Animal Deaths

What had been for the last six months a vibrant stream teeming with migrating waterfowls and shorebirds early last week became a dry San Gabriel River channel where vultures gorged themselves on ducklings that died when the flows dried up.

Marine veterinarians euthanized a 26-foot-long sick whale Friday after it became stranded on a mudflat off the coast of southern England. British wildlife experts and the coast guard tried all day to save the northern bottlenose whale, which beached off Langstone Harbor, 75 miles southwest of London. The coast guard helped it return to the water, but the whale became stranded a second time on a nearby mudflat later in the day.

The Army's National Training Center at Ft. Irwin on Friday suspended its effort to move California desert tortoises off prospective combat training grounds and onto nearby public lands because the animals are being hit hard by coyotes. The first phase of the $8.7-million translocation effort began in March, when about 670 tortoises were airlifted by helicopter out of the southern portion of the desert base northeast of Barstow to new homes in drought-stricken western Mojave Desert areas.

Seven killer whales from the endangered population in Washington's Puget Sound are missing and presumed dead in the most significant die-off of one of the icons of the Pacific Northwest in nearly a decade. Scientists tracking the black-and-white orcas off the coasts of California, Oregon, Washington and British Columbia said there were signs the whales may have starved to death, though whether that was because of insufficient food or disease that made them unable to eat is unknown.

A Riverside teenager who left home to run an errand came home 20 minutes later to find paramedics, police and a firetruck outside his home. A neighbor took him to see the family dog, beaten and bleeding under a bush. The female dog, a 6-month-old shepherd mix named Karley, allegedly was beaten by a neighbor, Los Angeles County Assistant Fire Chief Glynn Johnson, who was placed on administrative leave Friday while the incident is investigated.

It wasn't long ago that thousands of moose roamed northwest Minnesota. But in two decades, the number of antlered, bony-kneed beasts from the North Woods has plummeted from 4,000 to fewer than a hundred. They didn't move away. They just died. The primary culprit, scientists say, is climate change, which has systematically reduced the Midwest's already dwindling moose population and provoked alarm in Minnesota, where wildlife specialists gathered for a "moose summit" this month in Duluth.

As many as 15,000 cattle may have been killed by the Dec. 28 snowstorm that buried the state's southeastern region under several feet of snow and built drifts as high as 15 feet, a Colorado Cattlemen's Assn. official said after checking with ranchers and feedlot owners. That is more than four times the 3,500 that state officials estimated had been killed, but that number was only for range cattle, not those in feedlots.

After more than seven years of study, scientists have isolated a toxin that may have killed millions of fish along the East Coast in the 1990s. The fish were killed by parasitic algae called \o7Pfiesteria\f7, but researchers had been unable to determine how the organism did it.

A fire believed to have been sparked by an electrical heater in a doghouse took the lives of five puppies, authorities said Monday. Firefighters sent to the 14600 block of Donegal Drive about 3:45 p.m. Sunday found four of the Pug-mix puppies dead in the charred frontyard doghouse. A fifth puppy died later at the Orange County Emergency Pet Clinic where the mother and another puppy were being treated.

The eight-month survival saga of Barbaro, a story that captured the emotions and imaginations of millions around the world and raised questions about the extent and expense of his treatment, ended early Monday morning. Barbaro, the Kentucky Derby winner last May with a 6 1/2 -length victory margin that was the largest in 60 years, was euthanized at the hospital where he had been since the day he suffered multiple fractures in his right hind leg.