hunting a dangerous Nile crocodile in South Florida
MIAMI — Wildlife biologist Joe Wasilewski has hauled many scaly creatures out of South Florida lakes, canals and marshes over the years.

But the snappish 4-footer he snared at the Redland Fruit & Spice Park was an unsettling surprise. It was a young crocodile, but not the typically timid native species. This was a Nile croc, infamous for its appetite for humans and savage attacks on wildebeest and other large animals along African rivers and watering holes.

The capture late last year appears to have been the first sighting - at least officially - of a Nile croc in the wilds of Florida. It wasn't the last. In April, a botanist photographed a second Nile of similar size on a Krome Avenue canal bank, also in the Redland community south of Miami. After eluding capture for months, that croc is now in hiding, whereabouts unknown. A report of third, caught in the same area three years ago, has surfaced since.

In a state overrun with exotic invaders, even a few sightings of such an aggressive and dangerous animal have raised concerns with state and federal wildlife managers. In late August, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service took the unusual step of authorizing a state shoot-to-kill request for a reptile technically protected under federal law because it is disappearing in its native range and on international threatened lists.

"It was a tough call but we wanted to use common sense," said Larry Williams, South Florida field supervisor for the service. "We've got a protected species but we've got it in a place where it's an exotic."

No one is predicting Nile crocs will become the next Burmese python, a once commonly sold pet that has settled into the Everglades as a damaging predator. But even a single Nile croc poses a potential threat if it grows to maturity, said Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife ecologist helping search for that elusive canal croc.

Like the two that preceded it, authorities suspect the still-at-large crocodile escaped from a local breeder, probably as a hatchling.

Nile crocodiles typically grow larger than their Florida relatives, which top out at around 13 feet.

"A huge Nile or saltwater croc is 16 to 17 feet and probably three or four times the weight of an American crocodile," Mazzotti said. "If it got into a tug of war with a Volkswagen, the Volkswagen would probably lose."

But what really separates them from local boys is their aggressive nature and habit of stalking and killing large prey, including humans.

They're annually blamed for hundreds of deadly attacks in Africa.

American crocs, largely confined to isolated coastal mangroves in South Florida, tend to steer clear of people. Like any large predator, of course, they can be dangerous. American crocs have been implicated in occasional fatal attacks in South and Central America. But they're pussy cats in comparison to Nile crocs, said Wasilewski, a consulting biologist and veteran reptile wrangler based in South Miami-Dade. With the small but sudden uptick in sightings, he said the biggest worry is whether more than one Nile could be out there, undetected.

"It's a frightening situation," Wasilewski said.

Wildlife managers haven't issued public statements about the Nile captures or sightings. But on Aug. 23, Nick Wiley, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, wrote federal wildlife managers asking approval to shoot a Nile croc that had eluded repeated efforts to trap it alive. Though federally protected, he wrote, it might pose a threat to humans and was "known to be capable of unpredictable violent attacks."

The hope, he wrote, was to bag it before Hurricane Isaac, when water managers were scheduled to open flood gates that could flush the animal from a canal near Krome and Southwest 280th Street and allow it to escape, possibly into Biscayne Bay. Federal wildlife managers signed off on the so-called "lethal take" the next day but the croc hasn't been seen since.

Carli Segelson, an FWC spokeswoman, downplayed concerns over a single problematic croc, one too small to pose much of a threat to people for several more years.

"At this point, it's really premature to speculate," she said. "We don't even know if this animal is still out there. This particular crocodile is a juvenile. It's not yet of breeding age."

Segelson said FWC officers are still investigating where the crocs have come from but letters between the wildlife agencies point to an escape from an unnamed captive breeding facility.

It's illegal to own or breed Nile crocs without a state-issued Class 1 wildlife permit, which sets enclosure, safety and other standards for people who want to keep lions, Komodo dragons and other wildlife that "pose a significant danger to people."

According to FWC records, the closest licensed facility to the Redland park is operated by Jose Novo, who said he has safely raised gators and crocs for years.

Novo, who manages Everglades Safari Park, a tourist attraction on Tamiami Trail, acknowledged a visit from FWC officers but said his property met all fencing and other requirements. He said he was not issued a violation notice but was asked to install mesh along the fence bottom as a precaution against hatchlings crawling through chain-link openings.

Novo, who said he has one of the largest private collections of crocodilians in the U.S. and once hoped to open a park called Predator World to educate the public, insists he's had no escapes and always collects eggs before they hatch.

"I have probably the safest facility around," he said. Novo believes the crocs might have been released by unlicensed owners who illegally obtained eggs or hatchlings.

Chris Rollins, manager of the Fruit & Spice Park, initially figured the intruder was a small American croc or a spectacled Caiman, a smaller South American species imported for the pet trade that also has become established in South Miami-Dade. But as it fattened up, growing to four feet, Rollins said it became more threatening so he called Wasilewski to remove it. Wasilewski, who has a Class 1 permit, added the small croc to his own collection.

"It was already pretty darned feisty," Rollins said. "Normally, a gator or crocodile that size would disappear if you got near it. This one was really a little more snappish and aggressive."

According to a database of invasive species sightings maintained since 1991 by the United States Geological Survey, Wasilewski's catch was the first Nile croc found in Florida and second in the United States.

The only other reported sightings came in 1998 when Hurricane Georges flooded an alligator farm in Mississippi, allowing five Nile crocs to escape, according to the USGS. All were reported quickly recaptured.

Wildlife managers, however, admit records are sketchy. Segelson said the FWC wasn't aware of any previous Nile releases but staff members would have to go through old, hand-written notes to be certain.

Bob Freer, owner of Everglades Outpost, a wildlife sanctuary and attraction in Homestead, said the official list is missing a Nile he caught three year earlier about a quarter mile from the Fruit & Spice Park. He said he reported the animal, which the keeps penned up as part of the Nile crocodile exhibit at the Everglades Alligator Farm attraction in Florida City, to a now-retired FWC officer. But the capture does not show up in federal or state invasive species databases.

Nor did a Nile croc nicknamed Houdini, a former escapee from the Billie Swamp Safari on the Seminole Tribe's Big Cypress reservation near Clewiston.

In a 2010 episode of the Nat Geo Wild series "Swamp Men" reality series based there, the staff recaptured the 9-footer, which the show claimed had lived in the Big Cypress swamp for years. Seminole spokesman Gary Bitner said Houdini had indeed lived in the wild for nearly a decade but never strayed far. Houdini, along with other Nile crocs once on display at the attraction, have since been relocated to facilities off the reservation, he said.

Freer, who has caught an array of exotic reptiles in South Miami-Dade, believes the state's caging standards for croc breeders aren't strong enough - particularly for hatchlings.

"They don't need the mother to survive," he said.

Mazzotti, the UF crocodile expert, agrees sub-tropical South Florida offers young crocs the same sort of climate and habitat that has nurtured Burmese pythons and so many other exotics.

"Nile crocodiles live at the same latitude in Africa that alligators do here, so watch out if they get established," he said.

Though the Nile croc may have fled the canal it once occupied, Mazzotti believes there is a good chance it is still alive. At 4 feet, he said, about the only Everglades predators capable of killing it are adult alligators or other crocs, which juveniles tend to avoid.

For now, scientists see little risk of Niles colonizing the Everglades. It took decades of periodic releases by pet owners and escapes from breeders to establish a breeding python population. There just aren't enough Niles to make a go of it, said Williams of the FWS.

Even if a few remain loose and undetected, "the chance of them actually finding each other and breeding is incredibly low," he said.

Though some species have been cross-bred, experts said differences between the Nile and American also make hybrid offspring highly unlikely.

Mazzotti said teams have spent well over 1,000 hours in weekly searches for the canal croc since the kill permit was issued in August. He credited agencies with taking steps before the threat becomes more serious.

"This is when we should take action with invasive species," he said.

"We shouldn't wait until they're out there in big numbers and breeding."

For people like Roger Hammer, a Redland resident who spends many of his off-hours canoeing and fishing in the Everglades, even one Nile is too many. Hammer, a longtime Miami-Dade parks naturalist, has helped Wasilewski on several hunts for the Nile croc. He's had a few too-close encounters with American crocs in the Glades, he said, including a massive one that shot from a bank in fear so swiftly it rocked his canoe.

"The first thing I thought was, 'Thank God, that wasn't a Nile croc,' " he said. "You've got at least one Nile croc out there in a canal that leads to the Everglades. As a canoeist, I'm certainly more than a little concerned."





Novemmber 20, 2012.Tamara Lush, The Associated Press. Dolphins shot, mutilated, stabbed; attacks along Gulf Coast a mystery for experts
Over the past several months, dolphins have washed ashore along the northern Gulf Coast with bullet wounds, missing jaws and hacked off fins, and federal officials said they are looking into the mysterious deaths.
The most recent case was of a dolphin found dead off the coast of Mississippi, its lower jaw missing.

Officials from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Monday they're asking everyone from beachgoers to fishermen to wildlife agents to be on the lookout for injured or dead dolphins — and any unusual interaction between the mammals and people.

"It's very sad to think that anyone could do that to any animal," said Erin Fougeres, a marine mammal scientist for NOAA's southeast office in St. Petersburg, Florida. "There have been some obviously intentional cases."
Fougeres said five dolphins have been found shot. In Louisiana, two were shot in 2011 and one in 2012. And in Mississippi, three were found shot this year, the most recent one last week, which was first reported by the Sun-Herald newspaper.
Besides the shootings, a dolphin in Alabama was found with a screwdriver stuck in its head over the summer. Another in Alabama had its tail cut off, and that animal survived. Still others were missing fins or had cuts to their bodies.
"I think it is outrageous," said Moby Solangi, the executive director of Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport, Mississippi. "These animals are very docile, very friendly and they're very curious. They come close to the boats, so if you're out there, you'll see them riding the bows. And their curiosity and friendship brings them so close that they become targets and that's the unfortunate thing."
Dolphins are among the species protected by the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act. Violators can be fined up to $10,000 per violation and sent to prison for a year.
The California-based Animal Legal Defence Fund said it is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of whomever harmed the dolphins.
The gruesome discoveries are heartbreaking for Gulf Coast scientists, who follow the population. Fougeres said that two months before the 2010 oil spill disaster off the coast of Louisiana, dolphins began stranding themselves and that there were unusually high mortality rates — possibly due to a cold winter that year.

Since then, the spill and another cold winter in 2011 have contributed to several deaths within the Gulf's dolphin population, experts say. Investigators have also found discolored teeth and lung infections within some of the dead dolphins.
Since Feb. 2010, experts have tallied more than 700 recorded dolphin deaths.
Experts have also found increased "human interaction" cases, which include dolphins tangled in fishing lines — and the more violent incidents.
Fougeres cautions that some of the dolphin mutilations might have happened after the animal died from natural causes and washed ashore. She said that in the case of the dolphin with the lower jaw missing, someone could have cut off the jaw for a souvenir after the animal died.

"We have to do a necropsy on the animal and collect tissue samples to try to determine whether or not the injury was pre-or post-mortem" she said.
She also said that the increase in cases might be due to NOAA's dolphin stranding network becoming better trained to notice cruelty cases or unusual deaths.

Some have suggested that the deaths are the work of a few angry fishermen who are upset about bait-stealing dolphins. Yet the majority of fishermen say that while dolphins can be annoying, they wouldn't harm the creatures.
"I don't know who to suspect ... I was really sickened when I read about it," said Tom Becker, of T&D Charters out of Biloxi, Mississippi., and head of the Mississippi Charter Boat Captains Association, said he's never had a problem with dolphins.

The mammals tend to swim behind his boat until a fish too small to keep is tossed over the side.
"You'll see him under your boat," Becker said, about the dolphin. "He'll get it before it can reach the bottom. I usually leave the area if they're doing that."
Fougeres said she doesn't think the dolphins are being targeted by a gang of people or even by a lone, sick individual.
"The cases are fairly spread apart," she said. "I don't think there is one dolphin murderer out there."



November 13, 2012. MICHELLE THERIAULT BOOTS. Anchorage Daily News. Brown bear mauling near Kenai River badly injures trapper.

Two trappers from the Anchorage area were mauled by a brown bear in a remote area of the Kenai Peninsula over the weekend, with one man sustaining severe injuries, authorities said Tuesday.

The mauling happened Saturday afternoon in the Sterling area, said Alaska Department of Fish and Game wildlife technician Larry Lewis Tuesday.
Here's how the attack unfolded, according to an account given to Lewis by one of the trappers:

The two men were setting coyote snares in an undeveloped, wooded area near mile 42 of the Kenai River, in the vicinity of a spot known to fishermen as "Torpedo Hole."

They were separated but in shouting distance when one man heard roaring and growling.

"Then he heard his buddy yelling," Lewis said.

He ran to assist and saw the bear on top of his friend.

The man yelled at the bear, which then turned its attentions to him.

"He instinctively ran," Lewis said.

As he rolled into the fetal position, the bear swatted him and tore at his clothes, but then left him to again maul the first man, Lewis said.

By the time the bear left the first man, identified as a 46-year-old from the Anchorage area, he had been bitten twice -- once on the head and once on the lower body, said Central Emergency Services spokesman Brad Nelson.

The second man, who Lewis said was left with bruises and torn clothes, was able to get his friend onto their boat .

They met medics at a boat launch near the Kenai Keys subdivision and the more seriously injured man was transferred to a hospital in Soldotna and then sent to Anchorage, Nelson said. He is still hospitalized.

November can be a popular time for early-season trappers who want to travel without encountering much snow, Lewis said. Bears are not necessarily hibernating at this time of year.

"If there's still food available, and there seems to be quite a bit available, they can be up," he said.

Lewis said flooding earlier in the fall has left salmon carcasses washed up above the river's high water mark.

"Those bears seem to be out picking it up," he said.

It's not known what spurred the attack, but the trappers and Fish and Game think the bear may have been a surprised sow protecting her young. The second trapper went back the next day to collect his snares and noticed bear cub tracks in the area, Lewis said.

The department has no immediate plans to find and kill the animal.

"This is a remote location," he said. "It seems like a pretty classic surprise encounter."

November 11 2012. Micheal Saitoti. Standard Media. Bandits kill 10 police officers in Samburu

Ten police officers were killed while ten others were injured in a fierce gun battle with bandits in Lomerok area in Baragoi, Samburu North District Saturday morning.

This has raised tension in the area even as Government launched a full-scale security operation in the area.
Baragoi  Deputy OCPD Ben Makori while confirming the incident said five casualties were airlifted to Nairobi for treatment while five others are recuperating at the Baragoi district hospital.

The officers were trying to recover stolen cattle when they encountered the armed bandits.

A few weeks ago,  a dozen civilians were killed in the same region by bandits.

Tension is reportedly high in Baragoi area and its environs following the incident.

Two communities of Turkana and Samburu in Baragoi have on several occasions?engaged in conflicts that involved armed attacks

The government for the past weeks has been engaging in talks with the two warring communities and gave an ultimatum to surrender the stolen livestock to each other.

It was upon the elapsing of the government’s deadline that the government deployed police officers to pursue the bandits and recover stolen cattle leading to the officers’ death.

Samburu is one of the counties most hard hit by insecurity partly due to proliferation of small arms that has promoted the culture of cattle rustling over the years.

About a week ago, Police arrested a man who was transporting 15 firearms loaded with 17 rounds of ammunition from Maralal town, the headquarters of the county, to the neighbouring Nyahururu town.

The man, who was in a matatu, was arrested at Kinamba on the Nyahururu-Rumuruti-Maralal road. The weapons were hidden in 12 gunny bags.  Laikipia West police boss Francio Nyamatari  had then described the arrest as a major victory in the fight against gun trafficking.

Pitbull mauls 6-year-old at party

Animal Control is investigating a pit bull attack that sent a young boy to the hospital Saturday night.

Harris County Constable Precinct 4 responded to the home on Tylergate in Spring just after 9:15 p.m. on a report that a family dog had mauled a child.

A sergeant with Precinct 4 said the family was having a party when the dog attacked the 6-year-old boy.  He was taken to Memorial Hermann Hospital, but officials said his injuries did not appear to be life threatening.

The owner of the dog also received minor bites while trying to get the dog off the child.

A family member with a gun shot at the dog.  The dog was grazed by a bullet but is expected to be fine.

Animal Control officials decided not to remove the dog from the property, but said they are planning a follow-up investigation.



October 31, 2012,TNN. 'Give forester killed in tiger attack status of martyr'
JAIPUR: Stunned by the sudden death of assistant forester Gheesu Singh in a tiger attack on last Thursday, the Rajasthan Forest Subordinate Services Union has demanded status of martyr for all foresters who die on duty. The union has given a written memorandum to chief minister Ashok Gehlot and forest and tourism minister Bina Kak.

Gheesu Singh was attacked by a tiger while he was on duty at the Ranthambore national park. The tiger, identified as T-24, pounced on him, caught him by the neck and dragged him away to a bush about 25 metres away. Reports suggest that Gheesu Singh was walking between two groups of labourers who had gone to the forest to repair a road. Singh died instantly.

According to sources in the forest department, "The union has demanded the status of martyr on the lines of policemen who are granted the status when they die on duty. Our services are equally fraught with danger. We have to often go into perilous terrains to protect forests and wildlife. In such a situation we must also be given the status of martyr if any of us gets killed on duty."

Gheesu Singh was a resident of Amrapura village on the Samod Ki Balaji road in Chomu. He is survived by three sons, an aging father and a wife. "I have been to his house and the family's condition is pathetic. Gheesu Singh was the only earning member in the family. His youngest son is paralyzed and terminally ill. His eldest son is pursuing graduation while the other is in class X. His father is 80 years old," said Rajpal Singh, member of state wildlife board.

So far Gheesu Singh's family has been given Rs 20 lakh as a special measure by chief minister Ashok Gehlot and another Rs 4 lakh by forest department and the Ranthambore hotels association. Kak has also promised a government job for the next of kin of Gheesu Singh.

In fact, the first voice for status of martyrdom was raised by DV Durrani of the Sariska Tiger Foundation. On the day of the attack Durrani demanded that the state call Gheesu Singh a martyr. "Gheesu Singh was a dedicated and a committed person. Moreover, he was on duty when the tiger attacked him. In such a situation policemen are given the status of a martyr so why should foresters not be treated similarly. More often than not they are exposed to similar or even more dangerous situations," he said.

