Wild Animals

In 1882, P.T. Barnum paid $10,000 to have Jumbo, the world's most famous elephant, shackled like Houdini, stuffed into a crate and sailed across the ocean to New York City. Barnum got Jumbo on the cheap because — unknown to him but well known to Jumbo's keepers at the London Zoo — the elephant had gone bonkers. Jumbo had become such a hazard that his owners feared for the safety of the many children who took rides on his back. Alumni of such rides included an asthmatic Teddy Roosevelt, who, perhaps traumatized by the experience, would later go on to kill four elephants in less than five minutes while on safari in British East Africa.

Modernist architect Eugene Weston III was in his early 30s when he declared that "the house is the last of the handcrafted objects" in an industrial age. The year was 1956, and he argued in The Times that even a modest house could be "more beautiful and meaningful" if it was built with post-and-beam construction that opens up interiors and invites the outdoors in through walls of glass. A third-generation Los Angeles architect, Weston built a string of midcentury homes here before spending three decades with a San Diego firm known for such large-scale commissions as the Old Globe Theatre, San Diego Wild Animal Park and several major buildings at UC San Diego.

People have been taming animals for 10,000 years. Since prehistoric times, people have kept cattle for meat, milk and leather, and sheep for wool. Horses and camels have learned to carry people and cargo, and dogs have been trained to hunt and stand watch. But the vast majority of the world's animal species are wild, even today. Want to learn more about all kinds of animals? Use the direct links on The Times Launch Point Web site. http://www.latimes.

In 1882, P.T. Barnum paid $10,000 to have Jumbo, the world's most famous elephant, shackled like Houdini, stuffed into a crate and sailed across the ocean to New York City. Barnum got Jumbo on the cheap because — unknown to him but well known to Jumbo's keepers at the London Zoo — the elephant had gone bonkers. Jumbo had become such a hazard that his owners feared for the safety of the many children who took rides on his back. Alumni of such rides included an asthmatic Teddy Roosevelt, who, perhaps traumatized by the experience, would later go on to kill four elephants in less than five minutes while on safari in British East Africa.

Re "Tiger Attacks Las Vegas Magician During Show," Oct. 4: My hopes and prayers go out to Las Vegas magician Roy Horn, who was seriously mauled by a tiger in his act. Yet I also can't help feeling that the man brought this on himself, all in the name of profit. People think that wild animals are better off in humans' care, but this is simply not the case. If you watch animals in captivity, they show extreme signs of frustration and boredom, all because they are restricted from displaying behaviors that are innate to them, killing and hunting included.

Thank you for your timely report "Snakebite Season" (Aug. 8). Striking snakes, biting bears, and marauding mountain lions remind us that we share the environment with wild animals and that we should be alert when we are in their territory. Our urban wetlands also have hazards. Visitors to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve in Huntington Beach should stay on the trails and watch where they step, because Western rattlesnakes are abundant there. Normally, the snakes stay on Rabbit Island and the back Bolsa which are both closed to the public, but last week, a rattler was found on the trail.

Authorities have filed charges against an Acton woman for failing to have a license to keep exotic animals at her ranch and other violations in connection with a raid at her house this week. Officials removed 13 bobcats and numerous other animals from the yard. Susan Jennifer Arn, 44, was charged with eight counts of keeping wild animals without a license in addition to other misdemeanor counts, including operating an unlicensed kennel and failing to provide rabies vaccinations for 40 dogs.

Australia is trying to thin the ranks of millions of animals, from buffaloes to pigs, which roam wild across the country's rugged "top end." They are descended from about 20 species of domesticated animals abandoned during early attempts by Europeans to settle the inhospitable Northern Territory. Now, after breeding almost unchecked for more than a century, the animals have reached almost plague proportions. "We have found more wild animals than we ever believed.

Wildlife officials shut down a zoo in Brazil after 103 wild animals--including several endangered species--were found dead in a freezer, authorities said. The discovery was made Wednesday, a day after a newspaper reported that animals at Bwana Park, a zoo outside Rio de Janeiro, were undernourished. Among the endangered species were seven rare parrots, a jaguar, a jungle cat and a rare alligator. The dead animals represented 76% of the zoo's collection.

Injured wild animals will have a place to heal when the California Wildlife Center opens today in Calabasas. The center's founders received three acres of developed parkland from the state Department of Parks and Recreation and converted an old home on the property into a wildlife hospital. The center will be funded by donations and grants from private organizations. "A center like this is needed in Los Angeles," said Rebecca Dmytryk, the center's director of administration.

