SAD, SAD STORY...NOT THEIR FAULT
The animals did not "run amok" but were gunned down, and the Grizzly was not free as of today, but had been killed last evening.  Wolf (r) and monkey still at large.


Cheetah well-known scene-thief
Cheetah, Chimpanzee in ‘Tarzan’ Movies, Has Died
NYTIMES
By DAVE ITZKOFF

Colorado kitty in New York after 5-year, cross-country trip
NYPOST
By CYNTHIA R. FAGEN
Last Updated: 8:32 AM, September 15, 2011
Posted: 2:12 AM, September 15, 2011

What a tail this cat could tell!

An adventurous feline named Willow wandered away from her home in Boulder, Colo., nearly five years ago - and mystreriously turned up on a to light when she was discovered Saturday prowling the streets around Gramercy Park.

“We got a call asking us if we had a cat named Willow, and we thought that was pretty strange, since we thought Willow might have been eaten by coyotes,” her jubilant owner, Jamie Squires, 37, told The Post.

“We’ll never know what happened,” added Squires, a photographer who is married with three children.

“Now, we just want to get her home. I can’t tell you how thrilled we are.’’

Squires marveled that back in Colorado, Willow had been anything but adventurous.

“She was a house cat, and probably got out during renovations,’’ Squires said. “We have mountain lions and bears, so she’ll be glad to be back inside. And she’s going to stay inside.’’

Does Squires believe that her country cat has turned sophisticated city kitty and will miss the bright lights of Broadway?

“I’m sure she’ll be glad not to be around buses and cars,’’ Squires said.

Willow was picked up by a good Samaritan who took her to Animal Care and Control, which found the owners because the cat had an ID-chip implant.  Squires’ kids, Shelby, 17, Jack, 10, and Lola, 3, are already making plans for a reunion celebration, although Lola is too young to have met Willow.  Coincidentally, the Squires family had been in the Big Apple as recently as March.

“My daughter said, ‘Mommy, we were there when Willow was there.’ If only this cat could write a book.’’

Willow’s imminent return will go a long way toward cheering up the family, whose other cat died three months ago.

“This is a strange blessing,” said Squires.

Willow’s strange journey apparently left her none the worse for wear. In fact, she’s gained a few pounds.  Willow still has a few more miles to go, but this time, it will be in the comfort of an airplane.  The cat will have to spend two weeks in foster care here until she is issued a certificate of health.

Loose bull won't be fenced in
CT POST
Frank Juliano, Staff Writer
Updated 07:45 a.m., Tuesday, October 11, 2011

MILFORD -- If the 700-pound steer on the loose here since July had a theme song, it would be "Don't Fence Me In."

Animal control officials said Monday the animal, which escaped from a farm on the West Haven-Orange line and is now hunkered down in a clearing off Milford Point Road, has bashed through the steel fencing meant to contain it.

"It's a very powerful young animal, and it's been banging its way out," said Rick George, the city's animal control director. "So far the fencing has not been successful and next week we may have to go to Plan B: sedation."

Kathleen Schurman, owner of the Locket's Meadow animal sanctuary in Bethany, said the steer isn't busting through the fence as much as knocking through it. "It's steel, nothing is going through. But there are metal rods and pins connecting the sections and by repeatedly ramming it, he has popped them.''

The need to corral the errant steer grows as the nights get colder, George and Schurman said. The animal has been grazing on the lush foliage and was even seen sharing a stand of greens with a deer, but that vegetation is beginning to die off.

"He could starve if we don't get him out of there,'' Schurman said. "And when he gets hungry, he'll get cranky. Cows are very aggressive feeders and it'll take food wherever it can find it."

Large-animal veterinarians said that steers can be temperamental and can grow quickly in size. Right now, the animal that George has nicknamed "Waldo'' and others here are calling "Ferdinand'' after the gentle bull in a children's book, seems gentle enough. 

The male calf had earlier been described as a bull, but George and Schurman said that the animal had been castrated. "It was being raised for food,'' Schurman said. "They were going to kill it and eat it. Animals seem to sense when they are in that kind of trouble, and it has worked very hard to be OK. So whatever happens, it won't be slaughtered. It deserves better than that.''

The farm that it escaped from does not want the steer back, George said. It is possible that once the animal is captured, the city could seek to collect its costs from the owner, he said.

George said if the steer has to be sedated, it is likely that several men will have to carry it from the clearing where it spent much of the summer. "We may be able to back up a tow truck and pull it out, too; we won't know until we get in there," he said.

Schurman said an electric fence would contain the steer, but one isn't available at the moment. Waldo, or Ferdinand, or whatever its name is, won't be joining the menagerie at Locket's Meadow, she said. Her Bethany farm is already home to horses, pigs and cows marked for slaughter.

"I am going to call some other sanctuaries I know of; hopefully, one of them will have an opening," Schurman said.

George agreed that the rescued steer will need a lot of land to roam. "It's very exuberant, and an escape artist besides,'' he said.

Warning issued for missing Connecticut cow
New London DAY
Associated Press
Article published Jul 15, 2011

ORANGE, Conn. (AP) — Animal Control officials say a cow missing in near the Orange-West Haven city line could be a bit dangerous.

Animal Control Officer Rick George tells the New Haven Register that the 400-pound animal, which fled from a farm on Prindle Hill Road, is a "runner and a jumper" and could cause problems if it is approached.

He notes that a cow can jump up to 7 feet in the air.

He also worries the cow could run into a congested area of the city if approached.

The cow was last seen Tuesday night near Gulf Pond.

Cows, bull go on the lam in Ledyard after making a break from Sunset Farm
By Izaskun E. Larrañeta Day Staff Writer
Article published Jun 22, 2011

Ledyard - Andrea Trout didn't almost have a cow Tuesday - she had 10 in her yard. Along with a bull.

Trout, who recently moved to her home at 118 Lambtown Road from Groton, said she did a double-take when she saw the small herd of cattle wandering down the road and into her yard, where they began feasting on her grass.

Trout called 911. The dispatcher asked if she could contain the 11 beasts.

"I do have some farm experience, but there was a bull and I didn't know its temperament, and there were some calves, so I didn't want to get too close," she said.

In their defense, Trout said, the beef cows were fairly well-mannered and didn't destroy her lawn, though some took the opportunity to lick her car.

They eventually left her yard and moseyed down Lambtown Road. When he arrived at the scene, Ledyard police Sgt. Mike Ravenelle said, the cows were munching on some shrubs before they made their way down a long dirt path to another yard .

"I was working on some criminal work," Ravenelle quipped, "and now I'm dealing with this."

Liz Barber, who was a passenger in a vehicle on Lambtown Road Tuesday, said it's not uncommon to see animals on the loose. "I live down the road, so this is normal," she said. "This is Ledyard. We deal with cows, wild turkeys on the road all time."

Still, Barber said, she found the sight of the cattle wandering down the road quite amusing. The cows eventually trekked over to Laurel Wiers' back yard at 126R Lambtown Road.

"My dad called me and told me that cows were heading toward my house, and sure enough when I looked outside they were in my yard," said Wiers. "They were eating my grass and I thought, 'My husband isn't going to like this.' But, you know, they were really good."

The cattle didn't stay on Wiers' property very long. Ron Lewis of North Stonington, with a bucket of grain in his hand, had come to fetch the wayward herd. "Come on, girl," he called from a distance. The cows quickly turned in his direction.