The demand for martyr's status for Gheesu Singh, the first forester to be killed in such a manner, has been gaining ground since the past week. "Even I will suggest to the state government as a member of the state wildlife board that in cases where an exemplary forester is killed on duty he should be given the status of a martyr and all such facilities that are given to a martyr should be granted to them as well," added Rajpal Singh.
October 16, 2012. Ekantipur. Man killed in elephant attack
PARSA,  An elderly man was killed when a wild elephant attacked him in Thori VDC-3 here on Monday night.

The tusker attacked 70-year-old Jetha Moktan as he tried to chase it away and protect paddy in his fields.

Nine persons have been killed by wild elephants that came from the Chitwan National Park and Parsa Wildlife Reserve in Thori in the past three years.

October 15, 2012. Yereth Rosen. Alaska man killed, partially eaten by brown bear. 
(Reuters) - The body of a man who had been killed and partially eaten by a bear was discovered over the weekend on an island near the southeast Alaska city of Sitka, local police and state officials said on Monday

The victim was tentatively identified as 54-year-old Tomas Puerta, who left Sitka for Chichagof Island, west of Juneau, on Thursday afternoon and was reported missing after he hadn't returned by Sunday.

The partially consumed body was found later on Sunday on the southern part of the heavily forested island after boaters reported an aggressive sow bear with cubs near an unattended skiff, Sitka police said in a statement.

Authorities have sent the body to the state Medical Examiner's Office to get further information, including a confirmed cause of death and positive identification, said Lieutenant Barry Allen of the Sitka Police Department.

Authorities were trying to find the animal or animals responsible to "dispose of those bears involved," he said. In this case, the bear or bears that killed the man are considered to be more likely to repeat the action, he said

"Likely, any bear that gets killed would be examined to try and confirm that the right bear was caught," he said.

Larsen said state officials do not usually kill bears that maul humans in acts of defense. But bears that are considered predatory or dangerous are killed, he said. Judgments are made on a case-by-case basis, he said.

"If it's just not clear, it tends to be our practice to take the animal, if we have some reasonable assurance that we're dealing with the animal involved," he said.

Larsen said the Chichagof Island death was the first fatal bear attack in southeast Alaska since 2000.

October 08, 2012.David M. Ewalt, Forbes. Animal Rights Group Attacks Pokemon For Promoting Animal Abuse
Animal rights group PETA has condemned the Pokémon media franchise and video game series, saying it “paints a rosy picture of what amounts to thinly veiled animal abuse.”

The Pokémon series tells the stories of young “trainers” who befriend wild critters called Pokémon, help them grow stronger, and coach them through a series of non-fatal sparring matches against other trainers.

In a statement released on October 8, the day after Nintendo released Pokemon Black 2 and White 2, the latest games in the franchise, PETA blathered:


"Much like animals in the real world, Pokémon are treated as unfeeling objects and used for such things as human entertainment and as subjects in experiments. The way that Pokémon are stuffed into pokéballs is similar to how circuses chain elephants inside railroad cars and let them out only to perform confusing and often painful tricks that were taught using sharp steel-tipped bullhooks and electric shock prods …if PETA existed in Unova, our motto would be: Pokémon are not ours to use or abuse. They exist for their own reasons. We believe that this is the message that should be sent to children."

Aside from the fact that this is clearly a lame attempt to attract publicity on the back of a major video game release (which is why I’m not linking to their site, and you shouldn’t look for it, either) PETA seems to have missed the single biggest theme of the Pokémon series: That Pokémon should be treated humanely and live as our equals. The games are loaded with an endless stream of characters who go on and on about true friendship between man and Pokémon. It’s so saccharine and so completely the opposite of what PETA suggests that it boggles the mind.

As part of the campaign, PETA also developed and released a flash-based parody game which it calls “Pokémon Black and Blue.” It is awful.

Last November, PETA attacked video game icon Mario for wearing “fur” –the Tanooki Suit, a frequent power-up in Mario games that grants the ability to fly.

PETA did not disclose in its statement how many actual, living, breathing animals died waiting for rescue while the organization spent its time and money campaigning against fiction.




October 05, 2012. Indo-Asian News Service. Man jumps into lion enclosure at Nandankanan zoo, injured
Bhubaneswar: A 45-year-old man was injured when attacked by a pair of lions in Nandankanan zoo near Bhubaneswar after he allegedly jumped into their enclosure on Friday, officials said.

The man was, however, rescued by the zoo staff within a few minutes of the incident.

According to zoo assistant director Kamal Lochan Purohit, the man allegedly kept his water bottle, shoes and dress outside and jumped into the enclosure.

"Although his body does not have any fatal bite mark, he sustained injuries as the lions dragged him for nearly 60 metres," Mr Purohit told IANS.

"He deliberately jumped into the enclosure. It was an unfortunate incident," Mr Purohit said. 

The man has been identified as Suryanarayan Das, a resident of Ganjam district. He has been admitted to a city hospital and is currently out of danger.

Nandankanan zoo, literally meaning 'The Garden of Heaven', is spread over 425 hectares. It has over 1,200 animals and offers a first-of-its-kind white tiger safari. It houses 11 lions.

September 30, 2012. SALYAN, Two injured in tiger attack

Two persons were injured in an attack by a tiger at Srinagar market of Khalanga VDC of Salyan district Sunday morning.

Dipendra Basnet, 54, and Urmila BK,39, of Shitalpati, Salyan were attacked by the tiger at around 5:15 this morning in front of their home.

Following a commotion over the incident, the locals gathered and killed the tiger.

The injured are undergoing treatment at local Kantipur community hospital, according to the District Police Office, Salyan. RSS

September 24, 2012 (BOR) Jonglei: Over 360 cattle raided from Bor County - Pamuom cattle camp in Alian village of Jale Payam in Jonglei State’s Bor County was raided on Sunday by unknown gunmen, suspected to be from Murle ethnic tribe, according the the local MP for the area, Kuol Bol Ayom.


Bol accused the youth of Murle ethnic tribes to have stolen 364 cattle from his village cattle camp at the time of peace. The raid occurred between 5pm and 6pm, with the footprints and cattle herding the direction of Pibor County, the home of the Murle, he said.

The local MP called on the government to look to trace and arrest the thieves in Pibor to bring back the stolen cattle. Cattle raiding and related violence killed 1,000 people in 2011 and state-wide disarmament campaign launched this year after nearly 900 people were killed in violence over December and January.

Over 140,000 people as they were forced to flee their homes and/or need humanitarian assistance.

In December 2011 around 6,000-8,000 armed youth primarily from the Luo Nuer ethnic group were mobilized militarily to launched a series of systematic attacks on the Murle tribe of Pibor County over a 12 day period crossing into January 2012.

OVER 4OO CATTLE GIVEN TO MURLE CATTLE IN COMPENSATION

In August, four members of the Dinka Bor tribe from Bor County were arrested in Bor under suspicion of taking part in a cattle raid on Pibor County’s Koth Char village.

After military confrontation with the thieves, on their arrival to Anyidi Payam of Bor County, two members of the thieves were injured, the rest escaped but were later caught.

Murle leaders asked for 418 cows in compensation for the raid but this figure was dismissed by the people of Bor as "unconfirmed". The raiders themselves told police they had taken between 50 and 100 cows

The state government pressurised the Bor community to collect 418 cattle in one month to be given to owner of the cattle in Pibor.

On Sunday, September 23, Jonglei state government handed over the cattle to their owner from Murle community in presence of the two commissioners of Bor and Pibor counties.

The MP, Kuol Bol Ayom said the they had accepted to collect cattle communally "because we are buying peace" between Pibor and Bor, adding that the number of cattle of cattle was exaggerated.

Some in Bor County are not happy that so many cattle have been handed over without any proper investigation from the court of appeal.

Bor Youth leader Philip Thon Ayuen said that there were doubts that just four thieves could steel over 400 cattle in one raid and escort them all the way to Bor and the government had not investigated properly.

The Chief Administrator of Anyidi Payam, Bona Majok, said there were some complicated figures reported regarding the stolen cattle and case was not forwarded to the court to find out the accurate figure of the stolen cattle.

“There were some many cases reported, the report we received in the Payam after the incident took place, the owner of the cattle reported to us the number of the stolen cattle from him to be approximately 300 cows, and in police investigation the figure was said to be 60, 85, 100, and some from Juba said the figure to be 400 cattle and the Juba figure was accepted,” he said.



September 22, 2012. Patrik Jonsson, Bronx zoo tiger attack: Man lives, big cat is forgiven
Survivors of tiger attacks often hold no animosity. As he lay injured from a tiger bite, entertainer Roy Horn whispered, 'Make sure no harm comes to Montecore.' Likewise, the tiger that mauled a man who jumped into his enclosure at the Bronx Zoo will not be euthanized.
ATLANTA. Bashuta, the 400-pound tiger who mauled a man who jumped from an elevated train into the Bronx Zoo Wild Asia exhibit Friday, “did nothing wrong” and won’t be euthanized, zoo officials say.
The acknowledgement that the 26-year-old man was the culprit and the big cat was only acting out its nature isn’t uncommon in tiger attacks. In a long line of tiger attack cases, survivors tend to blame themselves or other factors, not the cats. Some victims even mourn when big cats are put down after an attack.

After the entertainer Roy Horn in 2003 nearly died after being bitten in the neck by Montecore, a tiger he had raised since it was six months old, he told assistants, “Montecore is a great cat. Make sure no harm comes to Montecore.” (Mr. Horn performed with Montecore again in 2009 as part of a “20/20” program.)

IN PICTURES: Famous zoo escapes

And a British woman who was mauled by a zoo tiger 30 years ago now raises money to help protect endangered cats around the world.

“I said I didn't want the tigress destroyed because I didn't think it was a vicious attack – she was just being herself and didn't do anything out of character,” Janet Coghlan told the BBC in 2010. "But sadly a few months later, she was destroyed."

In one of the most notable recent tiger attacks, three men were attacked, and one of them killed, in 2007 by a female cat, Tatiana, at the San Francisco Zoo. Tatiana had bitten a zookeeper a year earlier. After the first incident, Tatiana was allowed to live because, as then-director Manuel Mollinedo said, “The tiger was acting as a normal tiger does.”

Police shot and killed Tatiana after the tiger turned on them in the aftermath of the multiple maulings she inflicted on three men, one of whom later acknowledged taunting the animal.

"As a result of this investigation, [police believe] that the tiger may have been taunted/agitated by its eventual victims," wrote Police Inspector Valerie Matthews in an affidavit. Police believe that "this factor contributed to the tiger escaping from its enclosure and attacking its victims.”

Bashuta, an 11-year-old tiger and one of 10 on hand at the Bronx Zoo, watched Friday as a man named David Villalobos jumped into the enclosure from an elevated train that runs around the exhibit perimeters. The tiger attacked Mr. Villalobos, breaking his arm and a leg and biting him on his arms, legs, shoulders and back. Within 10 minutes, zoo keepers had shooed Bashuta off with the help of a fire extinguisher. Villalobos is in stable condition at a local hospital.

Zoo director Jim Breheny said the zoo would review its safety procedures, but was quick to absolve Bashuta from blame.

“We review everything, but we honestly think we provide a safe experience," Mr. Breheny told the Associated Press. "And this is just an extraordinary occurrence … somebody was deliberately trying to endanger themselves."

“The tiger,” he added, “did nothing wrong in this episode.”

September 10, 2012 'Pitbull' mauls girl, two, in Paisley's Brodie Park
Police are searching for the owner of a "pitbull-type dog" which mauled a two year old girl and her mother.

The child was playing in Brodie Park, Paisley, when the animal attacked her at about 18:00 on Saturday.

The dog grabbed the child's ankle and dragged her to the ground. It bit her mother's hand when she tried to drag it off. The child is being treated in hospital for ankle and foot injuries.

A man in his 30s grabbed the dog and ran off after the attack.

The dog is described as being a "pitbull-type" and the man who took the dog, is described as white, in his 30s, with a slim build, about 6ft tall with short, dark, curly hair.

'Frightening experience'
Following the attack, the two-year-old girl was taken to Paisley's Royal Alexandra Hospital and later transferred to Yorkhill Hospital in Glasgow.

Insp Alison Kennedy, of Strathclyde Police, said: "This was no doubt an extremely frightening experience for a mother and her child and it's imperative we trace the dog and its owner.

"I would like to appeal to people who may have been in the park at the time of the incident to get in touch with us.

"I am also appealing to people who use this park to walk their dogs - it's possible they may know the man and the dog we are referring to. I would urge them to contact us."


September 6, 2012. BBC. Dunfermline  postman hits out after 18th dog bite
A Fife postman has hit out at pet owners after being bitten by a dog for the 18th time in his 20 year career.

Garry Haldane needed treatment after being bitten by a German Shepherd while on his rounds in Dunfermline.

Mr Haldane had been delivering letters to homes near Dunfermline High School when he was attacked on 25 August.

He said it was "not acceptable" for postal workers to be subjected to animal attacks. A 51-year-old man has been cautioned and charged.

Mr Haldane said: "I heard the dog bark and it attacked me from a side alley and bit my leg."

Dog attacks
He was taken the nearby Queen Margaret Hospital for treatment to puncture wounds and bruising.

Mr Haldane, a rep for the Communication Workers Union (CWU), has recently been campaigning for postmen to get better protection from dangerous dogs.

In West Fife, postal workers have compiled a list of addresses of dangerous animals after more than 30 dog attacks on Royal Mail employees were reported in the space of 12 months.

That figure was up by 74% on the previous year.

Mr Haldane added: "It is not acceptable that postal workers, or anyone else for that matter, should be subject to dog or animal attacks because they are not under control when we visit the owner's property."

'Minimise harm'
The CWU estimates that about 5,000 postal workers across the UK are attacked every year.

Royal Mail spokeswoman Julie Pirone said its first priority was to ensure the welfare and safety of its employees.

"We regularly communicate with our people about the dangers of dog attacks and provide advice to our postmen and women on techniques to minimise harm in the event of an attack, and keep a register in each delivery office highlighting any potential risk," she said.

"Over £100,000 has been spent on awareness campaigns and equipment to help reduce the risk of injury.

"However, even just being threatened by an unrestrained pet is a frightening situation for our delivery staff and we would appeal to owners to keep their pets under control, especially if they know their pets have a territorial nature."





September 6, 2012. CASEY GROVE . Anchorage Daily News. Teen tourist bitten by brown bear on trail near Sitka
A brown bear attacked a teenager jogging on a trail north of Sitka on Wednesday, injuring her but leaving the out-of-town visitor able to walk to help, according to Alaska State Troopers.

According to radio station KCAW, the young woman, Nicola Rammell, had traveled to the Southeast Alaska city by ferry with her parents on Wednesday. Troopers said the 18-year-old resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, went for a run about 3:40 p.m. on the Mosquito Cove Trail near Starrigavin Creek, about six miles north of downtown Sitka and one mile from the ferry terminal.

KCAW reported the young woman was out in front of the rest of her family, all of them jogging on the mile-and-a-quarter loop during their layover when she came upon the bear, nearly running into it.

Troopers said the sow, which had a cub with it, bit Rammell once. The teen was able to walk back to a trail head and was taken to a hospital with minor injures.

Wildlife officials tried to find the bear and its cub but were unsuccessful. The U.S. Forest Service closed trails and a campground in the area after the attack, troopers said.

August 31, 2012. BBC. St Leonards dog attacks owner Spencer Brown jailed. A man whose out-of-control dogs attacked 10 people in the street has been jailed for 12 months.


Spencer Brown, 22, had admitted 10 counts of owning dogs dangerously out of control in a public place.

The attacks happened after Brown's Staffordshire bull terrier crosses, Tilly and Freak, escaped from his East Sussex home, on 22 July.

Brown, of Marline Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, was banned from keeping dogs for life by a judge at Lewes Crown Court.

The court also ordered the dogs to be destroyed.

Aggressive and territorial
Victims of the attack were bitten on their hands, arms and legs as the two dogs walked the area with no leads, while those who came to the victims' aid were also bitten.

The court was told police managed to subdue one of the animals with a fire extinguisher and a dog catcher pole while a passer-by dragged the other into a cage.


Neither dog was a banned breed, but police recommended they both be destroyed after the kennels where they were being held reported that they remained aggressive and territorial.

The court heard that one of the dogs had attacked weeks before, on 16 May.

The victim, Jason Griggs, suffered multiple cuts and a broken finger in the attack, after a confrontation between him and Brown.

He has has been left unable to work as a self-employed electrician.

Brown, who has eight previous convictions for offences including theft and shoplifting, also admitted owning a dog which caused injury in a private place in the attack on Mr Griggs and possession of cannabis.

Covered in blood
One of the victims of the July attack, Nigel Waughman, told police it was "horrific and nightmarish".

Another, Daniel Smith, bent down to pick up his own Jack Russell but fumbled and was attacked by one of the dogs, causing him to fall into the road.

Prosecutor Gail Purdy said both dogs bit him while he was in the road, leaving him covered in blood and needing hospital treatment.


Mark Glendenning, defending, said Staffordshire bull terriers were sometimes seen as status dogs among young people but this was not Brown's reason for owning them.

Brown was asked to leave home aged 15 and was homeless before being housed by social services in bed and breakfast accommodation.

"The dogs were his family," said Mr Glendenning.

Judge Anthony Scott-Gall told Brown the attacks were grave and quite horrific offences which had left victims savagely mauled.

The sentencing comes days after tougher guidelines were brought in for judges under which owners or anyone in charge of a dangerously out-of-control dog faces up to two years in jail.

August 28.  2012.BBC. Essex lion: Charting the big cats of Britain
The search for a "lion" in Essex was called off after no trace of the animal could be found.

While many newspapers have suggested the animal may be a large domestic cat a couple who photographed it remain convinced it was not a household pet.

The sighting is not the first time members of the public have claimed to have spotted an exotic animal in Britain.

Stories of big cats go back to the 1960s and 70s when it was legal and fashionable to keep exotic animals as pets.

Dangerous Animals Act
The wealthy could take their lion, tiger or cheetah for a walk around the park without needing a licence.

But in 1976 the government introduced the Dangerous Wild Animals Act to protect the public and animals.



While many owners gave their pets to zoos or put them down rumours started that some people released their animals into the wild where their offspring still roam to this day.

In the mid 1990s photos and video emerged of a large panther-like animal in Cornwall.

Dubbed "the beast of Bodmin" it has been spotted on and off for 20 years.

In 1995 a 14-year-old boy found a leopard skull in a river in Bodmin perhaps lending weight to the beast's existence and its demise.

