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<p>OKLAHOMA CITY – It's not unusual to see a deer or a cow crossing Oklahoma's rural highways. But an elephant? A couple driving home from church nearly slammed into a giant pachyderm that had escaped from a nearby circus late Wednesday.</p>

In Defense of Animals (IDA) the organization that has worked for two years to rescue three circus elephants named Tina, Jewel and Queenie, announced today that the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has filed formal charges against the elephants' handler, Wilbur Davenport (dba "Maximus tons of Fun") for multiple violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA). The charges state that “the gravity of the violations alleged…is great” and that Davenport has “not shown good faith” in his repeated unwillingness to comply with the AWA and its regulations and standards.

When Surya the orangutan meets a hound dog by the river, the two carry on like long lost friends.

Officials at the Edmonton Valley Zoo will not bring in more veterinarians to examine Lucy, their Asian elephant, retired game show host and animal activist Bob Barker was told Thursday afternoon. "The meeting went badly," Barker told reporters after speaking privately with city and zoo officials. "The zoo is absolutely implacable. They won't consider even saying that when Lucy is feeling well that we can take her to the sanctuary." At a news conference earlier in the day, Barker called for the zoo to bring in more experts to look at Lucy to determine if she can be moved to...

Woman Says Zoo Elephant Threw Stone at Her SEPTEMBER 16, 2009 05:42 Police yesterday said they are probing whether an elephant at the zoo inside Children’s Grand Park in Seoul threw a stone at a woman. The Gwangjin Ward Police Station said, “A woman surnamed Kim reported to police that she was hit by a stone thrown by an elephant.” Kim was taking a walk in the quiet zoo around 9:30 a.m. Monday. She told The Dong-A Ilbo, “The elephant (Taesani) was picking up a stone with its trunk. I was really impressed that it really used its trunk to...

Billionaire was trampled during August trip to SerengetiSilicon Valley billionaire Tom Siebel says he's recovering from broken ribs and legs after an elephant charged at him and a tour guide in the Serengeti a month ago. Siebel on Wednesday told the San Jose Mercury News that the animal plowed into the guide and then attacked him, breaking several ribs, goring him in the left leg and crushing the right leg. "It was all happening so fast." Siebel told the paper. "There was no place to hide, no place to run." The 55-year-old Siebel Systems software founder said the Aug. 1...

Elephant carwash raises zoo cash A wildlife safari in Oregon, USA, has come up with an unusual way to raise money in the tough economic climate. For $20, visitors can have their car washed by the zoo's elephants, who scrub with sponges and rinse with their trunks.

The accidental death of an elephant which had become bogged in mud 200,000 years ago led to the perfect preservation of its skeleton -- and a remarkable scientific discovery... the skeleton of the prehistoric ancestor to the modern Asian elephant which was fossilised in an abandoned sand quarry in East Java, Indonesia. The ancient bones were discovered after land collapsed at the sand quarry on the Indonesian island, adjacent to the Solo River, which killed two men in April. Researchers from the University of Wollongong in Australia and the Geological Survey Institute spent four weeks excavating the bones of the...

After the dinosaurs perished, life on Earth didn't take long to bounce back, a new study suggests. A newfound 60-million-year-old creature called Eritherium azzouzorum—the oldest known elephant ancestor—bolsters the case that whole new orders of mammals were already around less than 6 million years after global catastrophe ended the age of reptiles some 65.5 million years ago. Paleontologist Emmanuel Gheerbrant discovered the rabbit-size proto-elephant's skull fragments in a basin 60 miles (100 kilometers) east of Casablanca, Morocco. Elephant ancestors, he said, now join the likes of rodents and early primates as some of the first known mammals to walk the...

A pink baby elephant has been caught on camera in Botswana. A wildlife cameraman took pictures of the calf when he spotted it among a herd of about 80 elephants in the Okavango Delta. Experts believe it is probably an albino, which is an extremely rare phenomenon in African elephants.

A pink baby elephant has been caught on camera in Botswana. A wildlife cameraman took pictures of the calf when he spotted it among a herd of about 80 elephants in the Okavango Delta. Experts believe it is probably an albino, which is an extremely rare phenomenon in African elephants. They are unsure of its chances of long-term survival - the blazing African sunlight may cause blindness and skin problems for the calf. Mike Holding, who spotted the baby while filming for a BBC wildlife programme, said: "We only saw it for a couple of minutes as the herd crossed...

