In the 1930's wolves became extinct in France. Sixty years later, wild wolves crossed over the Alps from Italy into France. This group has since expanded to up to 200 individuals in 20 different packs. The wolves have spread to cover 15 out of 94 départements (map) reaching North to the Vosges in Lorraine and West to Cantal in Auvergne (map), and occupying the French Pyrenees for the first time in a century.

The presence of the wolves has caused considerable distress to French shepherds — particularly in the French Pyrenees, where they are forced to contend with a growing wolf population, along with a now-discontinued government plan to reintroduce brown bears.

Black Sheep (2006) is certainly an interesting film. It comes from New Zealand and certainly doesn't seem to be trying to break any stereotypes as there are quite a few well-defined ones in here. It's a horror comedy and while I can't say it's a genre I am familiar with this film does have a few scary scenes as well as a bit of entertaining humour.

This film is a lot like Resident Evil but with sheep. A farmer is experimenting with genetic engineering and when some environmentalists spill some waste from the facility they cause the sheep to start eating meat and attacking people. In addition whoever is bitten by a sheep turns into one. This leads to a race to survive and contain the outbreak for the protagonists. The humour is mainly provided by one of the environmentalist who makes a variety of new-age quips about their chakra and provides scented candles.

Bookcrossing.com and Too Far Press have teamed up to distribute over 1000 copies of Wild Animus (Advance Reader Version). The book is about a Berkley college student who decides that he no longer wishes to be a human, but a Dall Ram by the name of Ransom. The book follows his attempts in the literal world and the world of print to break thru to the Furry side.

They pay the postage and ship worldwide. The author, Rich Shapero, seems unaware of a Furry community, and may be even somewhat autobiographical.

A planned publicity stunt ala a giant Easter egg hunt, with copies of this book as the eggs across the world is likely to send some of the spotlight Furryward.

Dolly the sheep, the first mammal cloned from an adult, was euthanized after being diagnosed with a progressive lung disease, her creators said Friday. She was born in 1996 and revealed to the world in 1997; scientists studied her as she began to exhibit symptoms of aging as though she were much older than she was, and she began to exhibit signs of arthritis before her sixth birthday. She was six and a half years old when she died, and is survived by her five children.

More information can be found at the Washington Post.

Combining a love of poetry and quantum mechanics, a British writer is using sheep to create a living form of "random" poetry.

The members of a flock of sheep had words spray painted on their backs. As the sheep move around and come to rest again, they form poems. The quantum physics aspect refers to the uncertainty of how the sheep will arrange themselves.

A New York performance artist is doing a similar project using cows.

Like something out of an early "Toy Story," the kittens cluster rigidly around a table laden with tea and cakes, while nearby two rakish squirrels smoke their pipes — watched by a two-headed lamb and conjoined twin piglets.

Read the full article here.

With some help from Dogbert, Dilbert is turned into a sheep while inventing a machine for the marketing department. Start with the Monday strip (http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/archive/dilbert-20021118.html) and follow along as he finds out what it's like to be an engineer in sheep's clothing.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that many hobby farmers in western states are forming a network to preserve endangered livestock -- breeds which have fallen out of favor for one reason or another. The article includes pictures of several rare Jacob Sheep, once much prized for its multi-colored wool

BBC News online reports the existence of a six-month-old lamb cloned from a dead member of an endangered species of wild sheep. The mouflon sheep is native to Sadinia, Corsica and Cyprus. The surrogate mother was a domesticated ewe of a related species. Click on the link to read the full story. There's a picture of the cute little lamb there, too.