Kenyan authorities on Wednesday began a plan to restore the predator-prey balance in one of the country's premier game parks after a recent drought -- by moving thousands of zebras and wildebeests closer to the lions.

As the sun rose over the 44,000-acre Soysambu Conservancy, a herd of dozens of terrified zebras stampeded as a helicopter buzzed overhead, sending them into a funnel-like trap and into waiting trucks. After three trips, the helicopter had helped capture 88 zebras. Earlier in the week, 49 were herded.

At the end of a three-week operation, the Kenya Wildlife Service aims to relocate 4,000 zebras from different parts of the country to Amboseli National Park. In March, after the wildebeests have finished giving birth, the service plans to move 3,000 of them to the park.

The more fortunate animals will enjoy the environs of Amboseli, a key sanctuary for animals in southwestern Kenya during the dry season because it usually has pasture and water when surrounding areas are dry.

Australia's Melbourne Zoo welcomed a female Asian elephant calf on Jan. 16, and the baby -- who doesn't have an official name yet, but goes by the somewhat-uncreative-if-you-ask-us nickname "Baby" -- recently made her public debut.

For her first few weeks of life, zoo staff elected to keep her out of the public eye in order to maximize her bonding time with mother Dokkoon. That seems to have been a success, zoo spokesperson Judith Henke told Australia's Herald Sun. "She is progressing really well, so it's been decided to start the public viewing," Henke said.

Baby is the first elephant calf to be born at the Melbourne Zoo and only the second to be born in an Australian zoo, the first being Luk Chai, a male calf born at the Taronga Zoo last summer. More photos after the jump!

PHOENIX — Federal wildlife officials plan to move a handful of endangered Sonoran pronghorns to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in western Arizona next winter in hopes of establishing a new population of the rare animals.

The proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is part of an effort to bring back a thriving population of the antelope-like creature. Only about 70 to 90 of the animals now live in the wild in the U.S., mostly in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge about 130 miles west of Tucson and the adjacent Barry M. Goldwater Range and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Another 40 or so are in a captive breeding program, and about 400 live in northern Mexico.

The formal proposal by Fish and Wildlife was published in the Federal Register last week. The plan envisions releasing about a dozen captive-bred pronghorns at the Kofa refuge in Yuma County next winter and up to 20 a year thereafter. Another group would later be reintroduced southeast of Gila Bend.

The service is also proposing that the new population be designated as "experimental," releasing the government from some of the most onerous provisions of the Endangered Species Act for those animals.

There were a lot of winners because of Sunday's Super Bowl in Miami. One of them was the CBS network, which won the largest television audience since M*A*S*H's finale with its Super Bowl broadcast. Another was former San Diego Charger quarterback Drew Brees, who had the last laugh over his old team; the Chargers let him go, but he went on to lead the Saints to their first NFL title and became the Super Bowl MVP in the process. Another winner was the city of New Orleans, which found a valid excuse to party in the streets for an extra nine days.

But the biggest Super Bowl winner, online at least, was this adorable beagle being riled-up/terrorized/mocked by Saints fans watching the game on TV. Indeed, Jerry "The Who Dat Dog" has garnered approximately a half million viewers on YouTube and close to 100,000 on Break.com.

You say you don't know who or what we're talking about? Let's back up.

In case you missed the fuss, down in New Orleans they have a chant for their football team: "Who Dat Say Dey Gonna Beat Dem Saints? Who Dat? Who Dat?" Apparently that chant is just as popular with the four-legged animals as the ones with just two legs. In the video above we see the most popular interaction between man and beast surrounding the Who Dat craze.

But there are other dogs, all claiming to be the ultimate Who Dat Dog. Take Moose the Great Dane, for example. Join us after the jump for videos of some of our other favorite Who Dat dogs.

DETROIT — A Michigan man who had hundreds of live and dead Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes in his home has been sentenced to five years of probation in a mental health program and ordered not to own animals.

At his sentencing hearing Tuesday in Wayne County Circuit Court, Kenneth Lang Jr. told Judge Timothy Kenny he loved the dogs like they were his children but knew he had too many of them.

The sentence had been expected as part of Lang's guilty plea last month to a single count of cruelty to 10 or more animals.

In July, authorities found Lang was hoarding the dogs. They say some dead dogs in freezers in the home may have been killed with an injection.