Lewis, owner of Sunset Farm on Colonel Ledyard Highway, figured the animals must have gotten spooked and gone right through an electric fence.  Their brief encounter with freedom over, the herd sauntered down the road with their eyes fixed on the bucket of grain in Lewis' hand. They cut through the woods on Lambtown Road and were soon safely led back to their pen.

Panel members split over deficit plan
Retirement-age raise; gas-tax hike proposed in sweeping package
By Robert Schroeder, MarketWatch

File photo of female moose (l);  at right, in the Iditarod 2009, eventual winner Lance Mackey attempts (successfully) to persuade moose to vacate trail for team.

By Imogen Foulkes, BBC News

A nationwide referendum is taking place in Switzerland on a proposal to give animals the constitutional right to be represented in court.

Animal rights groups say appointing state-funded animal lawyers would ensure animal welfare laws are upheld, and help prevent cases of cruelty.

Opponents say Switzerland does not need more legislation regarding animal protection.

The Swiss government has recommended that voters reject the idea.

There is already one animal lawyer in Switzerland.

Zurich has made legal representation for animals in cruelty cases compulsory since 1992.

The current incumbent is Antoine Goetschel. He has gone to court on behalf dogs, cats, cows, sheep, and even a fish.

Animal 'minority'

He believes speaking up for those who cannot speak for themselves is the essence of justice.

"For me the animals are one of the weakest parts in society and they need to be better protected.

"So, it's kind of a fight for a minority that needs to be supported. And to make legislation more respectful towards humans and animals as a whole."

But Switzerland has very strict animal welfare laws, and the Swiss government, conscious that the taxpayer would have to pay the fees for a nationwide system of animal lawyers, has recommended voters reject the idea.

And there is opposition from Switzerland's powerful farming lobby.

Struggling with reduced subsidies and falling milk prices, Swiss farmers say animal lawyers would simply add another layer of bureaucracy to a system already overburdened with animal protection legislation.

Watch out for crazed Central Pk. raccoons!

By ED ROBINSON and HELEN FREUND
Last Updated: 6:26 AM, December 8, 2009
Posted: 2:54 AM, December 8, 2009

Some masked troublemakers are causing big concerns in Central Park -- three rabid raccoons have been found there in the past few months.  Two of the raccoons were discovered last week, causing the city Health Department to issue a warning.

"Protect yourself, avoid interaction with them," said the department's rabies expert, Dr. Sally Slavinsky.

"If an animal looks sick or has trouble walking, then you should tell a park employee or call 311."

If an animal attacks, you should call 911 and seek medical attention, authorities said.  Rabid raccoons are commonly found in Staten Island and The Bronx, but they're rarely seen in Manhattan.

It wasn't known how one found its way into the park to infect other animals, but Slavinsky said, "It's very possible that it might have been dropped off."

It takes several weeks for an animal carrying rabies to exhibit symptoms, and the person who left the animal in Central Park might not have realized the raccoon was infected.  Rabies is a viral disease spread by bites and scratches. It can be fatal if not treated promptly.  There have been no human cases of rabies in the city since 1953.

City residents are being warned not to touch or feed wild animals, including stray cats and dogs, and to stay away from any aggressive or sick animals, as well as creatures who appear unusually friendly.  Skunks and bats have also been known to carry rabies. Pet owners are being told to not leave their animals outdoors and to use a leash.  Vaccinations should also be kept up to date.

The news spooked some parkgoers.

"Those animals are pretty nasty," said Maxi Kaulisch, who works across the street at The Plaza hotel. "As a jogger, that is something I would be very worried about."

Carriage driver Colm Glennon, who works at night, jokingly referred to himself as a "raccoon expert."

"I've worked in this park for 20 years, and the raccoons have never bothered me," he said.

"However, I wouldn't corner them or go too close because then they would probably attack you, and it would be ugly."

By Jyotsna Singh, BBC News, Delhi

The find has been likened to the discovery of a treasure trove

Geologists in southern India say they have found hundreds of dinosaur egg clusters which could be about 65 million years old.

It was a chance find discovered when a team of scientists were locating a place to excavate an ancient riverbed in the state of Tamil Nadu.

As they dug deeper they saw layers of what looked like fossilised eggs.

The photos and samples were then sent to various universities who confirmed that they were dinosaur eggs.

Each egg is the size of a football - about 13 to 23cm in diameter, lying buried in sandy nests.

The leader of the team, MU Ramkumar, told the BBC the finding is significant and could help to unravel the mystery about the extinction of dinosaurs.

'Infertile'

"The important finding is that these eggs have been found in different layers that means the dinosaurs came to the place over and over year after year," he said.

Sauropods are renowned for their size

"The second important thing is that we have got volcanic ash deposits on the eggs which suggests that volcanic activity could have caused their extinction.

"The other thing we have found is that all these eggs are unhatched and infertile. So what made the eggs infertile? We need to carry out further studies to learn more from the findings."

Scientists believe the eggs belong to the docile leaf-eating Sauropod branch of dinosaurs. Their remains have been dug up on every continent, including Antarctica.

Palaeontologists use the term to describe large, four-legged, plant-eating dinosaurs with bulky bodies, long necks and tails and tiny heads with relatively small brains.

Dr Ramkumar and his team have called on the central and state governments to protect what they are calling a "Jurassic treasure trove".

The presence of dinosaur eggs was first recorded in the same district by a British geologist in the 1860s. In the 1990s a dinosaur egg was found in a government-owned factory in the state.

Private zoo on Greenwich-Stamford border seeks to reassure public

Humans project their own emotions onto dogs, researchers found

25 November 2010 Last updated at 00:38 ET
Alaska polar bears given 'critical habitat'

The US has designated a "critical habitat" for polar bears living on Alaska's disappearing sea ice.

The area - twice the size of the United Kingdom - has been set aside to help stave off the danger of extinction, the US Fish and Wildlife Service said.

The territory includes locations where oil and gas companies want to drill.

Environmentalists hope the designation will make it more difficult for companies to get permits to operate in the region.

"This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations," said Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks.

Any proposed economic activity in the area, which covers 187,000 sq miles (almost 500,000 sq km) must now be weighed against its impact on the polar bear population, Mr Strickland said in a statement.

Most of the designated habitat is sea ice and includes some of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, where the oil company Shell wants to drill.

Shell was due to start drilling in the Arctic earlier this year, until the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico brought the plans to a temporary halt. It is now aiming to start drilling in 2011.

Environmentalists welcomed the move.

"Now we need the Obama administration to actually make it mean something so we can write the bear's recovery plan - not its obituary," said Kassie Siegel from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Ms Siegel urged the US government to impose a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in bear habitat areas.

Environmentalists also want the polar bear to be listed as an endangered species. Currently the US interior department describes them as "threatened" or likely to become endangered because the sea ice on which they live and hunt is melting.

By Jody Bourton , Earth News reporter

Arctic waters are at best chilly and at worst close to freezing.

Which may explain why a polar bear cub has recently been seen riding on the back of its mother as the bears swim across parts of the Arctic Ocean.

The cub then briefly rode her back as she clambered out of the ice, a unique event photographed by a tourist.

Experts have rarely seen the behaviour, and they say the latest find suggests it may be a more common practice than previously thought.

Dr Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromso describes what happened in the journal Polar Biology.

On the 21 July 2006, Mrs Angela Plumb, a tourist from the UK, was aboard a ship in the mouth of a fjord in the Svalbard archipelago.

I would imagine a big benefit is the ride is faster Professor Andrew Derocher from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

Holidaying in the wildlife hotspot of Duvefjorden, Nordaustlandet, Mrs Plumb spotted the mother bear with a seven-month-old cub hitching a ride on her back.

