News Oct 1 2006 PetsWeekly

This is a story about man and nature, wilderness and civilization, and the blind ruthlessness of unchecked fire.

It's about the move to embrace ancient, rural technology to solve a modern urban/suburban problem - and how to get more bang for the buck.

This is a story about goats. Hoofed, horned, don't-stare-at me-while-I'm-chewing goats.

At the intersection of Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Centennial Drive - adjacent to a public university and a posh suburb - 350 flop-eared, paunch-bellied, teeth-gnashing examples of nature's least-discriminating epicurean are hard at work.

The "work" is vegetation removal - grass, weeds, manzanita, poison oak - by molar and mandible. While these rented Angoras, Nubian, Spanish, and other goats do what comes naturally - gnaw and bleat - Tom Klatt is saving $800 per day over his alternative: humans armed with noisy weed whackers.

He's the head of the office of emergency preparedness at the University of California, Berkeley. It uses goats so that one of America's most fire-prone regions doesn't have a repeat of the country's most costly fire that consumed 3,500 homes (one every 11 seconds) in an afternoon in 1991.

Fifteen years after that blaze killed 25 people and reduced several hillsides to charred chimney farms, Mr. Klatt and others say the hired goats are a key reason that a fire of that magnitude hasn't occurred again. That assessment comes just months after another method of grass removal - prescribed burning - scorched 20,000 acres in southern California.

"Goats are a 24-hour mini-weed-eater," says Deputy Fire Chief David Orth of the Berkeley Fire Department. "For decades, we have been trying to break this region's cycle of having a giant fire every 10 years or so ... and at this point goats are playing a bigger part in that every year."

In 14 area fires since 1923, it's been the same pattern. Steep canyons draw 60-mile-per-hour hot, dry offshore winds from the northeast over the highly flammable built-up brush and nonnative eucalyptus trees. Fires leap from underbrush to tree canopies while winds fan them through dense housing communities that firefighters find difficult to reach due to narrow, winding roads.

After 1991, eight local fire agencies formed the Hills Emergency Forum to better coordinate regional prevention and response strategies. Since then, the use of goats to eradicate vegetation has increased. Research has found that goats cost less (about $700 per day per herd), are more versatile and effective, and have the public's affection.

"The public loves them.... There is something about watching animals graze, seeing a very rural activity right in the middle of their community," says Cheryl Miller of the Hills Emergency Forum.

Before the fire-prone months of September and October, people may see as many as three different herds of more than 300 in parks and fields in Berkeley and Oakland. Homeowners sometimes use a goat or two for the afternoon. But that can be a problem because a goat will devour anything edible, including patio furniture and house siding. There is also "the good old-fashioned barnyard smell" to consider, says Ms. Miller.

But for the most part, "[people] love seeing the goats, the dogs that herd them, and the sheep herders as well, as long as they are not downwind," she says.

The goats are contained by electric fences, which hired herders put in place. They move fast, about an acre per day. Border collies and other guard dogs move the goats from site to site - and stick around to protect them from predators.

Besides manzanita and poison oak, the goats feast on yellow star thistle, mountain misery, and pampas grasses. They balance on the steep, rocky banks, standing on hind legs to reach low-hanging branches.

Fire officials like the fact that goats eliminate "the natural fire ladder" - vegetation below eight feet that allows brushfires to run up taller trees to the high leaf canopies, which send embers into the air, endangering areas downwind.

Because goats eat the tops of plants rather than the roots, they are considered less damaging to native plants than other grazing animals. Thinning the plants also causes less erosion from over- stripping and helps till and fertilize the soil.

"We are absolutely happy with what the goats do," says Klatt. "We are not preventing the occurrence of wildfires, but we are making them more manageable so we can stop them before they get to homes."

More important, say Klatt and others, is what the use of goats says to homeowners. New regulation and enforcement have greatly reduced the risk of fire here since 1991, but violations still exist.

