THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MILL CREEK, Wash. — Fortunately for an Everett School District environmental education program, more than 18,000 salmon fry that were released or killed by vandals have been replaced by the state at no charge.

What’s harder to fix is the emotional impact of the crime.

“The fish are like my children because I raise them from eggs,” said Shelly Erickson, caretaker at the Lively Environmental Center, where the fish are kept. “It was horrific. It was awful.” Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BROOKFIELD, Ohio — An Ohio woman who had her 97-year-old mother and 200 animals taken from her filthy home has been prohibited from having pets for five years.

Fifty-nine-year-old Kathy Witzman of Gustavus Township in northeast Ohio’s Trumbull County was put on probation Thursday on her guilty plea to misdemeanor animal cruelty.

She says her pet ban will mean unwanted animals will go to a shelter that will kill them because it lacks room. The animal shelter in her area says it has no intention of doing that. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NAPLES, Fla. — Two dogs reportedly attacked a horse in southwest Florida and mauled it to death.

A Golden Gate Estates woman and a 15-year-old girl were riding horses Tuesday evening when a pit bull and a boxer started chasing the them. The teen’s horse threw her and ran off with the dogs following.

Authorities and the horse owners later found the runaway horse mauled to death, along with a huge amount of blood on the trail. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOWLING GREEN, Ohio — Frankie had no idea how close he came to the needle last week.

The black lab mix was one of three dogs on death row, who were given a second chance by the Wood County Humane Society.

Approximately once a month, staff from the humane society visits the Wood County Dog Shelter to see if they can save some canines. They time their visits on Thursday mornings — hours before the weekly euthanasias at the shelter. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FRONT ROYAL, Va. — A Virginia man is facing an animal cruelty charge after police say he skinned a guinea pig and made a head ornament out of it.

Animal control officer Gerald L. Cubbage says 40-year-old Charles Woodson of Front Royal bought the guinea pig at a pet store in February. Neighbors later saw him wearing its hide on his head.

Warren County Deputy Laura L. Gomez said police seized a guinea pig hide including its head from Woodson’s home. They also have a photograph of Woodson wearing the hide. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Authorities say nearly 2,000 hens and roosters have been confiscated from a two-block area in Los Angeles as part of an ongoing cockfighting investigation.

Los Angeles police Officer Cleon Joseph says officers and animal services workers spent ten hours Wednesday removing the birds from the rural area of residential trailers and ranch-style homes in the Sylmar area.

Items used for cockfighting were also seized. Read the rest of this entry →

THE WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON — The idea was for the National Zoo to establish a captive colony of endangered Virginia big-eared bats, to shield them from a deadly epidemic and ensure that there would be survivors should the wild population be destroyed.

But five months after the project began, most of the bats in the colony are dead, and a consultant hired by the zoo says it mishandled the animals and disregarded advice she gave that might have saved them.

“Mishandling of the bats resulted in broken fingers, soiled fur, skin infections … bruised legs … anorexia, capture myopathy and death,” the consultant, Missy Singleton, wrote in a report last December. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES — Bob Barker has donated $2.5 million to help the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals open a new location in Los Angeles.

The retired game show host and spay and neuter champion will cut the ribbon Wednesday at the Bob Barker Building on Sunset Boulevard and Alvarado Street.

PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk says Barker could have just given the group a refrigerator but instead he paid for an entire building to be renovated. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) — An animal protection agency that gave its officers badges and guns, but never investigated a single incident of pet abuse has agreed to dissolve under pressure from state officials.

On paper, the Yonkers Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals looked like one of New York’s most formidable anti-abuse agencies.

Last year it had 16 officers authorized by the state to conduct searches and make arrests — a roster of lawmen almost as large as the one at the better-known American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in neighboring New York City. Read the rest of this entry →

(Arkansas Democrat-Gazette file photo)

THE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A Judsonia man is challenging the constitutionality of a year-old animal-cruelty law that makes the ownership of fighting chickens a felony.

Jerry Myers is worried that his hobby will get him arrested, his attorney, John Ogles, said. Myers raises chickens that are typically used in cockfighting, Ogles said, although the attorney wasn’t immediately able to describe the particular breedMyers favors.

“These aren’t Tyson chickens,” the attorney said. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ROMANCE, Ark. — White County authorities say a man apparently killed himself after firefighters battling a grass blaze stumbled across an illegal dog-fighting ring and investigators found an indoor marijuana-growing operation on property where he lived.

William R. Stewart, 62, was seen outside his rural home by volunteer firefighters as they fought the flames Thursday. But he was later found inside the home, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, according to White County Detective Phillip Miller.

Also found in the home after investigators broke through a locked door, Miller said, were 38 firearms — 22 rifles and 16 handguns. Many of the weapons were strategically placed, Miller said, with one by each window and exterior door of the house, including a bathroom window. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BOSTON — The Massachusetts House has voted overwhelmingly to ban the surgical “debarking” or silencing of dogs or cats.

