A suggestion to anyone who likes to follow news stories about animals - bookmark the Yahoo! Animal News site and check it on a regular basis. They get many stories that individually would be worthy of mention on Flayrah, but collectively would be a bit overwhelming if we tried to include them all (though we still welcome submissions of particularly interesting animal stories).

At this writing, the top four animal stories listed are:

• Tiger shot dead after it attacks farmers
• S.Africa to Launch Massive Elephant Relocation
• Knowledge is power to manage Namibia's big cats
• Meerkats Become Fat Cats in Large Cooperatives

Feel free to post comments on any of the above stories.

Four heads of a 'Space cult' were arrested in a murder-for-hire plot here in Maryland.
Full article by the Baltimore Sun. Aparently, at least one of them is whacked out of his mind: they used cats to communicate to their "mothership".

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.

From yahoo.com

New Line Cinema has picked up the comedy spec "The Centaur" from writing pair Jack Angelo and Sam Brown for management-production outfit Benderspink to produce.

The script is described as a romantic fable about a woman who falls in love with a seemingly perfect man, only to discover that he is a centaur (half-man/half-horse) brought to mortal life through the aid of magical potion.

'The Centaur' was one of those rare screenplays where you find yourself literally laughing out loud," New Line president of production Toby Emmerich said. "Few writers can weave adult humor with romantic innocence and make it work. Jack and Sam creatively manage this difficult task in a way that is endearing and fun."
Benderspink's J.C. Spink and Chris Bender, who have a first-look deal at the studio, will produce the project. New Line production executives Michele Weiss and Cale Boyter are overseeing.

Angelo and Brown previously teamed on the short film "Chutzpah," which can be seen on IFILM.com

BBC Online reports police in Burundi, Africa, "arrested" a stork on suspicion of spying. The South African stork was fitted with a satellite tracking device and was part of a study of the migratory patterns of the bird. There's a picture of the stork and the device in the story.