"The cub was on the back of the polar bear when it was in the water, then it got out of the water and stayed on its mother's back a little, then she shook it off," Mrs Plumb explains.

For large parts of the year, polar bears (Ursus maritimus) live among the sea ice, feeding mainly on seals.

The challenge for the bears is to navigate the many areas of open water between the islands of floating ice.

Seeing the bear had a radio collar, Mrs Plumb got in touch with Dr Aars to report her sighting and asked if this was a common behaviour.

"I hadn't seen this behaviour before or heard about it so I asked other researchers and found out it is something that has been observed but not frequently at all," Dr Aars says.

Out of the cold

Cubs are known to ride their mother's back when moving through deep snow as they leave their den areas.

Cubs of other bear species such as the sloth bear also ride on their parents.

However, the the extent to which polar bear cubs hitch a ride on swimming adults in open water is unknown.

Dr Aars was especially interested if this behaviour might have some adaptive value for the bears.

"This could be potentially important because it means that the cubs get exposed to less water. If they are in the water they would have to swim and very small cubs are very badly insulated in water," he says.

Adults are well adapted to swimming in the cold water with insulating subcutaneous fat and and large body mass.

However, young bears have very little insulating fat, as they do not develop brown fat stores until adulthood. Their fur coat also loses most of its insulating properties if immersed in ice water.

Dr Aars suggests staying out of the water could be vital for the cub's ability to survive in habitats where sea ice is scattered across open ocean.

Speedy transport

Another reason for the behaviour could be that it aids the mother's mobility in the water.

"I would imagine a big benefit is the ride is faster, an adult female polar bear is a strong swimmer, cubs of this size are much slower and time in water is time lost hunting," suggests Professor Andrew Derocher from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada.

"The mother would rather put her time into gaining more food by reaching good habitat rather than swimming and using energy," he explains.

The scientists are interested to find out if this behaviour might be a regular occurrence within the polar bear population.

"It's important to remember the vast areas it may happen in. It has not been observed that much, but it could be more common than we think," says Dr Aars.

Prof Derocher also wonders if the people who share the bears' habitat might be able to help unravel this behaviour.

"It would be interesting to hear if Inuit have seen this behaviour, I'm always very impressed that our observations match what local people have seen before, but they don't tell you about them unless you ask."

At 10 years old, Stump the Sussex spaniel should be well into his dotage. Instead, the dog who technically retired four years ago took home Best in Show on Tuesday at the 133rd Annual Westminster Kennel Club show at Madison Square Garden, becoming the oldest to win the award...

It was the first time that a Sussex spaniel won the top prize, although the breed, which originated as a hunting companion in England, was among the first to be recognized by the American Kennel Club.

Judge Sari Brewster Tietjen said she made her decision at the last minute.

“I didn’t know who he was or how old he was,” Tietjen said. “He’s just everything that you’d want in the breed, and I couldn’t say no to him."

Stump won the sporting group at Westminster in 2004, but in early 2005 fell seriously ill with an undetermined sickness...

Study Finds Decline of Honeybee Colonies Slowing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:43 p.m. ET

CT musher minus snow - woof!!!

A team of dogs, one sled and a bundle of energy
Becki Tucker's sled-dog passion keeps her moving

The exterminator Tom Rasberry, with his namesake “crazy Rasberry ants,” in Deer Park, Texas. (Photo: David J. Phillip/Associated Press)

As recently as Wednesday, all was well in Houston, at least according to the papers. But today, a story resembling “a really low-budget horror film” is playing out there, with billions of monsters (tiny ones) spreading in a “crazy” (or astonishingly organized) way with a killer instinct (for other ants, and oddly, for electronic equipment).

Two spine-tingling reports, from The Houston Chronicle and The Associated Press, leave no gory detail unarticulated about the city’s suddenly immense problem with ants.

Rasberry ants, to be specific — a swarming, voracious type of small red-brown ant named for an exterminator with enough experience to play the world-weary veteran in this flick. Tom Rasberry (whose name is one letter short of the red fruit) faced this particular ant menace in Pasadena, Texas, back in 2002, and learned that the pesky things had no problem existing in an ant apocalypse of sorts:

Rasberry said he treated a half-acre plot with insecticide, returning months later to find the area covered thickly with two inches of dead ants. Living insects teemed on the top layer of insect corpses.

No one seems able to say for sure how the Rasberry ant — which the A.P. says is formally known as paratrenicha species near pubens — reached Houston, though the A.P. mentions the possibility of a ride on a cargo ship. However it got there, the species is evidently in town to stay.

While the local exterminators seek stronger poisons and the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency brainstorm ideas for controlling the ants, an entomologist at Texas A&M University doubted that humans could win. ‘’At this point, it would be nearly impossible to eradicate the ant, because it is so widely dispersed,'’ Roger Gold told the A.P.

If true, that means Houston residents will have to get used to regular extermination calls (nothing new for New York City apartment dwellers) as well as ant sabotage of electrical and electronic devices. For obscure reasons, the insects chew up the wiring inside things like pool pumps, computers, gas meters and fire alarms when they get inside them. Even the Johnson Space Center and Hobby Airport are on the lookout after signs of a Rasberry ant advance.

Though the individual ants seem to wander aimlessly (that’s what “crazy” refers to), as a group their advance can be shockingly efficient, as scientists found out when they studied Biosphere 2, the life-in-a-bubble project that captured imaginations at the end of the 20th century. Here’s a description from a New York Times article in 1996:

Swarms of them crawled over everything in sight: thick foliage, damp pathways littered with dead leaves and even a bearded ecologist in the humid rain forest of Biosphere 2, an eight-story, glass-and-steel world in the wilds of the Sonora Desert that cost $200 million to build.

As the would-be Eden turned into a nightmare, a cousin of the rasberry known as the “crazy ant” thrived, even though it was never intentionally allowed into the ecosystem. A 1999 study [pdf] offered a timeline:

In 1990-91, surveys in Biosphere 2 found no one ant species dominant. By 1993, populations of the crazy ant, Paratrechina longicornis (Latreille), a tramp species not found in 1990-91, had increased to extremely high levels. In 1996, virtually all ants (>99.9%) coming to bait were P. longicornis.

Against all the odds, therein lies the good news (of sorts) for Houston: If the Rasberry ants succeed as well as their cousins did in Biosphere 2, they will wipe out the city’s population of fire ants, or as the A.P. calls them, “the stinging red terrors of Texas summers.”

While the new ants will also bite humans, it reportedly doesn’t hurt nearly as much as a fire ant bite. So, despite the scary headlines, the crazy Rasberry may wind up being an unlikely hero — or at least, the lesser of two evil ants.

V O T  E   ' Y E S '   O N    S H E L T E R - W O O F ! ! !  (How does "Leona's Place" sound for a catchy name for it?)
Leona Helmsley prefers "Trouble" to human members of her family.  Her will has the last laugh on uncharitable relatives.

Helmsley’s Fortune May Go to Benefit Dogs
NYTIMES
By STEPHANIE STROM
Published: July 2, 2008
Sure, the hotelier and real estate magnate Leona Helmsley left $12 million in her will to her dog, Trouble. But that, it turns out, is nothing much compared with what other dogs may receive from the charitable trust of Mrs. Helmsley, who died last August.

Her instructions, specified in a two-page “mission statement,” are that the entire trust, valued at $5 billion to $8 billion and amounting to virtually all her estate, be used for the care and welfare of dogs, according to two people who have seen the document and who described it on condition of anonymity.