The tragic carnage and panic that unfolded this week outside Zanesville, Ohio, after a man set free the 56 wild animals he kept on his property were clearly extraordinary events set in motion by a deeply troubled person who later killed himself. But the fact that Terry Thompson — who had been convicted of animal cruelty in 2005 — was even allowed to own lions, tigers and wolves, among other dangerous animals, spotlights the disturbing inadequacy of Ohio law on the issue. Two years ago, the Humane Society of the U.S. singled out Ohio along with Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina and Oklahoma for having the fewest restrictions on keeping wild animals as pets.

After the shooting stopped and panic subsided, only a monkey was still at large. The death toll was 49. The carnage included one baboon, six black bears, eight lionesses and 18 rare Bengal tigers. The owner of the private menagerie was also dead. He apparently shot himself after loosing the wild animals on a small community in rural Ohio. "It's like Noah's ark wrecking right here in Zanesville, Ohio," said Jack Hanna, a former director of the Columbus Zoo. PHOTOS: Dangerous exotic animals But residents and animal activists nationwide didn't speak of this sad story in Old Testament terms.

After a public outcry, Los Angeles County officials Tuesday put the brakes on a plan to catch and kill a pack of coyotes living in a vacant house in north Glendale. Authorities now say they will wait to take action until the abandoned, fire-damaged home is demolished. On Monday, county officials said the coyotes posed a threat to pets and small children and needed to be euthanized. The pack would not survive if relocated in the wild, officials said. But public reaction to the plan was overwhelmingly negative, with county and city officials fielding numerous calls opposing the plan.

When confronted with rapidly rising floodwaters, wild animals tend to react the same way humans do. They run for high ground. That unsurprising fact of nature has added a new complexity to the daily efforts of Travis Dufour, a Louisiana state wildlife biologist. He spends his days in a pickup truck, bouncing along levees and farm roads in search of displaced deer, black bears, alligators, wild turkeys, feral hogs and the occasional armadillo. Mostly, Dufour rides herd on deer.

Emerging from the African jungle, my knees wobbled as I carefully traversed the missing slats in the rickety footbridge. In the river chasm below, a dozen sunbathing crocodiles were awaiting my first misstep. This surreal safari scene seemed real enough to me -- even though I knew the make-believe jungle was deep inside a theme park carved out of Florida swampland. Disney's Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Fla., has been offering the three-hour Wild Africa Trek for about a month now, taking about a dozen visitors at a time on VIP guided tours through the theme park's Pangani Forest.

They called it a "he" and decided that for today he would be some sort of diving bird — a loon, perhaps, or a grebe. The "RoboDuck" that wildlife rescuers were chasing around Saturday was actually a humble duck decoy stuck on top of a remote-controlled car that sped around Malibu Bluffs Park as part of a safe-capture drill. But it symbolized a vexing problem in wildlife rescue: people who find wounded and imperiled animals often have trouble connecting with people who have the knowledge and ability to capture and rehabilitate the animals.

Wild boars, elk and other forest creatures have invaded Moscow and its suburbs, eating park shrubs, scattering commuters at subway stations and injuring six people, two of them seriously, the Izvestia newspaper says. In June a total of 20 animals have been evicted from downtown Moscow. Besides boars, the list of deportees includes badgers, elks, martens and forest deer.

The temptation to put out food for wild animals, especially in the new Orange County neighborhoods in south county cities that are spreading into the backcountry hills and canyons, may be strong, but it can lead to problems. Gary Campbell, a warden for the state Department of Fish and Game, points out what happened after a well-meaning woman in Pine Cove, near Idyllwild in Riverside County, began feeding table scraps to a couple of raccoons.

It's hard to remember that the 1990 western "Dances With Wolves," Kevin Costner's maiden voyage as a director, was derisively dubbed "Kevin's Gate" because of filming difficulties before earning him an Oscar for directing, one of the movie's seven golden men, including best picture. To mark its 20th anniversary, MGM Home Entertainment this month released a newly restored version on Blu-ray for the first time. At the end of "Dances With Wolves," your character, Lt. Dunbar, leaves his home with the Sioux to meet the U.S. Army, which wants to hang him as a traitor.

It is early February — Super Bowl weekend — and Yosemite is quiet. The crowds that clog the roads and tramp through the meadows during the other seasons are now gathering around their big-screen TVs with chips and dip. I have the park to myself. No voices. No crowds. No parking problems. Only the muffled sound of a gentle breeze and the crunch, crunch, crunch of my size 13 boots on a new-fallen snow that decorates the peaks and trees of the mighty park like a dusting of powdered sugar on a Christmas cookie.