This morning, user "Quexinos" (formerly known as Sonique) reported to Saturday Morning Sonic that Ben Hurst – Chief Writer and Director of ABC's Sonic the Hedgehog (1993-1995) – died several weeks ago after fainting and falling into a diabetic coma.

Ben has a page on Facebook, which will probably be made into a memorial.

The creators of a widely reported video of urban fox-hunting in London's Victoria Park now claim it was a hoax, the Guardian reports.

The group set up a blog, "Urban Fox Hunters", and posted videos on YouTube seeming to depict a hunt. But the foxes shown were not killed – instead, a dog with a fox pelt attached was chased down the streets by the bat-wielding hoaxers.

The media response was intense in the wake of a recent fox attack. Several groups offered significant rewards to identify those in the video.

Furry radio listeners might want to tune in to Your Time with Kim Iverson at 9PM Eastern tonight for a one-hour segment on furries, including a few minutes with Dr. Samuel Conway (Uncle Kage) on the topics of furry conventions and the fandom in general.

The syndicated talk radio show plays to a mostly adult-female demographic, and is broadcast by stations across the U.S., including Austin, Buffalo, Denver, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Memphis, Norfolk, Portland and Wichita.

Painter and "meta-furry" Jay Van Buren's fursuit portrait project is covered in a video in which he describes fursuiters creating "a kind of bubble of Disneyland":

I'm trying to paint both the human that I know […] and also the fursona that they are projecting when they are in the suit.

The coverage appears to be from two years ago, but is only recently making the rounds.

Jay also featured in the student documentary A Tail of Identity, and helped to organize the recent fursuit video shoot for Higher Than the Stars.

Omaha's fursuiters have been spotted by the local media. Naturally, their first instinct was to consult a psychiatrist for an evaluation of the furs' sexual proclivities.

Despite that, the tone was positive; several fans were quoted, including Snap E. Tiger:

Some people play tennis for fun. Some people go golfing. Some people go to bars and they drink a lot of beer. Some people even take drugs. Instead of all those things, we decide to put on costumes.

Mentioned in passing was Rocket City FurMeet, held this weekend in Huntsville, Alabama.

Update: Check out the video on furrymedia

New York indie pop band The Pains of Being Pure at Heart have included fursuiters in the music video for Higher Than the Stars, shot November 4.

Lead singer Kip Berman touched on the video in a recent SXSW interview:

We recently shot a video with a lot of "furries" (or more politely, "fur suiters") in it… it’s pretty funny, I think. Maybe not as exciting as female prisons or post-apocalyptic lord of the green screen fantasies, but for us — it’s a start.

Some of those involved are listed here, with a few photos. How many can you identify?

Brazilian newspaper Diário de Guarulhos has printed an article about the fandom (p 16), developed with input from Fauna Urbana, Tanuki Gokuhi, Aniki Geelong, Jrrhack and Zutharr.

According to Koga SilverDragon, the piece "describes in a succinct and clear way the 'basics' of the fandom." Included are photos of Canadian fursuiters Inari and Rappy Raptor.

SEMO's Capaha Arrow interviews two local furs: Island (owner of Balubeere) and Lupercus.

Balubeere was spotted by student reporters while debating Brother Jed, a local preacher who comes to the university to – in Island's words – "tell everyone they're going to hell."

Watch: Blaubeere invades the cafeteria, argues with his owner and sings for his creator.

A researcher at the University of East Anglia thinks animals should not just be seen as "fair game" for filmmakers, but should be granted similar privacy rights as humans.

Dr. Mills says animals sometimes withdraw from "public" areas, and appear to want privacy:

When confronted with such 'secretive' behaviour the response of the wildlife documentary is to read it as a challenge to be overcome with the technologies of television. [...] The question constantly posed by wildlife documentaries is how animals should be filmed: they never ask whether animals should be filmed at all.

The story came a day before the release of an amateur documentary from a group attending Midwest FurFest in 2008 and 2009, including covert footage of furs in their natural habitat.

As previously noted, furs appeared tonight on popular Brazilian TV show Caldeirão do Huck.

The fursuiters played as extras to Luciano Huck, who was disguised as one of them.

Those who don't understand Portuguese may want to skip to 3:40 once it's loaded.

The LondonFurs are on display again, this time thanks to a video interview by Babelgum. [diegowolffox and balto_mike/furrymedia]

French-speaking Canadian furs got their turn in the limelight earlier this year with an interview (translation) of Paws, Firebreath, Big Bad Bear and Feli in the Montreal Campus newspaper, which serves the Université du Québec à Montréal.

The article led to a sixteen-minute radio interview of Beekin, Firebreath and Ailé the Dragon, broadcast on CBC's French-language radio network Première Chaîne on 16 February (scroll to "Audio-vidéo"; starts at 0:50). [dronon/furrymedia]

Update: A transcription of the radio broadcast is now available thanks to Firebreath.