It is by no means clear, however, that all the money will go to dogs. Another provision of the mission statement says Mrs. Helmsley’s trustees may use their discretion in distributing the money, and some lawyers say the statement may not mean much anyway, given that its directions were not incorporated into Mrs. Helmsley’s will or the trust documents.

“The statement is an expression of her wishes that is not necessarily legally binding,” said William Josephson, a lawyer who was the chief of the Charities Bureau in the New York State attorney general’s office from 1999 to 2004.

Still, longstanding laws favor adherence to a donor’s intent, and the mission statement is the only clear expression of Mrs. Helmsley’s charitable intentions. That will make the document difficult for her trustees, as well as the probate court and state charity regulators, to ignore.

The two people who described the statement said Mrs. Helmsley signed it in 2003 to establish goals for the multibillion-dollar trust that would disburse assets after her death.

The first goal was to help indigent people, the second to provide for the care and welfare of dogs. A year later, they said, she deleted the first goal.

Howard J. Rubenstein, a spokesman for the executors of Mrs. Helmsley’s estate, said they did not want to comment on the statement because they were still working to determine the trust’s direction.

Mrs. Helmsley, the widow of Harry B. Helmsley, who built a real estate empire in Manhattan, was best known for her sharp tongue and impatience with humanity. She became a household name when she was featured in glossy advertisements for the Helmsley hotels. “It’s the only palace in the world where the queen stands guard,” advertisements for the Helmsley Palace proclaimed.

But for many Americans, she later became a symbol of unbridled arrogance and belief in entitlement, particularly after she was convicted in 1989 of $1.2 million in federal income tax evasion, for which she was sent to prison. She was the subject of a 1990 television film, “Leona Helmsley: The Queen of Mean,” with Suzanne Pleshette in the title role, and at least three books.

When she died last year at 87, she left all but a few million dollars of her vast estate to what will become one of the nation’s dozen largest foundations when the probate process is finished. She had $2.3 billion in liquid assets when she died, according to the probate petition, and the disposal of her real estate holdings is expected to produce an additional $3 billion to $6 billion.

Even if the resulting total is at the low end of the estimate — $5 billion or so — the trust will be worth almost 10 times the combined assets of all 7,381 animal-related nonprofit groups reporting to the Internal Revenue Service in 2005.

The five executors of her will — Mrs. Helmsley’s brother, Alvin Rosenthal; two of her grandsons, Walter and David Panzirer; her lawyer, Sandor Frankel; and her longtime friend John Codey — have been preoccupied with disposing of the real estate.

They are also the trustees of the Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust and, according to the two people who discussed the mission statement, have fretted about the public outcry that disclosure of its terms might incite.

They have reason for concern: News last year that the biggest named beneficiary in Mrs. Helmsley’s will was Trouble, her Maltese, led to death threats against the dog, which now requires security costing $100,000 a year. But they also cannot sit on the liquid assets much longer without raising questions from the attorney general’s office, which oversees the use of charitable assets in New York State.

The trustees recently hired a philanthropic advisory service to help them figure out a way to remain true to Mrs. Helmsley’s intentions while at the same time pursuing broader charitable goals with her foundation.

Judge Renee R. Roth of Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan will also play a role. She has already demonstrated a willingness to be flexible, cutting the size of Trouble’s trust fund to $2 million, from the $12 million prescribed in Mrs. Helmsley’s will, and ordering that the difference be added to the pending charitable trust.

Judge Roth also agreed to a settlement between the trustees and two of Mrs. Helmsley’s grandchildren who were explicitly left out of her will. The agreement gave those grandchildren $6 million each.

There are many ways the trustees could spend the Helmsley money on dogs. National groups like the Humane Society and the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals have programs dedicated to dogs, and many smaller local groups rescue abandoned and abused dogs.

Or the trustees could use the trust’s money to finance veterinary schools or research on canine diseases.

Her goal of helping dogs was not Mrs. Helmsley’s only posthumous quirk. In her will, she ordered that her tomb, in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Sleepy Hollow, N.Y., be “acid-washed or steam-cleaned” once a year.

She also made two grandchildren’s combined $10 million inheritance contingent on their visiting their father’s grave, requiring that a registration book be placed in the mausoleum to prove that they had shown up.

In the spirit of one-ness with Cha-Cha and the dogs on Aliy Zirkle's team, a link to the New London DAY series re: Animal Control, regionalism - check it out!  http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=de532527-29f8-4d62-824b-c8f2c22c56df

A Seoul National University panel said it believed that Hwang Woo-suk never had the data he said he had. Dr Hwang quit last week after the panel said some research was fabricated. Correspondents say the finding is important as individually-tailored stem cells were seen as a key to treating diseases like diabetes and Alzheimers...

Herpes Infection Strikes UConn's Horse Herd;   Whole Herd Placed In Quarantine
By GRACE E. MERRITT, Courant Staff Writer
January 10, 2007

STORRS -- There's a herpes outbreak at the University of Connecticut, but you don't need to worry unless you're a horse.

The state Department of Agriculture, together with the university, has quarantined the university's horse herd until the equine herpes virus infection runs its course.

The virus, a respiratory disease, cannot be spread to humans and poses no human health risk, but it will put a crimp in the polo team's schedule and equine management classes this spring. The quarantine will last for several weeks, said Mary Jane Lis, state veterinarian with the state Department of Agriculture.

Lis imposed the quarantine Monday after several horses tested positive for the relatively common disease.

"It is quite contagious from horse to horse. We don't want to move them around where they could spread the infection," said Sandy Bushmich, a veterinarian and associate professor of pathobiology and veterinary science at UConn.

The 72-horse herd, stabled mostly in two barns on the pastoral Horsebarn Hill area on campus, normally come in contact with other horses during polo matches, shows and other events. The infection can be spread from horse to horse or through contaminated equipment.

"It's like a cold. It's spread through respiratory secretions," UConn spokeswoman Karen Grava said Tuesday.

The disease usually affects young horses and causes respiratory complications, similar to a bad cold. But the infection can also cause abortion in pregnant mares as well as neurological diseases, Bushmich said.

In the meantime, the university has been regularly sanitizing the stables and has postponed student coursework involving horses, such as equine or breeding management. The polo teams, which were scheduled to begin their season with a match against Michigan State on Jan. 26, will have a truncated season. The state Department of Agriculture has also postponed a planned Jan. 20 sale of rescued horses at the polo arena and will reschedule once the herd is released from quarantine.

Outbreaks of the virus have occurred in at least 10 states in the past three years.

HARTFORD — United Illuminating Co. refused Tuesday to suspend its program to eradicate monk parakeets from utility poles, and state officials said they are, for the moment, powerless to stop the killing. Lawmakers, power company officials and some bird advocates met for almost two hours at the Capitol to discuss the parakeet problem.

This month, they began capturing the birds and removing the nests. Under state law, the birds are handed over to the United States Department of Agriculture, which euthanizes them. Because the parakeets, native to South America, are considered an invasive species under state law, the USDA told lawmakers an executive order requires they be killed.

"We cannot at the moment, stop what is happening," said state Rep. Richard Roy, D-Milford, the chairman of the legislature's Environment Committee. "We have learned where we have to work, where we have to go." Over 130 of the green and gray pigeon-sized birds have been captured since the program began two weeks ago.

UI estimated it would take six weeks to remove the 103 monk parakeet nests from poles in West Haven, Milford, Stratford and Bridgeport. The nests can each weigh more than 200 pounds and hold more than 40 parakeets. Dwight Smith, a bird expert at Southern Connecticut State University, said he told lawmakers and power officials that killing the birds won't work.