-- Associated Press

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Photo: Lang enters the 19th District Court in Dearborn, Mich., in September 2009. Credit: Charles V. Tines / Associated Press

The resignation last year of Ed Boks as L.A. Department of Animal Services general manager  left the organization without an official leader. Last month, the city took a step toward finding Boks' replacement. What are the qualifications required of applicants for a job perhaps as precarious as drumming for Spınal Tap? Our colleague Carla Hall has the details; here's an excerpt:

The successful candidate must be compassionate but business-minded, able to inspire the army of staffers who care for the city's abandoned animals and lost pets; to survive interrogation by the L.A. City Council; and to appease the legions of devoted volunteers, rescuers and advocates in the city's humane community.

The new steward of the city's Department of Animal Services should be steeled for the fact that one of the "services" the agency offers is euthanizing animals. But the new manager must also be ready to devise a plan to transform the shelter system into a "no-kill" program that will pledge to euthanize no healthy animal for lack of space.

Warning: The man who last held the job tried hard but satisfied no constituency. He endured criticism from animal welfare advocates, a public upbraiding from a city councilman and near-mutiny by department staffers before he quit last June. His predecessor, who lasted only 13 months, was fired by the mayor and targeted by animal rights activists who smoke-bombed the lobby of his apartment building.

"Francis of Assisi would have trouble in this town," said Bill Dyer, a veteran animal welfare advocate who invoked the patron saint of animals more than once when speaking of the general manager's job.

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

Photo: A 3-month-old female Chinese shar-pei/shepherd mix puppy (ID# A1089957) available for adoption at the L.A. Department of Animal Services' Harbor animal shelter in San Pedro.

Something is holding down the herring population of Alaska's Prince William Sound, and marine scientists are tailing some rather large suspects: humpback whales.

Humpbacks, once hunted to near extinction, are thriving in waters fouled 21 years ago by the Exxon Valdez, the supertanker that ran aground and leaked nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil.

The herring population crashed after the spill but should have rebounded by now. One hypothesis is that humpbacks, traditionally summer residents in the sound, are taking a big bite out of vast herring schools that form in the deep water of the sound's fjords each autumn.

Jan Straley, a marine biology professor at the University of Alaska Southeast, and other researchers have studied whales the last two winters with surprising results. Humpbacks are showing up in significant numbers, even in winter.

When summer resident whales leave, others humpbacks move in. Some summer residents are even skipping their annual transoceanic mating and birthing trips to Hawaii, Mexico or other warm waters in favor of icy Alaska waters.

Germany's Dresden Zoo: Your one-stop baby orangutan shop. (OK, so you can't actually buy a baby orangutan -- nor would we recommend it, considering that the pet trade is reportedly a major problem facing at least one orangutan subspecies, the Sumatran orangutan. But we suspect a plush baby-orangutan doll would be fairly easy to come by in Dresden.) 

Just a few months back, Dresden Zoo orangutan resident Daisy gave birth to a son, Dodi. (Dodi made his public debut in late December.)

As if criminally adorable baby Dodi weren't enough, another orangutan resident of the Dresden Zoo, Djudi (above), gave birth Jan. 30 to a baby named Duran. At age 36, Djudi has become the oldest orangutan mother in any European zoo; Duran is her fifth offspring. See another photo of Djudi and Duran after the jump!

Activists vowing to stop the killing of whales exchanged water-cannon fire with a Japanese whaling fleet they were tailing in the Antarctic Ocean as sea confrontations that have led to collisions and a sunken vessel continued.

The Sea Shepherd conservation group said its ships, the Steve Irwin and the Bob Barker, confronted the Japanese factory ship Nisshin Maru early Monday.

"The factory ship turned on their water cannons and were surprised when the Steve Irwin responded with a more powerful water cannon that had a couple of the whalers diving for the bridge doors," said a statement from the group released Monday.

On Saturday, the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in icy Antarctic waters, causing minor damage to both vessels. A Japanese whaler struck Sea Shepherd's high-tech speed boat Ady Gil and sheared off its nose on Jan. 6. The Bob Barker then came to rescue the crew of the Ady Gil, which sank a day later.

British broadcaster Independent Television (ITV) pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and was fined by an Australian court Monday after a rat was killed and eaten on the reality TV show "I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here."

The broadcaster was taken to court by the RSPCA in Australia in December after two of the contestants caught a rat and killed it in a bid to feed their hungry teammates.

Celebrity chef Gino D'Acampo and soap star Stuart Manning were both charged with animal cruelty after the stunt in which the creature was served up with rice and beans. "I saw one of these rats running around," D'Acampo, who went on to win the show, said of the incident. "I got a knife, I got its throat, I picked it up."

The RSPCA said that killing a rat as part of a TV stunt was "not acceptable".

ITV said it had "apologized for the mistake" and was ordered to pay A$2,500 in fines.

Sky News, a British news outlet, reported on Monday that ITV admitted its production staff had given the go-ahead to a request to kill the rat.