But scientists at the Natural History Museum found an insect egg case inside the skull which they said proved the animal had not died on the moors.

The skull was thought to have come from the tropics or been stored in a warm warehouse where tropical cockroaches can be found.

Toy tiger
The researchers also found cut marks on the back of the skull which showed it had come from a rug or wall trophy suggesting it had probably been dropped into the river by hoaxers.

But sightings and evidence of big cats are not always a hoax.

In Wales there have been a number of reports of big cats sighted in rural areas close to the scene of animal attacks on sheep.

Dogs or foxes may be behind the attacks but some remain convinced the hunter involved is feline in origin.

In February DNA tests on two roe deer discovered dead in Gloucestershire found only saliva relating to foxes.

Last year it was not other animals but a stuffed toy that was behind a big cat sighting.

A life-size toy tiger sparked a major operation involving armed officers and a force helicopter in Southampton.

While no evidence has been found of the Essex lion public fascination with big cats in Britain looks set to continue.



August 27, 2012. Associated Press. British police call off hunt for lion reportedly spotted in coastal village
LONDON –  So, were the locals lying about the lion?
Police said Monday that they've found no evidence to support area residents' claims that they'd spotted a big cat prowling the countryside near the idyllic village of St. Osyth, in the southeastern English county of Essex.

Sunday's reported sightings alarmed many of the village's 4,000 people, and authorities sent about 40 officers, tranquilizer-toting zoo experts, and a pair of heat-seeking helicopters to the area in an effort to find the beast.
But a police spokeswoman said that, after an extensive search, "we've found no evidence" of a lion. The creature spotted Sunday night may have been a large domestic cat or a wildcat, she added.
So does that mean there never was any lion?

The official, who spoke on customary condition of anonymity, demurred, noting that the people interviewed by police were convinced they'd spotted a lion. That aside, she said, "we've stopped searching for it."
It seems the mysterious "Essex Lion" will join a number of other mythical beasts that at times appear and then disappear into Britain's forests and seaside -- particularly in the dead of summer, when journalists struggle to fill papers and news bulletins. 

The best-known mystery big cat in Britain was the "Beast of Bodmin," a panther that was allegedly spotted so many times that it prompted a government probe into the matter. The 1995 investigation concluded there was no evidence of exotic large cats roaming the nation's countryside.
In 2011, there was the Hampshire White Tiger, whose alleged appearance near a sports field stopped a cricket game and led to a police alert (the tiger turned out to be a stuffed toy).

And in 2007, the British media went wild over a man who claimed to have photographed a great white shark off the coast of Cornwall, in southwestern England. The man, a bouncer, later admitted that the pictures were actually taken while on vacation in South Africa, adding that he couldn't believe anyone had been foolish enough to take the hoax seriously.


August 27, 2012. Associated Press.  Site of deadly bear mauling remains closed in Alaska's Denali 
ANCHORAGE, Alaska –  About 200 square miles of Alaska backcountry terrain where a California hiker was mauled to death by a grizzly bear remained closed Sunday as investigators continued to piece together what happened.
Weather permitting, rangers at Denali National Park were planning to recreate the steps taken by 49-year-old Richard White, of San Diego, before he was attacked Friday afternoon near the Toklat River, park officials said. Before the attack, White photographed the male bear for at least eight minutes from a distance of 50 to 100 yards.

The weather was poor Sunday, with low clouds and rain contributing to low visibility. Park spokeswoman Kris Fister said that when the weather allows visibility, park pilots will fly over the area to look for other backpackers believed to still be in the general vicinity or heading in that direction. Fister said rangers might also go on foot to alert -- not evacuate -- the party believed to still be there.

The photographs in the recovered camera show the bear grazing and not acting aggressively. Spokeswoman Maureen McLaughlin said the bear did not even appear aware of the hiker until the final photos, which show the animal looking toward the camera.

A few hours after the attack Friday, hikers stumbled upon White's backpack roughly 150 yards from his remains, McLaughlin said. The hikers also spotted blood and torn clothing, and immediately hiked back and alerted staff park.
Rangers in a helicopter spotted a large male grizzly bear sitting on the hiker's remains, which they called a "food cache" in the underbrush.
A state trooper fatally shot the bear Saturday. The bear's stomach contents were examined and found to contain remains and clothing that confirmed it was the animal that killed White, Fister said Sunday.
White's remains were recovered Saturday evening and were sent to the state medical examiner's office in Anchorage.

There's no indication that the man's death was the result of anything other than a bear attack, according to investigators. The attack is the first known fatal mauling in the park's nearly century-long history.

White had been in the Denali backcountry for three nights under a five-night permit and may have recently hiked in other areas of Alaska, park officials said. It was unknown if he had previous backcountry experience in Denali, but he indicated he had multiple years of backpacking experience, Fister said.
UT San Diego reported Sunday that White was the director of exploratory pharmacology at Ferring Pharmaceuticals until last year and was switching to a new job, according to the hiker's father, Byron White. The father, who could not be reached by The Associated Press, said his son liked hiking alone in remote places and enjoyed the wilderness. Byron White said his son had been to Denali at least once before.

Richard White is survived by a wife and young daughter, his father said.
Fister said overnight permits are not being issued for about 200 square miles in the area of the attack, where about a dozen different bears have been spotted over the summer. She said rangers personally delivered the news about the closure to others in the area who might not have heard about the attack. Day backpackers, who do not need a park permit, also are being notified as they arrive, and there are closure signs in the area, Fister said.
Before backpackers obtain a permit, they receive mandatory bear awareness training that teaches them to stay at least a quarter-mile away from bears, and to slowly back away if they find themselves any closer. Richard White had received that training, according to investigators.
Denali is located 240 miles north of Anchorage. It spans more than 6 million acres and is home to numerous wild animals, including bears, wolves, caribou and moose.

August 27, 2012. Associated Press. Police in Alabama capture 11-foot-long python after escape
ALBERTVILLE, Ala. –  Police in an Alabama say they've captured an 11-foot-long python several days after its escape.

Police say the animal escaped from a home in Albertville on Aug. 12.
Authorities say Rogue, the missing python, was found in a creek Sunday near the owner's home.

Albertville Police Chief Doug Pollard tells WBRC-TV that he received a call Sunday afternoon from a patrol supervisor, who said that Rogue had been found alive.
Police say the snake is now back home with its owners

August  26, 2012. BBC/Reuters.  Tiger mauls zookeeper to death. 
A Siberian tiger has attacked and killed a female keeper at a zoo in Germany.

It seems an unlocked gate at Cologne Zoo allowed the tiger, Altai, to get out of its pen and into a store, where it attacked the zookeeper.

The zoo's director then shot the animal through a skylight in the store, before it could go further and get into public areas.

"We cannot yet explain how the keeper could make such a fatal mistake (of failing to close the gate)," zoo director Theo Pagel said.

"I shot and killed the animal so that we could enter... and take a look. But the employee was already dead."

Police briefly cleared the area as a precautionary measure though officials said the public was never in any danger.

Both the tiger and the zookeeper were killed.

The zoo, which later reopened for visitors, said in a statement the keeper had been experienced in working with tigers. She died of her wounds in the cage, not after being taken to hospital as earlier reported.

It is not the first time this year that an animal has escaped from a zoo in Germany.

In July, five chimpanzees got over a fence in Hanover.

In that case though, they were recaptured before anyone was hurt

An animal rights group said the death of the keeper should force the government to reconsider how zoos operate.

"Tragedies like this can only be prevented in the future if people stop considering as recreational fun the locking up of wild animals that have a desire for freedom," said Peter Hoeffken, a zoologist from PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

Cologne Zoo in western Germany, founded in 1860, is one of the oldest and best-known in the country.


August 1, 2012. Mariana Zepeda. ILC.  Zookeeper Attack Cast into Doubt
SANTIAGO — Information revealed about José Silva Saldías, the zookeeper at the Santiago Metropolitan Zoo who was attacked by a white tiger last Sunday, casts doubts over the circumstances surrounding the recent tragedy.

Last Sunday, Silva entered the cage of “Pampa,” a white tiger and one of the zoo’s most prized felines. Silva, who has over 25 years over experience in his job, was attempting to feed the animal when things went awry and Pampa attacked the zookeeper. Pampa was then put down by zoo authorities in order to prevent the feline from mauling Silva.

The decision to end the animal’s life ignited passionate complaints from the general public and several animal rights groups, who protested at the zoo on Sunday night.

New information unearthed from zoo records reveals a troubling episode in the zookeeper’s past. In 2002, the zoo opened a court investigation concerning the escape and subsequent death of a puma. In 2003, Silva was sanctioned for the incident, along with six other people. The zookeeper was docked ten percent of his paycheck.

“Ten years ago, Silva was sanctioned for a failure to follow protocol as well as excessive confidence in his relationship with the animal,” stated Mauricio Fabry, director of the Metropolitan Zoo yesterday. However, Fabry explained that Silva had not been on the premises during the puma’s escape; he was merely part of a larger investigation.

Fabry assured the public that the zoo would investigate last Sunday’s incident meticulously, as it led to the death of one of Chile’s most beloved animals.

“The zoo has a very clear protocol, a system that activates cage doors from the outside. A zookeeper does not need to come into contact with a dangerous animal,” Silva explained.

According to protocol, all dangerous animals at the zoo remain confined while their cages are cleaned or their food is brought in. Zookeepers rarely come into direct contact with them.

The zoo director reiterated the inevitability of the animal’s death. “When there is an emergency at the zoo, we have the option to anesthetize the animal, and our zoo is fully equipped to do so. We will only shoot an animal in dire circumstances, when a life is at stake,” Fabry said. “Unfortunately, with José Silva, this was the case. We had to act fast.”

Marcela Tirado, head of the Animal Health Unit of the Metropolitan Zoo, explained that when zoo authorities found Silva, the feline was directly on top of him. Anesthetizing Pampa was not an option, as the weight of the tiger’s body would have crushed Silva.

Silva remains stable in the trauma section of the intensive care unit at the Santiago Workers’ Hospital, as he suffered a fracture to the right shoulder. His other injures are being assessed, but he will most likely need surgery in the next couple of days.


July 29, 2012. Mariana Zepeda. Zookeeper Attacked By Tiger At Santiago Metropolitan Zoo
SANTIAGO — The Metropolitan Zoo of Santiago made headlines this morning when a tiger attacked and injured a zookeeper within his cage.

At 9 a.m., the head of the feline section of the zoo, José Silva, entered the white tiger’s cage in order to feed and clean the animal, a part of his daily routine. Silva, who has more than 25 years of zookeeping experience, was then attacked by the tiger and left badly wounded.

When Silva attempted to exit the cage, the tiger was able to escape. Immediately upon witnessing the tiger’s actions, the zoo’s workers followed the establishment’s protocol and put the feline down.

The zoo director stated this morning: “This has been the worst incident to occur in this zoo in the past 11 years. Thankfully, the zoo wasn’t open for the public yet.”

Silva remains at the Worker’s Hospital. However, he is now out of danger and will begin his recovery.

July 13, 2012.BBC. Dog attack postman undergoes hand surgery
A Wiltshire postman has undergone extensive surgery to regain the use of his hand after being attacked by a dog.


Paul Ratcliffe was delivering letters to a farm near Malmesbury when he was attacked by a Weimaraner dog owned by a police officer.

Nerves in his thumb were severed in the attack, affecting the use of his hand.

Wiltshire Police said the officer had been given a letter of warning but no further action would be taken as it was a civil matter.

Mr Ratcliffe, from Sherston, said he was delivering a letter to a farm in Charlton when the dog "grabbed" him.

'I was shocked'
"I was just walking past the dog and the next thing it had its jaws locked around my hand," he said.

"I had to get my hand back out of its jaws, which it wasn't keen to let go of, which then caused quite a lot of damage.

"And when I ran it under the tap, I was shocked by how bad it was - that's when my arm started shaking."

Mr Ratcliffe had to undergo two hours of surgery to graft nerves from his arm into his hand to try to restore the use of his hand.

He has been signed off sick by doctors for the next four weeks but said he would not be pressing charges against the dog's owner.

'4,000 animal attacks'
A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said there were about 4,000 animal attacks a year on Royal Mail staff and its main aim was "to prevent attacks".

"If we feel that there is a risk from a dog, or any other animal, at an individual address, we are committed to working with the customer to agree simple steps to ensure that we can deliver the mail safely," she said.

"And we also regularly communicate with our people about the dangers of dog attacks and provide advice to postmen and women on techniques to minimise harm in the event of an attack."

A Wiltshire Police spokesman said the officer concerned had been given a letter of warning but the force would not be taking further action as it was a civil matter.



July 11, 2012. Tigers kill man who scaled fence at Danish zoo
(Reuters) - A man was killed by tigers at a zoo on Wednesday after he scaled a fence and crossed a moat to get into their enclosure in the Danish capital Copenhagen, police said.

The man, in his early 20s, was savaged by three tigers after he broke into Copenhagen Zoo in the early hours. He was dead when staff arrived for work.

"We received an emergency call at about 7:30 a.m. that a person had been found lying in the tiger pen and that three tigers were surrounding that person," police Superintendent Lars Borg told Reuters.

"The tigers attacked him and killed him. It is likely that a bite to the throat was the primary reason for his death," Borg said.

Police said the man, who had not yet been identified, may have entered the enclosure as a way of committing suicide.

They said he was not Danish but his nationality was not yet known. He had a Denmark resident's permit.

Psychologists have been called to the zoo to talk to staff who found the body, the zoo's chief executive Steffen Straede said.

June 30, 2012. JOE KIARIE.The Standard. Residents no longer at ease in battle with king of jungle

As the sun sets on the vast savannah that characterises Ilkeek-Lemedung’i Village in Kitengela, Kajiado County, a Maasai moran keenly watches over hundreds of livestock from atop a molehill.

With a pocket radio tightly pinned to one ear and six dogs panting at his feet, Mr Saitoti Letevesi knows so well that he cannot afford to wink one too many times. Events from the previous night explain why.

At 10.30pm last Tuesday, he came face to face with a pride of four lionesses as he walked home. Convinced he had dodged them by calmly engaging the reverse gear, he would moments later be stopped in his tracks by the roaring of a lone male lion roaming the grasslands only a stone throw away from his house. 

With barely 24 hours gone, he is thus well aware that the lions could be lurking in the nearby bushes, reading his every move waiting to pounce on the treasured yet vulnerable cows, sheep and goats.

To most people, Letevesi’s plight could easily pass as a script from an unnerving jungle movie. But to the pastoralist community in Kitengela, this is the reality they have to contend with for the better part of the calendar.

Here, attacks on sheep by the marauding wild cats no longer make news and the locals have to spend sleepless nights if they are to save their livestock from the mighty jaws of the jungle kings.

Pass as a script
It is in this same village that morans speared to death six lions, among them two cubs, which were feasting on sheep in one of the bomas (homesteads) barely a week ago. But Letevesi claims the current attack spree by lions is bewildering as the cats have been daringly invading cowsheds and feasting on livestock for hours in the past few weeks.

“Mimi sijawahi ona hivi. Hawa simba hawaogopi. (I have never seen this. These lions are fearless,” he exclaims.

Miles away in Olosirkon Village adjacent to the Nairobi National Park (NNP), similar battles between men and carnivores persist. An elderly Mzee Muneenge ole Keeja recounts how he had to boldly accost a lion that had pounced on his bull at midday last Tuesday.

“I was watching over the cows when I suddenly noted a male lion trying to isolate a bull. But it stopped after I ran shouting and threw my club at it,” notes ole Keeja, whose livestock grazes alongside hundreds of wild animals such as zebras, antelopes, wildebeests and ostriches.

Simon Olopii, a resident who grazes on the plains daily explains this is not a new occurrence as lions and other wild carnivores have always pounced on their wildlife. “After a rainy season, the natural prey such as zebras and antelopes run away from the lions in the park and come to this side.

The lions follow them across Empakasi River. But because the wild herbivores are not easy to catch, the lions mostly kill the sheep. They mostly attack in the bomas between 1am and 2am and occasionally during the day,” he says.

Olopii says crocodiles; baboons and hyenas have equally been a menace over the years. “The crocodiles usually attack the livestock as they take water in River Empakassi.

The baboons snatch and eat lambs while hyenas follow the lions to the bomas, snatch young sheep and take off,” he says. But the herdsman notes that while the Maasai community respects and peacefully co-exists with wild animals, it is a rule that every lion that feeds on a cow outside the park must die.  “We are never compensated yet each cow can fetch us about Sh50,000.  The rule thus is that if a lion kills a cow we kill it. We will eliminate all of them if no action is taken to keep them off our livestock,” he says.

His sentiments are expressively echoed by Mzee ole Keeja. Olopii laments that game wardens usually hunt down herdsmen cruelly if they graze in the park during the dry season and says intrusive beasts should neither be allowed on their side.

William ole Ntutu admits lions have in the past always feared human beings and predominantly fed on livestock that strayed but says the carnivores have from early this year showed rare audacity. “They no longer fear people, lamps and even floodlights and are breaking into bomas at will.  Their numbers have also significantly gone up,” he states. Back in Ilkeek-Lemedung’i Village, every villager we talk to has a tale to tell about the havoc the lions have been wreaking.

As he pensively sits outside his abode, Simon ole Pita, who is relatively new in the area, says a lone lion passes by their farm daily, while a pair of lionesses occasionally roams in the area. On June 20, he narrates how the lone male mauled a sheep in the farm. Three days later, he says it killed his neighbour’s sheep before rushing to their homestead after it was chased away.

“We woke up after the dogs howled fiercely and found it had already jumped over the mesh wire fence and was trying to gain access to the cowshed. But it jumped over after it was surrounded by nine dogs and saw a torch,” ole Pita states, holding onto the hide of the dead sheep. 

Apparently, well-fed packs of dogs are a conspicuous feature in every homestead here and we learn that they play a major role in alerting their owners when wild carnivores approach.

In Fred King’ang’ir’s homestead, where the six lions were killed on June 20, an elderly woman who seeks anonymity is still lost for words to explain the chilling episode.
“Simba sita walilala hapa kwa boma wakikula mbuzi yangu. Mimi sijawahi sikia hiyo na mimi bado amini. (Six lions spent the night hear feasting on my goats.

Pierced to death
That is unheard of and I am yet to believe it,” she says, explaining how she has to light bonfires daily to keep off the cats. She notes the long grass has made it easy for the lions to hide near homesteads.

