Komodo Dragons

Sometimes it's best not to know too much about a place until after you've been there. Had I known about the stonefish (whose sharp spines inject an agonizing, deadly venom), the blue-banded octopi (one bite and you're a goner) or the sea snakes (ditto), I might never have gone to Komodo Island. Like a protective moat, the encircling seas conspire to shield this prehistoric retreat from the prying eyes of man.

Cut together from a reported 10,000 hours of footage from the BBC's natural history archives, the wildlife documentary "One Life" is a visually gorgeous, at times astonishing screen experience. Co-writer/directors Michael Gunton and Martha Holmes have crafted a vivid and immersive look at an eye-popping variety of animals - and one unique plant - from essentially birth to rebirth. Along the way, this globe-hopping journey stops for intriguing glimpses of such key life chapters as maternal nurturing, the endless quest for food, battling nature's predators, mating rituals and creating the various species' next generations.

Mohammed Sidik used to sell goats to Komodo National Park to feed to the wild Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, in a gory display for tourists. Park officials banned the practice a decade ago because they worried that the dragons were becoming lazy. Now the 10-foot-long predators waddle three miles to this squalid coastal village, raid Sidik's herd and eat his goats for free.

Komodo dragons have shark-like teeth and venom that can kill a person within hours of a bite. Yet villagers who have lived for generations alongside the world's largest lizard were not afraid -- until the dragons started to attack. The stories spread quickly across this smattering of tropical islands in southeastern Indonesia, the only place the endangered reptiles can still be found in the wild: Two people have been killed since 2007 -- a young boy and a fisherman -- and others seriously injured in unprovoked attacks.

San Francisco Chronicle Executive Editor Phil Bronstein will always have his big toe to remind him of his brush with a Komodo dragon at the Los Angeles Zoo. But just barely. Bronstein, the husband of actress Sharon Stone, has always been fascinated with the Indonesian reptile, considered the world's largest lizard, and wanted to see one up close.

For Muffin, having a cataract removed from her right eye was the easy part. With her vision repaired in possibly the first such operation on a Komodo dragon, the world's largest species of lizard, she now faces what could be a life-threatening challenge. Her keepers at the National Zoo want her to mate with Friendty, a male Komodo dragon four times her size.

Cut together from a reported 10,000 hours of footage from the BBC's natural history archives, the wildlife documentary "One Life" is a visually gorgeous, at times astonishing screen experience. Co-writer/directors Michael Gunton and Martha Holmes have crafted a vivid and immersive look at an eye-popping variety of animals - and one unique plant - from essentially birth to rebirth. Along the way, this globe-hopping journey stops for intriguing glimpses of such key life chapters as maternal nurturing, the endless quest for food, battling nature's predators, mating rituals and creating the various species' next generations.

For the first time since a misguided attempt at a noontime snack made him the world's most famous lizard, Komo the Komodo dragon on Saturday night faced the very benefactors who have made possible his comfortable existence at the Los Angeles Zoo. As about 1,000 donors gathered for the Beastly Ball--the zoo's largest annual fund-raiser--Komo betrayed no hint of shame for his lapse in decorum, no remorse for taking that notorious chomp on a newspaper editor's toe.

Last October, a young woman stood at the edge of the wire door to the enclosure of Komo, one of the zoo's two Komodo dragons, and asked to go in for a closer look. While a reptile keeper and the zoo director watched, the woman, whose mother, Myra Wildhorn, had donated a quarter of a million dollars to build new habitats for the giant lizards, spent an uneventful few minutes inside the enclosure. "The monitor never moved from the corner," said Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo.

Komodo dragon bites man. Man and his movie-star wife bite back. For the last two weeks, since the 7-foot lizard at the Los Angeles Zoo took a bite out of Sharon Stone's husband, the reptile and its keepers have been grappling with the Hollywood spin machine: It has portrayed the bitten Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, as swashbuckling enough to pry with his bare hands the poisonous animal off his toe.

Two Komodo dragons mauled a fruit picker to death in eastern Indonesia, the latest in a string of attacks on humans by the world's largest lizard species. Police said the 31-year-old man was attacked on Komodo, one of four islands where the reptile is found in the wild, minutes after he fell out of a tree.

Scuba divers swept 20 miles by currents survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters and then scrambled onto a remote Indonesian island -- where they fought off a Komodo dragon, a port official said. The divers, three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden, pelted the giant, carnivorous lizard on Rinca island with rocks and pieces of wood, a port official said. Searchers found the divers the day after their encounter with the dragon.

Mohammed Sidik used to sell goats to Komodo National Park to feed to the wild Komodo dragons, the world's largest lizards, in a gory display for tourists. Park officials banned the practice a decade ago because they worried that the dragons were becoming lazy. Now the 10-foot-long predators waddle three miles to this squalid coastal village, raid Sidik's herd and eat his goats for free.

Komodo dragon bites man. Man and his movie-star wife bite back. For the last two weeks, since the 7-foot lizard at the Los Angeles Zoo took a bite out of Sharon Stone's husband, the reptile and its keepers have been grappling with the Hollywood spin machine: It has portrayed the bitten Phil Bronstein, executive editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, as swashbuckling enough to pry with his bare hands the poisonous animal off his toe.

For the first time since a misguided attempt at a noontime snack made him the world's most famous lizard, Komo the Komodo dragon on Saturday night faced the very benefactors who have made possible his comfortable existence at the Los Angeles Zoo. As about 1,000 donors gathered for the Beastly Ball--the zoo's largest annual fund-raiser--Komo betrayed no hint of shame for his lapse in decorum, no remorse for taking that notorious chomp on a newspaper editor's toe.

Last October, a young woman stood at the edge of the wire door to the enclosure of Komo, one of the zoo's two Komodo dragons, and asked to go in for a closer look. While a reptile keeper and the zoo director watched, the woman, whose mother, Myra Wildhorn, had donated a quarter of a million dollars to build new habitats for the giant lizards, spent an uneventful few minutes inside the enclosure. "The monitor never moved from the corner," said Zoo Director Manuel Mollinedo.

This is a caring city, a compassionate city, a city named, after all, for a saint. So it has been with real feeling this week that San Francisco has reacted to the Komodo dragon attack on the poor, unshod left foot of Phil Bronstein, the executive editor of its biggest newspaper: "I only wish the person who suggested Mr. Bronstein remove his shoes had advised him to go in naked," Mayor Willie Brown offered, cackling. "What everyone wants to know is, is it true that he tasted like chicken?"

Scuba divers swept 20 miles by currents survived 12 hours in shark-infested waters and then scrambled onto a remote Indonesian island -- where they fought off a Komodo dragon, a port official said. The divers, three from Britain and one each from France and Sweden, pelted the giant, carnivorous lizard on Rinca island with rocks and pieces of wood, a port official said. Searchers found the divers the day after their encounter with the dragon.

This is a caring city, a compassionate city, a city named, after all, for a saint. So it has been with real feeling this week that San Francisco has reacted to the Komodo dragon attack on the poor, unshod left foot of Phil Bronstein, the executive editor of its biggest newspaper: "I only wish the person who suggested Mr. Bronstein remove his shoes had advised him to go in naked," Mayor Willie Brown offered, cackling. "What everyone wants to know is, is it true that he tasted like chicken?"

Behind-the-scenes visits at the Los Angeles Zoo by celebrities and donors, the backbone of the zoo's fund-raising, will be reevaluated following an attack last weekend by a Komodo dragon. Zoo spokeswoman Lora LaMarca said the zoo has hosted six other private viewings of zoo animals by celebrities this year and about two visits a month by potential donors. But nothing like Saturday's attack has ever happened before, she said.