A pink baby elephant has been caught on camera in Botswana. A wildlife cameraman took pictures of the calf when he spotted it among a herd of about 80 elephants in the Okavango Delta. Experts believe it is probably an albino, which is an extremely rare phenomenon in African elephants. They are unsure of its chances of long-term survival - the blazing African sunlight may cause blindness and skin problems for the calf. Mike Holding, who spotted the baby while filming for a BBC wildlife programme, said: "We only saw it for a couple of minutes as the herd crossed...

The world's hottest chilly, 'Naga chilly', or 'bhoot jolokia' in Assamese dialect, could be the latest weapon against marauding wild elephants who have wrecked havoc in many parts of Northeast. 'Bhoot jolokia', a chilly pepper that grows mostly in Assam, has shot to limelight after the DRDO developed a non-lethal grenade from it that could be used in anti-terrorist operations. The DRDO and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) are now working on developing the 'chilly' into a powder that could be coated on fences and ropes to scare away wild pachyderms. "Two months back, a WWF experiment observed that the...

Nice story even if it is from cBS.

Ladies and gentlemen, step right up! You’re about to watch history unfold. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has a plan that could forever end the abuse of elephants in the world’s largest circus. PETA recently offered to provide a state-of-the art, high-tech animatronic "elephant" if the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus agrees to retire its real elephants-sparing them from painful lives in chains and servitude. The animatronic elephant would be similar to the dinosaurs currently used in the popular "Walking With Dinosaurs, the Live Experience" show that is touring the United States. Making the switch would...

Kenyan rangers have devised a hi-tech way of saving endangered elephants - by getting the animals to send text messages.Elephants from the Ol Pejeta conservancy have been equipped with a mobile phone SIM card on their collar which automatically sends text messages if they head towards villages. Bull elephants, ranked as near extinct in the Red List of vulnerable species, are renowned as a nuisance for raiding villagers' crops during the harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time. Previously the Kenya Wildlife Service had reluctantly shot five of the animals who persisted in stealing crops. But...

Jul 21st, 2008 The RNC agrees to remove the Republican Elephant from CafePress’ Endangered Species List - Grand Old Party Ensues! Some of you may have seen some of the media coverage (maybe here, here, or here) regarding the Republican National Committee’s recent complaints about our shopkeepers’ use of the terms “GOP,” “Grand Old Party,” “Republican National Committee,” “RNC,” and various elephant designs. To sum it up: back in February, the RNC demanded that CafePress “cease and desist from allowing vendors to utilize the federally registered trademarks of the RNC” and threatened legal action. While we’re open to working...

Wind, rain and bitter cold could not keep five determined women from sending their message to Woodland Park Zoo: An elephant never forgets. The women, representing three animal activist organizations, went to the zoo Friday morning to remember Hansa, the zoo's baby elephant, who died one year ago, and to protest the zoo's decision to once again impregnate Hansa's mother, Chai. The activists claim that because Hansa died of herpes, Chai might also carry the disease and could pass it on if she had another child. "If she has another baby and it dies, she won't recover," said Nancy Farnam,...

PATNA, India (Reuters) - An elephant named "Osama bin Laden" that has killed more than 11 people and injured dozens over the past few months was shot dead in Jharkhand, officials said on Saturday. The wild male elephant, had been terrorising villagers in two states, destroying their crops and homes. Forest officials and a police team tracked down the rogue jumbo in Jharkhand late on Friday, where it was shot dead, Ravi Ranjan, a senior government official said. "Yes, Osama has finally been killed and it took us 20 bullets to silence him," Ranjan told Reuters from Jharkhand on Saturday....

Elephant ancestors were semi-aquatic By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 10:01pm BST 14/04/2008 A primitive ancestor of today's elephants grazed in swamps 40 million years ago, according to a study of fossil teeth. The evidence that the ancient relative of today's elephants lived in fresh water is published today by an international team led by an Oxford University scientist. Moeritherium, a 37 million-year-old amphibious relative of elephants The scientists were investigating the lifestyle of the two early elephants - called proboscideans - Moeritherium ('the beast from Lake Moeris') and Barytherium, which looked like a slender version of today's Asian...

