Keeping an eye on Atlanta's animal scene

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Last week, a zebra who escaped the circus stopped traffic on the Downtown Connector. This afternoon, a bison fell off a truck onto I-20 East near Columbia Drive around 3 p.m. A man was transporting two bisons when one either fell or jumped out, officials told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The animal was alive but was injured with broken legs, and police shot and killed the animal, on orders from the state Department of Natural Resources.

From cows to rabbits, “animals have a long history of trying the Atlanta highway system, and, like more regular users, finding it lacking,” writes the AJC’s Ariel Hart.

Lots of people are wondering what’s going to happen to Tilikum, the whale that killed a SeaWorld trainer Wednesday and was linked to two previous deaths.

SeaWorld said Wednesday the animal would not be put down. The park’s blog says the attraction “has every intention of continuing to interact with this animal, though the procedures for working with him will change.”

Animal expert Jack Hanna said on the CBS Early Show that he knew the trainer who was killed, and that keeping animals in captivity is “worth the risks.”

“This is the type of work that we do,” he said. “We do everything we can (to put) the safety of our animals and visitors first. The SeaWorld in-vitro planted, they can now take sperm and eggs and have a baby killer whale. Let’s say 20, 30 years from now, there’s 200 killer whales left in the wild. Let me tell you where we’re going to go: We’re going to go to SeaWorld and see what to to save this magnificent creature. That’s how valuable it is for what we’re doing with research. I hear all these other people commenting with killer whales. Give me a break. Seaworld are the ones that know more about killer whales, and the millions of dollars they spend this rescuing whales is unbelievable. And we put them back out in the wild. So no one hears about this.”

Canines — and some humans — got the “green carpet VIP treatment” at Greendog‘s grand opening party last night, Richard Eldredge writes in Atlanta Magazine’s ATL Blog.

Attendees included dog owner and Atlanta city councilman Kwanza Hall and Action News reporter Tom Regan who was also there covering the opening for WSB-TV.

From the cleaning solutions to the front desk made out of recycled concrete to the pricey Greywater water recycling system that magically relocates doggy bath water to the center’s low-flow toilets, [Greendog owner Jennifer] Nichols has put much thought into making Greendog as green as possible.

Down to her hair.

The lifelong dog lover and former cook at Bacchanalia and Floataway Cafe has even dyed her hair green.

“The biggest challenge was doing the research to find the right environmentally friendly cleaning products and finding ones that would also kill the parvovirus,” she explained.

The animal world is reeling from the news this afternoon that a SeaWorld Orlando trainer died after an attack from a killer whale. The online reaction seems sympathetic to the whale, questioning the sanity of keeping such wild animals in captivity and putting people so close to them.

@krisjacobson Time to stop putting them in captivity?

@Tsemnar There’s a reason why it’s called a KILLER whale. Should we be surprised that it killed that trainer in SeaWorld? NOPE.

@veganmommy Amen to shutting down SeaWorld. I understand helping the animals when they are hurt or sick. Not for entertainment.

Animal lovers will be watching how SeaWorld handles the incident — and what becomes of the whale. I heard a crisis communications expert say that the theme park has a major problem on its hands. If it keeps the whale, that attraction will always have a dark shadow. But removing the whale will create a huge hole for the park.

The attack also made me wonder about the Georgia Aquarium’s “Dive with Gentle Giants” program that allows swimmers and divers into the tank that holds four whale sharks. Whale sharks are apparently gentle and typically don’t eat anything larger than plankton, but some animal advocates have criticized the program and the stress it creates for the animals.

Source: Georgia Aquarium

The Georgia Aquarium announced today that beluga whales are back in the Georgia-Pacific Cold Water Quest gallery.

Maris, a 15-year-old female, returned after a few months at SeaWorld San Antonio, joined by her mate, Beethoven, an 18-year-old male who spent most of his life at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium in Tacoma, Wash., the aquarium said. They were flown in on a FedEx cargo plane, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The pair is still getting acclimated, and the aquarium has not announced when they will go on public view.

The aquarium temporarily moved its three belugas — Maris, her mother, Natasha, and Nico, a male — to Sea World San Antonio while it made some changes to Cold Water Quest, the AJC said.

Natasha will remain in San Antonio, because a mate has been found for her there. Nico, whom the Georgia Aquarium had rescued in 2005 from a Mexico City attraction, died in San Antonio suddenly of unspecified causes on Oct. 31. He was the third of Georgia Aquarium’s belugas to die. Gaspar, who had arrived with Nico, was euthanized in January 2007 because of a bone disease he contracted before coming to Atlanta. Both whales had significant health problems from their times in a foreign park, Dr. Gregory D. Bossart, chief veterinary officer at the aquarium, told CNN at the time.

