Charlie Stephens said his three cats surprised an eastern massasauga rattlesnake at his Port Huron residence on Monday.
“I happened to step out to get the mail and I noticed three of my cats were sitting in a triangle looking at the ground,” he said. “I thought at first they were watching some bird that they had found.
“I walked over to them and they were looking at this snake that was crawling through my front yard in the grass.”
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A young nonprofit has saved 22 dogs from euthanasia by sending them to prison.
Coldwater’s Refurbished Pets of Southern Michigan, formed in spring 2007, partnered with the Coldwater Complex prisons in February for a foster care program that matches pooches facing the needle with prisoners in need of rehabilitation.
Coldwater is the first and only state prison with a prison pets program, said Russ Marlan, Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman.
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Alligators, venomous snakes and poisonous spiders aren’t welcome in the city, according to The Burton News’ Web site, http://www.mlive.com/burton.
That’s the word from the city’s legislative committee, which held a special session Wednesday after receiving reports of an alligator in a DeCamp Street house. Committee members recommended adopting a proposed ordinance to ban keeping exotic or dangerous household pets.
If approved, the measure would require the city to give the owner of a banned animal 10 days to remove it from the home. The owner also could be required to show proof of where the animal was taken.
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Bovine tuberculosis is a progressive wasting disease. It affects mainly cattle but also sheep, goats, pigs and other animals. People who get bovine TB have to take strong antibiotics for up to nine months to cure them.
Humans can get sick from infected cows by drinking milk that has not been heated to kill germs. Another risk is eating meat that has not been cooked to seventy-four degrees Celsius.
[…]
In the early twentieth century, bovine TB probably killed more animals in the United States than all other diseases combined. To control it, the government launched a highly successful testing program. Historians say animal doctors ordered the destruction of about four million cattle between nineteen seventeen and nineteen forty.
But currently, the state of Michigan in the Midwest is fighting an outbreak of tuberculosis in cattle. Experts identified wild deer as the source of infection. More recently the neighboring state of Minnesota has also had to deal with TB in cattle and deer.
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A woman sunbathing on a boat has died after a stingray leaped from the water, hitting her in the face and knocking her to the deck.
The incident, which happened in the Florida Keys, involved a 75lb spotted eagle ray and was described by wildlife experts as a freak accident.
Judy Zagorski, 57, of Pigeon, Michigan, was relaxing in the bow of a small fishing pleasure boat going 25 nautical mph when the ray leaped out of the water.
The impact is likely to have killed the woman but it was not immediately clear whether she was also stung by the venomous barb on the ray’s tail, said officials.
The boat was being driven by the victim’s father on the Atlantic Ocean side of Vaca Key when the creature, which had a wingspan of five to six feet, came out of the sea..
“He had absolutely no warning. It just happened instantaneously,” said Jorge Pino of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
The woman was taken to the Mariner Hospital in Tavernier, where she was pronounced dead. An autopsy will determine an official cause of death.
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What could be more Animal-esque than Super Furry Animals? Here’s their tour schedule for the new year.
12/31 – London, ENG – Royal Festival Hall
01/23 – Hoboken, NJ – Maxwell’s
01/25 – Brooklyn, NY – Music Hall of Williamsburg
01/26 – Philadelphia, PA – Starlight Ballroom
01/27 – Washington, D.C. – 9:30 Club
01/29 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
01/30 – Atlanta, GA – Variety Playhouse
01/31 – New Orleans, LA – The Republic
02/01 – Dallas, TX – Granada Theatre
02/02 – Austin, TX – Emo’s
02/05 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress
02/06 – Solona Beach, CA – Belly Up
02/08 – Los Angeles, CA – Echoplex
02/09 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall
02/11 – Portland, OR – Doug Fir
02/12 – Seattle, WA – Neumos
02/15 – Minneapolis, MN – Varsity Theatre
02/16 – Chicago, IL – Metro
02/17 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick
02/18 – Buffalo, NY – Tralf Music Hall
02/20 – Toronto, ON – Mod Club
02/21 – Montreal, QC – Cabaret Music Hall
02/22 – Ithaca, NY – Cornell University
02/23 – Boston, MA – The Paradise
02/25 – New York, NY – Bowery Ballroom
Kitty Mowmow's Animal Expo 