LAS VEGAS — Federal land managers said Monday they'll delay a roundup of most of the nearly 600 wild horses in a range in eastern Nevada, at least until after the herd's spring foaling season.

Advocates fighting to stop mustang roundups in the West said they think their threat to file a lawsuit stopped the U.S. Bureau of Land Management from beginning a roundup next week of almost 500 wild horses in the Eagle Herd Management Area.

"We're pleased that the BLM has postponed another ill-conceived, illegal and inhumane wild horse roundup," said William Spriggs, a Washington, D.C.-based lawyer for In Defense of Animals based in San Rafael, Calif.

Spriggs said by telephone that he's seeking a moratorium on roundups until Congress reviews whether the government should continue removing horses from the range.

But Chris Hanefeld, spokesman for the BLM office in Ely, wouldn't link Spriggs' threat to sue in Washington with the bureau decision in Nevada to postpone the Eagle herd area gather. It had been scheduled to begin Sunday.

An Alaska dentist has given a bald eagle a unique beak -- using a temporary crown, sticky poster putty and yellow highlighter.

The bird was found in December with severe damage to its beak, apparently from a fishing line that wrapped around it and started cutting into it.

Cindy Palmatier at the Bird Treatment and Learning Center says staff members there decided to turn to dentist Kirk Johnson, who thought of patching up the beak with the same material used to make temporary crowns for people.

The "crown" is being held on with poster putty, and Johnson colored it in using highlighter to give it a yellow tint.

The bird center says the eagle is doing just fine but won't be able to return to the wild.

-- Associated Press

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Video: KTUU.com

Dog agility competitions make great TV, with pooches racing around an obstacle course, jumping through hoops and dashing through tunnels. If you've seen it, though, your reaction probably wasn't, "What about cats?"

But that's exactly the thought that Kim Everett-Hirsch of Portland, Ore., had before launching her first cat agility competition in 2005.

"I thought there was no reason cats can't do it."

At that first competition, there were 30 cats, none of whom had ever seen the obstacle course before. And in the building next to the cat show, there was a motorcycle show.

"These people came on over," Everett-Hirsch said. "They said, you gotta be kidding. So they paid admission."

And as the cats came out and got the hang of it, she says, "They were standing up cheering them, 'go girl go!'"

Animals -- from household pets to racehorses to egg-laying chickens to dairy cows -- are more fully protected by the laws of California than those of any other U.S. state, according to the Humane Society of the United States. Our colleague Carol J. Williams has the details; here's an excerpt:

In a comprehensive analysis of the laws in each of the 50 states, [the Humane Society] ranked the Golden State No. 1 for the legal protections it has enacted across the animal kingdom. New Jersey, Colorado, Maine and Massachusetts also scored high in protecting pets and livestock. Idaho and South Dakota earned the lowest scores, in part for their failure to make egregious animal abuse a felony or to outlaw cockfighting.

California scored 45 on a 65-point checklist for laws governing conditions on farms, in shelters and in laboratories and for those dealing with breeders and commercial ventures. It is one of the few states that outlaws the use of animals in product testing when an alternative exists and gives students the right to choose an alternative to animal dissection in schools.

The state prohibits all forms of animal fighting and the keeping of primates, venomous snakes, bears, wolves and big cats as pets. It also outlaws force-feeding of geese for the production of foie gras, battery cages for egg-laying hens and tail-docking of dairy cows.

Bear hunting is allowed in the state, but trade in bear parts is prohibited. In equine protection, California is one of only four states to prohibit the slaughter of horses for human consumption.

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

Photo: A dairy cow on a farm near Merced. Credit: Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times

It's one thing to get a goldfish because your daughter begs for one. It's quite another to end up with a 100-pound rodent who has more than 2,700 Twitter followers.

Caplin Rous is a capybara. Related to the guinea pig, the capybara is the largest species of rodent. Though they're native to South America, Caplin was born in Texas and lives in the town of Buda with Melanie Typaldos, who never expected this animal to take over her life quite the way he has.

Typaldos says it all started on a trip to Venezuela, when her daughter Coral got to hold a young capybara and "fell in love."

"After we got back, she pretty relentlessly pestered me about getting one for a pet," Typaldos says. "Since Coral lived in an apartment and was planning on spending a year in Asia, she couldn't have a pet capybara herself so, she felt, it was up to me to fulfill her capybara vision."

Even capybaras that are bred in captivity like Caplin are not domesticated animals, so early handling and contact is critical for them to be comfortable living with people. Typaldos got Caplin when he was only 11 days old, and took him to work every day for the first three months. Then, "someone complained there was a furry, pig-like animal in the building," and she took a month of vacation and stayed home with him.