Why are elephants used as the symbol of the Republican Party? Watch this and see... Discover the answer

I attended the Council for National Policy meeting last week in New Orleans and listened to John McCain address the who's who of Hillary Rodham Clinton's vast right-wing conspiracy. It was another chance for McCain to, in his words, "not just unite, but reignite the base." How did the crowd think he did? Let's just say it's hard to ignite anything with cold water and no fire. He talked about two legs of the Republican stool - spending/taxes and national security. But the third leg - social issues - went unmentioned. When questioned, he failed to connect with the people...

February 14, 2008 Zoo slammed for elephant's 'under-age pregancy' Philippe Naughton Sydney's Taronga Zoo has been reprimanded by animal rights activists for letting an Asian elephant fall pregnant even though she is only nine years old. The zoo, famed for its views over Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, proudly announced today that Thong Dee was five months into a 22-month pregnancy and should become the first captive elephant in Australia to give birth. It even released ultrasound images to confirm what it called an "historic event". But Erica Martin, who heads the Asia Pacific office of the International...

In the Trees A republican elephant in the garden of a home where President Bush attended a fundraiser in Hillsborough, California.

Zimbabwe unveils plans to slaughter excess elephants for dried meat Posted : Fri, 04 Jan 2008 10:24:01 GMT Author : DPA Category : Africa (World) Africa World News | Home Harare/Johannesburg - Zimbabwe's parks and wildlife authority has announced plans to dry and sell elephant meat as a way of making use of the country's burgeoning elephant population, the official Herald newspaper reported Friday. The state-run body will apply to get a quota of elephants it can slaughter to make the delicacy, which is known in southern Africa as biltong. Abbatoirs will have to be specially constructed for the purpose,...

SYDNEY - An elephant toppled out of a truck and killed a circus worker in Australia on Thursday, police said. “The man was killed, crushed to death, while the elephant was being offloaded from a truck,” a spokeswoman for the New South Wales police department said. Police said they had no other details of the incident, which occurred on the grounds of a circus in the seaside community of Yamba, about 700 km (435 miles) north of Sydney. The victim had been the handler of the elephant, named Anna, for two years, local television reported.

30 Aug 2007, 0135 hrs IST,Debajyoti Chakraborty,TNN RANIGANJ (WB): He was tall, dark, handsome and wild at heart. She was city bred, not all that coy. And it was love at first sight. A huge tusker, straight out of the jungle, raided a circus in the wee hours of Wednesday, freed a female elephant and eloped with her to make a cosy home by a pond in Raiganj. This tale of untamed love has yet another bizarre twist: a second female elephant, said to be "very attached" to the one that fled the circus, has broken down and is grieving...

Comic and actor Roseanne Barr has offered a reward to anyone that can return a sex tape of her that has gone "missing." Barr has fired an intern who she alleges stole the tape while working for her on her MySpace page. Barr says on her website: "One of the interns who was administering my MySpace page has been fired. He has stolen my private sex tape. "I am offering $25,000 for its return, unless someone would like to distribute it - then I am willing to deal." She has also claimed that the intern posted offensive messages on the...

The Elephant in the Room of Pasadena Affordable Housing When it comes time to hand out awards for affordable housing in Pasadena who should get the most notoriety? a) Danny Bakewell, Black housing developer and activist b) Jill Shook, activist and author of "Making Housing Happen: A Faith Based Approach" c) Mayor Bill Bogaard, the force behind inclusionary housing law d) Marvin Schacter, low income housing activist, former State Aging Commission member e) Patricia Duff Tucker, Director, Neighborhood Housing Services f) The private landlord elephant in the room The phrase "elephant in the room" is an English idiom for an...

Girl kills elephant with 83-lb bow One of the more unusual stories I've seen on the archery forums recently...

A woman is campaigning to raise awareness of a rare condition which has left her with 11 stone (70kg) legs. Mandy Sellars, 32, from Lancashire, suffers from Proteus syndrome, a condition also thought to have affected the "Elephant Man", Joseph Merrick. Mandy says she is determined to lead an adventurous life

GAUHATI, India - A killer elephant named after Osama bin Laden by fearful villagers was killed by sharpshooters, officials said Sunday. The animal was blamed for 14 deaths in the northeastern state of Assam. "A licensed shooter shot and killed the 10-foot tall bull near the Behali forest reserve in northern Assam," said wildlife warden Chandan Bora. Wildlife authorities had ordered that the elephant be shot and killed by December 31. The order came after the bull — dubbed "Laden" — was blamed for the death of a woman Wednesday near the thickly wooded evergreen jungle where it lived. The...

