Zoos

At the Kabul Zoo, even the empty enclosures are a draw: They're quiet. Off a busy street leading to the city's commercial center, the zoo is no longer the city's pride, but it does provide a refuge from the traffic, noise and chaos of the Afghan capital. Parents bring children here to walk amid the tall trees and gaze at the animals -- even the empty enclosures. Women in pale blue burkas stroll the grounds. "In the Muslim world especially, a place where women and children can gather safely as a family with or without their menfolk is important," said David Jones, director of the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, which is offering support to the zoo, on the banks of the winding Kabul River.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing for Alex the lion and Marty the zebra, the pals at the center of the "Madagascar" animated films, but for two Central Park Zoo animals, they've certainly had their share of adventures. After washing ashore on the titular island in the first film and crash-landing in the wilds of the African mainland in the second, Alex and Marty, voiced by Ben Stiller and Chris Rock, respectively, find themselves back among civilization in"Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted," which opens June 8. In taking up with a European traveling circus hoping to make it big in the U.S., Alex, Marty and their compatriots may have found their best, though riskiest, chance yet to return to the zoo. "A lot of it is about going home," Stiller said in a joint phone call with Rock from New York.

After surviving two city-ordered delays, the protests of animal welfare advocates and an ongoing lawsuit, the Los Angeles Zoo is on the verge not only of opening its controversial $42-million elephant exhibit but also of getting what that exhibit needs: new elephants. Elephants, that is, that will be new to the zoo. Tina and Jewel are female Asian elephants of un certain age who between them have endured foot problems and dental surgery. They will be on indefinite loan from the San Diego Zoo, both zoos announced Friday.

A plan to expand the Los Angeles Police Department by adding public safety officers from another city agency would leave 37 fewer officers to patrol the city's libraries, parks, buildings and zoo, officials said Friday. Under the proposal, which drew objections from several city employee labor unions during a City Council committee meeting, the LAPD would assume control of scores of sworn police and civilian security officers now working for the General Services Department. About 40 transferred General Services officers would give up their assignments and become full-fledged LAPD officers.

In 10 years of visiting zoos and animal parks in China, David Neale has seen a bear punched in the head by a trainer, tigers whose teeth and claws had been removed and hundreds of animals that lived in filthy, unhealthy conditions. Too many facilities take credit for simply keeping animals alive, while a large number rely on barbaric techniques such as whipping, beating and prodding with metal hooks to control them, said Neale, the animal welfare director of Animals Asia, a Hong Kong-based advocacy group.

When you confine animals, you take away their ability to act naturally and instinctively. The incident involving the elephant is just one sign of extreme exploitation. Some claim that children need zoos to learn about animals. However, there are nature programs on television that show animals in their natural habitat. No one needs to see an animal in a cage to learn about nature. Zoo operators are involved in financial exploitation.

Reading plaques at zoo exhibits is so last century. Now you can call up behind-the-scenes videos of zookeepers in action, test your knowledge of animal trivia and navigate the grounds with hand-held multimedia stations. Using global positioning satellite, or GPS, technology to detect your location, the small devices trigger video introductions on 4-inch LCD screens when you approach an exhibit. You can see how grizzly bears get their teeth cleaned and rhinos get pedicures.

Today's aquariums and zoos are more than a place to view sharks and killer whales or to see lions, tigers and bears up close. In addition to educating the public about wildlife and the importance of taking care of the environment, zoos and aquariums play an important role in helping endangered species.

Hansa, a 6-year-old Asian elephant born at Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, died there about a week after she began showing signs of abdominal pain, zoo officials said. Animal rights groups cited her death as proof the zoo was too small for elephants. A necropsy was planned.

An endangered primate at the Sacramento Zoo died unexpectedly last month. Jimmy, a 13-year-old golden-bellied mangabey, collapsed Dec. 29; veterinarians were unable to revive him, zoo officials said Thursday. Little is known about mangabeys, but they are thought to live in a small area in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The primates are considered endangered because of poaching and habitat loss. There are 19 golden-bellied mangabeys in North American zoos.

