BANGKOK, Oct 12, 2008 (AFP) - Two anteaters at Bangkok's main zoo have been given a three-month holiday to recover after violent clashes between police and protesters erupted near their enclosure, the zoo director said Sunday.

MINNERIYA, Sri Lanka, Oct 8, 2008 (AFP) - As evening falls, a female elephant and her pink-skinned baby emerge from the jungle for a leafy snack around an ancient artificial lake in Sri Lanka.

They are just two of hundreds of wild elephants that gather each evening along the banks of the Minneriya reservoir for food, water, shelter -- and match-making.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Oct 7, 2008 (AFP) - Thirty-one penguins stranded on the balmy Brazilian coast were loaded to a ship Tuesday in the first step of a journey to return them south to their natural habitat in Patagonia.

TOKYO, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - As the economic might of Japan faces up to the global banking crisis a single cat is has boosted the finances of a small Japanese city by millions of dollars, according to a study.

Tortoiseshell Tama is the master of the unmanned Kishi train station where she was born and raised, on the provincial Kishigawa Line.

SYDNEY, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - Dogs and cats with cancer will no longer be treated at an Australian hospital because of concerns the practice would be seen as inappropriate, a spokesman said Sunday.

Pets suffering from cancer had been treated with the same radiation equipment used on humans at Melbourne's The Alfred hospital since 2001.

OSLO, Oct 5, 2008 (AFP) - New Zealand dominated the 13th Golden Shears World Championships in sheep shearing held in Norway this weekend, taking home four of the six titles up for grabs on Sunday.

New Zealand won both the individual and team events in wool handling and machine shearing.

BJERKREIM, Norway, Oct 2, 2008 (AFP) - Some 2,700 sheep were lining up to shed their wool in Norway on Thursday as the 13th Golden Shears World Championships began in the southwestern village of Bjerkreim.

SYDNEY, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - A search was underway Wednesday for a fisherman believed to have been snatched by a crocodile near a river populated by the deadly reptiles in northern Australia.

ADDIS ABABA, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - An outbreak of African horse sickness has killed more than 2,000 horses, mules and donkeys in Ethiopia since March, an official said Wednesday.

The disease has swept through the country's southwestern regions since the first outbreak was reported, said Berhe Gebreegziabher, the head of animal health in the agriculture ministry.

SYDNEY, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - 'Croc Hunter' Steve Irwin's father Bob Irwin Wednesday pleaded for no revenge attacks against crocodiles after fears rose that a fisherman had been snatched by one of the deadly reptiles.

ATHENS, Oct 1, 2008 (AFP) - A Greek wildlife group has issued an appeal to farmers and livestock breeders after one of the country's protected brown bears was found shot dead this week, the second fatality in a month.

TOKYO, Sept 30, 2008 (AFP) - Fatty food isn't a problem just for humans. A Japanese aquarium is putting its dolphins on a diet after their portly figures got in the way of their water tricks.

'These days animals at the sealand are a bit ... fat!!!' a zookeeper confided on the website of Kinosaki Marine World in western Hyogo prefecture.

BEIJING, Sept 26, 2008 (AFP) - A Chinese zoo is checking its animals after a lion cub and two orangutans were found to be developing kidney stones from drinking contaminated powdered milk, state media reported Friday.

MEXICO CITY, Sept 23, 2008 (AFP) - A bus hit a stray elephant on a central Mexican highway early Tuesday, killing the driver and the animal and injuring four passengers, said a spokeswoman for the local authorities.

CAIRO, Sept 18, 2008 (AFP) - An Egyptian donkey has been jailed for stealing corn on the cob from a field belonging to an agricultural research institute in the Nile Delta, local media reported on Thursday.

HANOI, Sept 18, 2008 (AFP) - Researchers said Thursday they have found two hairy-nosed otters, which have been listed as the world's rarest species, in a national park in southern Vietnam.

Scientists came across the pair in U Minh Ha National Park in March, according to a statement from the Carnivore and Pangolin Conservation Program.

TOKYO, Sept 17, 2008 (AFP) - Japanese actress Aya Sugimoto has taken off her clothes for sexy movies and photo shoots, but for the first time Wednesday she went naked for animal rights.

TOKYO, September 12, 2008 (AFP) - Saying a final goodbye to pets at a funeral is a special moment for owners, but the monks involved must still cough up money in taxes, Japan's top court ruled Friday.

