Keeping an eye on Atlanta's animal scene

Spring is an exciting time at Zoo Atlanta, where there’s lots of news to report since we last blogged.

Four-year-old warthog Shirley gave birth to her third litter, with five piglets (four girls and one boy) late Wednesday. Sadly, the zoo reported that three of the five piglets have since died. While the piglets appeared to be active and feeding normally, “infant mortality is not uncommon for newborn warthogs in their fragile first days of life,” the zoo said. The Animal Management and Veterinary Teams continue to monitor Shirley and her remaining two piglets, which appear to be doing well.

Miri, an 18-year-old Bornean orangutan, gave birth to a baby (seen above) on March 30 — only the second Bornean orangutan born at the zoo. The infant was Miri and Sulango’s second. Although Miri is an experienced mother, the zoo was worried because the infant was small and not as active and alert as expected. On April 5, the zoo reported that based on observations made during a veterinary exam on April 1 and a lack of improvement in his appearance on April 2, zoo officials removed him for hand-rearing by the Animal Management and Veterinary Teams. At that time, the baby was “currently under round-the-clock care and monitoring, and at this time, his condition remains guarded.”

Blaze, a 14-year-old Sumatran orangutan from the Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans, La., arrived at Zoo Atlanta on March 29. Her former caretakers described her as “a strong-willed female and a quick learner who enjoys training.” She will make her official debut later this spring after a routine quarantine period. The zoo has high hopes for a match between Blaze and longtime bachelor Alan, who is currently ranked as North America’s most genetically valuable male orangutan.

Robin, a 4-year-old golden lion tamarin at Zoo Atlanta, gave birth to twins on March 18. The infants, each estimated to weigh about 2 ounces, were the first offspring for Robin and her mate, 4-year-old male Theo. Sadly, one of the twins died a few days later. The zoo said that golden lion tamarins are known to carry an increased risk of infant mortality when born to parents without previous parenting experience. Robin and Theo were both the youngest offspring in their families, so they never got to “participate in infant care taking, which in their species is a behavior learned through practice and observation,” the zoo said.

And more zooborns are on the way.

Great apes Kuchi and Kudzoo, western lowland gorillas, are both expecting. Kuchi, the only gorilla in captivity ever to rear twins independently, is set to become a mother for the fourth time. Kudzoo is expecting her second infant. The babies share a father — silverback Taz — and could arrive just weeks or days apart.

Glenda the giraffe could deliver anytime between now and May. Her calf will be about 6 feet tall and weigh between 100 and 150 pounds at birth.

Tickets are now on sale for Atlanta Lab Rescue‘s 6th BARK FOR ART to benefit homeless and abused Labrador Retrievers and Lab mixes throughout Georgia.

WHAT: Culinary treats, wines, live entertainment and a silent art auction

WHEN: Saturday, May 15, 7-10 p.m.

WHERE: Mason Murer Fine Art Gallery in Atlanta

HOW MUCH: Tickets are $50 at the door or $45 through PayPal online at www.atlantalabrescue.com. Admission includes food, beverages and entertainment.

They began with nine puppies in need of homes. Laura King and a friend of hers, both students at Georgia State University rescued the dogs’ mom in East Lake a few months ago after neighbors saw a man in a Mercedes dump her and two other dogs in the street. The students only discovered later that she was pregnant, and by Saturday, they had a litter of six-week-old boxer-lab-beagle mixes ready for new families. So they took to the street, standing on Flat Shoals Avenue in East Atlanta with a sign too tempting for cars not to pull over.

By the end of the day, all nine had found homes.

This little guy was my favorite. In my mind, I called him Flat Shoals, and hoped he would find a nice family. Emily tells me he went with a little three-year-old boy who picked him out. It’s sweet to think of the two boys growing up together.

Emily got to keep a little brown-black girl with white boots whom she named Matilda.

The Georgia House of Representatives approved a bill that would ban the use of gas chambers to euthanize shelter dogs and cats, the Associated Press reported.

The bill, approved 115-46 Tuesday, would require animals to be put to sleep through lethal injection. It now goes to the state Senate.

Bill sponsor state Rep. Tom Knox said lethal injection would be cheaper and more humane than gas chambers, which use carbon monoxide to euthanize the animals.

According to the AP, State Rep. and veterinarian Gene Maddox opposed the bill saying for wild or feral animals who are not used to being handled by humans, carbon monoxide chambers are the most humane way to put an animal down.

The Animal Law Coalition says gas chambers are used in 11 Georgia city or county shelters. They are in the cities of Ashburn, Cordele, Cuthbert, Hawkinsville, Lakeland and Vienna; and Cobb, Butts, Haralson, Henry and Mitchell counties.

The circus zebra that broke through its enclosure last month and stopped traffic in downtown Atlanta is dead.

A statement put out by Ringling Bros. and Barnum and Bailey says veterinarians were unable to repair the animal’s hooves, which she injured while running around the city, despite “numerous medical treatments.”

Spokeswoman Crystal Drake told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution it “wouldn’t have been humane to keep it alive.”

This story isn’t based in Atlanta, but it should give hope to lost-cat owners everywhere. Thanks to a microchip, a cat in Massachusetts has been reunited with its owner after going missing for almost a year. From the Boston Globe:

The sleek coal-black feline scampered to freedom — and the unknown — from his Lexington home last spring while his owners were visiting friends in Boston. After Sparky fled, Addie Mathews, 19, posted flyers and scoured the neighborhood for the then 7-month-old kitten.