We learn the six lions were apparently blinded using vehicle floodlights from all angles before they were pierced to death by tens of morans. Interestingly, two lions that survived the moran massacre went back to the village the following day and allegedly killed eight livestock. At the local Oloika Primary School, one teacher says the lion menace is yet to affect studies but all pupils are sternly ordered to be indoors by 6pm.

Dr Laurence Frank, the Director of Living With Lions notes his organisation had contacted the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) two months before the lions were killed warning the cats posed a serious danger even to human beings.

“We said it was dangerous to have lions that do not fear people living in a residential area, and offered to help KWS trap them and return them to the park. In the end, KWS captured them without our assistance,” he notes.

Frank notes that although lions were nearly eradicated from the park by morans 10 years ago, they have recovered well and there may actually now be more lions than the park can support.

“We badly need a good study of the NNP lions: how many there are, what they are feeding on, and where they move when they leave the park,” the director told The Standard On Saturday.

“We have intensified the random searches on all routes within our jurisdiction, and we urge residents to provide us with any relevant information as this will help us restore security in this area,” he added.

In general, the security question in the country has been of major concern, with two operations to mop out illicit guns going on in the North-Rift and Coast province within the Tana Delta, where nine police officers also lost their lives in inter-community attacks.

Rift Valley provincial police Officer (PPO) John Mbijiwe had earlier in the week indicated the security operation in the province had so far recovered 1,200 guns.

When the operation started, the government indicated it was targeting 20,000 guns from West-Pokot and Baringo, which neighbours Samburu county.

Narc-Kenya presidential aspirant Martha Karua a few days back hit out at President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister (PM) Raila Odinga, arguing they had failed to make the country secure, and that they were focusing more on succession.

“They are too preoccupied with succession that they have forgotten their duties. They have neglected Kenyans,” said the Gichugu MP.

On Friday 27 Catholic Bishops led by John Cardinal Njue, noted during a meeting in Bungoma that they are perplexed and dismayed by the rising insecurity and terrorist attacks. The bishops also took issue with the constant assurances from the police department promising investigations into the attacks but nothing comes through.

They said  there’s an influx of guns and other dangerous weapons into the country while on the other hand, there seems to be some reluctance and lack of vigilance among security personnel.




June 29, 2012.BBC. Dog destroyed after woman attacked near Falmouth
A dangerous dog has been destroyed after it attacked a 19-year-old woman in Cornwall, leaving her in need of stitches for wounds to one of her legs.

Suzy Powell told police that after the animal had mauled her near Falmouth, it tried to chew its way into her car.

The attack happened on Comfort Road, between the Norway Inn and Mylor Primary School on Thursday night.

The dog, which was described as a Staffordshire bull terrier, was later destroyed by a vet.

'Severe injury'
Devon and Cornwall Police said, Ms Powell had approached the dog, which was in the middle of the road, because she was concerned for its welfare.

The animal attacked her and bit her legs causing severe injury, said police.

Ms Powell, from Devoran, said: "It was sort of nipping at my legs but then it got my left leg as I was trying to get back into my car.

"As I tried to open the door, that's when it got me really badly and I had to fight it off to shut the door."

Ms Powell called the emergency services at about 22:15 BST.

She was taken to the Royal Cornwall Hospital and was given 12 stitches to close the wound on her leg.

The dog, which disappeared after the attack, was caught by police at about 03:20 on Friday,

In the process, it damaged part of the police car, a dog loop and a police hat.

A police spokesman said: "We are keen to reassure the local community that this dog has now been caught and destroyed.

"A woman has had a nasty bite from this dog and someone else could have been seriously hurt.

"Our advice is not to approach an unknown dog."

Police want to trace the owner of the animal.


Jun 15, 2012. Rick Sinnott . Alaska Dispatch News Alerts.  Grizzly bear attacks Alaska woman near Anchorage-area campground
In a summer stacking up as unusual for the number of people injured by bears and the number of brown bears shot, another person has been bitten and clawed by a brown bear in the Anchorage area.

Earlier this week, Mike and Tammy Anthony drove to Anchorage on a regular shopping trip. They often spend the night in Chugach State Park’s Eagle River campground near the Glenn Highway bridges over Eagle River. Typically, they wrap up the shopping the next morning and drive home to North Kenai.  

This shopping trip was a little different.

Arriving in the campground after a day of shopping, they found a campsite. When Tammy returned from paying the campground fee, she told Mike she’d noticed a nice-looking trail leading to the river. About 7:30 p.m., they went for a walk, meeting several people on the trail on a quarter-mile hike along one of the most- popular trails in the campground area.  

Approximately 200 yards upstream from a yellow boat-takeout sign, Mike saw bear prints in a sandy area off the trail and went to look at them. That’s when they heard a roar and the sound of a bear “busting out of the brush.” Tammy screamed, and the bear lunged at her.  

Mike saw a small cub, born last winter, whose presence likely precipitated the attack. He hollered at his wife to run to him, hoping that they could step into the fast-moving stream and be swept to safety.

Wearing Crocs, not the best footwear for sprinting through the woods, Tammy tripped over the bank and the bear landed on top of her. Recovering its footing, the sow attempted to bite the back of her head. Mike yelled and ran toward the bear to distract it. The sow grabbed Tammy’s foot and attempted to drag her away, but her Croc came off in the bear’s jaws, and both the sow and cub disappeared into the brush. After just 20 seconds, it was all over.

In recounting the story, Mike gave his wife’s Crocs a great deal of credit. “A tennis shoe might have been worse,” he said, because they might not have come off so easily.

Hobbling back to camp, they found someone with wilderness first aid training and a trauma kit who irrigated Tammy’s wounds with a syringe and applied an antibiotic to the puncture wounds on her ankle and the scratches and punctures on her lower leg. The Anthonys didn’t intend to go to a doctor for treatment, but the ankle continued bleeding even after getting back to North Kenai. A doctor found one of the bear’s teeth had punctured a bone and several blood vessels while fracturing her ankle.

The mauling was reported to Larry Lewis, a Fish and Game wildlife technician based in Soldotna, a few days after the Anthonys had returned home.
Mike believes they were in the wrong place at the wrong time. People were all over the trail, and he warned several people who were starting down the trail about the bear attack. Neither Mike nor Tammy Anthony carried a gun or bear spray. A short walk in the woods is all they contemplated.

This has been the worst summer for bear maulings in the municipality since 2008, when three people were injured by brown bears in Anchorage and Eagle River and another person was swatted by a black bear in Eagle River. Previously this summer two people were mauled, one in Eagle River  and one near Bird Creek. 

The summer has also proven deadly for at least four young brown bears in the Anchorage area. Two of the bears were shot by wildlife authorities after exhibiting a pattern of behavior that was likely to result in human injuries. The other two brown bears, including one which escaped from the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage, were shot in defense of life or property.

March 26, 2012. BBC. Oxford dog attack: Toddler bitten on leg
A toddler has been bitten on his leg by two dogs in Oxford.

The 21-month-old boy and his mother were walking in Horspath Road when two loose Staffordshire Bull terrier-type animals attacked.

The toddler underwent surgery to the wound on his right leg at John Radcliffe hospital following the incident at about midday on Saturday.

Police are appealing for witnesses and have seized the brown and white dogs pending further investigation.

PC Eleanor Batty said: "I would like to reassure the public that we have seized the dogs believed to be responsible for causing these injuries."



February 14, 2012. News24. Zoo points to 'human error' in lion attack
Johannesburg - Human error led to the death of a Johannesburg Zoo employee who was attacked by a lion at the Rietkuil conservation farm in Parys, officials said on Tuesday.

Monday's attack at the Free State farm apparently occurred after gates at the lion's den were left open, said spokesperson Letta Madlala.

"This was due to apparent human error," she said. It's believed Joe Ramonetha, 63, had been feeding the animals or cleaning the enclosure when the 11-year-old lioness attacked him.

"He was dedicated and much loved. The staff mourns the loss of a zoo family member and he will be missed," said Madlala.

Ramonetha had worked for the zoo for nearly 40 years. Madlala said the lioness was detained in the night room facility and later sedated.

"The animal showed no undue aggression towards any other humans during the process," she said.

There had not been a fatal animal attack at the zoo in 50 years

Madlala said it was unusual for animals to attack employees while on their routine duty.

"Lions at the Parys farm are kept in secure enclosures with clear separation between staff and any visitors and the animals. There is also an electric fence in place," she said.

"Employees are trained to keep all gates closed on entering the facility, then let the lions out into the outside camp area, secure the entrances to the night rooms and passage before any work starts."

Steps were underway to review the risk profile of employees with a view of placing more measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

Madlala said arrangements were made for employees to be counselled for shock. Johannesburg Zoo CEO Stephen van der Spuy said a full investigation was launched jointly with the police on Monday.

He said management would give the necessary help to the Ramonetha's family.


February 10, 2012. Five killed in Tiger attacks 
BAITADI, Thirteen-year-old Asha Koli died in a tiger attack at Salla in Pancheshwor, Baitadi district, on Wednesday.

Asha, daughter of Maniram Koli, had fallen prey to the beast at a nearby forest while collecting firewood. Kitthi Saud and a child of the same VDC are the latest victims of a beast's attack.

Local people, who are scared to move freely even during the day, shut themselves in their houses as soon as it is evening.

“We are helpless,” said Dinesh Chand, a local resident. People fear to send their children to school.

“A group of four to five tigers come and attack people. How can we send children to school in such a situation?” Prem Sarki of Pancheshwor-6 wondered.

Karan Saud in the locality said a tiger had strayed from a conservation area in India and had entered Nepal after Indian security force and forest officials tried to catch it.

The people have asked the administration to tame the beasts. In the last one and a half months, five people, including two Indian nationals, have been killed in their attack.

February 7, 2012. Michaelk.  Starving Mountain Lion Attacks Boy
(ANIMAL ATTACK) TEXAS — On Sunday morning, 6-year-old Rivers Hobbs was walking with his parents along a sidewalk near their lodge in Big Bend National Park when a mountain lion attacked the boy, clamping on to his face.  This is a barely avoided tragedy born from desperate circumstances. Mountain lions rarely attack humans as they generally don’t associate people as prey. The rise in recent attacks, from 53 reported between 1890 and 1990, to 88 attacks by 2004, is simply due to the constantly expanding human population into mountain lion habitats. 

These attacks are often the result of a severely starved animal in desperation. The attack on 6-year-old Rivers Hobbs is tragic and we’re grateful for his  father’s heroic rescue and Rivers’ quick recovery. But by no means should this mountain lion be hunted down and killed for being starving and lost. Surely this lion can be darted and moved deeper into the wilderness. The incident also calls out for habitat protection for all species. Read below for more on this survival story. — Global Animal
New York Daily News, Philip Caulfield

Park officials in west Texas are hunting for a mountain lion that mauled a 6-year-old boy just steps from the lodge where he was staying with his family.

Rivers Hobbs was walking with his mom and dad on a sidewalk on Sunday between a restaurant and the Chisos Mountain Lodge in Big Bend National Park when the cougar crept up on him and lunged for his head.

“It had a hold of his face… the cat was clamped on his face,” his father, Jason Hobbs, told local CBS News.

“I reached down and got my pocket knife out and stabbed the cat in the chest and it let go at that point,” the brave pop said.

Rivers suffered two large gashes and puncture wounds to his face and was rushed to a hospital in Alpine.

Park officials said he was released after receiving stiches.

A park official told CBS News that the same lion — described as “young and in bad shape” — tried to attack another family earlier that day, but ran off after someone hit it with a backpack.

The Hobbses were fuming after the attack, claiming the lodge wasn’t doing enough to catch the loose cougar.

“I heard them say right in front of me that they were not going to tell the other people at the lodge that there was an attack and the lion is still at large,” says Rivers’ mom, Kristi Harris, told CBS News.

“We’re lucky he’s walking away with scars and it didn’t get him by the neck,” Jason Hobbs said.

Park officials said they will kill the animal if they find it.



January 10, 2012. BBC. Dog and owner savaged by 'pack' on Dinas Dinlle beach


A woman has described the moment she and her pet dog were savaged by five "Rottweiler-type" dogs on a beach.

Eira Thomas, 22, was walking one-year-old cocker spaniel Bella on Dinas Dinlle beach, Gwynedd, when the animals attacked Bella.

Ms Thomas, from Llandwrog, went to hospital with bites following the attack on Sunday. Bella was put down.

North Wales Police are appealing for information and believe the dog owner travelled in a red Transit van.

Ms Thomas said the five dogs "just came out of nowhere".

She added: "They were just staring at Bella. I realised there were three Rottweilers there, and knew I probably shouldn't react.

"All of a sudden, one of them just threw Bella up in the air.

"They weren't barking or growling. They were just there for the kill."

'Out of control'
Ms Thomas said she was bitten and bruised as she tried to fight the dogs off.


She said: "All the dogs were looking at me then. I have never been so scared before.


"A man arrived then, and was saying 'I'm so sorry, I didn't realise you were there.'

"They were all his dogs. I was thinking I should stay, and find out who this man was, but I looked down and saw all the blood and I had to get to the vets."

Ms Thomas added: "You should not be allowed to have a pack of dogs like that.

"They were not under control.

"If it had been one or two dogs, maybe it would have been different, but this was a pack and I just couldn't protect Bella.

"I've been going to that beach since I was a little girl, and have never had any trouble before.

"But suddenly it was like being in the wild."

A police spokesperson said officers wanted any information "regarding the identity of the owner of five Rottweiler-type dogs that attacked another dog on Dinas Dinlle beach at 13:00 BST on Sunday afternoon, as a result of which the dog died".

Officers believe the owner of the five dogs left the area in a red-coloured Ford Transit van.

Anyone with information is asked to contact PC Higgins at Penygroes Police Station on 101, if in Wales, or 0300 3300 101


Dec 9, 2011. Jen Hollenbach Increase in reported dog attacks in Great Falls

Animal control officers in Great Falls tell us that they have seen more dog attacks reported this month than in all of the last year.

One of them occurred last week, when Ginny Malby and her golden retriever Honey suffered injuries in an attack.

While walking Honey, Ginny came across a pit bull that was lose - and then it attacked.

Malby said, "It had its' mouth on Honey's head. It was biting her and Honey started to scream and I was hanging on to the leash for dear life."

Honey was taken to the vet and was worked on for hours, while Malby was at the hospital being treated for a fractured shoulder.

In an effort to make dog control policies more proactive in protecting citizens and their pets, Malby's husband Larry asked the Great Falls City Commission to consider mechanisms to hold the owners of pit bulls accountable.

Malby said that he is not advocating a ban of pit bulls, but some sort of measure of protection against irresponsible owners.

He said that if the policies change, they wouldn't be directed specifically at pit bulls.

Malby said, "It's an all-encompassing thing, people have to be aware if they have a dog that is more aggressive, they have to take special care to make sure it is on a leash and they're in control of the dog, not the dog controlling them."

Certified dog trainer Melanie Lattin noted, "A huge piece of what needs to happen is education for people."

Malby says through this whole ordeal has been unpleasant, but hopes the community and its representatives can find a way to have a more proactive approach in preventing problems before they arise.

On Sept. 8, 2010, the Chihuahua was inside Brian Montgomery’s back yard attacking his 12-year-old black Labrador, according to preliminary hearing testimony. When Montgomery attempted to separate the dogs, the Chihuahua charged at him, according to the ruling.

Montgomery went inside to get his bow and returned to the yard. He again tried to separate the dogs, but the Chihuahua tried to attack him again. The Chihuahua then went back to attacking the Lab, according to testimony.

While its attention was on the Lab, Montgomery prepared his bow, and when the Chihuahua charged him again Montgomery shot it with an arrow, which passed through the dog.

The Chihuahua escaped under the fence and Montgomery’s neighbor found it lying in the backyard bleeding. It died while the owner was taking it to a veterinarian.

At the preliminary hearing, Montgomery testified the dog had previously gotten into his backyard. It had nipped at and chased Montgomery’s two young children, who became too scared to play outside when they knew the dog was out. It had also threatened Montgomery and his wife.

The family made several complaints about the dog to the Dodge City Police Department prior to its death.

Ford County District Judge Van Z. Hampton dismissed the case after finding no crime was committed, that Montgomery was justified in killing the dog and he did not do it maliciously. The Ford County Attorney’s office appealed the dismissal to Kansas Court of Appeals, which upheld the lower court. Montgomery was represented by Michael Giardine of Cimarron.

 

December 8, 2011. Coroner: Man tried to fight pet pit bull in fatal attack

BURNETTSVILLE, Ind. -- A coroner says a northern Indiana man died when his pet pit bull bit into his jugular vein and that bite marks to his forearms show he had tried to fend off the animal.

State police say a family member found 58-year-old Joseph Hines dead at his home outside the White County town of Burnettsville on Monday night.

County Coroner Matt Westerhouse tells the Journal & Courier that an autopsy Wednesday found no medical problems that might have caused Hines to pass out before the attack. He says Hines died from blood loss.

Neighbor Brad Holcomb tells WLFI-TV the dog is friendly and that he often saw Hines walking it around the rural area about 30 miles north of Lafayette.

The county animal warden took custody of the dog.

December 8, 2011. WHAS11.com. Recall on select Iams and Cargill dog foods

There is currently a recall of select canine diets from Iams & Cargill Animal Nutrition.  The following diets are being recalled:        

           

1) Iams ProActive Health Smart Puppy dry dog food with Use by or Expiration Dates of February 5 or February 6, 2013        

   

2) Cargill Animal Nutrition Recalls River Run and Marksman Dry Dog Food        

            

a) Professional Formula River Run HI-NRG 24-20 Dog Food, 50 pound bags        

           

b) River Run Professional Formula 27-18 Dog Food, 50 pound bags        

           

c) River Run 21% Protein Dog Food, 40 & 50 pound bags        

            

d) River Run Hi-Pro No Soy Dog Food, 40 & 50 pound bags        

           

e) Marksman Dog Food 24% Protein 20% Fat, 40 pound bags        

           

f) Marksman Dog Food 20% Protein 10% Fat, 40 & 50 pound bags        

           

g) Marksman Dog Food 28% Protein 18% Fat, 40 pound bags        

           

If you have purchased any of these diets, you can call             502-895-8100    

Dangerous animal attacks news

December 5, 2011. Cumberland animal shelter considers 'bully breed' adoption ban

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. — Cumberland County officials are considering halting adoptions of so-called "bully breeds" of dogs that are linked with frequent attacks on people and other animals.

