Animal Deaths

A giraffe and an ostrich drowned in a 15-foot sinkhole that developed after a water main burst in their shared zoo exhibit, officials said. The animals at Louisiana Purchase Gardens & Zoo in northern Louisiana died sometime Friday night or Saturday morning in the zoo's African veldt exhibit, officials said. Zoo officials buried them there Saturday.

The county has resumed the beach burial of dead marine mammals. Guidelines were crafted after an incident last week in which an unidentified Public Works enforcement officer strangled a dying California sea lion. New employee policies for handling the carcasses are also nearing completion, deputy county administrator Scott Ullery said. The guidelines are expected to include detailed procedures for carcass disposal and describe how to contact rescuers who rehabilitate animals that are found sick.

A mysterious die-off of hundreds of crows throughout New York state has been linked to the avian reovirus, a pathogen that has threatened the poultry industry in the past, relentlessly sweeping through flocks, state wildlife officials said Thursday. The virus is not likely to jump the species barrier to infect humans. However, state health officials are taking no chances, and scientists at Wadsworth Center, a division of the state Health Department, were studying the virus.

When Sarah Harper took her cat, Pete, to Banfield, the Pet Hospital, she was encouraged to sign up for one of the company's "optimum wellness plans." For an enrollment fee of $69.95 and $16.95 in monthly payments, Harper was told, Pete would receive regular vaccinations and exams, as well as discounts on a variety of medical services from the nation's largest chain of veterinary facilities. "They were talking about 'wellness' and 'healthcare,' " she said. "It seemed like insurance." It wasn't.

The California Coastal Commission argued in federal court Tuesday that President Bush violated the U.S. Constitution by trying to overturn a court order that restricted the Navy's use of a type of sonar linked to the deaths of marine mammals. The commission's attorneys said Bush's move to exempt the Navy sonar training exercises in Southern California waters from federal law violated the Constitution's separation-of-powers doctrine.

Thousands of bats are dying from an unknown illness in the Northeast at a rate that could cause extinction, New York state wildlife officials said this week. At eight caves in New York and one in Vermont, scientists have seen bat populations plummet over two years. A cave that had 1,300 bats in January 2006 had 470 bats last year. It recently sheltered just 38 mostly underweight bats. At another cave, more than 90% of about 15,500 bats have died since 2005, and two-thirds that remain now sleep near the cave's entrance, where conditions are less hospitable.

A giant male anteater, misnamed Sophie, has died at the Santa Barbara Zoo. A zoo press release says Sophie, the longest-lived captive-born male in U.S. zoo history, was euthanized on Jan. 31. Alan Varsik, director of animal programs and conservation, said the initial necropsy found severe arthritis. Varsik says zoo officials "observed a significant decline in his mobility and apparent comfort in recent weeks." Misidentified at birth as a female, Sophie was born in July 1986 at the Jackson Zoo in Mississippi and had lived at the Santa Barbara Zoo since December 1986.

After months of criticism -- and three lawsuits -- about the shelters operated by the Los Angeles County Department of Animal Care & Control, the agency's director appeared before the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday to defend her stewardship. Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke had asked director Marcia Mayeda, in December, to prepare a report on the Carson shelter, after Burke's office was inundated with complaints.

Officials in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir have poisoned hundreds of dogs and aim to kill all 100,000 strays in the main city, Srinagar, saying the animals pose a risk and make urban life unbearable. Animal rights activists vowed to go to court, saying the poisoning was cruel and the problem could be addressed in other ways. "These dogs . . . are threatening humans," said Dr. Riyaz Ahmad, the Srinagar health officer. One government worker said his son was afraid to leave the house.

It was a frightening sight. A horse that moments earlier was leading a race lay dead on the track, the victim of a heart attack, and his jockey, 25-year-old Rafael Bejarano, was crumpled in a heap next to the rail as medical personnel rushed to the scene. "The first thing you worry about is the health of the jockey," Kathy Walsh said Friday. "There's always another race."