”There was no sign of him,” she said. ”I was just really hoping that someone had taken him in, because he’s a really friendly cat.”

Several weeks ago, a black cat was discovered in a bank-owned Boston property. The owner had been foreclosed on, and the animal had been left behind. Sparky was brought to the MSPCA in Jamaica Plain on Feb. 28.

When an adoption center counselor scanned the cat, a microchip was found– and to Mathews’ surprise, she was reunited with Sparky that day.

A warning: this one’s tough to stomach.

A man who admitted to smashing his dog in the head twice with a sledgehammer in a supposed mercy killing gone wrong was convicted on one felony Wednesday in DeKalb County Superior Court, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s April Hunt reports. Jurors found him guilty of two lesser misdemeanor charges of animal cruelty instead of two other felonies he faced.

Joe Waters could serve prison time and pay thousands of dollars in fines, the AJC said.

Waters left the 9-year-old dog near death in Murphey Candler Park on Dec. 1. The dog had a severe skull fracture, hypothermia and lost an eye, but he has recovered and lives with the man who found him the day after the attack. The Good Samaritan, Robert Kennedy, has paid $10,000 in medical bills with a trust fund that was set up for the dog.

www.flickr.com/photos/crowolf/3787256337/

PETA claims that a tiger was brutally whipped by circus employees when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus was in town last month, but the circus owner says the activist group has made up the accusation to get publicity.

The animal rights group has offered up to $5,000 for information about the alleged beating on February 18. The organization says a whistleblower reported “Ringling trainers repeatedly and violently whipped the tiger until the animal collapsed on the floor and lost control of his bowels.”

The circus — yes, the same one from which a zebra escaped — denies that any animals were abused and told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that PETA made up the allegations.

“I really believe this is just an activist tactic,” said Crystal Drake, regional public relations manager for Feld Entertainment, which owns the circus. “Don’t make up things about abuse that is not happening.”

"Don’t use the term 'world music' around Thurston unless you want a 20 minute lecture." -- hipster puppies

I was excited to see that an Atlanta dog recently made the cut on Hipster Puppies, the instantly-popular blog celebrating pretentious canines. (See companion site, Hipster Kitty.)

Thurston lives in Edgewood. He belongs to Austin L. Ray and Ray’s girlfriend, who snapped him up at the DeKalb County Animal Shelter about a month ago. The folks at the shelter estimated that Thurston is a three-year-old boxer/beagle mix, but “judging from his behavior, my girlfriend and I think he’s a little younger than that,” Ray told me.

Thurston made a big splash on the Hipster Puppies blog, prompting a poster on another site to comment, “Would steal ‘Thurston’ if given the opportunity. Dog looks awesome.”

Thurston normally doesn’t wear anything but his collar, but he agreed to pose for this photo while Ray gave him a treat.

“He’s quite the curious chewer. But he’s also very patient…especially when you’re bribing him with a treat,” Ray said.

Ray sent us a photo from that same shoot that they didn’t send to Hipster Puppies:

Thurston is so over it.

Two Georgia men were convicted Friday, for a second time, of abusing their horses during a two month trek into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in western Montana.

Craig Heydon, 72, and his 38-year-old son, Curtis Heydon, of Woodstock, Ga., had been found guilty last year in Justice Court of 21 counts of misdemeanor animal abuse, sentenced to nearly a year in jail and fines of more than $5,000 each. They were also ordered to forfeit the horses and pay restitution for their care.

The men appealed in District Court, where they were convicted again.

This time, the men were each found guilty of nine counts of animal cruelty to three different horses during their trip in 2008. The son was convicted an additional charge for abandoning a dying horse tied up without water on a trail.

The Heydons left their horse on the side of the trail after he refused to get up. (Ravalli Republic)

The case came to light when two women on horseback found “the emaciated horse lying in the sun, covered in biting insects and tied tight to nearby log,” according to the Ravalli Republic. They had the horse brought to a veterinary hospital for treatment.

Right from the beginning, Heydon said things happened they hadn’t expected, the Ravalli Republic reported:

The cot and tents they planned to sleep in were too bulky and banged into trees and rocks along the trail. The horse named Preacher would lie down for no good reason. Bay Baby – later named Able – kept falling.

And the trail over Pack Horse Pass was covered in snow.

Heydon said that was his oversight.

“I did not check with the wilderness service for what trails would be open and what ones would not be open,” he said.

The worst surprise came more than month into the trip when a small withers sore turned into something much bigger on the back of the elder Heydon’s riding horse he called Morgan.

That discovery marked the beginning of the end for the men’s trip.

In an effort to pull up their camp, the younger Heydon would attempt a 19-mile ride from deep in the Idaho wilderness to the Montana side. Along the way, he’d be forced to abandon a shoeless Bay Baby on the Big Creek Trail.

The discovery of the emaciated horse and the story of its rescue would end in the confiscation of the Heydons’ horses and the abuse charges being filed.

The elder Heydon remained adamant the men did nothing but care for the horses the best way they could.

“When we saw the withers sore, we knew we had problems that I had never seen before,” Heydon testified. “At this point, we’re not in a position to do much. We were way out in the middle of nowhere. We did everything we could.”