A monkey escaped from the Washington Park Zoo in Michigan City, Indiana by using a garden hose to climb the walls of the moat surrounding its enclosure. The mischievous monkey quickly made it to a nearby boat dealership and jumped on a speedboat. Sadly, he was apprehended by zoo workers before making it to the water.
Zoo Director Johnny Martinez assured residents of the surrounding Chicago suburbs that there was no need to worry:
The freedom-seeking monkey is sociable and was not any danger to people.
George Lucas and Steven Spielberg need to get in touch with that zoo fast. That monkey is bound to escape eventually, and the Hollywood folks could give it an outlet for its talents as an extra in the Indiana Jones franchise.
The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta declares itself the biggest in the world, but its newest attraction is actually quite small: A rare and threatened sea dragon is pregnant and scheduled to give birth in mid-July.
Marine maniacs know it's the male sea dragons and sea horses that carry the young (take that, Pregnant Man!) and in the case of the weedy sea dragon, the aquarium had trouble getting their seven specimens to mate at all.
Now that one is confirmed pregnant, it shouldn't be too long before baby dragons populate the aquarium's tanks--a triumph for an institution still getting over the loss of a beloved beluga whale earlier this year.
Visitors are flocking to an animal preserve in Italy to see a mutant deer that looks like a unicorn. The animal was born last year sporting what Associated Press politely calls a "an apparent genetic flaw" that gives it only one horn. The unicorn-like mutation has made the deer a "budding media star" in Italy.
It would be so awesome if this deer joined a team of mutant superhero woodland creatures. Being a baby animal celebrity-slash-playboy media darling could be his cover and at night he'd fight forest fires with a two headed raccoon and a five legged frog. Maybe they'd even recruit some swimming bears!
Valencia, the third largest city in Spain, has just opened the first phase of a $94 million, state-of-the-art zoo called Bioparc Valencia.
The zoo spans 25 acres and is home to 4,000 animals from 250 species including the old zoo favorites and stand-bys: antelope, zebras, gorillas and leopards.
Yet it's not your grandparents zoo where you walk around and point at animals in cages. The Bioparc reproduces the vegetation, terrain and sounds of the animals' ecosystem while hiding all the man-made stuff like barriers so you can feel a little less guilty about observing animals taken from their natural habitats.
We're trying to ween ourselves off cute-polar-bears-in-German-zoos stories but... they're just so damned cute. We get it that the Berlin Zoo's poor Knut now has a personality disorder but we just can't stop!
Flocke, which means snowflake, is the new Knut. She's the new star of the Nuremberg Zoo in southeastern Germany and like Knut, she's been hand-reared by zoo-keepers. (Apparently her mother tried to drop her down some stone stairs.)
Given that the Berlin Zoo admits to earning nearly $8 million from Knut last year, the Nuremberg Zoo will be looking for people like us to fork out for Flocke merchandise and extra zoo visits, too. Will we give in to temptation? We're hoping to stop at some gratuitously cute pictures.
It won't take you long to think of a few celebrities who've had trouble dealing with fame. Apparently, the same problems can occur in the world of polar bears. And that's why the biggest tourist magnet ever at the Berlin Zoo, abandoned polar bear Knut, might be taken out of the limelight soon.
Turns out that Knut has gotten so addicted to the adoration of the public that he can't survive without it. For example, the zoo closed for a day recently due to bad weather, and he howled and screamed the hours away until his fans returned. If there are no people near him, Knut becomes distressed and angry.
Some of the staff at the Berlin Zoo are considering sending Knut to a smaller animal park where he gets less attention, but presumably the attention would follow him. Unless he gets smuggled anonymously. If you find a cute (but slightly psycho) polar bear in your backyard soon, let us know.
We feel like Sydney's tourist attractions have been getting more and more expensive in recent years, so we're quite pleased to see a decent discount deal coming out for the Sydney Wildlife World and the Sydney Aquarium. They've just joined forces to create a "Discovery Pass" which gives you a discount of around 20 percent if you head to both of them, as long as your visits are within three months of one another.
After considering shark sightings at the Aquarium, we're keen to get back there soon; the koalas at Sydney Wildlife World have such a massive cute factor they're pretty much irresistible.
The new deal means an adult pass for both places is now A$46.50 ($43), more than a $10 discount. That more than makes up for the unfavorable exchange rate for those traveling on US dollars. Come on, those Sydney sharks are waiting to smile at you.
If you're a cute, black-and-white animal living in Stuttgart's beautiful Wilhelma Zoo, you've been in the headlines recently. That's the conclusion we've drawn from the series of stories emerging from southern Germany, with the most disturbing news being the abduction of Babe.
Babe, in this case, was not a pig, but a penguin. Poor Babe was bird-napped from her enclosure in broad daylight last Tuesday and hasn't been seen since. As the police astutely pointed out, "There is no black market for penguins in Germany," so everyone's stumped by the penguin theft.
But the zoo is trying to turn its image positive again, finally announcing that a baby polar bear was born there in December. They kept it a secret--trying to avoid a repeat of the Knut drama in the Berlin Zoo--but have now announced that baby Wilbär is happy, healthy and hasn't been abandoned by his mother, although he'll be staying out of the public eye until April. By which time, we hope, poor Babe the penguin has also returned.
We recommend postponing trips to Stuttgart until all the black-and-white cuties are on show again.
