So, you find a man selling an ocelot in the capital of Bolivia. You confiscate what turns out to be a highly abused animal, alert the Forestry Police, only to find he was let off with no charges because they can't be bothered going through the long and expensive process of bringing him to court.
That's the story, and officals are just throwing up their hands and saying 'we can't be bothered' when it comes to preventing people from removing animals from the wild to keep or sell.
Theoretically Bolivia has been signed on with CITES since the 70's, and outlawed trade in wild animals internally since the 90's, but in practice, there is little indication of these laws. It's usual for people in the country to have pet parrots or monkeys, or to hunt local wildlife, so most people don't see the problem with selling or hunting these endangered animals.

The population of wolves in Kyrgyzstan has grown dramatically in the last decade. Three times as many wolves roam the country as did merely ten years ago. But the State Forestry Service says that's just too many.
The population in Soviet times was a mere 2000, kept down officially and by shepards.
Now the population is much larger and officials says wolves have been moving near humans areas and attacking people and livestock, as well as putting pressure on endangered wildlife.
Restrictions on firearms after violence in the early 1990's means most farmers don't have a gun, but there's a new fund to pay bounty for any hunter who kills one.

A high school teacher in Wichita, Kansas, had used rats before to demonstrate the eating habits of the classroom snakes, but a similar experement with puppies had to be halted because the pupils became very upset by the idea.
The puppies were destined to be put down by the local pound, but a member of the school board adopted them and gave them to the teacher, Matthew Patton, for snake food because he "hates to see any life wasted".
The school acknowledged that while most people don't mind seeing a rat go, "When you have soft, cuddly puppies there are people who get real concerned."

Sci Fi Wire reports that 5 episodes of Wolf Lake will run on UPN starting April 3 (9 p.m. ET/PT.) They will show the pilot and four never before seen episodes.

Sci Fi Wire story here.

To follow up on an earlier article on Flayrah, the San Francisco Chronicle has an interview with Dennis Hwang, the creator of the cute Google doodles:

During the Olympics, when a speed-skating fox, a bear pushing a curling stone and other cutesy images adorned the "Google" logo on the popular Internet search engine, hundreds of users wrote in to compliment the art department.

That provoked a lot of laughs at Google headquarters, because the "art department" actually is just one guy: Dennis Hwang, a 23-year-old Web programmer who whips up the doodles in his spare time, usually for holidays.

There's an Article over on Ananova.com describing a plan to give estrogen injections to a number of vixens, in order to keep them in heat, year round. It's thought that it will disrupt the breeding season and keep the population down.
Sometimes Fact can be Stranger then Fiction, but in this case, Life imitates, um.. Spooge Art?

The fine folks at MIT surgically merged an Ethernet switch and a teddy bear. The bear now has glowing power/uplink eyes, an ethernet jack in each paw, and a Matrix-style uplink in the back of its neck. It's neat }:>.

Main project page is here.
A cool close-up of the bear is here.

In keeping with the theme of this year's convention, Anthrocon will hold an INVENTION FAIR to showcase the creative talents of our members. Entry is quite simple: design a novel device, implement, article of clothing, system, etc. that fits one of the following categories:

Two interesting articles found in the on-line edition of the Fortean Times. They're not as scholarly as they claim, but entertaining to read.

The first covers the spiritial aspects of shapeshifting stories with a Carl Jung viewpoint. The second article speculates the Seal people myths (who shed their seal skins to become people) in Scotland may have been modeled after an aboriginal sea kayaking tribe.

Mundane world got you down? Go Wild at Feral! 2002.

Feral! is proud to announce that our Guest of Honour this year is Jessica (Ginger) Willard! The creator of the lovable Falstaff will be teaching two drawing classes, so if you've ever wanted to get advice from Ginger, now's your chance!

For any furry fan that's into action figures you just have to check out the newest line by Stan Winston. These appear to be well made anthropomorphic felines. I've seen them on Furbid and on Furnation advertised. There's a sabertoothed cat, a lynx, cheetah (or leopard), and a few other puma like ones. Two are female and the rest of the series are male. They are for sale on Amazon.com for 14.99 plus shipping or possibly at your local Toys R Us. Definitely get yourself a set because on the www.stanwinstoncreatures.com web page it talks about anothe upcoming series called Blood Wolves. Not sure myself but perhaps it will be a canine series!

The cow who made national headlines last week by escaping a Cincinatti, OH meat processing facility was finally captured using decoys and tranquilizers.

Read the story on CNN.

Despite the long ban on the international trade in ivory, an increase in world tourism to places like Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam is also showing a huge increase in people buying illegal ivory trinkets and bribing them out of the country. A Save the Elephants sponsored report on the state of wild elephants found as few as 85 in Vietnam, and says it's mainly the ivory which is causing the wildspread killing of elephants.

Further Confusion Art show Checks are in the mail. As of February 16, all
artists checks have been mailed. Thats 19 days, a new record for us. Please
be watching for them. Final figures will be forthcoming but our art show this
year set a new record with over $41,000 in art sales from the show and just
over 100 pieces going to voice auction.

Our huge thanks to Walksfar and the art show staff as well as all the art show
artists, buyers and viewers.

--
Further Confusion
info@furtherconfusion.org
http://www.furtherconfusion.org/

Sci Fi Wire reports that a deal is in the works to show all existing episodes of Wolf Lake on UPN. Sci Fi Wire article here.