By a 150-1 vote, the House on Wednesday approved the bill with prohibits the devocalization of dogs and cats unless a licensed veterinarian certifies that the procedure is medically necessary to relieve an illness, disease or injury.

Animal rights groups pushed for the bill, saying the practice amounts to animal cruelty and poses only risks to the pets.

Some dog owners opt for the procedure as a last ditch effort to try to quiet chronically barking dogs.

The bill now heads to the Senate.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CANTON, Texas — A judge has granted custody of more than 60 starving longhorn cattle to the SPCA in McKinney.

An attorney for the owner of the cattle said Tuesday’s decision will be appealed.

Van Zandt County Justice of the Peace Ronnie Daniell says the animals were “unreasonably deprived of food.” Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston’s Municipal Beautification Commission says it won’t oppose a request from People for the Ethical Treatment Animals to display a statue of a shackled, weeping elephant in the city.

But there are conditions.

The animal rights group has put the 4 1/2-foot fiberglass statue in cities around the country to protest what it calls animal cruelty in circuses. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SARASOTA, Fla. — Marine researchers untangled a young dolphin from a web of plastic, and now the animal is swimming freely in Sarasota Bay.

A team of scientists from Mote Marine Laboratory’s Dolphin Research Program captured the calf on Monday. The plastic was wound around the baby’s body between her blow hole and pectoral fin.

The entangled calf was found on Feb. 19 during the staff’s survey of the dolphin population. Scientists said they couldn’t capture the animal because she and her mother were in deep, rough waters. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Pamela Anderson sent a letter Saturday to Canada’s prime minister requesting an end to the country’s annual seal hunt.

The Canadian actress and spokeswoman for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dropped the letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in a mailbox in front of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans office.

Anderson called the hunt “an embarrassment to Canada” at a news conference, saying she made the appeal during the Winter Olympic Games here because “the whole world is watching Canada.” Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

ORLANDO, Florida — Rocky, a 700-pound grizzly considered one of the most gentle animals of all Hollywood’s performing beasts, bites down on the neck of a veteran trainer. Illusionist Roy Horn is severely mauled by a show tiger during a Las Vegas performance. An elephant at an Indonesian tourist resort tramples its longtime handler to death.

And now the latest — a 40-year-old trainer at SeaWorld Orlando is drowned by a killer whale named Tilikum, an incident that raises anew the question of whether some beasts, especially the biggest ones, have any business being tamed to entertain.

Descriptions of Tilikum, the 22-foot orca which has now killed two trainers, inevitably come around to his intimidating size. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

RUPERT, Idaho (AP) — The legal notice has been given: Pete the pup goes up for auction Tuesday.

The dachshund taken to the Rupert Animal Clinic in January after being hit by a car has recovered, but clinic officials say Pete’s owners haven’t responded to multiple calls to pick up their dog and pay the $400 bill.

So the clinic posted a legal notice in The Times-News that Pete will be put up for sale. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FENNER, N.Y. — About 50 to 60 cattle were trapped inside a dairy barn in the upstate New York town of Fenner after the structure’s roof partially collapsed under the weight of heavy snow.

Volunteer firefighters and neighbors worked to shovel the snow off the collapsed part of the barn to free the animals on Saturday and to assess the damage.

Smithfield Fire Chief Mark Bradbury said some cattle died in the 4:45 p.m. collapse at the Stone Brothers Farm and Greenhouse. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW ORLEANS — The Louisiana SPCA says a 16-year-old has been booked with aggravated animal cruelty for allegedly kicking a cat to death.

Spokeswoman Katherine LeBlanc said Friday that the youth’s family was staying with a relative who called the SPCA Feb. 3. LeBlanc says the woman told investigators the teen repeatedly kicked her cat Tigger into the air like a ball on Jan. 10, ignoring her attempts to stop him.

She took Tigger to a veterinarian Jan. 13. After two weeks of outpatient treatment, the cat died during surgery Jan. 27. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

SAN DIEGO — A man who allegedly choked his Labrador retriever puppy as punishment for biting has pleaded not guilty to one count of felony animal cruelty.

The 10-week-old dog, named Coco, died several hours before 50-year-old David Hale Warner appeared in court on Friday.

Warner’s bail was set at $35,000 and his next hearing was scheduled March 9. Read the rest of this entry →

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PIKE CITY, Ark. — Three cows made themselves at home in Latisha Francis’ Pike County house and she can attest that they are terribly clumsy guests.

Francis got a hint of the trouble when she drove up to her home in the rural Pike City community and saw a cow looking out of her front door. That was the only cow that showed any manners; it walked into the yard on its own.

Inside, there was an exhausted cow that collapsed on the living room floor and another in the master bedroom. Read the rest of this entry →