L.A. Unleashed

Rescue a cat or dog at the Adopt-A-Thon

Carla Hall — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:24:37 -0700

"Choose me," Berry, a male Chow-Shepherd mix, seems to be saying. He's a little more than a year old and up for adoption at the North Central Animal Care Center.

Like most shops in the city, the Los Angeles Department of Animal Services has slashed its prices. It's offering 60% off adoption service fees this weekend. On Saturday and Sunday, the department is holding an Adopt-A-Thon at all six of its shelters. (Saturday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.) Adoption fees for dogs will be $43 and for cats, $28. (That includes spay/neuter surgery, vaccinations, and, for dogs, a one-year license.)

There are sad reasons, though, for the sale. L.A. Animal Services, which runs the city's shelters, says it has a high number of animals partially due to the housing crisis and people abandoning their pets when they have to leave their homes. And, in general, summer is a high volume time at the shelters -- especially for cats.

So there are plenty more feline and canine options where Muffin, pictured below, came from.

But if you want Muffin, a female gray short hair who is about two and a half years old, you will find her at the West L.A. Animal Care Center.

Muffin's shelter ID number is A0957879.

And the North Central shelter ID number for Berry, at top, is A0943508.

-- Carla Hall

Photos: L.A. Animal Services

Endangered species get new aid

Alice Short — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:31:51 -0700

California's Supreme Court gave new protection to the state's endangered species Thursday, ruling unanimously that developers, loggers and other commercial interests may be required to compensate for unforeseen wildlife losses. Times staff writer Maura Dolan reports:

The ruling, which affects both public works and private development, threw out a long-term logging plan approved by the state for 200,000 acres in Humboldt County, a plan that lower courts put on hold several years ago.

The state high court said the Department of Forestry had approved an "unidentifiable" plan that was still a work in progress and then delegated its completion to the logging company. Justice Carlos R. Moreno, writing for the court, called the Forestry Department's action illegal and an abrogation of its duties. The California Department of Forestry "failed to proceed according to law," Moreno wrote.

The decision grew out of lawsuits that followed the historic Headwaters Agreement, a 1996 pact between Pacific Lumber Co. and the state and federal governments. It was designed to resolve litigation and disputes over the logging of old-growth forests.

A rodeo opens in controversy

Alice Short — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 07:21:00 -0700

As previously noted on L.A. Unleashed, the world's largest outdoor rodeo remains mired in controvery. The Associated Press reports:

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Western heritage runs deep in this high plains city, and nothing typifies the local cowboy and ranching culture more than the 10-day Cheyenne Frontier Days celebration (the photo at left is from last year's event), which boasts the world's largest outdoor rodeo.

Yet, as this year's "Daddy of 'Em All" rodeo gets under way this weekend, the event is fighting off allegations of animal cruelty, which prompted the rock band Matchbox Twenty to cancel a scheduled performance. Animal-rights activists want certain rodeo events banned. Organizers and competitors are calling it an attack on Western tradition.

"I feel like it's like gun control. If you let him take one event, they're going to try to get another. And then, I think, it's just going to snowball from there," said Brian McNamee, a past rodeo competitor from Wyoming.

The culture clash comes amid a national debate on the treatment of sporting animals following the death of a racehorse in the Kentucky Derby. Animal-rights groups have long fought to eliminate cockfighting, dogfighting and game-farm hunts, and have advocated for better treatment of zoo and circus animals. But rodeos are starting to gain more of their attention, and in some cases protests.

Photo: Michael Smith / The Wyoming Tribune Eagle

What happens when the circus comes to town

Alice Short — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:06:28 -0700

L.A. Now blogger Veronique de Turenne reminds us that the circus has come to town (at Staples), complete with acts, animals and controvery. PETA and other animal rights organizations would like all of us to boycott the circus, which has a few problems of its own.

This fall, Ringling Brothers is supposed to go to court for a trial over charges that it abuses its Asian elephants in violation of the federal Endangered Species Act. Ringling Brothers denies the allegations, as reported in the L.A. Weekly's article on a most unusual protest against the circus.

Photo: Don Kelsen / Los Angeles Times

Long Beach man sentenced for possessing rare iguanas

Tony Barboza — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 17:28:27 -0700

A Long Beach man was sentenced Monday to five years of probation and 2,500 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $2,000 fine for concealing and possessing rare iguanas in the United States, authorities said.

Jereme James, 34, was convicted of one count of concealing and one count of possessing the endangered animals in April. Prosecutors said he brought the reptiles into the U.S. by hiding them in a special compartment in his prosthetic leg, but he was acquitted of smuggling.

The Fiji Island banded iguana is threatened with extinction and is protected under an international treaty known as the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

While on a trip to Fiji in September 2002, James allegedly abducted three of the iguanas from an ecological preserve and brought them to the United States, according to the U.S. attorney's office.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service began an undercover investigation, during which James told an undercover operative that he sold a trio of Fiji Island banded iguanas for $32,000. When Fish & Wildlife Service agents searched James’ house in July 2007, they found four.