An eradication program was tried 30 years ago, and the birds just came back, he said.

"So why can't we come up with a different solution?" he asked.

The Humane Society of the United States and others have asked UI to take down the nests without killing the birds, then send out crews to dismantle them when the birds try to rebuild. The birds, they said, will eventually learn to build elsewhere. Al Carbone, a UI spokesman, said the company will look at the costs of such a maintenance program, but he did not promise one.

"We are going to continue to remove the nests as we have already planned," he said. The pigeon-sized monk parakeets, natives of South America, were imported into the United States by the thousands in the 1960s. Birds that were accidentally or intentionally released by owners and breeders have established wild colonies in cities all over North America.

The public, including the Norwalk-based environmental group Friends of Animals, were kept out of the meeting. The group's president, Priscilla Feral, accused lawmakers of knuckling under to the power company.

A group of Moose Pass residents and state and national conservation organizations sued the U.S. Forest Service on Tuesday to stop the expansion of helicopter-assisted skiing and snowboarding in the mountainous Chugach National Forest south of Girdwood.   They contend the agency didn't fully analyze the economic, social and environmental impacts before it granted Chugach Powder Guides a five-year permit last fall. It would allow the Girdwood-based business to carry nearly twice as many clients every winter into an area 60 percent larger than in previous seasons.

The plaintiffs accept heli-skiing as a legitimate use in a national forest, said plaintiff Rick Smeriglio of Moose Pass. "Our beef is with the process," he said. "We want (the agency) to go back and do it right."

But the lawsuit came as no surprise to Chugach co-owner and business manager Chris Owens. Alaska's fledgling heli-ski industry has faced opposition virtually everywhere it lights, largely from local residents who don't want to hear the whop-whop-whop of rotor blades on a still winter day, or who fear that well-heeled skiers will shred their favorite secluded slope.

"This is where things tend to go if the public process doesn't go your way," Owens said.  Chugach Powder Guides has operated in the mountains around Girdwood since 1997 with a series of one-year permits from the Forest Service. The most recent, approved in 2003, allows it to carry 1,200
clients during the 10-week season and use about 160,000 acres of national forest land.

But to compete in the multibillion-dollar international heli-ski industry, Chugach wanted additional slopes in the backcountry farther south, plus highway-accessible landing zones.

"Alaska has a great reputation for heli-skiing," Owens said. It's becoming known as the "pinnacle of big mountain skiing. Alaska is what you aspire to achieve sometime in a ski career," he said.  "It also has a great reputation for having people sit on the ground," waiting for the weather to improve.

His company has worked around that by taking clients uphill in wide-track snow cats or having them ski at Alyeska Resort. But skiers and snowboarders who pay as much as $5,550 a week for an Alaska ski vacation really want helicopter access, he said, and the new five-year permit offers that.  It expands the company's ski terrain from 159,000 acres to more than 260,000 acres and opens miles of new runs, including many that have never been skied before, Owens said.

"The whole reason we want into this terrain is we need viable alternatives," he said. "We don't want to own the world. We want to have enough safe ski areas that when we have bad weather in one of these areas we have someplace else to go."  Several of the newly approved areas are considered tentative, and Chugach has only a one-year permit to use them. The Forest Service says it will monitor the impact this winter and determine later whether to extend the permit.

In addition, two areas are closed to helicopters for a portion of each week, which the Forest Service says will help ensure that other users can plan a quiet backcountry trip. The company must post all its flight plans on a daily hot line, which backcountry users can call to determine whether a certain valley will have helicopter traffic that day.

To mitigate the concerns of residents along the Seward Highway and other forest users, the permit requires Chugach to follow specific flight routes and fly at least 1,500 feet above ground level.  Helicopters cannot circle or harass wildlife and must honor no-fly zones around mountain goat and Dall sheep concentrations.  It took nearly five years to complete the environmental impact statement for the new permit, which Owens called full and complete.

The lawsuit takes issue with that. The five Moose Pass residents, along with the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society and the Alaska Quiet Rights Coalition, say the Forest Service's study doesn't fulfill the requirements in federal law. They want the agency to perform a new environmental impact statement, and in the meantime limit Chugach Powder Guides to its old territory.

Teresa Berwick, staff attorney for Trustees for Alaska, which is representing the plaintiffs, called the agency's study superficial.  "They don't know the actual number of sheep, goats or brown bears in the area, yet they come to the conclusion that heli-skiing won't have any impact," she said. The agency considered sound levels from the company's helicopters but not how it affects residents in the Moose Pass area.

"We just think the Forest Service didn't do its job," she said.  Forest Service spokeswoman Rebecca Talbott said Tuesday that the agency hadn't seen the lawsuit and couldn't respond to the charges. But she noted that agency officials reviewed the environmental impact statement closely before approving it and upheld it after it was appealed.

The district foresters in Girdwood and Seward "wouldn't have signed if they didn't think it was comprehensive and met the test" set out in national environmental law, Talbott said.  Residents of Moose Pass are shaking their heads over the permit, said several of the plaintiffs. In spite of the mitigation efforts included in the permit, "I think the tone in the community is that our concerns and comments were either ignored or dismissed outright by the Forest Service," said Mike Cooney, an avid backcountry skier, hunter and fisherman.

After the permit was issued last September and the Forest Service dismissed their appeals, he said, "we're left with no choice but to sue them. They've pushed us to this point. We wouldn't be here if they considered more carefully the concerns of the community."

If the Forest Service does another environmental impact statement that goes into greater detail, yet reaches the same conclusions, Cooney said, "I could live with that." Heli-skiing is a legitimate use in national forests and should never be banned outright, he said.

"But I want to make sure that if they expand to this level, the Forest Service has done the job that (federal law) requires them to do," he said. "I'm interested in seeing the forest managed well, and in the public interest, and there are interests in the forest beyond heli-skiing that need to be considered with this type of permit."

Owens said his company's ski and snowboard season starts Saturday. This weekend's clients include a film crew whose previous work has helped create the buzz on heli-skiing in Alaska. 

BANG NIENG, Thailand (AP) -- A year ago, they were filming battle scenes for the movie "Alexander." Now six elephants are pitching in to help with the massive cleanup from the tsunami that devastated many of Thailand's prime tourist destinations.

The massive waves, which killed 5,000 and left nearly 4,000 missing in Thailand, dumped debris more than a mile from the popular beaches of Phuket island and Phang Nga province a week ago. While heavy machinery works on the tangled wreckage that used to be posh seafront resorts, some areas are too muddy or hilly for anything other than 4 foot drive.

So the Wang Chang elephant farm in the 17th-century Thai capital of Ayuddhaya offered to send in its best pachyderms. They arrived by truck Sunday in Phang Nga and got to work immediately - after a quick shower to cool off in the tropical heat.

"The six were chosen because they are smart and can act on command," said Romthongsai Meephan, one of the elephant farm's owners.

The elephants, all males, were cast with Colin Farrell and Angelina Jolie in "Alexander," recreating their ancient roles as battle tanks. Today, they mostly entertain tourists and give them tours around Ayuddhaya, but they also are experienced at dragging logs through forests.

"They will be assigned to work in towing heavy objects and pulling out debris," said Siriphong Leeprasit, a district official in Phang Nga. "Elephants could work better in pulling out the remains of collapsed buildings and houses, especially in areas flooded with mud or hilly areas."

In Indonesia, another 11 elephants - native to badly hit Sumatra island - have been pressed into similar duty because there were few trucks and other heavy equipment to do the job there. A TV report showed them pulling a sport utility vehicle from a collapsed building.

