Endangered Animals

This holiday season may give new meaning to the term "recycled gifts." Take a stroll through the stores and you're likely to find, amid the usual toasters and slippers and television sets, a surprising array of ecology- minded products. 'Tis the season, it seems, to save the planet. Christmas cards and gift-wrapping paper made from recycled paper were the forerunners of this movement. Now you'll find chocolates shaped like endangered animals.

The newly formed group of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep barreled up rugged Olancha Peak last month, the 10 females and four males becoming the first new herd of the endangered animals reintroduced in California in 25 years. Once abundant throughout the region's alpine areas, the state's population of Sierra Nevada bighorn had dwindled to two herds by the 1970s. Their numbers have been devastated by disease spread by contact with domestic sheep and goats and unregulated commercial hunting.

Betsy Dresser and her colleagues at the Cincinnati Zoo are using DNA to keep endangered animals from going the way of the dinosaur. They freeze embryos, sperm and eggs from endangered animals as a safety net against extinction. "If scientists had been around with this technology when the dinosaurs were here, we could indeed bring them back," said Dresser, director of research at the zoo's Center for Reproduction of Endangered Wildlife. About 90% of every cell is made of water.

The California Coastal Commission, concerned about harm to fish and marine mammals, on Wednesday scuttled Pacific Gas & Electric Co.'s plan to conduct seismic surveys with underwater air cannons offshore of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. The commission's 10-0 vote followed a marathon hearing in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Commission staff and environmentalists debated utility officials throughout the day over the potential damage the sonic blasts would cause near scenic Morro Bay on the Cental California coast.

The newly formed group of Sierra Nevada bighorn sheep barreled up rugged Olancha Peak last month, the 10 females and four males becoming the first new herd of the endangered animals reintroduced in California in 25 years. Once abundant throughout the region's alpine areas, the state's population of Sierra Nevada bighorn had dwindled to two herds by the 1970s. Their numbers have been devastated by disease spread by contact with domestic sheep and goats and unregulated commercial hunting.

Bears that used to roam the forests of Thailand, Burma and Cambodia are now caged for their own protection. Life is bleak inside the steel bars, but the alternative is to be tortured and eaten. Their enemy is not another wild animal, but man. In many Asian countries, bear meat is prized as an elixir for good health and virility.

Photographers Susan Middleton and David Liittschwager will discuss their work in "Witness: Endangered Species of North America" on May 17 at 8 p.m. at UC Santa Barbara's Campbell Hall. Tickets are $5 and $7 for the discussion on the plight of endangered animals, fish and plants. Information: (805) 893-2080.

Peter Stewart, 41, a muralist who highlighted Southern California communities with his bold images of endangered animals, rain forests and Vietnam veterans. A veteran, Stewart in 1995 directed a dozen homeless veterans in painting a 26,000-square-foot mural on an underpass for the Veterans Administration Medical Center in West Los Angeles.

Four African gazelles, free to run on the nation's largest endangered wildlife preserve, clustered near a fence. For these endangered animals born in zoos, it was only natural. "They're used to being in captivity. They stay near the fence because that's where they're comfortable," said Mark Artzner, director of development of the Wilds, a 24-square-mile reclaimed strip mine in eastern Ohio. "But gradually you'll see them getting more adventurous."

Jessica Garcia-Torres is a brave woman--and a good storyteller. This afternoon, parents and children can see this for themselves when she displays a live tarantula to illustrate an African folk tale during story time at the Northridge Branch Library. The folk tale, "Anansi Goes Fishing," involves a battle of wits between a spider and a turtle, and there will be a live amphibian along to help illustrate the story.

People who love the Los Angeles Zoo get excited about any new animal — be it tiger cub, former circus elephant or Komodo dragon hatchling. So imagine the thrill of 66 new arrivals at one time, among them a Channel Island fox, a baby rhinoceros, a lioness, three racehorses and … a unicorn. All the animals, including the mythical one, have found a home in the zoo's newest habitat — the Tom Mankiewicz Conservation Carousel, which will open to the public Oct. 27. PHOTOS: Colorful carousel The hope is that the colorful new attraction will be a big draw and — at $3 for a three-minute ride — generate cash for the zoo for years to come.

The captivating documentary "Born to Be Wild 3D" spotlights the amazing efforts of two unique women — elephant authority Daphne M. Sheldrick and famed primatologist Biruté Mary Galdikas — who have dedicated their lives to the rescue and rehabilitation of orphaned, endangered animals. Although it runs just a fleet 40 minutes, the film proves a rich and memorable journey. Warmly directed by David Lickley and presented in arresting IMAX 3-D, the movie shuttles between Kenya-based Sheldrick's work raising baby elephants and Galdikas' labors on behalf of orangutans in the Borneo rain forest.

As the world heats up and polar ice melts, different types of bears, whales and seals could meet and mate ? but these unions may be far from happy, researchers said Wednesday. In fact, interspecies sex brought on by the melting Arctic ice could lead to the extinction of many endangered Arctic animals, the scientists said in an article published in the journal Nature. At least 22 species are at risk of hybridizing in 34 different combinations, according to a team led by Brendan Kelly, an Alaska-based evolutionary biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Wildlife groups react with shock to news of the discovery at the Letaba Ranch Game Reserve. South Africa has seen a major increase in rhino killings this year, with poachers armed with AK-47s frequently attacking the endangered animals. South African wildlife officials found the decomposing bodies of 18 rhinos ? all dehorned victims of poaching ? in a remote area of a large private game reserve close to the border of Kruger National Park, authorities said Friday. Wildlife organizations reacted with shock to news of the find at the 100,000-acre Letaba Ranch Game Reserve.

Something has gone awry -- some would say everything has -- in the federal government's effort to reestablish the population of Mexican wolves, North America's most endangered mammal. Beginning with an initial release of 11 wolves in 1998, the Mexican wolf population in the Southwest was projected to reach at least 100 by 2006. Three years beyond, the number of wolves in the wild is half that.

In the foamy chop of the warm-water discharge flowing into the San Gabriel River from a Long Beach power plant, a green sea turtle, wide as a manhole cover, materialized Friday just a few yards from shore. A few minutes later, an even larger sea turtle surfaced in the murky water near the plant's thicket of steel scaffolding, steam vents and transmission lines. Green sea turtles usually have tropical haunts -- teeming coral reefs or white sandy beaches where they lay eggs -- but these chunky titans live more than a mile upstream in one of Southern California's most ecologically degraded rivers.

Last month, Colombian wildlife officials raided a marketplace in Girardot, three hours to the south of the capital, arriving in a motorcade, sealing off the area and swooping up the captives: monkeys, songbirds and raptors, dozens of endangered animals. "It was a perfect operation," said one official, exulting in having prevented the sale and possible slaughter of the protected species.

Upset by what they call a continued disregard for environmental laws, state wildlife officials say Caltrans has damaged areas of the California desert in San Bernardino County that are home to several endangered animals, including an ailing species of tortoise.

Even when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did the right thing by the gray wolves of the northern Rockies, it managed to do the wrong thing. A 13-year effort to reintroduce the wolf to the region has been an extraordinary success, with the count increasing from an initial 66 to a stable and growing population of more than 1,500. Numbers like those clearly invited a call for taking the wolves off the endangered species list.

Hundreds of wild horses and burros that have been slated for roundup at a national wildlife refuge along the Nevada-Oregon line will continue to roam free, at least for now, to the relief of horse advocates and the dismay of some other environmentalists and wildlife officials. After the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service canceled a planned roundup in July under pressure from horse advocates and a congressman, horse groups applauded.