Pina Available on VOD April 6 Prior to the death of legendary choreographer Pina Bausch in 2009, she and director Wim Wenders had been collaborating on a performance film, which Wenders then re-fashioned into "Pina," as a sort of testimonial. Working in collaboration with Bausch's troupe, Wenders breaks up lengthy dance routines with interviews about the choreographer's spiritual, aesthetic and personal influence on her employees. These interviews are understandably sappy, and they prevent the dances from developing as they would onstage; but Bausch's work is still stunning, with staging that involves the addition of obstacles such as dirt, rocks and water to the dance floor.

HONG KONG — It's a warm, humid day halfway into the city's International Film Festival, and Edwin — a rising Indonesian indie filmmaker with his single name born of tradition rather than manufactured Hollywood artifice — is trying to explain how he shapes the aesthetic of his films. It all begins with a single image. For "Postcards From the Zoo," an ethereal fairy-tale-like story of a child abandoned at Jakarta's Ragunan Zoo that is in competition, it was raindrops on an elephant's hide.

The Los Angeles Zoo is opening a snazzy new home for reptiles and amphibians today, a $14-million condominium complex for Mexican beaded lizards, Rowley's palm vipers, radiated tortoises and other creatures that slither and croak. The LAIR — the acronym for Living Amphibians, Invertebrates and Reptiles — was five years in the making and will be one of just a few reptile houses to open in North America in the last decade. "We've got one of the best in the nation," zoo Director John Lewis said as workers prepared by cleaning display windows, planting feathery ferns, adjusting temperature and humidity controls and using metal hooks to place venomous snakes carefully into their spacious new homes.

For the record: Yes, that was Newt Gingrich at the San Diego Zoo on Tuesday for a 90-minute behind-the-scenes tour. Gingrich was in the area raising money for his bid for the Republican presidential nomination but found time to visit the zoo, including feeding a young panda, looking at elephants, polar bears and tigers, and posing for pictures with zoo staffers. Gingrich has made other visits to the zoo and Safari Park, including a sleepover at the park's Snore and Roar program.

Kate Winslet, Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster and John C. Reilly fight over how it ought to be done in "Carnage. " George Clooney in "The Descendants," Matt Damon in "We Bought a Zoo" and Sandra Bullock in "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" are worried about doing it alone. Viola Davis does it for other people in "The Help. " Demián Bichir does it as an immigrant in "A Better Life. " Nick Nolte is trying to do it over sober in "Warrior. " And Tilda Swinton has blood-soaked proof that she has done it all terribly wrong in "We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Reporting from San Diego -- Two ailing and aged elephants at the San Diego Zoo had to be euthanized this week, zoo officials announced Friday. The two Asian elephants were suffering and their chances for recovery were virtually nil, officials said. Cha Cha, estimated to be 43 years old, was euthanized Wednesday. To allow other elephants to see her a final time, her lifeless body was lifted on a forklift and taken to where other elephants in the Elephant Odyssey exhibit are kept.

As the mosquito-borne West Nile virus makes its way across the country, public health officials are on the lookout for signs of new outbreaks. These signs may appear not in hospital emergency rooms but in zoos.

Wanda has arthritis and Winky has foot problems after years of bitter winters and tight living conditions at the Detroit Zoo. So the zoo is granting them amnesty in a rare attempt to end their suffering. The Asian females will be sent to a wildlife refuge this summer or early fall, making the zoo the nation's first major animal facility to give away its elephants solely on ethical grounds, according to the Humane Society of the United States.

A hunt is underway in San Francisco to find a 2-pound squirrel monkey that disappeared from the zoo Friday morning after vandals broke into his exhibit. Banana Sam, 17 years old, disappeared overnight after vandals cut two holes in the mesh of the squirrel monkey exhibit. Sam is 1 foot tall and looks harmless but has sharp teeth and "will definitely bite if provoked," San Francisco Zoo officials said in a statement. "He is a valued member of the zoo, and we wish for a safe and speedy return," officials said.

For the last six months, three orangutans at the Milwaukee County Zoo have had the pleasure of playing with a donated iPad a couple of times a week, and guess what: They love it. "We show them the iPad, and read them stories or let them have different apps," said Jan Rafert, curator of primates and small mammals at the zoo. "We don't let them hold them, but they can do some of the paint apps by sticking their fingers through the mesh. " The orangutan iPad program, known as Apps for Apes, was started after the gorilla keeper at the zoo mentioned on her Facebook page that she'd like to get some iPads for her gorillas to play with, Rafert explained.