Cranes and backhoes have been used to open routes to areas cut off in Thailand, but many local residents have complained that assistance has been slow to arrive and some areas have still not been accessed, particularly near Khao Lak beach, another hard-hit tourist zone about 50 miles north of Phuket.

So two of the elephants headed into a rough forested road that was blocked by uprooted palm trees, cement utility poles, cars, motorbikes and TV sets. A gray police patrol boat had washed up on a hill, more than a mile from the beach. The receding waters left behind two murky saltwater lakes.

The beasts were watered down by their trainers, called mahouts, then began using their trunks and tusks to clear the road. One mahout clambered aboard each elephant, with two others on the ground leading them.

The animals made quick work of huge muddy clumps of plant material and didn't need much more time to handle the heavy utility pylons. Then, after a little lunch, they were ready to start the next task.

As cold December mornings go, it was one for the birds.

Literally.

Just after sunrise Saturday, with temperatures in the mid teens, bird enthusiasts fanned out across the Hartford area in conjunction with the 105th annual National Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count.

Between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5, birds will be counted in approximately 2,000 locations in the Western Hemisphere, including 18 in Connecticut. The information gathered helps scientists chart trends in the bird population. The Hartford area is defined as being within 7½ miles of the Old State House.

Jay Kaplan of Canton, co-compiler of the Hartford-area count, appears unfazed by the weather as he gathers with a small group of fellow birders at the entrance to the city's Cedar Hill Cemetery.

The cemetery's 270 acres of rolling terrain are home to many species of birds, and it doesn't take Kaplan long to spot some kinglets and chickadees, which he says is a "good omen."

Pausing occasionally to allow Kaplan to attract birds with a type of shushing call, the small group makes its way around a pond, where it is joined by two other birders who have circled from the opposite direction.

When they meet, they relay what they have observed - species and numbers - to Phyllis Winer of West Hartford, who is carrying a clipboard and is charged with recording all the sightings.

Winer got into birding eight years ago through her daughter, Sarah, now a college junior, who had taken a birding course taught by Kaplan, the director of the Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton.

"I guess the reason I do this is because it's fun," Winer says. "It releases stress. It's something I really enjoy."

Pat Junno of Canton says she became involved in birding for similar reasons. "I just find it to be very relaxing," Junno says as she listens to a woodpecker tapping in the distance.

One does not have to observe birders for long to realize they are much more attuned than the average person to the sounds and movements of birds. They are also capable of instantly identifying a species - even from a distance - while the bird is in flight.

After surveying the pond area, the group, which also includes Marianne Piche, a graduate student from Willimantic, and Brian Kleinman of Granby, who owns an educational business called "Riverside Reptiles," fans out throughout the cemetery.

Because the annual count is conducted year after year in the same locations to assure continuity, there are specific locations to be canvassed. At one point, Kaplan decides to head up to the resting place of J.P. Morgan, where he expects to find - and does find - yellow belly sap suckers.

Cedar Hill was designed as a place of serenity open to the public. In addition to birds and all manner of wildlife, the cemetery includes many elaborate monuments and gravestones, among them those of Samuel Colt, Morgan G. Bulkeley and Katharine Hepburn.

Driving slowly, Kaplan spots several birds, including a red tail hawk atop a tree, and a mockingbird, its feathers puffed up to ward off the cold.

After a few hours in the cemetery, the group heads over to nearby Goodwin Park to count the gulls, and then to Riverside Park, to work the area along the Connecticut River.

Coming upon a group of cardinals, Kaplan uses the sighting to make the central point about the purpose of the annual count.

"Fifty years ago, you wouldn't have seen cardinals, woodpeckers, Carolina wrens and other southern or northern birds," Kaplan says. "But because we do this every year, we can chart their progress over time.

"Why are these birds here now? Who knows? Could be global warming, or milder winters, or because backyard bird feeders have become such a big thing."

By noon, the group has seen 36 species of birds - but nothing rare or unusual - with a full afternoon of watching still ahead. Kaplan says they usually see about 45 species each year.

As evidence that birding can be done almost anywhere, after leaving the banks of the Connecticut, the group heads over to another regular stop - the Hartford landfill.

So what do you do when a 400-pound black bear ambles up onto your deck and peeks into your kitchen window? If you're Bonnie Reynolds from Barkhamsted, you take pictures. Lots of them.

"They are beautiful animals and have shiny black fur, very soulful expressions on their face, deep brown eyes," said Reynolds, who has taken dozens of photos of the bears who visit her home near Route 181. "They just happen to be looking for food. We just happen to be their supermarket."

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, Connecticut's population of black bears is growing, and becoming more visible. In the past year, there have been more than 1,700 reported sightings of the animals, with New Hartford in the lead at 153 individual sightings and Barkhamsted following closely at 150.

"We've solicited the sightings for about two decades," DEP wildlife biologist Paul Rego said of a report on the department's website that lists, by town, the number of bear sightings that have been phoned, faxed or mailed into the office. "They give us an index to the populations and give us information on the geographical spread."

Sightings have been reported in about 120 towns and cities in the past 12 months, including Bloomfield with 21, Marlborough with 10, New Haven with three, Simsbury with 149 and Waterbury with six. The DEP estimates that several hundred bears live in Connecticut.

Black bears disappeared from the state beginning in the mid-1800s. Their comeback, according to a DEP information series on the animals, is due to a re-growth of forestland after the abandonment of farms during the late 1800s. In the 1980s, the DEP wildlife division found evidence that black bears were indeed living in Connecticut again and since then, the annual sightings have increased.

In September, a black bear cub was struck and killed in East Granby, leaving an agitated mother on the loose. Troopers on the scene clapped and yelled and the mother and her surviving cub retreated into the woods. In late June, a 400-pound black bear was removed from West Hartford after it climbed a tree behind a shopping plaza near South Main Street and Sedgwick Road. Earlier that month, black bears were pursued in, or removed from, business and residential areas in West Hartford, Hartford, Willimantic and Middletown.

Unlike grizzlies, black bears are seldom aggressive. They are generally shy and secretive, usually fearful of humans. However, if bears regularly find food near houses or places where there is human activity, their fear of humans decreases. In areas where bears are prevalent, bird feeders, birdseed, gas grills and garbage cans should be well-stored or removed.

"We have bears that would be surprised by seeing a human and then there are those that seem to be accustomed to human disturbances and don't run off when people yell at them," Rego said. "It increases the danger level. It increases the frequency of human and bear contact."

In May, a bear broke into a Suffield home and stole a 50-pound bag of birdseed. Caution should always be taken when dealing with bears or any wild animal, Rego said.

"It is a concern in that along with more bears, we've received more reports of bear problems of various types, ranging from bears killing livestock, bears getting into cities, to bears causing damage around homes," Rego said.

Bear sightings do not always warrant a response from the DEP, but if a bear becomes extremely bold, kills livestock or shows up in a heavily populated area such as a shopping district, the bear might have to be removed or killed. The DEP tags bears to keep track of their movements and population but the animals cannot be relocated because no other state is accepting bears for release.

Bears tend to wander when their population grows, crowding their natural habitats and increasing competition for food.

"Hunger makes them more bold. ... The more hungry, the more tempted they are to try to find food near homes," Rego said. "Sometimes there are strong attractants near humans, sometimes they can find better food near humans than where they were living."

For Reynolds, the bears' presence in her life is a gift, not a nuisance, even when they repeatedly knock over her garbage cans or rearrange her deck furniture in search of birdseed.