The county's Animal Control Advisory Board discussed the issue Monday night. Any policy change would have to be approved by the county Board of Commissioners.

The idea has created a backlash among animal rescue groups, and even Cumberland County Animal Control Director Dr. John Lauby said he considers it ill-advised.

"I have never said I wanted to ban a breed or any specific breed, and the reason is I know from statistics (that) banning breeds doesn't work," Lauby said.

He said he would prefer to do more screening of people upfront to ensure breeds like rottweilers, pit bulls and chows are going to people who know how to care for them and won't use them for breeding or allow them to roam freely.

But Cristóbal Berry-Cabán, chairman of the animal control board, said the animal shelter doesn't have the resources to check up on all potential adopters. He said the shelter would try to send such breeds to rescue groups, but if no group can be found to take the dogs, the shelter would have to kill them.

The Cumberland County Animal Shelter kills about 1,000 animals a month.

Lauby said he has gotten death threats since word of the adoption ban surfaced, even though he doesn't support it.

"I have 15,000 emails waiting for me," he said.

"I think it's the craziest thing I've ever heard," Shelby Townsend, director of advocacy group Unchain Cumberland County, said of the proposed ban. "It's not going to happen. People aren't going to stand for that. It's not the bully breeds that are the problem; it's the people who own them."

County Commissioner Charles Evans said he won't support a breed-specific kill policy at the shelter if the idea comes to the Board of Commissioners for approval.

"I don't think that's sensible, to simply euthanize all these animals," Evans said. "No, we can't do that. We can't do that."

December 4, 2011 200. Justin Graeber. Pit bull defenders: blame the owners, not the dogs.

Bridgewater attack renews debate over breed with dangerous reputation

BRIDGEWATER — It’s a familiar story: The family dog suddenly and viciously attacks a child.

Except in this case, it wasn’t a pit bull but a Labrador Retriever, a breed normally thought of as docile and safe for families with small children.

Whitman Animal Control officer Bob Hammond recalls this story every time a pit bull makes news like the one in Bridgewater that bit off part of a woman’s face.

The incident rekindled the debate on online comment sections and elsewhere over whether pit bulls are particularly dangerous dogs.

Hammond believes it’s not the breed that makes a bad dog, but rather a lack of training, a bad owner or poor breeding.

“There are other dogs that do it,” Hammond said. He’s been working in animal control since 1972. “The people are more dangerous than the dog is.”

News of the attack inside a Bridgewater home on Thursday quickly spread across the country. A pit bull named Rex bit 71-year-old Normanda Torres in the face, tearing off half her nose and part of her mouth and chin.

The dog was destroyed at New England Animal Medical Center in West Bridgewater so that the body parts could be retrieved from the animal’s stomach. The tissue was cleaned, packed in ice and rushed to Brigham and Women’s Hospital where Torres underwent facial reconstructive surgery.

The Boston hospital earlier this year performed the first face transplant in the U.S. and has performed two others since.

As of Friday, Torres was listed in critical condition. The family has since requested that the hospital not release her condition.

Bridgewater police have not yet filed any charges in the case. Torres relatives told police that the dog had bitten two people prior to attacking her. The previous bites were not reported to police before Thursday.

Merry Young, who runs a pit bull rescue organization called Brave Heart Rescue in Lakeville, is a defender of the breed.

“Every breed of dog has some dogs that are aggressive and some that aren’t,” she said.

She blamed media reports of other pit bull attacks on humans as the reason the breed gets a bad rap.

But reports describing horrific, sometimes fatal attacks by the dogs known for their muscularity, unsurpassed jaw strength and biting ability are not uncommon. Neither is the stereotyping that extends to pit bull owners as people seeking to be thought of as tough guys, or worse.

Diane Chimbur, a volunteer at Brockton Blue Dog shelter said pit bulls have an undeserved bad reputation. “They’re just big babies, most of them,” she said.

Yet studies show that pit bulls attack people more than other breeds. A 2000 study, that looked at fatal human attacks, found that pit bull-types and Rottweilers were involved in more than half of dog-bite related deaths between 1979 and 1998.

The study also noted, however, the difficulty in determining a dog’s breed, and concluded that breed-specific ordinances may not be the most effective way to prevent attacks on humans.

“Fatal attacks represent a small proportion of dog bite injuries to humans and therefore, should not be the primary factor driving public policy concerning dangerous dogs,” the study’s authors wrote in the Journal Of The American Veterinary Medical Association.

Pit bulls are an increasingly popular breed, despite their reputation. An officer at Brockton Animal Control said that pit bulls are the “dominant breed” his department deals with each day.

Technically, pit bull is not a breed. American Staffordshire terrier is just one of a number of breeds lumped into the pit bull category.

At the Blue Dog shelter, Chimbur said she sometimes sees the eyes of a potential adoptive family “go wide” when they learn a certain dog is a pit bull.

“If they met this nice dog, they might feel differently,” she said, noting the shelter does extensive training and education.

Young said she understands the seriousness of dog bites.

“Your heart goes out to their families,” she said. “But most of the time it was a dog that wasn’t raised properly.”

Dangerous animal attacks news

December 5, 2011. KREM.com. Woman tries to stop pit bull as it attacks, kills her dog. SPOKANE

—A woman in northwest Spokane is recovering after wrestling with a pit bull that attacked and killed her dog.

The victim says she even bit the pit bull’s ear to try to get the dog to let go.

The victim says she was on her routine morning walk along I street with her neighbor and two dogs.  She says the pit bull came right at them.

Laurinda Snow’s 4-year-old Yorky named Beethoven was attacked by a pit bull that came out of an alley.  Snow says the pit bull grabbed Beethoven in his mouth and would not let go.

Surveillance video captured the entire attack.  Snow’s neighbor grabbed a hold of Snow’s other dog.  At the same time, she tried to hit the pit bull to try to get it to let go of Beethoven.  She even tried to bit the dog’s ear.

The pit bull finally took off after another neighbor ran to help, but it still had a hold of Snow’s small dog.  They say the pit bull eventually dropped Beethoven in a yard.  Snow says Beethoven was dead when they found him with a broken back.

Snow says she went to urgent care Monday afternoon to be treated for a dog bite to a finger.

The pit bull’s owner caught the dog and turned it over to SpokAnimal.  Officials say the pit bull’s owner has several options of what to do because of the attack.  Officials say the owner of the pit bull can have the dog euthanized, appeal the case, or take out dangerous dog insurance and other protective measures on the animal.

December 5, 2011. Smith. Henry official: Wild animal attacks low ‘Bat bites new rabies concern’ Rabid foxes, raccoons, and other wild animals, have not attacked local residents, or their pets, with as much frequency as in previous years, according to recently released figures from Henry County animal-control workers.

#However, the same animal control officials said they are concerned about the rabies threat bats are posing, if they bite.

#“It’s not a common thing, but we’ve probably answered five or six calls this year, where bats had gotten into somebody’s house,” said Vince Farah, supervisor and rabies control officer for the Henry County Animal Care and Control Department. One resident was “bitten on the foot,” after getting out of bed.

#Farah’s remarks came as he spoke to members of the Henry County Board of Commissioners, Monday, on animal-bite cases from December of last year, to the present.

#Farah said his department responded to 276 animal bites, a total which is 20 more than last year. Dogs produced the most bites, 213 of them; followed by cats, 60, and three involved wild-animal attacks. Not all of the incidents involved bites that led to rabies.

#During rabies threats, Animal-control officers, this year, quarantined three one-mile areas of the county. Those quarantines took place in the Martin’s Creek subdivision, off

Fairview Road

, in the northern portion of the county; the Crown Corners subdivision, near Price Quarters Road, in McDonough; and the Willow Hill subdivision off Eagle’s

Landing Parkway

, in Stockbridge.

#The number of rabies cases in the county, as a whole, was down from previous years. In 2009, there were 11 rabies cases, followed by six cases in 2010, and four cases this year, said Farah.

#“We submitted 32 animals for testing, 16 of which were domesticated,” said Farah. “Sixteen were wild animals. Only four of these animals tested positive for rabies — two less than last year. The ones that tested positive were one fox, two raccoons and one bat. Three of the animals were killed by the victims. One of them was able to capture it, and we put it down,” said the rabies control officer.

#“We executed 123, ten-day, animal shelter quarantines, and 122 home quarantines,” said Farah. “We had 38 animals that were unavailable for testing. In those cases, we directed victims to seek medical advice from a physician for the possibility of rabies treatments.”

#There were no reports this year of domesticated animals with rabies locally. Farah said in rabies cases, animals are tested for the virus at the animal shelter, in McDonough, and the tests are sent off to the Georgia Public Health Laboratory’s Department of Community Health.

Dangerous animal attacks news
December 2, 2011 . Amy Carboneau. Woman mauled by pit bull critical, nose, mouth parts removed from dog's stomach - Bridgewater, MA - Bridgewater Independent

BRIDGEWATER — During 40 years as a veterinarian, Dr. Neal Andelman has removed toys and other items from dogs’ stomachs. But until Thursday, he had never retrieved human body parts, as best the doctor could recall, said Lou Berman, a hospital administrator for the New England Animal Medical Center in West Bridgewater.

Thursday afternoon, Andelman operated post mortem on a pit bull that had bitten a Bridgewater woman and swallowed part of her nose and mouth. The area of the 71-year-old woman's face that was bitten off, police said, was from half way down the nose to the midpoint of the chin.

The male pit bull was euthanized and operated upon at the  request of the Boston hospital treating Normanda Torres, whose face was mauled by the 50-pound dog in the kitchen of her home. Staff at the animal clinic were badly shaken about the attack and the gruesome aftermath, said Berman. “It’s a very horrible event. We all feel badly for the victim,” he said.

Torres was taken by a MedFlight helicopter to Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston, after the attack about 11 a.m. Thursday inside her family’s

Brian Road

home in Bridgewater, where police said she had moved just three days earlier.

She was listed in critical condition Friday morning. The 1 1/2-year-old pit bull named Rex had bitten two people previously, the family told police. Both were described as minor incidents that went unreported until Thursday, said police.

Bridgewater Health Agent Eric Badger, who also serves as the town’s animal control officer, responded to the scene with his personal crate, but it was too small to carry the animal. So Badger called for backup from Whitman-Abington animal control, who with police, assisted.

“I’ve seen animal-on-animal attacks before, but nothing like this. It’s very, very rare,” said Badger. Authorities confined the dog inside the house and then led him down the front stairs to the crate outside, as police officers stood nearby, ready to protect themselves and others with guns and stun guns.

Initially, they were to take Rex to a Lakeville animal shelter to quarantine him. Typically, after an attack, a dog is quarantined for 10 days while police write up a report and then a decision is made by town officials as to whether the dog should be euthanized.

But within hours of the attack, hospital authorities called Bridgewater police to request the dog be euthanized immediately to recover parts of the woman’s face from the pit bull’s stomach, said police. At the West Bridgewater animal hospital, other clients were asked to take their pets and move to other areas to make room for the pit bull in case the animal was still agitated from the attack – and the dog was upset when he was brought in, said Berman.

“We knew what our role was going to be, and that was to try and retrieve whatever was retrievable,” said Berman, who did not go into detail as to what parts of Torres’ face were removed from the dog’s stomach. By 3 p.m., Bridgewater police and emergency personnel picked up the body parts, which had been washed and packed in ice, to transport them to Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

“We’re feeling positive at least about our role, that we were able to do the surgery in a fairly quick turnaround,” a process that took about 20 minutes, said Berman. “I hope it has a positive outcome. “We’re all rooting for a recovery,” he added.

It was about 11 a.m. when police and emergency personnel first responded to the home after they received a 911 call from the family.

“At the time of the incident, the victim was in the kitchen standing at the sink. It appears that the dog lunged at the face of the victim, unprovoked,” police Lt. Thomas Schlatz said in a press release.

Badger said the trigger for the attack may have been a “territorial” response.

He said a bite, even a small one, is the first warning sign and should be a signal to owners that the dog needs to be retrained. “Once they’ve attacked a person in this manner and they’ve had the taste of blood,” said Badger, “it’s likely they’re not going to come back. You’re taking too much of a risk to put the dog back out there in society.”

Badger said the pit bull and a second dog that also lives at the house,  a terrier mix, had updated rabies shots and were registered with the town. The family, who called New England Animal Medical Center to authorize the euthanization, declined comment.

Hospital staff at Brigham and Women’s said Torres was in recovery after surgery Thursday evening. No further information was available Thursday night.

Dangerous animal attacksnews
December 1, 2011. A Deer Park woman convicted of allowing at least 18 dogs to die in her care will be permitted to keep a job working at the home of an elderly couple while she serves her sentence, despite concerns raised by prosecutors.

Diane Eldrup, 49, was originally sentenced to spend her nights in Lake County Jail for 30 months for her conviction earlier this year on animal torture and cruelty charges, though that was later lowered to 18 months. The dead animals, many locked in cages and left to starve, were found at the Muddy Paws pet rescue and boarding facility that Eldrup ran in Deer Park

November 30, 2011. Philip Franchine.. Protect yourself from rabies

Nearly half the rabies cases in the state this year occurred in Pima County, and they include at least one skunk captured in the Sahuarita area, the Pima County Health Department reported.

A skunk was captured Oct. 18 in the 6000 block of

West Indian Kitchen Road

by Pima County Animal Control after a resident saw the animal acting strangely. Skunks are nocturnal and the resident said the animal was digging in the daytime and spraying when not threatened, Animal Control spokeswoman Jayne Cundy said.

A county health department tabulation listed another rabid skunk in this area, but that one was not captured by Animal Control staff, Cundy said, and may have been captured by the state Game and Fish Department.

"So far in 2011, the state reports that Pima County has the highest number of animals that tested positive for rabies," said Michael T. Acoba, epidemiology program manager with the Pima County Health Department. "However, it is difficult to say if these numbers indicate a greater or lower threat to residents since the number of positive animals may not reflect or correlate to the number of rabid animals in the area."

There have been 20 rabies cases in Pima County this year, including 17 rabid bats and one rabid fox in the Tucson area, Acoba said. Statewide, there were a 43 rabies cases as of Oct. 12, nearly all in Pima, Santa Cruz and Pinal counties.

The 2011 statewide rabies total is projected to be less than half the 2010 full year total of 114 and well down from the 280 in 2009 and 176 in 2008.

Santa Cruz County has seen fewer cases than in the past, with only six so far: five skunks and one bat.

In the past decade, Arizona skunks have been infected with a bat-associated rabies variant, which at times has caused an outbreak in foxes. Skunk variants of rabies have been found in cats, badgers, horses, and cattle.

Though rabies totals have dropped sharply since 2009, cooler weather is here and people venturing outside more, so health officials are issuing a warning: stay away from wild animals that may carry rabies.

That means adding bats, skunks and foxes, among others, to the unofficial do not touch list, which already includes snakes, javelinas and bobcats.

Cochise County, which usually is among the four counties with the most rabies cases, has had none so far and Pinal County has had nine so far: five bats and four skunks.

Officials say the numbers have declined for a variety of reasons, including infected animals dying from rabies after a spike in rabies cases.

Skunks illustrate that phenomenon, as the average annual number of rabid skunks is usually less than 20, but every few years more than 80 skunks will test positive. Skunks are a gregarious species and skunks groom each other, so there is a high rate of rabies transmission among them and that is one reason officials investigate reports of unusual behavior by skunks.

In any case, there is still a danger to humans and pets, as rabid animals are found not only in their natural habitat, but also in urban locations.

Rabies is a dangerous virus that attacks the brain and nervous system and is carried by infected wild animals.

Avoid exposure

Every year, approximately 30 people are exposed to rabid animals in Arizona. Those who are exposed must receive vaccine and anti-rabies serum treatment to prevent infection. The last documented human rabies death in Arizona was in 1981.

Last year, Pima County had 27 cases, including 12 bats; 13 skunks and two javelinas, and in 2009, the county had 86 cases, with 32 bats and 43 skunks, nine foxes and two bobcats.

Statewide, rabies cases have been spread out over the year, with between three and seven per month. Last year, January was a big month, with 34 of 114 cases, and April was second with 12 cases. In 2009, March (37) and April (35) were the big months, though every month was in double digits that year.

In 2010 in Green Valley, rabid skunks were found on Las Rincons in February and on Paseo de Golf in March, plus a case on

Proctor Ranch Road

in Amado, but no rabid animals were found in Sahuarita.

In 2009, in just the first four months, there were three cases in Sahuarita - all rabid skunks trapped on school grounds, and one case each in Green Valley and Amado.

Most skunks are trapped in spring, and rabid bats are found in summer and fall, because that is when they are migrating, a county health official said.

Protect yourself

Here are tips to protect humans and pets from rabies:

•Enjoy wild animals from a distance, even if they appear friendly.

•Never feed wildlife or leave food or garbage that might attract them.

•If you see a wild animal acting strangely, report the sighting to Pima County Animal Care at (520) 243-5900.

•Reduce the possibility of pets getting exposed to wildlife by not letting them roam free.

•Ensure all pets are up-to-date with their vaccinations.

November 30, 2011.  Angela Delli Santi, Associated Press. Animal groups aim to halt N.J. black bear hunt

During an appeals court hearing, they argued that the rationale for the annual event was based on faulty data.

TRENTON - Animal protection groups seeking to stop New Jersey's black bear hunt from getting under way told an appeals court Tuesday that the hunt was based on faulty data - exaggerated numbers of bear-human incidents and unreliable population counts that put too many pregnant female bears at risk of being hunted.

Two animal-rights groups sued the state last year, challenging the bear management policy that allows an annual six-day hunt. The activists failed to stop last year's hunt, in which 592 black bears were killed, but the lawsuit was allowed to continue on its merits.

Last year's hunt was the first in five years. A similar legal challenge succeeded in 2007, and no hunt was held. An appeals panel found flaws with the management policy and ruled that the 2005 hunt should not have taken place.

Tuesday's oral arguments before a three-judge panel focused on the Division of Fish and Wildlife's 2010 comprehensive bear management policy, which includes a hunt. The state maintains that a hunt is needed to keep the black bear population of around 3,400 in check. A ruling is expected before Monday, the hunt's scheduled start date. An appeal to the state Supreme Court is possible.

Bears have been spotted in 19 of 21 counties this year. The Department of Environmental Protection has recorded 2,667 reports of bear activity through October, a number that includes bear sightings, attacks on livestock, 46 home entries, and 516 reports of bears picking through garbage. Doris Lin, a lawyer for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey and the Bear Education Resource Group, asked the appeals panel to cancel the hunt and invalidate the bear management policy. She maintains that the policy is based on skewed data and is therefore unreliable.