By IANS Saturday December 16, 07:23 PM Guwahati, Dec 16 (IANS) Laden, a rogue wild Asiatic elephant that was wreaking havoc in Assam, was Saturday shot dead on state orders. A wildlife official said the 10-feet tall male tusk-less elephant was killed by a hunter at the Behali tea plantation in Sonitpur district, 240 km north of Assam's main city of Guwahati. 'Licensed hunter Dipen Ram Phukan and a team of forest rangers shot dead Laden as the elephant was moving around aimlessly and trying to enter a human settlement area,' wildlife warden Chandan Bora told IANS by telephone. 'Local...

'BULL' LADEN AP December 16, 2006 -- GAUHATI, India - Hunters in northeastern India are tracking a rogue elephant blamed for 14 deaths in two years and named Laden - after Osama bin Laden - by fearful villagers. The bull was blamed for a woman's death Wednesday near the evergreen jungle it calls home.

The elephant and the event horizon 26 October 2006 Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition. How to be in two places at once What happens when you throw an elephant into a black hole? It sounds like a bad joke, but it's a question that has been weighing heavily on Leonard Susskind's mind. Susskind, a physicist at Stanford University in California, has been trying to save that elephant for decades. He has finally found a way to do it, but the consequences shake the foundations of what we thought we knew about space and time. If his calculations are correct,...

See the upper left corner of the page for the video of congressional candidate Raj Peter Bhakta riding an elephant across the Rio Grande with a mariachi band playing in the background. They were unchallenged by the Border Patrol, as there were no Border Patrol agents in the vicinity. The stunt was to demonstrate the lack of security on our southern border.

Reports of an elephant crossing the river or people trying to smuggle an elephant across were rampant Tuesday while an elaborate political stunt was taking shape near the mouth of the Rio Grande. It was a while later that the stunt, which was a photo shoot, was abruptly met by federal agents. “The elephant never made landfall into Mexico, but I tell you something, he could have made 15 laps back and forth, but no one showed up,” said Raj Peter Bhakta, a former star on the NBC show “The Apprentice,” who also is a Republican candidate for the 13th...

SEOUL: He's no Dumbo the Flying Elephant but with his ability to "speak," perhaps as close to the Disney cartoon character as a real life elephant can get. The Everland amusement park said Friday its 16-year-old male Asian elephant, named Kosik, can make sounds imitating up to eight Korean words, including 'sit', 'no', 'yes', and 'lie down'. The pachyderm produces humanlike sounds by putting his trunk in his mouth and shaking it while exhaling - similar to how people whistle with their fingers. But the park said it's unclear if Kosik knows the meaning of the sounds he makes. Kim...

Bush: The elephant in the room Opinion Jul. 13, 2006. 01:00 AM JAMES TRAVERS George W. Bush will be the invisible presence at the table tomorrow when Stephen Harper sits down to breakfast with Tony Blair. In the short and long political histories of the Canadian and British prime ministers, no spectre looms as large as that of the U.S. president. Harper's early progress is as connected to his decision to align Ottawa with Washington as Blair's late career stumbles are inseparable from his decision to dispatch troops to Iraq. While the outcomes are markedly different, the motives are remarkably...

Party's fiberglass pachyderm prohibited from Brookfield parade By LISA SINK lsink@journalsentinel.com Brookfield - Democrats can rejoice: This city's Independence Day parade will feature donkeys but no elephants. "Sparky," a 5-foot-tall, 100-pound fiberglass elephant purchased as the mascot for the Republican Party of Waukesha County will not be allowed in Brookfield's Fourth of July parade today, ending its four-year parade run. But the Wisconsin Donkey and Mule Society will return as a parade unit. That's because the donkey and mule society is not affiliated with the Democratic Party. The elephant mascot, however, violates Brookfield's ban on political parties as parade entries....

ZAGREB (AFP) - Suma, a 45-year-old elephant and long-time resident of the Zagreb Zoo, was bereaved and inconsolable after her pachyderm partner of tens years died of cancer. Until she heard Mozart. "Suma became very depressed after her roomie Patna died in early May," head of Zagreb Zoo Mladen Anic told AFP on Thursday. "She was refusing to eat, became uncommunicative, showed all the signs of a serious depression." Then, by sheer accident, Suma's keepers discovered that the healing power of Mozart extends to the animal kingdom too. Earlier this month, the zoo the zoo organized a concert of classical...