Idaho is among several states watching to see if a California animal cruelty law drives flocks of big egg farms there to fly the coop.

Neither Idaho nor Nevada, where officials are aggressively courting the Golden State egg industry, have restrictions on "battery cages" that leave chickens little room to spread their wings.

Idaho Sen. Tim Corder has no desire to change that in his state. Industry should decide, Corder insists.

Still, the Senate Agriculture Committee chairman does want to revamp rules governing where and how giant poultry farms are operated to skirt pitfalls that accompanied explosive growth of Idaho's dairy industry. His state went from 180,000 cows in 1990 to 530,000 in 2009 to become the third-biggest milk producer after California and Wisconsin, but the arrival of mega-dairies caught regulators flat-footed and prompted environmentalists to call foul.

At the Czech Republic's Liberec Zoo, the birth of an endangered golden takin is good news indeed. Imagine the excitement, then, when three of the rare goat-antelopes are born in a single month!

Golden takins are native to the Himalayan region of China, where they're threatened not just by large carnivorous animals like bears, but also by poachers. The Liberec Zoo is home to the only herd of golden takins outside Asia.

In an interview with Radio Prague, zoo spokesperson Ivan Langr explained that golden takins are especially well-suited to life in Liberec, which is situated at the base of a mountain range and is subject to harsh, cold winters. Another reason the zoo decided to import the large, strange-looking beasts is that "the Chinese allowed us to," Langr said. "The Chinese government is very protective of this animal ... they only allow them to be bred in certain places and under very strict conditions. So they had us build a special exhibit, sent specialists to make sure everything was up to par, and only then could the animals be moved."

The zoo's first golden takins, interestingly named Adam and Eva, arrived from China in 2002, and the burgeoning family seems to be thriving. The three new additions, all males, joined the rest of the herd in its outdoor enclosure on Feb. 8. See another photo after the jump!

Each had been sedated before its turn on the operating table to get fixed, part of an ambitious project aimed at putting a dent in their exploding population here.

"We always knew we had a lot of pit bulls, but when we analyzed the data we saw that half our population was dominated by this breed," said Robert Miller, director of Riverside County Department of Animal Services. "It's a problem born out of community decisions. Sometimes it's machismo or the dogs are highlighted in the latest rap video or some young men think it's cool to own them."

Pit bulls have been responsible for a number of vicious attacks, including one Monday in which three children were badly mauled.

The high-energy, powerfully built dogs can be difficult to handle. Males will leap 6-foot-high fences to mate with females, who can bear as many as 14 puppies. The result has been a pit bull boom.

In 2008, Riverside County shelters euthanized 3,000 of them.

Wildlife rescuers are concerned about an alarming trend: Brown pelicans, in large numbers, are being found malnourished, begging for food and, in some cases, dead along the Oregon coast. The reason for the birds' distress remains mysterious; our colleague Kim Murphy reports on experts' efforts to save them and discover the cause of their predicament. Here's an excerpt:

As many as 1,000 of the gangly seabirds failed to make their annual fall migration to California, many instead winding up at Oregon's rehabilitation centers.

Those that did head south, leaving the Pacific Northwest winter behind, were battered by California's recent storms. Shelters in San Pedro and the San Francisco Bay Area are also full of emaciated pelicans.

Researchers, at a loss to explain the casualties, are looking at unusual ocean currents and the depletion of fish stocks -- as well as warmer temperatures, toxic runoff and algae blooms -- as possible causes.

Meanwhile, pelicans are sitting listlessly on beaches and scavenging outside restaurants and canneries.

"In one parking lot, there were people in cars surrounded by pelicans asking for food. We have never seen that before," said Roy Lowe, project leader for the Oregon Coast National Wildlife Refuge Complex. "These birds literally have lost all fear of humans."

In San Pedro, the International Bird Rescue Research Center has taken in about 130 pelicans; a similar number are at the center's Northern California facility.

THERE'S MORE; READ THE REST.

Photo: A rescuer lifts an injured brown pelican from the cleaning station at the Wildlife Center of the North Coast in Astoria, Ore. Credit: Benjamin Reed / For the Times

The American pika isn't heading for the endangered species list, but federal scientists say there's no question it bears watching if the West continues to warm.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service formally announced its decision Friday that Endangered Species Act protections aren't warranted for the climate-sensitive pika, a mountain-dwelling relative of the rabbit that lives in 10 Western states.

Agency officials acknowledge, though, that there's still plenty that's not known about the pika, a species that can be difficult to study because of its remote mountain habitat.

A federal biologist says the decision not to list the pika is just the beginning of what's expected to be more intensive monitoring of the secretive species in the coming years.

-- Associated Press

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Photo: Associated Press