For example, the number of bear complaints reported by the state rose in the years from 2007 to 2009, but Lin says that's because data were being collected from 32 police departments in 2009 but just 17 departments two years earlier.

The state didn't dispute the discrepancy or the fact that pregnant bears don't enjoy absolute protection during a hunt. But Deputy Attorney General Dean Jablonski, who argued for the state, said the bear management policy was based on reasoned decision-making and the best data available at the time.

November 30, 2011. Mike Koozmin. Bloody vigilantism: Angry mob attacks alleged dog choker at Occupy SFA man who bystanders say choked a dog at the Occupy SF encampment in Justin Herman Plaza was beat up by an angry mob Wednesday afternoon.

Click on the photo at right to see a slideshow of the incident.

San Francisco police took the bloody man into custody while waiting for animal control to show up to determine if the injuries to the dog warranted a felony arrest.

Paramedics were called to attend to the man's injuries, which included bleeding from the left eye.

November 30, 2011. Angela Delli Santi Associated Press. Animal groups aim to halt N.J. black bear hunt

During an appeals court hearing, they argued that the rationale for the annual event was based on faulty data.

TRENTON - Animal protection groups seeking to stopNew Jersey's black bear hunt from getting under way told an appeals court Tuesday that the hunt was based on faulty data - exaggerated numbers of bear-human incidents and unreliable population counts that put too many pregnant female bears at risk of being hunted.

Two animal-rights groups sued the state last year, challenging the bear management policy that allows an annual six-day hunt. The activists failed to stop last year's hunt, in which 592 black bears were killed, but the lawsuit was allowed to continue on its merits.

Last year's hunt was the first in five years. A similar legal challenge succeeded in 2007, and no hunt was held. An appeals panel found flaws with the management policy and ruled that the 2005 hunt should not have taken place.

Tuesday's oral arguments before a three-judge panel focused on the Division of Fish and Wildlife's 2010 comprehensive bear management policy, which includes a hunt. The state maintains that a hunt is needed to keep the black bear population of around 3,400 in check.

A ruling is expected before Monday, the hunt's scheduled start date. An appeal to the state Supreme Court is possible.

Bears have been spotted in 19 of 21 counties this year. The Department of Environmental Protection has recorded 2,667 reports of bear activity through October, a number that includes bear sightings, attacks on livestock, 46 home entries, and 516 reports of bears picking through garbage.

Doris Lin, a lawyer for the Animal Protection League of New Jersey and the Bear Education Resource Group, asked the appeals panel to cancel the hunt and invalidate the bear management policy. She maintains that the policy is based on skewed data and is therefore unreliable.

For example, the number of bear complaints reported by the state rose in the years from 2007 to 2009, but Lin says that's because data were being collected from 32 police departments in 2009 but just 17 departments two years earlier.

The state didn't dispute the discrepancy or the fact that pregnant bears don't enjoy absolute protection during a hunt. But Deputy Attorney General Dean Jablonski, who argued for the state, said the bear management policy was based on reasoned decision-making and the best data available at the time.

For example, he said, the state now recognizes that there are more female bears than males in New Jersey, which wasn't true a decade ago, and that about half are of breeding age, a smaller percentage than previously thought. Such changes in the local bear population help guide the policy, he said.

Anna Seidman, a lawyer for the New Jersey Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs and Safari Club International, told the panel that recreational hunting helps maintain a sustainable, genetically sound bear population. She also said the data collected from hunted bears helped wildlife officials better understand and manage the bear population.

The hunt is held concurrently with the firearm deer season. Bear hunting is allowed in the northwestern part of the state, north of I-78 and west of I-287.

Larry Ragonese, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said the hunt could be halted early if enough bears were killed.

With about 900 bear cubs born in the last year and an estimated 80 percent of them surviving, last year's hunt essentially kept the black bear population stable, he said.

Besides a hunt, the Comprehensive Black Bear Management Policy developed by the Division of Fish and Wildlife includes education, a bear feeding ban, and aversive conditioning.

Dangerous animal attacks news

Nov. 22, 2011Lindsey Morone Expert: Pit Bull attacks are quite rareMILWAUKEE- There is a pit bull problem in Milwaukee. Cities across the country are banning pit bulls after numerous vicious attacks. It is a controversial issue. Some say pit bulls are misunderstood and get a bad rap. TODAY'S TMJ4 set out to find the truth about pit bulls. In a Waukesha neighborhood, there is hope that good fences make good dogs, especially after what happened six months ago. "I just remember yelling and screaming and jumping over the fence," says Chris Bartosz.

Bartosz now has scars on his arms and legs. Though his wounds have healed, he has not forgotten the pain of being bit. He was attacked when he helped save his neighbor from two angry pit bulls.

"There was blood all over the floor and all over her," remembers Bartosz.

Sergeant Gerald Habanek with the Waukesha Police Department remembers the attack too. He remembers how a woman was almost killed by a family pet named Prince.

"The dog nearly chewed apart a 52-year-old woman," says Sergeant Habanek.

Police say Prince continued to be aggressive long after the woman was taken to the hospital. They say Prince lunged at the fence. They feared the fence would not hold. Newly released dash cam video shows an officer climbing up on top of his squad car, shooting, and killing Prince.

"In this case, it was a threat from a vicious animal that had already mauled a human being. You absolutely have to put the dog down," explains Habanek.

Waukesha is not alone. In Sheboygan, a 9-year-old was attacked when walking his Chihuahua. There was another pit bull attack in Racine. Most recently, there was another attack in Sheboygan. A 2 year-old was attacked by the family pit bull.

"They just get a lot of press, a lot of media attention," explains Officer John McDowell with Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control (MADAC).

There are a lot of opinions about pit bulls. TODAY'S TMJ4 looks at the facts. Since 2008, the top three breeds that bit the most, that were taken in to MADAC are as followed: Labs, with 40 bites, then, German Shephards with 68 bites, and coming out on top, Pit Bulls, with 302 bites.

However, there are a lot of pit bulls at MADAC. In fact, there are more pit bulls than any other breed. They make up 40% of the population at MADAC. But of all the 302 pit bulls that were brought to MADAC, only 4% of them came to the facility because they hurt someone. What the numbers actually show is that pit bulls bite just about as often as any other dog. 3% of the Labs taken in were because they bit someone. German Shephards came out on top at 5%.

Via Skype, Colleen Lyn, who created Dogsbite.org, says a pit bull's bite is worse than other dogs." She was attacked by a pit bull 4 years-ago.

"They are born with a dangerous toolset," explains Lyn. "They have a very unique bite style: lock, and hold, and shake. That is what causes extreme damage to victims," says Lyn.

It is true. Pit bulls are terriers and terriers are known to be maulers.

"That means they grab a hold of someone or something and they don't let go. They start to shake," says Officer McDowell.

That was the case of the pit bull attack in Waukesha six months ago.

"Officers when they responded said that they saw blood and muscles, fatty tissue on the ground in the kitchen after the attack," says Sergeant Habanek.

Without question, the attack in Waukesha was brutal. However, Officer McDowell says what happened was extremely rare.

"If we were to look at the records right now we would find out that the average pit bull bite is no better or no worse than the average German Shepherd bite or Rottweiler bite. In other words they bite and they let go like most other dogs," says McDowell.

The numbers do reveal that there is a pit bull problem in Milwaukee. Though, it is not because of how often the breeds bite. It is because they are so popular and owners are over-breeding them. Experts say when the over-breeding occurs at this magnitude, that is when you can really start to see problems with the breed.

Dangerous animal attacks news

Nov. 22, 2011Lindsey Morone Expert: Pit Bull attacks are quite rare

MILWAUKEE- There is a pit bull problem in Milwaukee. Cities across the country are banning pit bulls after numerous vicious attacks. It is a controversial issue. Some say pit bulls are misunderstood and get a bad rap. TODAY'S TMJ4 set out to find the truth about pit bulls.

In a Waukesha neighborhood, there is hope that good fences make good dogs, especially after what happened six months ago.

"I just remember yelling and screaming and jumping over the fence," says Chris Bartosz.

Bartosz now has scars on his arms and legs. Though his wounds have healed, he has not forgotten the pain of being bit. He was attacked when he helped save his neighbor from two angry pit bulls.

"There was blood all over the floor and all over her," remembers Bartosz.

Sergeant Gerald Habanek with the Waukesha Police Department remembers the attack too. He remembers how a woman was almost killed by a family pet named Prince.

"The dog nearly chewed apart a 52-year-old woman," says Sergeant Habanek.

Police say Prince continued to be aggressive long after the woman was taken to the hospital. They say Prince lunged at the fence. They feared the fence would not hold. Newly released dash cam video shows an officer climbing up on top of his squad car, shooting, and killing Prince.

"In this case, it was a threat from a vicious animal that had already mauled a human being. You absolutely have to put the dog down," explains Habanek.

Waukesha is not alone. In Sheboygan, a 9-year-old was attacked when walking his Chihuahua. There was another pit bull attack in Racine. Most recently, there was another attack in Sheboygan. A 2 year-old was attacked by the family pit bull.

"They just get a lot of press, a lot of media attention," explains Officer John McDowell with Milwaukee Area Domestic Animal Control (MADAC).

There are a lot of opinions about pit bulls. TODAY'S TMJ4 looks at the facts. Since 2008, the top three breeds that bit the most, that were taken in to MADAC are as followed: Labs, with 40 bites, then, German Shephards with 68 bites, and coming out on top, Pit Bulls, with 302 bites.

However, there are a lot of pit bulls at MADAC. In fact, there are more pit bulls than any other breed. They make up 40% of the population at MADAC. But of all the 302 pit bulls that were brought to MADAC, only 4% of them came to the facility because they hurt someone. What the numbers actually show is that pit bulls bite just about as often as any other dog. 3% of the Labs taken in were because they bit someone. German Shephards came out on top at 5%.

Via Skype, Colleen Lyn, who created Dogsbite.org, says a pit bull's bite is worse than other dogs." She was attacked by a pit bull 4 years-ago.

"They are born with a dangerous toolset," explains Lyn. "They have a very unique bite style: lock, and hold, and shake. That is what causes extreme damage to victims," says Lyn.

It is true. Pit bulls are terriers and terriers are known to be maulers.

"That means they grab a hold of someone or something and they don't let go. They start to shake," says Officer McDowell.

That was the case of the pit bull attack in Waukesha six months ago.

"Officers when they responded said that they saw blood and muscles, fatty tissue on the ground in the kitchen after the attack," says Sergeant Habanek.

Without question, the attack in Waukesha was brutal. However, Officer McDowell says what happened was extremely rare.

"If we were to look at the records right now we would find out that the average pit bull bite is no better or no worse than the average German Shepherd bite or Rottweiler bite. In other words they bite and they let go like most other dogs," says McDowell.

The numbers do reveal that there is a pit bull problem in Milwaukee. Though, it is not because of how often the breeds bite. It is because they are so popular and owners are over-breeding them. Experts say when the over-breeding occurs at this magnitude, that is when you can really start to see problems with the breed.

Dangerous animal attacksnews

November 21, 2011. Treatment of Traumatic Tiger Attack in a Child

Source: American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS)

Newswise — Charlottesville, Va. (Nov. 18, 2011) – Exotic animals—wild animals unsuited to domestication—are increasingly housed in domestic settings. This sometimes leads to traumatic attacks suffered by owners or visitors. An example of a tiger attack on a child is described in the November issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics.

In their article, “Traumatic tiger attack. Case report,” authors Marvin Chum and Wai Pui Ng (University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada) describe the neurosurgical, vascular, otolaryngological, and psychological injuries sustained by an 11-year-old boy who was attacked by a Siberian tiger housed at a private home. The boy, invited to view the animal, made a sudden unexpected movement, and the tiger responded by pouncing upon and mauling the child. Swift action by the trainer, who was holding the animal on a leash, saved the child from death.

The boy sustained multiple linear lacerations over his left posterior temporal scalp and puncture wounds in his left parietal, temporal, and neck regions. He had a comminuted depressed skull fracture of the left temporal lobe as well as a left occipital condyle fracture. Further investigations also revealed an underlying temporal lobe contusion and dissection of his left internal carotid artery. Not surprisingly, the child suffered greatly from anxiety over the event and its immediate physical consequences, including left facial weakness and swallowing difficulties.

The authors describe surgical procedures and medical therapies needed to treat the child. Special attention was made to avoid infection from the unique bacteria housed in the tiger’s mouth together with the potentially dangerous, normal flora of the patient’s lacerated skin. Chum and Ng provide a detailed description of the mode of injury in a traumatic tiger bite and the therapies required to respond to these bites.

The child recovered well, although the facial weakness, aspiration, and hoarseness persisted two years after the attack.

The authors emphasize that the most important lesson to be learned from this case is prevention, and they encourage that government policy—in their case, that of the Canadian government—be updated to “minimize inappropriate contact between animals and the public and ban private ownership of large cats.”

Chum M, Ng WP. Traumatic tiger attack. Case report. Journal of Neurosurgery: Pediatrics 8:530–¬534, 2011; DOI: 10.3171/2011.8.PEDS10593.

Dangerous animal attacksnews

November 11, 2011. Charli Engelhorn. Local residents raise concerns about illegal dumping of animal carcasses

Animal carcasses illegally dumped near two popular trails have raised the concerns by local residents living near those areas. In the last two weeks, four elk carcasses were dumped at the side of the Hidden Valley Trail and a number of cow hides and carcasses and a deer carcass were found off the road behind the Moab Rim RV Campground. Both areas are south of Moab off U.S. 191.

“Typically, illegal dumping issues go with the county,” said T.J. Robertson, conservation officer for the state Division of Wildlife Resources Southeastern Region. “If I get a call, then I will go out and look for evidence and take photos of footprints and tire tracks to find the person responsible. It’s not our policy to remove the carcasses, but we know it’s not a good thing for visitors and residents using the trails to see that.”

Dan Rusk, who has been living at the RV campground for two years, said that the carcass dumping is an eyesore for tourists coming to town but also poses a number of other concerns as well.

“When the wind is blowing the right way, the smell blows down into the campground and into town and stinks to high heaven,” Rusk said. “It has been amazing how many people say that Moab is a beautiful place, but there is a lot of garbage lying around. These are tourist dollars that support the community, and we want them to keep coming back.”

Rusk said the illegal dumping issue extends beyond cow and elk carcasses. Last year, in addition to three elk carcasses, a number of dead skunks were dumped behind the RV park, and members of the recycling center came and picked up three couches discarded behind the property and buckets of animal innards that had been left there, as well. Rusk said he believes local residents are responsible for the dumping, based on the items he has seen.

Grand County resident Marvin Day lives down the road from the beginning of the Hidden Valley Trail. He said his concerns regarding the carcasses go beyond the negative aesthetic aspects.

“It’s a little aggravating. Coyotes are coming down and feeding on the carcasses. And people have pets they are trying to walk here. Most people turn their dogs loose, and they go straight for the carcasses. A coyote probably wouldn’t think twice about leaving the carcass and going after a smaller dog,” said Day, who said that earlier on Monday morning he was told by a hiker that he had just seen a coyote chewing on one of the carcasses. “We don’t need that to happen. It was reported over two weeks ago, and I’m not sure why they’re not moving them. If they don’t move them soon, I’m just going to do it myself.”

Robertson said he and a Grand County Sheriff’s deputy went and investigated the Hidden Valley carcasses. He said the deputy told him he was going to follow up on the issue. The Grand County Sheriff’s Department said this week that the matter is still under investigation.

A number of motives may be behind the illegal disposal of animal carcasses, according to Robertson. Hunters may be avoiding paying the $5 fee to discard their animals at the Bob’s Sanitation transfer station, or they simply may not want to wait through the weekend to rid themselves of the carcass, as the transfer station is not open on Sundays. Robertson said hunters may also be using the animal incorrectly or may be poachers who are trying to avoid punishment.

“They are supposed to take every usable part and piece of meat so there is no wasting on the animal,” Robertson said. “If they took the animal illegally, then there are more charges they could face, some leading up to a felony.”

Rusk said he would like to see the hunters disposing of their game according to what they are required to do by law and be responsible and considerate of the community. Robertson agreed, saying he wished the hunters would consider taking the animals to a location where they will not be in view of the public or near trails.

“We don’t enforce illegal dumping, but we try to move the carcasses into another area,” Robertson said. “These hunters are giving law-abiding hunters a bad name.”

Dangerous animal attacksnews
November 10, 2011. Clifford Ward. 2 arrested in animal hoarding of more than 40 cats and dogs in Elmwood Park.

Charges are pending against two people in the hoarding of more than 40 cats and dogs in an Elmwood Park home, police said Thursday

Authorities were alerted to the situation when a small fire was reported around 7 p.m. Wednesday at the home in the 1600 block of

76th Avenue

, Elmwood Park Police Chief Frank Fagiano said Thursday.

Firefighters were able to put out the minor blaze quickly, and then alerted police to the many animals inside, he said, Elmwood Park police alerted the Cook County Animal Control department, which took possession of 22 dogs and 21 cats, some of which were in poor condition, the chief said.

The animals have been taken to a shelter, Fagiano said.

The village ordinances allow a maximum of three cats or dogs, said the chief, who said the investigation is ongoing.

November 09, 2011. The Democrat. Dog attacks create fear

Following a recent rash of animal attacks in Senatobia, the city is looking at its options for acquiring an animal control officer.

According to Senatobia/Tate County Animal Shelter director Heidi Terrell, the shelter received call after call in October from people needing assistance with animals. The police department responds, but officers aren't trained to handle animal control situations, she said.

"It's not just in the county; it is in the city constantly. There's so many times when we have no one to respond. Then when we do have people responding, they're not trained animal control officers. Our police department is doing the best they can with vicious animals and other complaints," Terrell said.

Terrell told the Board of Aldermen that in the month of October alone, the police department captured and brought eight dogs in to the shelter, and some of the dogs were vicious.

"Of these eight dogs, two of them were deemed vicious. When I say they were deemed vicious, they were not very nice boys. They would absolutely bite you unprovoked," Terrell said. One Senatobia police officer was bitten by a pit bull last month, according to Terrell.

"There were actually two pit bulls that they were chasing, and we don't know what happened to the other one, but it was not captured. The first one was captured and had to be shot to keep it from further attacking the police officer," Terrell said.

