Endangered Species

Birds do it, bees do it, even wildebeests and zebus do it. And during the "Valentine's Day Sex Tour" at Santa Ana Zoo today, visitors will learn exactly how animals court and mate in a captive setting. Wild stuff? Well, the event is for adults only, but zoo curator Connie Sweet said she wouldn't go so far as to slap an R-rating on the tour. Call it PG-13.

Hunters in Texas will no longer be able to shoot down three endangered species of antelopes without a federal permit, a judge ruled Tuesday. A special federal exemption had previously allowed breeders of the scimitar-homed oryx and two other endangered African antelopes to sell and allow their animals to be hunted - at $5,500 a head. As a result, herds grew exponentially on exotic hunting ranches nationwide, especially in Texas. However this exemption of the Endangered Species Act disappeared Tuesday after a federal judge rejected a last-minute appeal by ranchers for an injunction.

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.

Federal biologists have concluded that another native fish of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is headed toward extinction, underscoring the region's severe environmental problems. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that it has determined that longfin smelt in the delta deserve Endangered Species Act protections. But the finding won't expand restrictions on the delta's water operations because the agency is simply designating the fish a candidate for listing.

It used to be you could look across the ridge from Ron Gillett's house and a couple of dozen elk would be foraging for grass. Then you'd hear a scary kind of howling, and the elk would take off, a pack of wolves close on their heels. It got so that Gillett couldn't stand to see the spindly elk calves fall into the wolves' hungry embrace -- not when hunting elk has been part of his livelihood for much of his life. He'd get screaming mad at wolf advocates who came to watch in wonder as the packs executed their skillful and deadly dances around their prey.

President Obama on Tuesday overrode the Bush administration on a key step in applying the Endangered Species Act, restoring a requirement that federal agencies consult with experts before launching construction projects that could affect the well-being of threatened species. Environmentalists said reinstating the requirement blocks the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service and others from "nibbling away" at crucial wildlife habitat.

A mining company owner who put up a fence to keep out rattlesnakes tore it down at the demand of environmental officials after being threatened with contempt. The state had accused Jay Montfort of failing to obey a judge's order to tear down the wire-mesh fence by April 3. Montfort built the fence this year around a parcel of Hudson Valley property near Fishkill, N.Y., that he has been seeking permission to mine.

A group of Riverside County residents who claim they needlessly lost their homes in the recent fires are teaming up with local developers to campaign for changes in federal laws designed to protect endangered animals and plants. About half a dozen burned-out families in the Winchester area of south Riverside County say their homes might have been saved if government officials had given them permission to clear the brush and build firebreaks around their property earlier this year.

The federal government has announced plans to set aside more than 2,500 acres of the fast-developing Central Coast as critical habitat for an endangered snail. Most of the land being mapped out for the tiny Morro shoulderband snail is in Montana de Oro State Park near San Luis Obispo, but 615 adjacent acres are in private hands. The designation of critical habitat, which will take effect next year, does not prohibit development.

Members of my Toastmasters-Travel Club are disappointed and disgusted with the lead article in your Aug. 7 Travel Section. Gorillas are an endangered species, thanks to man's interference. I realize you want to select unusual stories, but not ones that indirectly harm these gentle beasts. F. WOODS West Covina

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Congress acted legally when it eliminated Endangered Species Act protections for the Northern Rocky Mountain population of gray wolves and opened the door to wolf hunts. The opinion, by a Democrat-appointed panel of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, found that when Congress last year ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove protection for that distinct wolf population, lawmakers were amending the law and not violating the separation of powers doctrine.

For philanthropist Charlie Annenberg Weingarten and his organization Explore.org , cute videos of baby sloths or kid goats on a trampoline do more than make us feel good. They can help save the planet. The website of the Santa Monica-based organization features a series of live webcams and short films about endangered animals, including polar bears, beluga whales and reef fish. It has just launched its newest webcam initiative, the panda-cam , as an effort to familiarize the world with these critically endangered creatures and inspire efforts to rebuild their destroyed habitat.

An undercover law enforcement operation has resulted in charges being filed against 12 people in the Southland and Las Vegas who were allegedly trafficking endangered or illegal wildlife or products made from them. Called Operation Cyberwild, the investigation was a joint effort by the enforcement arm of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the California Department of Fish and Game, and volunteers from the Humane Society of the United States. Agents recovered live endangered fish, protected migratory birds, and all kinds of products made from endangered animals, including an elephant foot, skins from a tiger, a polar bear, a leopard and other animals, plus some boots made of the skin of threatened sea turtles.

About to have unprotected sex to ring in the new year? Think about the critically endangered Kemp's Ridley sea turtle! Or the Florida panther, or the Lange's metalmark butterfly, or any of hundreds of other endangered species. And then call the Hump Smarter Hotline. The hotline, part of the Center for Biological Diversity 's 7 Billion and Counting Project, aims to persuade randy revelers to practice safe sex and avoid unwanted pregnancies. Aw, you know you want to call it now, even if just out of curiosity.

When it comes to water, penguins aren't naturals. "Some of them are terrified," says Bethany Wlaz , a keeper at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore. So each time African penguins are born into the zoo's breeding program for the endangered birds, someone like Wlaz becomes their swimming coach. But first comes the introduction to being wet. Soft as a cotton ball and about the size of a roasted chicken, Male One — hatched on Oct. 12 — is lowered into a stainless steel sink by Wlaz and Betty Dipple, another animal keeper.

Reporting from Philadelphia -- The Philadelphia Eagles have put together the truest of fantasy teams. Getting to the playoffs is looking like pure make-believe. Michael Vick says, "Lord willing, maybe we can wind up 10-6," but he knows it would be easier for Vince Young — a career 57.9% passer — to thread a deep ball through the eye of a needle. At 3-6, the Eagles would have to win their remaining seven games, starting with Sunday night's against the New York Giants. By all indications, Young will start in place of Vick, who has two broken ribs.

Alan Mootnick, a self-taught primate specialist who rose to become a leading authority on gibbon biology and conservation, died Friday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications following heart surgery, relatives said. He was 60. A self-described modern-day Tarzan, Mootnick founded the nonprofit Gibbon Conservation Center in Santa Clarita in 1976. In interviews, he stated that his aim was to advance the study, propagation and protection of the endangered species.

The California golden trout — the official state fish — will not receive protection under the Endangered Species Act after a 10-year review of scientific information and conservation programs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Friday. "Conservation measures throughout the trout's historic range have done much to protect the species," service spokeswoman Sarah Swenty said in a statement. "In large part because of those measures, the service determined that the intensity of threats does not indicate the species is endangered, or likely to become so in the foreseeable future.