Doodles sent us his latest compilation of furry comics appearing in Previews. Read More for the complete list!

Canadian Joe Gill, who lives outside of Grande Prairie, Alberta, has been ticketed for riding his horse into town. Despite Alberta's farming and ranching heritage, Gill has been been warned previously not to ride into town, as his horse "could be startled by emergency vehicles or cause traffic jams."

"It's pretty silly they don't allow this," he told the Grande Prairie Herald-Tribune. "Alberta is the cowboy capital of Canada."

Last year Tokyo based Takara Co. Ltd. unveiled their "Bowlingual" dog translation device in Japan, where it sold about 300,000 of the units. Now, they're bringing the product to the U.S., where they hope sales will boom despite the $120 price tag. Bowlingual uses a collar-mounted microphone to pick up the dog's vocalizations and "translates" them into appropriate phrases via a palm-sized receiver.

After three years, the second "Blacksad" album by Juan Diaz Canales (writer) & Juanjo Guarnido (artist) has been published by Dargaud (March 22). "Arctic-Nation" is a Furry kidnapping/murder mystery involving a white supremacist (polar bears, arctic foxes, etc.) hate movement. All in French, but check out the art samples on the bd.net website. Let's hope it is not another three years before volume 3 (announced as "Red Soul") is finished.

Dolphins and sea lion are part of the US troops deployed in the Gulf. Tacoma and Makai, part of the US Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three, are the two dolphins charged with helping clear Iraqi ports of misplaced mines. Using echolocation, the mines are found in the silt of the ocean floor. Floats are put in place by the dolphins, marking the locations. The Navy says they face no "significant" risk.

It’s now just over two months away from the start of C-ACE (May 30 to June 1 in Ottawa, Canada), and we’re very excited with how things are shaping up! Here are just a few of the highlights this month.

Fishing is still killing dolphins, and conservationists worry that the damage could soon lead to extinction. Plans have been brought up to try high tech sound deterrants or net holes to keep dolphins out of fishing nets. But the best way to keep dolphins out of nets is to keep nets out of the sea.

Get it stuck on your shoe or get it sticking you to a seat, and you'll quickly understand why China has a $200,000 gum removal research program and Singapore has banned the sticky stuff (except with a note from your doctor).
Cities spent hundreds of thousands, even millions, of dollars a year cleaning up gum stick to stuff.But even with that, manufacturers don't have the incentive to make a non-stick gum, because chewers prefer the sticky feel of chewing gum just as it is. So what's in the future? A biodegradable chew? Or gum-removing specialty cleaners? Only time will tell.

A glowing fireball fell from the sky, and there were numerous UFO reports. But was it an unlucky cat instead? Find out at Ananova.

A beaver found a chair on a porch just the place to spend the night. Complete article here.

It's well known that dogs are used by military and law-enforcement in various roles, but what about sea-lions? Or chickens?

This time of year it is not entirely unusual to walk into a store such as K-mart and find someone bedecked with bunny ears and tail, and on March 11th that is exactly how Amy Hamilton-Thibert appeared. What wasn't typical was the cardboard sign she bore, which simply stated:

"Someone's in my Easter basket ... and it's G.I. Joe!!"

Those who were around when Furry fandom was starting up from the late 1970s to the early 1990s will remember Fara Shimbo and her Klysadel stories, told in over a dozen fanzine text stories and comic strips, about Wargentin College on the Moon several thousand years in the future, and its bizarre faculty and students mixing humans, talking animals, and Furry aliens, notably the satamuri (roughly a cross between cats and baboons). Shimbo also entered paintings of her characters in the Art Shows of the first couple of Furry conventions. Then she dropped out of fandom.

She has just returned with her own website, where everything is being posted including a 70+ page color comic book. For those of you who want to catch up with the adventures of Thobo the Hat, Fara Maki, Dark Jon and the others, go to http://klysadel.net/

Last year Kootenay National Park in British Columbia served as the proving ground for the world's first real-time, infrared wildlife detection system.

Developed by InTranstech, the system uses state-of-the-art infrared cameras to "see" animals on or near a roadway, and is linked to highway signs which alert motorists to that fact. The cameras were originally designed to detect missiles, and provide the ability to distinguish between ordinary traffic and moose or deer. An explantion of the system can be seen here.

Initial tests were considered a success and trials will continue this Spring, with an expected conclusion in the Fall of 2003.

Optimus Prime is heading out to the Middle East with his guard unit on Wednesday to provide fire protection for airfields under combat.

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