The Supreme Court ruled against Buddhist monks who argued that Japan's growing trend of pet funerals was a religious activity that should be exempt from taxes, like funerals for humans.

SYDNEY, September 11, 2008 (AFP) - Australian animal cruelty authorities have launched a nationwide hunt for a youth who was videotaped beating a kangaroo unconscious, officials said Thursday.

The video, shot by the boy's laughing friend, was posted on an Internet site and showed him landing a hail of kickboxing-style moves and punches on the apparently dazed grey kangaroo.

LONDON, September 10, 2008 (AFP) - The okapi, an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn, has been photographed in the wild for the first time, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said Thursday.

SYDNEY, September 8, 2008 (AFP) - An Australian surfer said a large shark towed him out to sea like a 'powerful jet-ski' after it became entangled in the leg rope of his surfboard, a newspaper reported.

SEOUL, September 4, 2008 (AFP) - The world's first cloned dog has become a father following the first successful breeding of cloned canines, South Korean researchers said Thursday.

The Afghan hound named Snuppy successfully impregnated two cloned bitches of the same breed through artificial insemination, a Seoul National University research team said in a statement.

WASHINGTON, September 3, 2008 (AFP) - Environmental and animal rights activists dressed as dolphins Wednesday staged a die-in in Washington to protest what they called the 'horrific butchering' of thousands of dolphins by Japanese fishermen every year.

LONDON, September 3, 2008 (AFP) - A British woman was suspended from the ceiling of a London shop by hooks put through her skin, in protest Wednesday against the practice of slicing fins from sharks and throwing them back into the ocean alive.

Spectators gasped as blood trickled down the back of 26-year-old performance artist Alice Newstead, but she insisted it did not hurt.

LONDON, September 3, 2008 (AFP) - Environmental campaigners demonstrated outside the Japanese embassy here Wednesday against what they called the country's 'appallingly cruel' hunting of dolphins.

OTTAWA, September 2, 2008 (AFP) - Wolves in westernmost Canada prefer the taste of salmon, when it is in season, over deer or other wild game, a study of its dietary habits said Tuesday.

STOCKHOLM, August 29, 2008 (AFP) - Sweden's own version of the Loch Ness monster, the Storsjoe or Great Lake monster, has been caught on film by surveillance videos, an association that installed the cameras said Friday.

The legend of the Swedish beast has swirled for nearly four centuries, with some 200 sightings reported in the lake in central Sweden.

OTTAWA, August 28, 2008 (AFP) - Canada's environment minister on Thursday deferred safeguarding this country's iconic polar bear, saying more study of its circumstances and how it could be protected is required.

The decision comes as a scientific panel in Canada delivered its final report on the polar bear, urging the government to act to safeguard it.

COPENHAGEN, August 28, 2008 (AFP) - Dozens of massacred narwhals, an Arctic whale with a single long tusk, have been discovered on the east coast of Greenland in what local police said Thursday could be a case of poaching.

MOSCOW, August 28, 2008 (AFP) - A rampaging bear attacked four residents of a Siberian village this week, tearing off the scalp of one and biting off half the nose of another, the Russian daily Noviye Izvestia reported Thursday.

TOKYO, August 27, 2008 (AFP) - A Japanese man who illegally kept some of the world's most venomous snakes in his tiny Tokyo apartment was arrested after calling an ambulance when one of them bit him, reports said Wednesday.

Nobukazu Kashiwagi, a 41-year-old port worker, was arrested for keeping the dangerous reptiles without proper permission, police told AFP.

MEXICO CITY, August 26, 2008 (AFP) - A nightwatchman and at least 50 horses drowned after heavy rain flooded an equestrian club in Mexico City, state rescue services said Tuesday.

Two other people also died in overnight storms, media reports said.

WASHINGTON, August 26, 2008 (AFP) - Wondering which way is north? You might want to look at grazing cows.

European scientists who studied satellite images of cows and deer around the world have discovered that these animals tend to align themselves with Earth's north-south magnetic fields while they graze or rest.

CARACAS, August 25, 2008 (AFP) - A three-meter (10-foot) Burmese Python killed a student zookeper in Caracas on the weekend and was caught trying to swallow its dead human prey when horrified coworkers arrived, Venezuela's El Universal newspaper reported Monday.

ATHENS, August 23, 2008 (AFP) - Families in Greece seeking to adopt a puppy with a little more pizzazz got their chance this week after one of the nation's most notorious fugitives gave up his pets following his arrest.

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