Animal Deaths

Heavy rains killed at least 50 horses at a Mexico City equestrian club and the 71-year-old watchman who tried to save them, officials said. The Monday night storm sent mud and water spilling through the La Barranca horse club, trapping many of the horses in their stalls, said Mexico state emergency director Arturo Vilchis. Night watchman Emilio Campos died while trying to save the animals, Vilchis said.

More than 200 oil-slicked penguins have washed up on the beaches of a popular Brazilian resort, and officials say they are searching for a cause. Authorities said they had counted nearly 200 dead penguins found on the beaches of the island city of Florianopolis, but people bringing in live penguins covered with oil reported seeing hundreds more.

A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular outback zoo, fed animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said. The 30-minute rampage, caught on the zoo's security camera this week, happened after the boy jumped a security fence at the Alice Springs Reptile Center in central Australia, zoo director Rex Neindorf said. Authorities said they could not press charges against the boy because of his age.

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.

An animal welfare advocate says a wayward manatee rescued from Cape Cod waters died on the way to Florida. Chris Cutter of the International Fund for Animal Welfare says the juvenile male died outside Orlando. The cause of death will be investigated. The animal wandered into a harbor near Dennis, Mass. Wildlife officials who feared for his health in the chilly water decided to pull him out Saturday. Manatees, normally found off Florida and Georgia, stop eating if they get too cold.

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.

An inquisitive Asian elephant known for being the largest of its kind born in captivity in the U.S. died at the Houston Zoo last week after suddenly contracting an incurable disease. The zoo held a memorial service Saturday for the popular 2-year-old elephant named Mac, who was remembered in anecdotes tinged both by sadness and laughter. Behind a fence and to the side, Mac's mother, Shanti, and his aunt, Methai, looked on. "We all loved Mac and he will live in all our hearts forever," zoo volunteer Toni Noble said, her eyes tearing up. Mac died Nov. 9, less than 12 hours after first showing symptoms of elephant herpes virus, which causes blood vessels to weaken.

A cold snap has caused a high number of the world's most endangered sea turtles to wash ashore dead on Cape Cod beaches. Thirty Kemp's Ridley sea turtles have been reported on the beaches since Thursday. Nineteen were dead. Sea turtles suffering from hypothermia often wash ashore in November and December. When the animals' heart rate and body temperature fall, they become immobile. Wind blows them to shore, where they risk freezing to death.

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.