"I don't worry about them at all. We've got the wild coyotes out here and moose and the bear and the wild turkeys," said Reynolds, who observes rather than encourages her visitors. "When hunting seasons begins, you'll see the bears walking up the road because the hunters are all out in the woods."

Hunting bears is not permitted in the state. New Jersey, where there has also been a dramatic increase in the black bear population, added a short bear hunting season last year.

In Burlington, where sightings are up to 88 over the past 12 months, bears are seen weekly, sometimes daily, First Selectman Ted Scheidel said.

"They end up in people's garages. They've gotten in somebody's goat fence, get in and eat the grain, say hello and leave. ... Those goats just stand still," Scheidel said. "People are seeing too many and they get worried. To me it's a wonderful thing, I don't want anyone injured, but if you take the normal precautions you should be OK."

The DEP recommends that if you see a bear, enjoy it from a distance; shout or wave your arms to make your presence known and walk away slowly if you surprise one. Never attempt to feed or attract bears.
 

NORWALK -- It's a sight New Englanders aren't entirely used to seeing: Thousands of seals swimming through Long Island Sound or hauling out to Maine, where they like to have their pups.

Seals traditionally have migrated into southern New England waters in the winter. But as their numbers have grown following passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972, an increasing number of seals crowded out of Maine and Massachusetts waters have been looking to make southern New England their permanent homes.

There are as many as 100,000 harbor seals in New England waters, and yet what is known about these mammals is very little. Regional experts recently met at The Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk to develop a research plan to explore where exactly the seals are coming from, what food they are eating and what kind of impact the expanding population may have on commercial fisheries.

"My personal sense is you've got a lot to learn from the abundant species. It's important to look at Mother Nature's success stories," said Greg Early, a contract biologist based in New Bedford, Mass.

Before the protection act, seals were a dying breed that were once hunted by fishermen who regarded them as their competition. In 1973, there were only 5,800 seals counted in Maine, a number that probably reflects the entire New England population at the time, said Amy Ferland, a harbor seal census researcher for The Maritime Aquarium.

"They were almost completely wiped out," Ferland said.

It became illegal to hunt or harass seals under the protection law and the population has recovered, with female seals bearing one pup each year, Ferland said.

In addition to the harbor seals, there are between 5,000 and 7,000 gray seals that usually haul out to Muskeget Island, between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, in the winter to have their pups.

There are also a number of harp and hooded seals that researchers believe are breeding in Canadian waters and only coming down to New England during certain times of the year, said Gordon Waring, a research fisheries biologist at the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Waring said researchers are interested in exploring any genetic links between harbor seals that are mating in U.S. waters and those that are breeding in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Funding for marine research is expensive; Waring estimates that a complete abundance survey for New England could cost as much as $300,000. The count, which includes the use of two airplanes and radio tagging, is completed over three or five years.

To collect diet information, scientists would need an additional $100,000 to look at seal droppings or to examine the stomachs of stranded, dead seals. A research plan for the group is still in the early stages, but scientists hope to eventually secure a federal grant for funding.

Commercial fishermen in Connecticut who have watched their winter flounder population decline over the last few years say the research is necessary to their livelihood. Winter flounder is the most sought-after fish by both recreational and commercial fishermen, said Eric Smith, acting director of the state's Department of Environmental Protection's marine fisheries division.

"If the research comes to show that we're never going to get a strong winter flounder stock because seals are knocking the population down to very low levels, then that would be nice to know. I wouldn't like the idea of it, but at least I would have something to say to these fishermen," Smith said.

Any talk of implementing a controlled harvest on the seals to keep the growing population in check would be met with such strong resistance that it's almost entirely unlikely, Smith said.

"It would take an act of God and probably a bit more for me to think that this country would go back to harvesting mammals," Smith said.

Researchers say the high seal population is bound to have an impact on humans. Boaters and kayakers may be unknowingly breaking buffer zones set in place by the protection act and some seals are actually hauling out onto privately owned waterfront properties.

Maritime Aquarium officials received about a handful of calls from residents last winter saying they had a seal on their property.

Mystic Aquarium and Institute for Exploration has counted 51 seal strandings along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coast this year, an increase of 15 from 2002. In particular, there has been quite a jump in the number of harbor and gray seals.

In southern Maine, there have been between 400 and 450 seal strandings reported since January, Early said. That number has doubled since last year.

"The short take home message to people is that seals are a big part of our sea life now," he said. 

Mitch Demientieff is a native Athabascan. Swarmed by mosquitoes, we creep through thick undergrowth in the forest in the interior of Alaska.

He's breaking branches on the way so we don't surprise any bears. He's doing what his people have been doing for survival for centuries - hunting
for bears.  Like many native Americans, Mitch is classified as a subsistence-level hunter. It means that, by law, he can catch and kill one bear per year for him and his family to eat.

But now, as chairman of the Federal Subsistence Board, he has helped pushed through a new regulation meaning he and other subsistence hunters can sell on parts of a captured bear in a commercial market.  He says: "We depend on subsistence for food but we have to send our kids to school.

"We are not nomadic any more and we need to be a member of the cash economy in the state of Alaska, the US and the world.  Everybody needs money these days. We are no exception to that."

'Growing concerns'

This is bear country. Alaska is a living example of what the lower 48 states were like before the bear population was devastated by the arrival of people.  Poaching is a problem, though, in this vast state which is difficult to police.  Conservationists are worried that protecting bears will be harder still if there are cash incentives to kill them.

Dave Cline of the Kodiak Bear Trust says: "I and others have growing concerns that we can't allow the commercial take of brown bears in such a way that it could lead to the international trafficking of its parts which has gone on unfortunately in other parts of north America and the world.

"That is, killing bears strictly for the sale of their hide, gall bladders, or their claws."

Hunting trophies are popular in Alaskan stores. Across the state all sorts of furs are for sale - including polar bears and wolves.  But not brown bears.  The new law means grizzly furs will be on offer and about $300 could get you real brown bear claws instead of fake ones - though the items do have to be made into a native Alaskan art form, like necklaces.

Gus Gillespie from the Alaska Fur Exchange in Anchorage says: "At the moment we sell artificial grizzly bear claws because there's such a demand for them.  "People come in asking for brown bear claws all the time. And I think that if it's legalised there will be a huge market. I think that the fur itself would probably be used for trim in coats."

The bear regulations come into effect this summer in time for the start of the autumn hunting season.

Subsistence hunters say only the bears already killed for food will be used commercially. But conservationists say the blurring of the lines between subsistence and profit is a worrying trend for this threatened species.

At about 9 a.m., residents of Laurel Road spotted the bear as it ran through their back yard, heading south toward New Canaan center and Wilton, said Mary Ann Kleinschmitt, New Canaan animal control officer.

Animal Control notified the state Department of Environmental Protection and New Canaan Police Department and checked out the area. The bear was not spotted again, and the office did not receive any more calls.

The last New Canaan bear sighting occurred in the spring of 2001, when two cases were reported to Animal Control near North Wilton and Cheesespring roads on the Wilton border.  Black bear sightings in this part of Connecticut are becoming more common.

"They are going to start coming down more often," Kleinschmitt said. "Right now we get the occasional stray."  The DEP estimates that New Canaan and its environs will see more bears in the next five to seven years, she said.  "They are adapting. It's natural for bears to look for food, and one place they find it is near houses," DEP wildlife biologist Paul Rego said. "Are the fears founded?  Black bears are rarely aggressive toward humans."