--Tony Barboza

Blue whales move in for the krill

Tony Barboza — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 14:22:00 -0700

A migrating blue whale surfaces off the coast of Long Beach near an oil rig. The animals, the largest on the planet at up to 100 feet long, have been passing unusually close to shore to feed on tons of krill. From the front page of today's Times.

Photo: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times

Accountant charged with stealing $2.7 million in pet insurance money

Tony Barboza — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:17:09 -0700

An El Segundo accountant has been charged with stealing $2.7 million from a pet insurance company and transferring it into international bank accounts, authorities said.

Stephen Anthony Frlekin, 58, allegedly stole the money between February and June 2008 while he worked as an accountant for Veterinary Pet Insurance in Brea, according to an Orange County district attorney's office news release.

Frlekin is accused of diverting the money to his personal bank account, then wire-transferring most of it to accounts that he had opened in Asia, Europe and the Caribbean. He allegedly laundered as much as $1 million in a 24-hour period.

Frlekin is expected to be arraigned Friday on 103 felony counts of money laundering, 48 felony counts of computer access and fraud, one felony count of grand theft and white-collar sentencing enhancements. He faces a maximum sentence of 114 years and eight months in prison if convicted.

-- Tony Barboza

This jaguar can't exactly drive on the road or the range

Francisco Vara-Orta — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:07:00 -0700

The Feline Conservation Center in Rosamond just released this photo of Rocco, a male Jaguar cub born June 8 and named after golfer Rocco Mediate. Rocco, the jaguar, will make his public debut at the Fabulous Feline Follies event on Aug. 16, the center's officials said.

--Francisco Vara-Orta

Photo: Nancy Vandermey/Feline Conservation Center

Moe on the Lam -- Joining the Camels?

Patt Morrison — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 12:06:25 -0700

Moe the chimp was orphaned in Tanzania when poachers killed his mother. A West Covina couple raised him for more than 30 of his 42 years, toilet-training him, teaching him to eat with a knife and fork and sitting with him on the couch to watch TV.

But Moe was taken away after some woman stuck her finger in his cage -– and he bit it, probably thinking her red nail polish was licorice.

Then, last week, he took himself away from his current home, slipping his cage at a wild animal training center that’s a kind of Actors Studio for critters.

Moe may have been sighted roaming the San Bernardino Mountains this week. But if you’re inclined to think, ``Go, Moe!’’ think again. He’s no doubt happier out of a cage but in a lot more danger –- from thirst, from hunger, from rattlesnakes, from morons with guns who think they’re going to bag Bigfoot. No wonder his human parents have rented a helicopter to try to rescue him from the wild, dry landscape.

And chimpanzees, our closest genetic relatives in the rest of the animal kingdom, are inclined to be sociable; at some point, Moe will miss company. You can’t even wish for him to find a nice girl chimpanzee and have his tribe increase – there isn’t one in the Southern California wilds.

There were other exotic creatures roaming these parts once. The Army brought camels to L.A. before the Civil War -– one desert is just like another, right?

The Great Camel Experiment failed. Some were sold, many were abused, and some survivors were turned loose into the same desert region where Moe may now be. Camel sightings have persisted throughout the Southwest since then. Topsy, the last L.A. camel in captivity, died in 1934 in the Griffith Zoo, forerunner to the present zoo. She’d been given to the zoo by the Fox movie people. Her hump had been crushed in a circus train wreck. The zoo refused to take Topsy’s partner because he had been too badly disfigured in the same train wreck – guess it was too upsetting for people to see the results of human handiwork.

So Moe: be careful out there.

-- Patt Morrison

Ex-mayor's plea deal ends dognapping case

Tony Barboza — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:52:11 -0700

From the Associated Press:

Alice, Texas -- A former small-town south Texas mayor accused of secretly keeping her neighbors' dog after telling them the pet had died has reached a plea deal.

Grace Saenz-Lopez pleaded no contest Tuesday to filing a false police report, a misdemeanor. Under terms of the deal, she'll pay a $300 fine and serve 48 hours of community service and two years of probation.

Saenz-Lopez, the former mayor of Alice, had claimed the Shih Tzu named Puddles died last year while she was pet-sitting for neighbors Rudy Gutierrez and Shelly Cavazos. Three months later, a relative of the neighbors saw the dog, renamed Panchito, at a grooming business.

Saenz-Lopez insisted that Gutierrez and Cavazos had neglected the animal, but state District Judge Richard Terrell in McAllen ordered her in April to return the dog.

Saenz-Lopez had faced two felony counts of tampering with evidence and concealing evidence for hiding the dog with her sister and reporting it as missing. Her sister, Gracy Garcia, was indicted on a count of concealing evidence. Those charges were dropped under the plea deal.

Saenz-Lopez resigned as mayor in February once a recall petition began circulating. She had held the office since 2003.