Early signs of elephant butchers Excavations took place in 2004 Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists. Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears. The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science. The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet,...

Drug test subject 'looks like elephant man' says girlfriend (Filed: 15/03/2006) The girlfriend of a man fighting for life after taking part in a pharmaceuticals trial has said the drugs he was given have left him looking "like the Elephant Man". Myfanwy Marshall Myfanwy Marshall, 35, said her boyfriend, a 28-year-old British man who had taken part in drug trials before without adverse side effects, felt ill 80 or 90 minutes after being given the drug on Monday. He is now in the intensive care unit at at Northwick Park hospital in north-west London. Five other men were also admitted...

Woman Enters Exhibit, Elephant Smacks Her Fri Mar 3, 7:00 PM ET WACO, Texas - A 25-year-old woman climbed past barriers and into an elephant's zoo exhibit, then crawled out with minor injuries after the 6,000-pound animal smacked her with its trunk. "That's how an elephant reacts to something they would perceive as a threat," said Cameron Park Zoo director Jim Fleshman. After saying she wanted to play with the elephant, the woman climbed over a 3-feet-high wood-and-wire fence, scaled an 8-foot-tall artificial rock structure and bypassed an electric wire before jumping into the exhibit Thursday afternoon, Fleshman said. A...

Get out of the way... he hasn't forgotten By Roger Highfield, Science Editor (Filed: 16/02/2006) The reputation that elephants have for never forgetting has been given a chilling new twist by experts who believe that a generation of pachiderms may taking revenge on humans for the breakdown of elephant society. The New Scientist reports today that elephants appear to be attacking human settlements as vengeance for years of abuse by people. In Uganda, for example, elephant numbers have never been lower or food more plentiful, yet there are reports of the creatures blocking roads and trampling through villages, apparently without...

Bob Barker pleaded with city officials to close the Los Angeles Zoo's pachyderm exhibit and allow its three elephants to retire to a sanctuary. Appearing jovial when he arrived at Friday's City Council meeting, the veteran game show host and longtime animal rights activist turned serious when he began to talk about the zoo's elephants, Gita, Ruby and Billy. "I came here today to ask, to beg you ... to vote to release those elephants from that zoo," Barker said. "They have lived in misery." Gita and Ruby are ill, leaving only Billy on display. A fourth elephant, Tara, died...

Debate over escaped elephant An escaped elephant is roaming the streets of St Petersburg - while authorities try to decide whose job it is to catch it. The animal, which was being transported through Russia by an unnamed Finnish company, escaped from its container by smashing through its walls. There have been a number of sightings around the city but no one has tried to catch the elephant yet. Local media say it's unclear which arm of the St Petersburg emergency services is responsible for escaped elephants.

KERALA: It is one man's love for an elephant that is standing between the animal's life and death. For days, Kuttikrishnan, a pet elephant in its 40s, has been lying in agony on a road, ever since it was knocked down by a speeding bus. With the hip and thighbones broken, there is no way the pet elephant can stand on his legs. And with veterinarian Jacob Cheeran warning that there is a possibility of body sores leading to septicemia, there are already calls for its mercy killing - to end its misery. But Swarnakumari Warrier, the owner, would have...

Sorry if this is a repost. Elephants and lions unleashed on North America? 18:00 17 August 2005 NewScientist.com news service Kurt Kleiner Elephants, lions, cheetahs and camels could one day roam the western US under a proposal to recreate North American landscapes as they existed more than 13,000 years ago, when humans first encountered them. The plan, proposed in a commentary in Nature and co-authored by 13 ecologists and conservation biologists, would help enrich a North American ecosystem that was left almost devoid of large mammals at the end of the Pleistocene period. It would also help preserve wildlife that...

CERGY, France (AFP) - An envelope leaking a strange pinkish powder sparked an alert in a Paris suburban post office, but tests revealed the substance to be nothing more than dessicated elephant dung, police said. With France on high terrorism alert following the London bombings last month, postal workers in a sorting centre in the northwestern suburb of Bonneuil-en-France took no chance when they noticed the strange envelope from Sri Lanka with the powder inside. After police were called in Thursday, six employees who had been exposed to the powder were subjected to medical examinations. The powder was analysed too,...