Herd

The wild bull elephant stood menacingly in the clearing, trumpeting in annoyance and anger, its brain racing with a chemical that unleashes a throbbing and unceasing headache. It was the heart of mating season, and the bull was desperately seeking a mate. Was this really a good moment to be sitting on top of another elephant just a few hundred feet away? But Syamsuardi, a native of the wild Sumatran forest, had his strategy ready: He would pit his own elephant against the amorous stranger.

They came plodding out of the foggy dawn, lured by the bleat of the truck's horn and its promise of alfalfa and molasses cubes, a tempting treat compared to their sturdy diet of native Blue Stem and Indian grasses. The morning ritual was to prepare 300 buffalos for release onto the sepia-toned hills and swales of ranchland owned by the Nature Conservancy. Gamboling around the slow-moving truck, the buffalo grunted a murmur of reassurance that ripples slowly through the herd. "You know they belong when you see them out there," said Bob Hamilton, a biologist charged with growing the herd into 1,800 head over the next decade.

If his grand vision comes true, a Lakota Indian named Fred DuBray will soon be able to plan the 20th-Century's greatest wild buffalo roundup, cutting Yellowstone's 4,000-animal herd in half. "This hunt will be a little different," DuBray said. "We'll do it to save their lives." Severe overcrowding in recent years has driven many of the park's buffaloes onto neighboring cattle ranches. In 1994, Montana game wardens shot about 400 of them to eliminate any chance that they could infect domestic cattle with brucellosis, a deadly bovine disease that causes spontaneous abortion.

As soon as Renee Legro saw the sheep, she screamed. The herd, 1,300 strong, has been coming for 30 years to graze in this valley on the backside of the Continental Divide. But as Colorado has become an adventure sports destination, the once-empty valley has filled with hikers, campers and mountain bikers like Legro, and she was about to tragically embody the collision of the old West with the new. Legro, 33, screamed because she knew what came with the herd -- guard dogs.

He's been spotted out in the dusty wilds of Utah, lurking among the four-hoofed creatures on his hands and knees. He wears a funny suit with horns and a phony beard. And he's developing a public following. He is… Goatman. And he's baaaaaaaad... Wildlife authorities have expressed concern: What exactly is this guy doing  in the mountains of northern Utah dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats? Is he an extreme wildlife enthusiast? Or someone on a deranged back-to-nature trip?

Reporting from San Diego -- A postmortem examination has confirmed that Umoya, a 21-year-old elephant at San Diego Zoo Safari Park, was fatally attacked by another elephant, but other details of the death remain a mystery. No one witnessed the attack and it is unknown which elephant or elephants in the herd were responsible for Umoya's death or what may have prompted the deadly confrontation Nov. 17. Umoya had no visible injuries, but it was clear that the female African elephant had been hurt by what was initially termed an "aggressive interaction.

Re "Smithsonian Museum in Cross-Hairs of Debate," March 21: The millionaire big-game hunter who sent the carcass of an endangered Asian wild sheep to the Smithsonian said that he had killed only one trophy male out of the seven which were in the herd and that could do no harm to the population. Seems rational to me. Perhaps the same technique can be used to thin out the environmentalists, one for each seven. Would certainly cut down on the baleful bleating of that herd.

Dexter Howard scored 18 points and Casey Crawford added 17 points and 12 rebounds as Pepperdine ended Marshall's 30-game regular-season winning streak at home with an 85-69 victory Wednesday night. Pepperdine took control of the game early and built a 15-point halftime lead, 50-35. In the second half, the Waves extended their lead to as many as 26 points. Marshall, which forced shots in the second half as it attempted to catch up, ended up shooting 36% from the field for the game.

More than 120 cows on a dairy farm died within a day after their morning feeding, and a preliminary investigation shows they may have been poisoned, authorities say. The cows, part of a herd of 800, became sick Wednesday and were dead by Thursday, state police said Friday. An investigation is under way, officials said.