Animal Breeding

Tenants of a poultry ranch in Napa say there is nothing wrong with raising roosters and selling them to people who stage cockfights in Mexico, but California law doesn't agree and animal rights advocates say it's just plain cruel. Although it is a misdemeanor to raise fighting fowl, Capt. Mike Loughran of the Napa County Sheriff's Department says he can't search the Napa ranch unless evidence links roosters on the property to cockfights in other places.

The population of endangered wild foxes on Santa Catalina Island soon could recover to levels not seen in a decade since canine distemper decimated them, biologists said Monday. Standing beside a sign posted along a main road urging people to watch for foxes, Carlos de la Rosa, the Catalina Island Conservancy's chief conservation and education officer, said, "Soon we'll have more than 1,300 foxes. But reaching that number is not, in and of itself, as great an achievement as bringing them back from the brink of extinction to a population that is stable and able to sustain itself."

THE BLACK LEOPARD CROUCHES inside a small portable cage in a pasture on a central Texas ranch. He is a young male--barely full-grown. Men with guns peer and poke at him. The leopard weaves and bobs at each new movement. A pack of dogs howls and strains on its leads. The leopard hisses, bares his teeth and slowly blinks his eyes. He acts bewildered. * And why not? He's been conditioned since birth not to fear humans or dogs. He was separated from his mother before his eyes opened.

A quarter century before the dawn of Viagra, American men found hope in the prowess of an aging Lothario named Frasier. Or Frasier the Sensuous Lion, as he became known at Lion Country Safari in Laguna Hills. Not that the unimposing beast looked like a sex symbol. He "hobbled about on weakened legs, his once-lustrous coat was scruffy and his tongue sagged from a toothless mouth," The Times reported. When Lion Country purchased him from a bankrupt Mexican circus in 1970, he was believed to be 18, equivalent to about 80 human years.

In a case that at first glance could pass for a science fiction movie plot, radioactive frogs are loose at a government lab. About 100 so-called "hot frogs" have been caught hopping away from a contaminated pond where they hatched this spring, officials at the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Laboratory said. "They don't have six legs and four eyes," said Frank Kornegay, the lab's environmental coordinator. He said they look like ordinary leopard frogs that are common in Tennessee.

A quarter century before the dawn of Viagra, American men found hope in the prowess of an aging Lothario named Frasier. Or Frasier the Sensuous Lion, as he became known at Lion Country Safari in Laguna Hills. Not that the unimposing beast looked like a sex symbol. He "hobbled about on weakened legs, his once-lustrous coat was scruffy and his tongue sagged from a toothless mouth," The Times reported. When Lion Country purchased him from a bankrupt Mexican circus in 1970, he was believed to be 18, equivalent to about 80 human years.

Zoos have begun administering hormones to animals to try to improve the reproductive success rate. That effort already has resulted in a successful pregnancy for a 16-year-old gorilla at the Toledo, Ohio, Zoo and has produced unsuccessful pregnancies in three other females, researchers recently told a meeting of the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.

Long after the fanfare that surrounded the return of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park, the most telling chapter may have been written this year by an unruly pack of wolves known as the Sheep Mountain pack--a story of what happens when a predator is bigger and wilder than the biggest wilderness you can find. Only last year, there were 13 Sheep Mountain wolves roaming the grassy plateaus of this ranching valley north of Yellowstone.

UC Davis researchers say they have been able to use genetic techniques to identify cows whose milk makes the best cheese. The dairy project opens the door for animal breeding for specific economic objectives, said Juan Medrano, assistant professor of animal science at UC Davis. The research identified the best combination of dairy cow genes to produce milk proteins that make better cheese. Sixty-seven percent of California milk goes into cheese products.

A highly polarized crowd of about 200 animal lovers attended a meeting Tuesday night of the Los Angeles Animal Regulation Commission, debating a controversial proposal to curtail animal breeding. The issue has pitted animal rights and rescue groups against breeders and owners of purebred pets. Breeders complained that restrictions in the ordinance, such as limiting litters to one a year, would put them out of business.

Perched at a picnic table in jean overalls, D.C. "Rooster" Cogburn nodded in and out of a nap under the midafternoon sun, his chin resting on his chest. Nearby were gigantic beige ostrich eggs, ostrich feathers and cotton T-shirts featuring the words "Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch," souvenirs for the tourists. But not today. Hundreds of feet away, semitrailers and cars buzzed on Interstate 10. Cogburn's son-in-law, Craig Barrett, silently stood behind the wooden counter, the entry to the ranch.

The greater flamingos squawk like ducks as they go about their busy lives in an aviary at the Los Angeles Zoo. The pale pink birds root in the mud for bugs, skimming a rank-looking pond for mosquito larvae, and get into neck-looping fights with each other. This summer, they also have another activity: child rearing.

It seems so very British that an ugly row has broken out between those who say they love dogs and those who say they love dogs more. But just such a royal catfight has ensnared the country's most prestigious dog show, Crufts, which opens today here in Birmingham, a four-day extravaganza of four-legged bliss that has drawn millions of viewers to the British Broadcasting Corp. since 1966. But not this year.

The fossilized remains of two pregnant fish indicate that sex as we know it took place as much as 30 million years earlier than previously thought, researchers said Thursday in the journal Nature. Scientists studying 380-million-year-old fossils of the armored placoderm fish had thought the fish laid their eggs before fertilization. Then they realized the pelvis of male placoderms had a fin not seen on the female fish, and surmised it was probably used to grip its mate during fertilization, much as sharks do.

These are wonderful times to be an island fox. A decade ago, the house-cat-sized animals were scampering toward extinction, with only a few dozen surviving at spots scattered around Channel Islands National Park. Now they're practically poster mammals for species revival, numerous enough that government scientists no longer have to breed them in the safety of chain-link pens.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to be known as the greenest governor in America. But his eco-record this year was at best "mixed," according to report cards from the Natural Resources Defense Council and other major environmental groups.

Perched at a picnic table in jean overalls, D.C. "Rooster" Cogburn nodded in and out of a nap under the midafternoon sun, his chin resting on his chest. Nearby were gigantic beige ostrich eggs, ostrich feathers and cotton T-shirts featuring the words "Rooster Cogburn Ostrich Ranch," souvenirs for the tourists. But not today. Hundreds of feet away, semitrailers and cars buzzed on Interstate 10. Cogburn's son-in-law, Craig Barrett, silently stood behind the wooden counter, the entry to the ranch.

Tour boat captain Dan Salas radioed for help Saturday as soon as he noticed a drowning baby seabird in the rolling swell beside a barge anchored in Long Beach Harbor. Three minutes later, Long Beach lifeguards arrived in a patrol boat and set to work, providing the 20 tourists aboard Salas' 80-foot vessel, Kristina, with a rare view of an avian rescue operation half a mile offshore.

Nothing is too good for Thair abu Yousif's loved ones. He buys ice each day to cool their water. He has built a special house for them, with a guard outside. Some nights he lies awake, wondering how to find them perfect mates. That the objects of his adoration are pigeons does not strike Abu Yousif as odd. In fact, he is one of the most respected bird breeders in Iraq, his passion rekindled after years of violence that made lingering on rooftops an invitation to be shot by a sniper.

Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark. In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing showed that a pup carried by an Atlantic blacktip shark at the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male. In 2007, the female shark died of complications from an unknown pregnancy. Her pup was found during a necropsy. No male blacktips were present in her eight years there.