The smallest North American bear, black bears are the only species found in the Northeast. Known for being shy and reclusive, they live in forestland and eat grasses, fruit, nuts, insects and the occasional small mammal. They also are excellent tree climbers.  In Connecticut, they sport black or brown glossy coats with tan muzzles. Males usually weigh 150 to 300 pounds, and females weigh 110 to 150 pounds. Adults are about 5 to 6 feet long.

From 1996 to 1998, about 90 black bear sightings were reported to the state DEP. The number increased to nearly 300 in 2000; more than 600 in 2002; and about 1,500 last year. Most were in northwestern regions of the state, in rural towns such as Barkhamsted, Burlington and Simsbury, but sightings also were reported in Wilton, Trumbull and Ridgefield in the past year. Unconfirmed reports of bear activity have been made in Stamford and Greenwich.

At Audubon Connecticut's sanctuary on Riversville Road in Greenwich, staff there found evidence in May 2000 of a bear raid on its birdseed bin and beehives.  "It's very typical black bear behavior," Audubon education naturalist Ted Gilman said. ". . . There's no raccoon big enough to do that."

Black bear sightings occur most frequently during May, June and July.  "In Connecticut's case, we definitely have a growing and geographically
expanding bear population," Rego said.  The DEP tracks the black bear populations through reported sightings or complaints of bold or aggressive behavior. While a bold bear -- one that doesn't run when a person approaches -- might not be aggressive, its habituation to humans opens the door to potential trouble, he said.

Problem bears kill livestock and wreak property damage, breaking fences, doors and screened porches and taking down bird feeders. Others wander into urban areas.  "I do see situations where it's unfortunate that there couldn't have been more precautions," he said. "Bird feeders are, right now, the biggest welcome mat around the houses."

Most state environmental agencies have a standard bear policy that specifies response according to severity of problem behavior.  Bears caught killing livestock, for instance, may be shot by a DEP conservation officer. If the event is reported later, the Wildlife Division will attempt to trap the
bear and subject it to "aversive" conditioning -- making it associate the bad behavior with captivity and negative interaction with humans. Then they tag and release it.

If bad behavior continues, the DEP will attempt to catch the bear again and euthanize it. Bear euthanization is rare, Rego said.  DEP personnel have the highest chance of catching a bear in the days immediately after the bad behavior, he said. It is often difficult to catch bears a second or third time, as they quickly learn trapping techniques.

"They learn very well. They have a great memory," said Matt Merchant, a wildlife biologist for the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation Region 3, which includes Westchester County, N.Y. "They develop bad habits very quickly."

New York has 6,000 to 8,000 bears statewide in native populations and transient animals that cross the border from other states or Canada. Any bears found in Westchester County are likely mostly transient bears, Merchant said.  In June 2000, the DEC received a complaint of a bear at a residence in Harrison, N.Y., rooting through the homeowner's garbage. But reports of black bears in Westchester County are rare -- 13 sightings since 1990.

The DEC has less information on Westchester County bears because there is no hunting season, the black bear's major source of mortality.

"Populations have grown, New Jersey in particular, where they did away with hunting for so long and their nuisance problem has pretty much skyrocketed," Merchant said.

Hunting does not seem to be necessary in Westchester County, and bear tracking there is done only from complaint data. Many of the complaint trends follow changes in food availability, he said. Dry years are high problem years for nuisance bears.  The DEC put together an adaptive management strategy for the New York bear population during the past few years. Rather than having a specific population number as a goal, the plan identifies the impact of bears on major stakeholders in the state -- such as agricultural workers -- and aims at changing those impacts,
Merchant said.

If the population of bears in Connecticut were to increase at its current rate for another 15 years, bears could earn the same reputation for being pests as deer, Rego said.  Although the DEP has had discussions about culling the bear population, no formal proposals have been made, Rego said.
"We have encouraged people to report bear sightings regardless of the circumstances," he said. "It's one way we've been able to index what has
happened with the bear population."

New Hampshire moose in autumn swim
In Alaska, moose go door to door during campaign season;  at right, Bull Moose stands 6 to 7 feet high at the shoulder and weighs in at between 850 and 1580 pounds.

Trapped moose freed after hours in Manchester pool
By GARRY RAYNO, New Hampshire Union Leader
Published Oct 9, 2011 at 3:00 am (Updated Oct 8, 2011)
   
MANCHESTER - The temperature may be warm this weekend, but George Trapotsis and his wife, Joyce, had already closed the swimming pool at their Lindstrom Court home.

But Friday about 9:15 p.m., a moose took an accidental swim in the pool, and it took a dozen men or so to finally set the 600- to 700-pound beast free 4 1/2 hours later.  Trapotsis said he heard noises like someone walking through leaves and brush about 9 Friday night, but his wife said some wild turkeys had been around the house, and the couple decided to ignore the sounds until about 10 minutes later.

“The noise was getting louder and getting closer to the house,” said the long-time West High School chemistry teacher, who is now retired.

While his wife turned on the light in the backyard pool area, Trapotsis went out to the edge of the pool to see what was happening, and “I was faced with this enormous, huge animal looking right at me.”

Trapotsis believes the light may have spooked the moose, which started to charge, going right through a 3 1/2-foot fence and right onto the pool and its cover.  The moose was trying to walk on the cover, but with each step, its hooves tore it more and more, and soon, the young male was tangled in the cover and went under the water.  Trapotsis said he and his neighbor Leo Desrochers removed the pool cover and untangled the moose. “Then he was as happy as he could be swimming around in the pool,” Trapotsis said.

The real work was about to begin.

A Manchester police officer arrived first, followed by Fish and Game Conservation Officer Geoff Pushee. The four men tried to move the moose by putting a rope around his antlers, but without much luck.  The police officer called the nearby fire station and more help arrived. The dozen or so men did manage to move the moose to the steps of the pool, but then the moose put is front hooves down and was impossible to budge, Trapotsis said.  They let the moose rest for a minute and then moved him step by step up and out of the pool, Trapotsis said.

Pushee said once the moose was out of the pool and into a fenced-in area, he became “a little stubborn, but they eventually coaxed the animal to the opening in the fence. “Once he could see the opening, he was gone and free. It worked out good,” Pushee said.

He said the rope was placed around the antlers so that once the moose was loose, it would fall off the antlers.  Pushee said the moose was a young bull and was probably wandering around because it rutting or breeding season.

Trapotsis said he and his wife have lived in the house for 35 years and have seen small deer and wild turkeys roaming by, but never “a moose of this enormous size; I have no idea how he maneuvered into my yard.”

FROM WIKIPEDIA:
...On average, an adult moose stands 1.8–2.1 m (6–7 ft) high at the shoulder.[47] Males weigh 380–720 kg (850–1580 pounds) and females weigh 270–360 kg (600–800  pounds).[48] The largest of all is the Alaskan subspecies (A. a. gigas), which can stand over 2.1 m (7 ft) at the shoulder, has a span across the antlers of 1.8 m (6 ft) and averages 634.5 kg (1,396 lbs) in males and 478 kg (1,052 lbs) in females.[49] Typically, however, the antlers of a mature specimen are between 1.2 m (3.9 ft) and 1.5 m (4.9 ft). The largest confirmed size for this species was a bull shot at the Yukon River in September 1897 weighing 820 kg (1,800 lb) and was 233 cm (92 in) tall at the shoulder.[50] The Moose of Alaska matches the extinct Irish Elk as the largest deer of all time.[51] Behind only the bison, the Moose is the second largest land animal in both North America and Europe. The life span of an average moose is about 15–25 years.