Terrell made mention of two other incidents: one in which a vicious Rottweiler had three men pinned on public property inside the city. She said the dog had to be darted and brought in to the shelter. The other story was about a teenager being bitten by a neighbor's dog, which, unprovoked, had escaped a chain that was tied to a garage, which according to Terrell is against the city's animal ordinance code in the first place. The dog was deemed vicious and Terrell said the shelter is following up to assure that it is being kept properly according to the ordinance.

"I just recommend that the city start thinking about a trained animal control officer to enforce our ordinance. Right now, it's only partially being enforced. I feel like we could solve a lot of these animal problems if we had someone," Terrell said. The animal control officer would also be able to respond to calls for investigations into animal cruelty to determine whether there is neglect.

Senatobia Mayor Alan Callicott asked Terrell about the salary range for an animal control officer, and Terrell mentioned two separate approaches to acquiring one.

"We can approach it from different directions. We can hire someone and they can be a part of the shelter, or we can use somebody that's already working for the city, whether it's a police officer or maybe a utility department person," Terrell said.

In order to be trained for animal control, one would need to be sent to a National Animal Control Association (NACA) course. According to Terrell, the first level of training is one week long.

"They're trained in how to capture these animals, to look at the body language of the animals. They know how to fill out reports and they'll know how to go to court when these people are fined for breaking the ordinance," Terrell said. "They can respond to these issues and they're trained to do so." Someone already employed by the city would have to attend the training and would be on call seven days per week, but the position would be a pay increase incentive.

The board tabled the matter in order to conduct salary research.

The matter may be revisited at a later time. Terrell said she could look into animal control officer salaries in DeSoto County and Southaven as they each currently have about three animal control officers on staff.

"I just think that we need to think about being proactive before someone is not just bitten, but before they're mauled by an animal," Terrell said. "They're out there doing a job that they're not trained for."

November 1, 2011. Lauren Williams. Coyote badgers jogger, dogs near Back Bay

Animal Control recommends keeping dogs on leashes and securing pets' food to prevent interactions. An equestrian rescued a man and his dogs from a coyote Tuesday in Newport Beach.

Brian Clarkson, 37, said he was jogging on a trail near the Back Bay with his two Yorkie mixes when a man on a horse spotted a coyote running toward them.

About 8 a.m. near

University Drive

and

Irvine Avenue

, Clarkson met up with the coyote, which he said "seemed hungry and desperate." The rider yelled at the coyote, which was only momentarily deterred, according to Clarkson, who added that the animal continued to follow him and his dogs from bushes across the street.

Seeing this, the rider escorted Clarkson part of the way on the trail, until Clarkson could report the incident to park rangers. "I've never been chased by a coyote looking for a kill before," Clarkson said. Newport Beach Police Department Senior Animal Control Officer Valerie Schomburg said that the city typically sees an increase in coyotes in the fall stemming from the birth of pups in the spring.

Although the city doesn't trap the animals, if animal-control workers hear of erratic behavior from a coyote multiple times, they involve the state Department of Fish and Game.

There have been no known attacks on people in Newport Beach, Schomburg said. "Usually, they're startled, just like people are," she said. "Most wild animals are going to flee rather than fight you." Schomburg recommends not letting dogs off the leash, and keeping pet food secured at home.

Dangerous animal attacksnews

October 31 2011. AP, Published: Wyoming hunter escapes Grand Teton National Park grizzly bear attack with minor injuries

MOOSE, Wyo. — A grizzly bear has attacked another person in the Yellowstone region, this time a Wyoming hunter who said the animal came at him with so little warning he had no time to use the pepper spray he was carrying for defense in just such a predicament.

This has been a dangerous year in grizzly country: The big bears that can weigh more than 450 pounds have attacked about 10 people in and around Yellowstone National Park, killing two hikers in separate attacks in Yellowstone.

Elk hunter Timothy Hix, 32, of Jackson, was listed in good condition after being attacked in nearby Grand Teton National Park on Sunday. Park officials expected him to be released Monday from St. John’s Medical Center in Jackson.

Hix told rangers he surprised what he believed was a grizzly bear about five to 10 yards away south of Glacier View overlook on Sunday. He said the bear ran at him but he wasn’t able to grab his pepper spray, so he dropped to the ground, covered his head and remained still.

“He reported that the bear bit him a couple times and might have swiped him,” park spokeswoman Jenny Anzelmo-Sarles said Monday.

Park officials said rangers believe the attack was a surprise encounter with a lone grizzly bear but noted that the investigation was still continuing. Authorities closed off an area measuring about a half-mile to a side after the attack.

Unlike most national parks, Grand Teton allows hunting during part of the year. The park’s annual elk hunting program began Oct. 8. Hix hadn’t killed any elk before encountering the bear.

The hunter responded appropriately to the attack, Anzelmo-Sarles said. “Sounds like he was doing everything right,” she said. “We want to commend him for doing the homework ahead of time.”  There have been six recorded bear attacks in the history of Grand Teton National Park. Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Dangerous animal attacksnews
October 27, 2011. John West, Special to CNN. Putting Australia's shark attacks in perspective

 John West is currently the Manager of Life Sciences Operations at Taronga and Taronga Western Plains Zoos. He is been the Curator of the Australian Shark Attack File supported by the Taronga Conservation Society Australia (TCSA) for the last 30 years.

(CNN) -- There is no doubt that the three recent fatal shark attacks in Western Australia involve great white sharks. This species is known to inhabit the shallow waters along this coast and are known to migrate south around this time of the year to the seal colonies on the southwest coast.

While they may stay around seal colonies -- their natural prey -- for months, they are not noted for sitting off a beach waiting for food to turn up. They are mostly individual, transient, inquisitive animals that will investigate objects in the water. Swimming, surfing or diving alone near aquatic animals (including seals and dolphins) far from the beach early in the morning or late in the evening may well attract a curious shark and increase the risk of encountering one. As the population increases and water-related activities become more popular, the number of people who go into the water every day also increases. But the chance of encountering a shark still remains very low.

American killed in shark attack off Western Australia

Most Australians understand the risk when they enter the ocean.

Over the past 50 years, only one person has been killed by a shark each year in Australia on average, compared to the 87 people who drown at Australian beaches on average each year, according to Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA). Therefore, the hysteria in the media surrounding a shark attack seems disproportional to other fatal incidents.  Shark attack victim 'one of a kind' Historically human-shark interactions predominantly occurred in the summer months. But in recent decades, swimmers, surfers and divers are continuing to pursue these activities outside of the traditional summer season because of improvements in wetsuit technology.

This is reflected in the occurrence of shark attacks throughout the year since the 1950s; particularly for surfers, snorkelers and SCUBA divers who can enter the water at any time of the year and extend the time they spend in the water in areas that, in earlier decades, were likely to be too cold for recreational purposes. In the past 20 years, 49% of all shark-attack victims were wearing a wetsuit. There have been 26 attacks recorded in the cooler months (May-August) during the past two decades, resulting in six fatalities compared with 15 incidents -- resulting in four fatalities -- during the same months in the previous 20-year period. There is no suggestion that wetsuits in themselves are the cause of an attack, but rather that their use has allowed people to extend their time in the water, increasing the risk of encountering a shark.

The frequency of attacks also reflects the popularity of water-based activities in harbors, estuarine areas and rivers, with people more likely to encounter species such as bull sharks, which have a propensity to inhabit shallow nearshore coastal areas, bays, harbors and rivers in summer months.

In the vast majority of cases, sharks involved in an attack on humans do not stay around the area and can swim 80 to 100 km away by the next day. Unfortunately other sharks may later swim into the area and may be blamed for the attack. Hunting down and killing sharks on suspicion of being responsible is unjustifiable.

However, if the animal can be identified and has not left the area, it would be appropriate to remove it. But once the animal swims away it would be almost impossible to know which shark was responsible.

Shark attacks are a reality of entering the ocean, but it is worth emphasizing that they are very rare events.

Even If you do encounter a shark, the chances of being attacked are very small.

Dangerous animal attacksnews
October 27, 2011. BRYAN WALSH | Time.com. Why Coke Is Going White for Polar Bears

 The 125-year-old Coca-Cola Company doesn't like to mess with its brand image. That's in part because it's so valuable — according to Interbrand Coke has the best brand in the world — but also because previous efforts to tweak its image haven't always worked out so well, and sometimes lead to things like this.

So perhaps it's a measure of the company's dedication to the environment that Coca-Cola has decided to change the color of its iconic cans for the holiday season — white, to draw attention to the plight of the polar bear. Coke and the environmental group World Wildlife Fund (WWF) have joined together to promote the Arctic Home project, which will involve turning 1.4 billion Coke cans white, emblazoned with the image of a mother polar bear and her cubs pawing through the Arctic. There will also be white bottle caps on other Coke branded drinks, all running from the beginning of November to February. "In 125 years we've never changed the color of the Coke can," says Katie Bayne, president and GM of Coca-Cola Sparking Beverages. "We really see this as a bold gesture." (See the top 10 bad beverage ideas.)

Bold gestures are exactly what the polar bears needs. There's a reason the planet's largest land carnivores have emerged as the symbols of climate change — perhaps no species is more directly impacted by warming temperatures than the polar bear. They depend on Arctic sea ice as a major habitat and hunting ground, but sea ice is vanishing rapidly, shrinking to its second-lowest level on record this past summer. As the ice melts, polar bears are forced to swim further and further for food — and some, especially young cubs, simply won't make it. "We're watching the ice shrink in front of our eyes, and if there is no ice, there are no bears," says Carter Roberts, the president and CEO of WWF. "The polar bears need our help."

One way to help them, of course, is to reduce carbon emissions and blunt the worst effects of global warming. That's ... not really happening all that quickly. So that leaves adaptation, which for polar bears means locating the areas of Arctic sea ice that might be less vulnerable to warming.

That's exactly what WWF is trying to do, identifying the Last Ice area that may remain solid long after other areas of the Arctic have melted. The group is working with Canadian government and the local Inuit community to create a kind of climate refuge in the Last Ice capable of supporting polar bears for decades into the future. "We aren't creating the Last Ice area — climate change is," says Geoff York, the WWF's polar bear expert. "We just want to make sure that the conditions are there to support the polar bears and the people who will be living with them." (See pictures of Germany's Latest Polar Bear Celebrity.)

That's going to take a lot of research — York points out that the high Arctic area is "one of the least understood places on Earth" — and that research is going to cost money, potentially as much as $10 million. (It's not cheap operating in the remote ice.) That's where Coke comes in. The company — which has used polar bears in its holiday ads for decades — is donating $2 million to WWF, and will match consumer donations through March 15 up to $1 million. Individuals will be able to text donations at a dollar apiece to 357357, or donate online at Arctichome.com. "Coke has made a kind of foundational commitment that has never before been seen in our history," says Roberts. "They're taking their biggest promotional season and dedicating it to this cause."

It'll take a lot more than soda to save the polar bears, which are already listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. But a little highly carbonated holiday cheer won't hurt.

Dangerous animal attacksnews
Oct 27, 2011. Anniston Star. Pit bull attacks man's farm animals west of Anniston, police say

A brown pit bull Tuesday attacked a llama and two goats and was found eating a third goat at a

Bagley Drive

residence, Anniston police said.

Investigators Wednesday were looking into the incident after the 56-year-old man who owns the residence and the livestock reported the animal attacks to police. The man told officers that he first noticed a problem when he went outside Tuesday morning around 5 to feed his llama. The animal was suffering from injuries and bite marks to its left leg, a police report shows.

Then the man noticed that two of his goats were missing. He reported that he saw a brown pit bull with a spiked collar running through his yard in the 600 block of Bagley Drive, a street west of Anniston but in the police jurisdiction near Bynum-Leatherwood Road. As he walked through his yard, the man found one goat with both of its ears torn off and another with severe throat injuries, police Capt. Richard Smith said.

Then, in another area of the property, the homeowner caught the pit bull as it ate the third goat, Smith said. The man told police he retrieved a rifle from his house and shot at the dog but doesn’t know whether he hit it. Investigators Wednesday were gathering information about whether the dog has owners and who they are. Smith said the owner could be prosecuted for letting the pit bull run loose, a misdemeanor crime whose perpetrators “shall be fined not less than double the damages sustained by the injured party or parties,” according to the Alabama criminal code.

Persons convicted of the crime can also be sentenced to jail or hard labor for up to six months.

October 25, 2011.  Group: Last Javan rhino in Vietnam killed for horn

 By MIKE IVES, Associated

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnam has lost its fight to save its rare Javan rhinoceros population after poachers apparently killed the country's last animal for its horn, pushing one of the world's most endangered species closer to extinction, a conservation group said Tuesday. Vietnam's Cat Tien National Park has had no sightings, footprints or dung from live rhinos since the last known animal living there was found dead last April, shot through the leg with its horn chopped off, the WWF said. Genetic analysis of rhino feces had confirmed in 2004 that at least two rhinos were living in the park, raising hopes that Vietnam's population might survive.

Only 40 to 60 Javan rhinos now remain in Ujung Kulon National Park in Indonesia. They are the last known living members of the species, with none in captivity. Vietnam's Javan rhino population had been shrinking for decades as land conversion and a rising local population threatened the animal's habitat, but poaching and a lack of effective park management and patrols hastened the decline, said Christy Williams, coordinator of WWF's Asian Elephant and Rhino Program. "It appears that protection is not being given a high priority by the Vietnamese government," he said.

Park director Tran Van Thanh said that while some of his rangers failed to fulfill their duties, it is impossible for them to stop all of the estimated 100,000 people living near the park from hunting exotic animals when the average farmer there earns around 150,000 dong ($7.50) per day. "We're not trying to avoid our responsibility in the death of the rhinos, but we've done our best to protect them," Thanh said. Demand for rhino horn has surged in recent years among

Vietnamese and Chinese who believe it can cure an array of ailments. Horns can now fetch up to $50,000 per pound (about $100,000 per kilogram), the WWF report said Tuesday. A small amount of ground-up powder can bring hundreds of dollars on the black market. Global demand has also increased in the last four to five years as some people have begun to consider rhino horn a remedy for cancer, Williams said.

WWF, along with the International Rhino Foundation, confirmed that the last rhino had died in Vietnam by collecting and analyzing its feces. Twenty-two of the rhino's dung piles were found in Cat Tien from October 2009 to February 5, 2010, but no dung piles or fresh rhino footprints were seen in the subsequent nine weeks, the 44-page report said.

Before 1988, the Javan rhino was believed to be extinct from mainland Asia. A small population was then discovered in Vietnam's park, and for the past 20 years, a number of wildlife conservationists have worked closely with the government to try to prevent the species from dying out in Vietnam. But the rhino's habitat has been cut in half since 1988 to about 74,000 acres (30,000 hectares) today. South Africa is a prime source country for rhino horns. According to the South African government, a record 333 rhinos were poached in 2010 — a nearly threefold increase from 2009.

In September, Vietnamese officials traveled to South Africa to address the problem, three years after Hanoi recalled a diplomat from its embassy there after she was caught on tape receiving illegal rhino horns. Ha Cong Tuan, an environmental affairs official, called on Vietnamese medical researchers to study what he called the "rumor" that rhino horn cures cancer and then publicize their findings. The WWF report said Vietnam is on the verge of an "extinction crisis" with several other species — including the saola and the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey — threatened by deforestation, widespread poaching and a "largely uncontrolled" illegal wildlife trade.

Cat Tien was established in 1998 as a composite of three existing protected areas. From 1998 to 2004 WWF invested $6.3 million in the park, with up to $600,000 earmarked for rhino conservation work.  In Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital, 100 grams (about 7 ounces) of crushed rhino horn retail for about 43 million dong ($2,150), with the average prescription costing 200,000 dong ($10), a rhino horn vendor in the city's bustling old quarter said Monday, requesting anonymity because the practice is illegal here.

Dangerous animal attacksnews
October 25, 2011. Dogs Attacks-One Quarter of All Homeowners Claims

Tall dogs, fuzzy dogs, dogs that fit into purses; all of them are called man’s best friend. Fortunately, that is true of most house dogs, but sometimes we are sadly reminded that dogs are animals and are not rational. For this reason liability and casualty insurance companies are charging higher rates to cover dogs or just not covering some breeds.

Dog attacks account for about 25% of home owner claims. The cost of coverage has gone up about 6.4% more in 2009 than in the prior 12 months, with the average claim exceeding $24,000 for the third straight year, an industry group said.

This is why many insurance carriers are not even covering certain breeds (rottweilers, dobermans, pit bulls, etc.) and dropping coverage on animals if they have any history of violence. One reason for the change in U.S. home insurance practices is the exposures presented by rising medical costs, plastic surgery for permanent dog bite scars and long-term emotional harm these animal attacks can cause, according to a Bloomberg Report.

The Herndon law firm ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd. has recently been contacted by several victims of dog attacks in the Mid-Atlantic region. Doug Landau, an experienced attorney in canine attacks, notes “In some car accidents, the injured plaintiff never sees the defendant trucker or hit and run motorist. But in dog attack cases, the innocent victim feels the teeth, claws and grabbing; sees the dog, hears the sounds of the attack, and can even smell and sometimes taste the dog's saliva on her face. These are nightmarish experiences for anyone. The results the Landau Law Shop has had throughout the East Coast suggest that juries and judges take these harms and losses very seriously.”

Landau adds, “These are not ‘accidents,” they are usually intentional attacks and should be treated differently from an ‘accident case.” If you have questions regarding dog attacks or animal bite injuries, please e-mail or call us (            703-796-9555            ) at The Herndon Law Shop, as there are legal time limits to bringing a claim for the losses caused by a dangerous dog's attack.

October 24, 2011 Australia Issues Kill Order After Shark Attacks

Baltimore Aquarium Director Hopes Australians Will Call Off Shark Hunt

BALTIMORE -- A series of shark attacks off the waters of Australia triggered a government kill order Monday, and local officials said they are hunting for the animal that killed an American over the weekend.

Great White Sharks are easily spotted from the air off the coast of Western Australia, but it's almost impossible to see them coming underwater.

Officials said that American Thomas Wainwright encountered a Great White while scuba diving Saturday and surfaced with fatal wounds, prompting the government to issue a kill order for the shark.

