Idiotic exotic pets in the news: attacking chimp, drugdealer serval, wandering monitor lizard & turtles

10 southern soft shell turtles were dumped in NJ; four froze; six are at Popcorn Park Zoo

Druglord’s serval moves into CT kids’ museum

A serval (small wild cat) who spent years beholden to a NYC drug dealer, now is living well in suburban West Hartford, CT, at the Children’s Museum after getting cared for by Dyckman’s Wildlife Control in Mahopac, N.Y. Chicago Tribune

Five-foot African monitor lizard prowls LA HuffPo

The long, sad story of the CT chimp that ripped off a woman’s face

Dan Lee tells the much longer and sadder version of the story of Travis, the popular pet chimp who bit off the face of one of his caretakers. The disturbed woman who owned him treasured his dangerous, isolating company after the deaths of her husband and daughter. New York Magazine

Southern soft-shelled turtles found dumped in NJ

A woman found 10 soft-shelled turtles by the side of the road near the Passaic River in West New York, NJ. Four had frozen to death. The rest would have if she hadn’t stopped and gotten them to the Popcorn Park Zoo, which hopes to move them back south. Wildlife officials are offering a reward; they presume they were someone’s idiotic idea of a pet. LA Times

Estrella, Mexican gray wolf shot in December, had pushed the species forward

The Mexican gray wolf shot by poachers in December in New Mexico had done her best to help her species survive. She was 13 and had raised 22 pups, nine of whom had pups of their own. There’s a huge reward for her shooter, but like most Mexican wolf shootings, it will likely go unpunished. Colorado Springs Gazette

Mercury in San Francisco Bay fish traced to two mining sources

A new kind of “fingerprinting” of Mercury shows that the kind minnows are eating in San Francisco Bay come from two, maybe three, main sources. Researchers trace the toxin to “historic mercury mines to the south and a different fingerprint coming from historic gold mines to the north.” Science Daily

Kangaroos slaughtered by millions

Two reports on kangaroos show that 3 million adults and 1 million joeys are slaughtered a year. Advocacy for Animals

The Daily Show: Mississippi town finds state values birds more than black history

Wyatt Cenac visits Turkey Creek, MS, which freed slaves founded. Not that MS cared–they bulldozed a cemetery and nearly wiped the town off the map. Until Mississippi Audubon came to the rescue, pointing out the value of the area’s birds. The Daily Show: Bird Like Me and Audubon

Young morticians offer therapy dog at funeral home

A Zanesville funeral home has a sweet yellow lab, Wilson, to comfort guests. The couple that runs Fawcett, Oliver, Glass and Palmer Funeral Home got him from a shelter and are training him to be an official therapy dog. Zanesville Times Record

Sea Shepherd says its found the Japanese whaling fleet again AFP

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