Another beluga whale, Marina, died later that year from complications of old age.

There are just 36 belugas in captivity in North America, housed at eight aquariums.

The zebra that ran away from the circus on Thursday was taken to UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine because her hooves were bloody from running along the pavement, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

Breaking News!

A zebra escaped from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus this afternoon and ran around downtown Atlanta for several minutes until police caught him on the Interstate 75/85 connector.

At about 5:30 p.m., WSBTV showed trainers loading the agitated zebra onto a horse trailer to take the animal back to the circus at Philips Arena. WSBTV has more photos.

According to the AJC, the zebra was spotted “in the parking lot near the Sam Nunn Federal Building, near Centennial Olympic Park, CNN and on the Downtown Connector. The animal was finally captured on the interstate near the Grady Curve. According to witnesses he was galloping between lanes of traffic on the Downtown Connector before his capture.”

Daniel Nance told the AJC he saw the zebra galloping along Alabama Street near MARTA’s Five Points station.

“All of a sudden a freaking zebra comes running down the street like a car. Five or six police cars were in hot pursuit. And a bunch of officers on foot. But then I got scared, thinking … what else is loose?” said a laughing Nance.

The wayward zebra has caused more backups than usual for the evening commute.

Diana Keough wrote on Twitter:

I’m stuck in traffic because of an escaped zebra. I’m fairly certain I’ve never typed that bf.

Shanod Johnson had bigger problems:

I CANT BELIEVE THIS ZEBRA RAN INTO MY CAR DOWNTOWN. WHO GONA PAY FOR THIS DENT.

and later:

AH MAN DAM I CLAIMING THIS (expletive) AS A HIT AND RUN

Apparently, this is not the first zebra gone loose in Atlanta. In April 2008, a young zebra was found stranded and injured on I-75 in Butts County, the AJC said. The same month, pranksters at Emory University herded a stolen zebra into a classroom building.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports the sheriff in Washington County, approximately 130 miles southeast of Atlanta, on Wednesday arrested a man who kept at least 25 injured and emaciated dogs tied to tire axles and posts in an apparent dog-fighting operation. Investigators found another 27 buried dog carcasses, and the sheriff said there could be others.

Billy Taylor Jr., 52, who had previously been convicted of forgery in DeKalb County, was charged with possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, but the sheriff said he would be charged with “many counts of cruelty to animals.” The dogs were suffering from untreated injures, respiratory problems and open wounds, and were shivering when they were rescued today by the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

“It’s bad enough that these dogs were treated cruelly and raised in horrible conditions,” Tim Rickey, the ASPCA’s Senior Director of Field Investigations and Response, said in a statement. “But to leave them like this to starve is incomprehensible and speaks exactly to the kinds of heinous crimes the ASPCA fights day in and day out.”

The sheriff’s office began investigating the cruelty case about four months ago and called on the ASPCA for help several weeks ago. The ASPCA took the surviving dogs to an undisclosed shelter in Washington County where they were being treated by ASPCA veterinarians with help from the University of Florida’s Center for Forensic Medicine.

Kevin Rowson with 11 Alive has a story about a Kennesaw couple that has offered a $1,000 reward and spent another $1,000 to find their son’s Yorkshire terrier, posing the question: “How far would you go to find your dog if he or she was missing?”

The ironically named “Bolt” ran off from a relative’s apartment complex the day before Valentine’s Day. He belongs to 7-year-old Cayden Harris, whose parents ask anyone who might know the dog’s whereabouts to call them at 404-931-9096.

West Harris says he wants his son to learn that “Money, time, nothing will come between us finding Bolt,” he said. “If there’s a way that he can be found, we will find him.”

Some viewers were incredulous. In the comments under the story, one person wrote:

Actually, I’ll bet a lot of dog owners would go that far — or farther — to track down a beloved pet.

Last year, I wrote about a Marietta tennis pro who spent five months traveling back and forth between Atlanta and Orlando in search of his lost dog, who went missing while the family was on vacation in Florida. Tim Noonan made the seven-hour drive to Orlando nine times to look for his dog, Jake, put up more than 1,000 fliers, called newspapers and TV stations to get the word out, and had a pet detective analyze maps of southwest Orlando to pinpoint the search. The first month, he paced next to highways at rush hour wearing a sandwich board with the dog’s picture on it.

Tim Noonan with his dog, Jake, and the sandwich board he wore to find him.

Noonan’s efforts were rewarded when he got a call from a golf course groundskeeper who had found Jake and was feeding him hot dogs.

In the Harris’s case, a witness told them they saw a man lure Bolt into a truck in front of the apartment’s mail boxes. Kim Harris thinks the man may have picked up Bolt to help him. “We just know that this person who has him will do the right thing and know that this animal is truly loved very much,” she said.