Some fear it could be the same predator that killed two other people in the same waters in recent weeks. Australian officials said they are baiting hooks throughout the area to catch the Great White that killed Wainwright, and the mission is alarming conservationists and marine biologists, including a shark expert from Baltimore. "Once the shark realizes it's not its intended prey, the shark swims away in 90 to 95 percent of attacks and bites. We're not really good food. We're not fatty. I would say in this case, we're not dealing with a rogue shark, we're dealing with a couple different sharks," Andy Dehart, the director of fisheries at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, said.

While Dehart doesn't agree with hunting great whites, he said he does understand why so many people seem to have a primal fear of the predators, because they can grow up to 20 feet long and have row upon row of teeth set into a massive jawbone. "My personal bet is that the shark is long gone -- moved a couple hundred miles up or down the shore tracking its normal prey items: seals and sea lions," Dehart said. Dehart pointed out that, despite the size advantage, sharks are more endangered by humans.

"Sharks are fished out of the ocean at a rate of 73 million per year. When you compare that to the 100 humans that are attacked every year with five to six fatalities, (it's almost nothing)," Dehart said.

Dehart said he hopes the Australians will call off the shark cull and rely more heavily on aerial surveillance to steer swimmers to safety.

While Dehart and other scientists see the shark attacks as accidents, many Australians in the tourism trade said they are pushing officials to take steps to make visitors feel safe enough to keep streaming into the waters Down Under.

October 24, 2011. Policies dictate handling of dangerous animals

BUCHANAN — Buchanan City commissioners took action Monday night in hopes of curbing animal attacks in the area.

The commission had been discussing the possibility of drafting a local dangerous animal ordinance after three residents were seriously injured in two pit bull attacks in September.

But the commissioners elected to keep the issue in the hands of the county, which already has an ordinance on the books.

Instead, the commission approved a series of policies to address the dangerous animal issue.

Four actions

The four policies are: to enhance the city’s police officers’ understanding of the county ordinance; have the county animal control agency provide additional animal control training to law enforcement; provide community education to animal owners; and request that the county commissioners consider changes to the county’s dangerous animal ordinance.

The commission had a work session last week to discuss the issue and City Manager Bill Marx recommended those policies based on the discussion.

Marx, who also serves as the city police chief, said officers have already had some additional training from animal control recently. The training included how to best approach and manage aggressive animals and how to streamline reports and citations to the prosecutor and court system regarding animal violations.

“It was very good training, a lot of good information,” Marx said.

Commissioner Pat Moore said the commission should contact the school board to encourage them to host training sessions from animal control for students as well.

The Buchanan commissioners also agreed to encourage the Berrien County board to consider stiffening the penalties for violations of the ordinance, although they won’t make any specific suggestions for changes.

Shades of gray

“The ordinance is very vague,” said commissioner Joe Scanlon. “There are a lot of gray areas in it. I’d like to see it tightened up a little bit. But it’s not the city of Buchanan’s place to tell the county what exact changes to make.”

Currently, violation of the ordinance is a 90-day misdemeanor with up to a $500 fine, according to Marx.

Dangerous animal attacksnews

Oct 21, 2011,. BY MARA STINE. County animal control officials bait trap to catch alligator Creature reportedly seen on

Birdsdale Avenue

 Gresham officials hope a heavily baited trap is enough to catch an alligator reported near a local stormwater collection pond on Friday, Oct. 21.

A business tenant near the pond in a wetland area in the 2200 block of

Northwest Birdsdale Avenue south

of

Burnside Road

, told Oregon Fish & Wildlife officials that he saw the 4- to 5-foot-long creature, said Laura Shepard, Gresham spokeswoman.

Multnomah County Animal Services responded by setting a trap in the stormwater pond, which acts as a basin to hold rainwater from the surrounding area.

City officials “haven’t positively identified it,” but suspect the creature is either an alligator or a Caiman, Shepard said. Caimans are a smaller, less-dangerous-to-human alligator native of Mexico and Central and South America.

Considering that neither one is native to the Northwest, “We suspect that someone has dumped a pet, and it could be hungry,” Shepard said.

Anyone experiencing a similar sighting is encouraged to call Multnomah County Animal Control, 503-988-7387             (PETS).

October 20, 2011. Daniel Nasaw. BBC News, Washington. Why wild animals do not make good pets

By all accounts, Terry Thompson kept the tigers, bears, monkeys and other exotic and dangerous wild animals as pets, and he insisted they were happier on his 73-acre (29-hectare) patch of land in rural Ohio than in zoos.

And as recently as 2008, Thompson said publicly he would never endanger his own animals or his human neighbours by failing to secure them and care for them.

"I don't let my animals run loose," he told the Zanesville Times-Recorder newspaper.

"I'm not going to put anyone else, including myself and my wife, in danger or put my animals at risk. I take extreme precautions with them and with people who come here."

That sentiment apparently went by the wayside on Tuesday, when the eccentric Vietnam veteran, gun enthusiast and pilot cut the fences and opened the gates of the cages at his private menagerie, then shot himself to death as the animals fled.

'Inhumane'
As night fell on Tuesday, panicked police shot at least four dozen animals dead, including endangered Bengal tigers, lest the animals attack citizens.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote

You can buy a cobra but you can't buy common sense”

Tim Harrison
Outreach for Animals
The ghastly tally and the mortal risk to the humans in the area shows private citizens have no business keeping wild animals as pets, animal welfare advocates and rescuers say.

"They're not pets," said Tim Harrison, of Ohio rescue group Outreach for Animals. "That's the sad part. People get the wrong idea watching television shows.

"They teach people the exact wrong thing. It's just not right. It's not right for the animals; it's just not right for the people. You can buy a cobra but you can't buy common sense."

At least 75 people have been killed and more than 500 injured by exotic animals kept in zoos or privately since 1990, according to Born Free USA, which tracks reports.

"There's a clear danger to the animals themselves," said Adam Roberts, executive vice-president of Born Free USA, a group working to ban private ownership of wild animals.

"Often animals kept in private hands are treated inhumanely. They're chained, defanged or declawed. Then there's always the risk of escape and in fact of human injury."

Thompson's menagerie was not accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums and he was not permitted as an animal exhibitor by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).

The facility fell short of the requirements for receiving a permit because Thompson reported that he did not receive compensation for showing the animals, said USDA spokesman Dave Sacks.

Starved animals
"This facility was strictly privately held and privately run and funded," Mr Sacks told the BBC.



"Just to have them on his property, as he did in his privately funded sanctuary, that's not a USDA situation."

In addition to pleading guilty last year on two counts of possessing illegal firearms - offences for which he served nearly a year in federal prison - Thompson had had at least two run-ins with authorities over animals he kept.

In 2008, local prosecutors declined to charge Thompson for animal cruelty after inspectors from the Columbus Zoo and the Muskingum County Humane Society visited his property.

"We had several experts out at the Thompson place including a number of veterinarians and even experts from the Columbus Zoo and they found nothing wrong," Muskingum County Prosecutor Michael Haddox told the Zanesville Times-Recorder.

"I'm not going to tell you that the animals out there are taken care of like you or I might take care of one of our pets, but there is no-one that can say their conditions are violating any statutes of law."

In late 2005, Thompson was sentenced to six months' house arrest following his conviction for cruelty to animals, having an animal at large, and other charges.

Police found three cows and a buffalo had died from starvation on farmland he owned, according to a Zanesville Times-Recorder at the time.

Thompson had argued in the case that the animals may have already had disease which contributed to their deaths, and that they had consumed contaminated water and feed.

Thompson began keeping exotic animals in 1977, when he purchased a lion cub for his wife, Marian, he told the Zanesville newspaper in 2008.

He said he had seven veterinarians on call to care for the animals, which he said were more "relaxed without conflict" than animals in zoos.

Bear attack
"They know they're loved and cared for," he said.


"If one of my bears gets a hangnail, I call a certain vet. If a cat sneezes, I call another vet.

"I don't use the animals for commerce, so I'm under no regulations like a zoo. But I make sure my animals aren't a threat to the community, either."

Following the 2008 inspections, however, local authorities said they were concerned some of the cages were insufficiently secure, and Mr Thompson appeared to have addressed those fears.

He always insisted he did not keep the animals for the money, and sometimes obtained them in exchange for firearms.

In March, while imprisoned on federal firearms charges, he said in a sworn deposition that had traded guns for a monkey, a leopard and a baby tiger.

"I've never sold an exotic animal," he said. "I don't do that for money."

Mr Harrison said he once rescued a bear from a man who had obtained it at a young age from Mr Thompson.

The bear grew up, became sexually mature and aggressive, and attacked the man. Later, the owner grew ill from cancer and could no longer care for it.

"He was actually kind of scared of it," said Mr Harrison, who took the bear to a sanctuary in Colorado.

Mr Harrison, who was at the scene in Zanesville, Ohio, observing the rescue efforts on Wednesday, said the escaped animals appeared to be in fairly good condition.

But in July, a federal agent who was involved in the firearms case against Thompson said the interior of his house was so cluttered and foul that officials had a hard time searching it for weapons.

"The residence was of such a poor environmental condition that it was unsafe for us to breathe the air," said Special Agent James Ash of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, according to a sworn deposition obtained by the BBC.

"The location that we would have used to process the evidence was within six feet of the caged monkeys, and we believe that the monkeys contributed to the degradation of the environment of the house.

October 20, 2011. Exotic Animal Zanesville Carcasses Hunted by Exploiters Seeking Trophies.

By CHRISTINA CARON (@cdcaron) People hoping to profit from the death of nearly 50 exotic animals that escaped from a farm in Zanesville, Ohio, after the preserve owner shot and killed himself, have been contacting the sheriff's office, interested in taking the animals to a taxidermist.

"We've gotten calls and e-mails about what [is] going to happen to the animals ... could they be obtained for these types of things," said Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz. "There's a lot of people who would pay a lot of money to get these animals."

But Lutz is cracking down.

The location of the 49 animals buried on the property has not been disclosed, Lutz said, adding, "Anybody caught on that property looking for it will be charged with criminal trespassing." Earlier this week officers stopped a group of people from stealing the dead body of a lion.

"They were taken into custody," Lutz said.

Marion Thompson, the widow of farm owner Terry Thompson, who was found dead in the driveway after shooting himself and setting his animals free, is now manning the property, watching out for thieves.

"Hopefully nobody would be that morbid that they will want to go to do that," said Lutz. "I can guarantee you one thing, if it does happen we will pursue them to the greatest length to charge them."

Thompson's wife, he said, is "very distraught" about the loss of her husband and animals, many of which "were like kids to her," Lutz said. "She probably spent more time with these animals than some parents do spend with their kids."

Farm Animals May Have Come from Auctions

Officers avoided a potentially catastrophic disaster, using pistols and high-powered rifles to take down nearly 50 of the dangerous animals. Only one animal remains unaccounted for -- a macaque monkey that Lutz says was probably eaten by a large cat.

It's unclear where preserve owner Terry Thompson found his menagerie of exotics.

"I've heard that some were rescues," Lutz said. "I've heard that some were bought at auction."  Officers didn't find any evidence that Thompson had been trying to breed them.

October 12, 2011 Mario Osava. Shark Attacks Attest to Environmental Sins of Suape Port. RECIFE, Brazil,   (Tierramérica) - The Suape port complex may be eternally absolved of its environmental sins for ushering in unprecedented prosperity in the impoverished northeastern Brazilian state of Pernambuco, and for having been built before stricter requirements were introduced.

But there are dramatic testaments to its original sins, which include the interruption, due to the construction of causeways, of the flow of two of the four rivers that empty into the Bay of Suape, 40 kilometres south of Recife, the capital of Pernambuco.

The construction of the port began in 1977, but progressed slowly because of the difficulty in attracting companies to the industrial complex that forms part of the project.

Sharks began attacking swimmers, and especially surfers on the beaches of Recife, as of 1992, after the port began receiving larger numbers of ships between 1989 and 1991.

Between June 1992 and September 2006, there were 47 shark attacks reported, resulting in 17 deaths, according to a study conducted by Fabio Hazin, director of the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture at the Federal Rural University of Pernambuco, with two fellow researchers.

The number of shark attacks is alarmingly high for a mere 20-kilometre stretch of coastline, considering that the worldwide average is less than 100 attacks a year, most of them in Australia, the United States and South Africa. The sudden outbreak of attacks is also surprising.

Shark attacks were formerly unheard of in Recife, which rules out such explanations as a larger number of surfers, who have been coming to the local beaches since the 1960s, or an underwater topography conducive to the entry of large fish species, which is also nothing new, argues Hazin, who chairs the State Committee for Monitoring Shark Incidents.

Instead, the evidence uncovered in the study by Hazin and his colleagues points to the Suape port as a factor in this outbreak, since sharks tend to follow ships, increasing the risk of attacks near port areas. The number of cases in Recife rose sharply in months when the terminal received more than 30 vessels, the study observed.

Another possible factor was the filling in of the mouths of the Ipojuca and Merepe Rivers in the Bay of Suape, to prepare for the construction of port facilities and various industries. This blocked access to the rivers for bull sharks (Carcharhinus leucas), which seek out less saline waters to spawn.

As a consequence, the bull shark population was displaced to the mouth of the Jaboatão River, which is closer to Recife and the beaches most affected by attacks. This migration was also spurred by the decrease in plankton in Suape, another environmental impact of the port, which reduced the influx of fish and crustaceans in search of food, added Hazin.

Added to this is the deepwater channel near the beaches of Boa Viagem and Piedade, where "almost 80 percent" of the incidents studied were concentrated, he said.

Moreover, pollution from the Jaboatão River, which carries animal blood and entrails from slaughterhouses, may have contributed to particularly attracting bull sharks, an especially aggressive species involved in the majority of the attacks.

These last two factors, which are unrelated to the port, are naturally emphasised by the supporters of Suape, which boasts the second best environmental management of all the ports in Brazil, according to the National Aquatic Transportation Agency, the government regulatory authority.

The Suape Port and Industrial Complex covers 13,500 hectares around the bay, but 59 percent of this area is devoted to environmental conservation, a fact that has inspired "admiration among Europeans," said Roberto de Abreu e Lima of the Economic Development Secretariat (SDEC) of Pernambuco, which is responsible for the port’s management.

The proportion initially planned was 45 percent, "but we expanded the environmental conservation area, as well as creating ecological corridors to better preserve biodiversity," he told Tierramérica, while acknowledging that there are still challenges to confront, such as the restoration of mangroves and forests along the banks of the rivers.

Suape is a word from the language of the indigenous Caeté people, whose communities on the Pernambuco coast were decimated in the 16th century, forcing them to migrate inland. It means "winding roads," which is an apt description for the estuary of "rivers and mangroves with many curves," SDEC consultant Daniel Cabral told Tierramérica.

The Centre for Environmental Technology, created in partnership with the state-owned oil company Petrobrás, will monitor the water, air and soil in the entire port complex, noted Abreu e Lima.

Suape is a "natural port" with deep waters along the coast and in the bay, which meant that little intervention was required, except for a 300-meter trench opened in the reefs to protect the wharves, SDEC economic sectors manager Felipe Chaves told Tierramérica.

But human interference - such as the construction of a port combined with an industrial complex - affects marine ecosystems in ways that are difficult to assess, and the shark attacks represent "the small visible part" of these impacts, commented Hazin.

If the Suape port had been built in more recent years, it would have confronted serious objections, such as those faced by projects currently in development. Porto Sul, a private port project in the state of Bahia, to the south of Pernambuco, was moved to a different location this year because of protests from environmentalists, who said that it threatened protected forests and mangroves.

The Açú Superport, another private venture conceived as a giant industrial complex 320 kilometres north of Rio de Janeiro, faces ongoing opposition from displaced farmers, environmentalists and local communities.

In 1975, the Suape port project was harshly criticised by Pernambuco intellectuals in a highly publicised manifesto, which declared that it was the result of an "authoritarian" decision and threatened the flourishing tourism in an area of "artistic heritage" created by nature. Environmental issues were not yet a widespread concern at the time.

Today, the huge numbers of workers who have come to the area are affecting tourism through the conversion of hotels and family homes into workers’ accommodations, even on nearby beaches such as those of Porto de Galinhas, an international tourism destination located 20 kilometres south of Suape. The heavy traffic on roads into the area also keeps tourists away.

Most hotel owners have no complaints, since they are making more money now that their establishments are occupied full-time and they continue to charge the same rates they always have, Rubia Melo, the natural resources coordinator in the neighboring municipality of Cabo de Santo Agostinho, told Tierramérica.

But nearby cities are suffering the effects of air pollution, the thousands of buses and trucks clogging up highways and roads, and the sudden extreme rise in demand for transportation, sanitation, health care and housing, she noted.

Nevertheless, said Melo, if these impacts can be mitigated soon, "the future will be better for the local population."

* The author is an IPS correspondent. This story was originally published by Latin American newspapers that are part of the Tierramérica network. Tierramérica is a specialised news service produced by IPS with the backing of the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme and the World Bank. (END)

Dangerous animal attacks news
June 21.2011. ABC. Possible Animal Attack In Logan Township Investigated. The Pennsylvania Game Commission is investigating a report of an animal attack in Blair County this morning.

According to the game commission office in Huntingdon, a Logan Township police officer requested a game commission officer be dispatched to look into the incident. There is very little information being released at this time but it appears the call came into the 911 center a little after 6am. 

Initial information seems to point to a possible coyote attack on a woman. Logan Township officials are not releasing any information at this time but WRTA News has received confirmation from the game commission that there is an investigation underway.

June 17, 2011. ABC. A couple in Grain Valley, Mo., has each been charged with endangering the welfare of their infant son after their pet ferret ate seven of the child's fingers down to the knuckles.

Ryan and Carrie Waldo both pleaded not guilty to the charges in Jackson County Court Wednesday.

This incident is the most recent in a series of exotic pet attacks that have occurred in the past year. Others include a fatal bear attack in Ohio, a chimpanzee assault in Connecticut and the death of a 2-year old girl in Florida after her family's pet python squeezed her to death. 

Keeping exotic animals as pets is legal in nine states; 30 other states impose a few restrictions or require permits, according to The Associated Press. But some doctors believe exotic pets pose a serious threat to children in the home.

A 2008 report from the American Academy of Pediatrics found that exotic pets may be more prone than cats and dogs to do harm -- including biting, scratching or clawing -- to children under the age of 5. "Any wild animal not normally considered a domestic pet is a risk," said Dr. Lara Zibners, a pediatrician at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, who has treated children's pet wounds in the past.

Zibners said such pets pose two types of danger: infectious and traumatic. Animals that carry infectious diseases, such as ferrets, can pose a risk to children even if they do not come in direct contact with them.