"Residents drive by and see the goats each season and get an outside reminder of the absolute vulnerability of these communities to fire," says Miller. "It serves notice that it's time to get their own acts together."

Teddy bear slaughters 2,500 trout

A teddy bear dropped into a pool in a New Hampshire fish farm managed to kill 2,500 trout, The Mercury News reports.

The killer cuddly toy, "dressed in a yellow raincoat and hat", blocked a drain at the Fish and Game Department's hatchery in Milford and suffocated the pond's piscine residents.

Supervisor Robert Fawcett told the paper: "We've had pipes get clogged, but it's usually with more naturally occurring things, like a dead frog or a muskrat.

"This one turned out to be a teddy bear and we don't know how it got there. It's kind of a cute little teddy bear and people wouldn't think that a cute little teddy bear would be able to kill fish."

To combat the teddy bear menace, the fish farm has put up a no-nonsense sign reading: "Release of any teddy bears into the fish hatchery water is not permitted." Those who accidently drop teddy bears into a pool were urged by Fawcett "to find a fish farmer and ask them to remove it". He added: "They might save your teddy bear and keep it from becoming a killer." ®

They endured a summer of war - ground-shaking airstrikes, and abandonment by their owners who fled the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Now Lebanon's unlikely victims of war - its pets - are being airlifted to the United States on Monday for adoption.

For Mona Khoury, who has helped take care of the animals for the past few weeks, the rescue operation is tinged with sadness.

"I've grown attached to them and I'm very, very sad that they're leaving. But I know they'll be in good hands and have a better life there," she said.

Khoury is co-founder of BETA, the humane society Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which partnered on the project with the American animal society Best Friends.

BETA has gathered up many pets left behind by the tens of thousands of foreigners, or Lebanese with foreign passports, who fled the country in July and August. Many left on the recommendations of their governments, which organized evacuations by land and sea.

But the U.S. Embassy and others told evacuees that pets would not be allowed on the ships and helicopters carrying them to safety, and many families were forced to abandon their animals or leave them with friends who later got rid of them. Some 300 of those dogs and cats, including a few stray animals, will be flown out Monday.

"This is certainly the largest animal airlift operation we've ever done overseas," says Michael Mountain, president of the Utah-based Best Friends, America's largest refuge for abused and abandoned pets. In a telephone interview, he said the homeless pets from Beirut would be airlifted on a special Emirates cargo plane Monday to the U.S.

There will be two refueling stops - one in Manchester, England, and another at New York's JFK Airport - before arriving in Las Vegas, where the orphaned pets will be put on Best Friends trucks for the 3.5-hour ride to temporary housing at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, southern Utah.

"Once there, the pets will undergo a final health and behavior evaluation before they're off to their new, permanent homes," Mountain said. "We've already had a lot of offers to adopt these cats and dogs," he added.

He said their entire Middle East operation is costing around US$250,000, most of it from donations raised by animal activists.

Volunteers at the sanctuary have been hard at work building temporary houses for the pets arriving from Lebanon.

"This is for the animals," said Alberto Nunez, one of the construction team. "When I think of their situation over there, it makes me so sad. I want to work for them," he said, according to the Best Friends Web site.

Best Friends arranged a similar operation just a year ago in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when it brought more than 6,000 animals out of the disaster-stricken zone and to new homes. The society has also been assisting animal groups in Israel, where people were also evacuated without their pets.

But the major crisis for animals has been in Lebanon.

On July 12 at the start of the 34-day war, BETA had to move dogs and cats from a shelter near a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut that was repeatedly hit by Israeli warplanes. The animals took refuge in an abandoned hilltop pig farm in Monteverde, in the hills overlooking Beirut. Other BETA shelters were also damaged.

At the height of the war, they were featured on ABC's "Good Morning America," after which adoption offers from the U.S. "started coming down on us by the hundreds," said Khoury.

Jutta Sold, a 36-year-old animal activist who is also a BETA volunteer, said the airlift to the U.S. is "a very good thing."

"It's sad for me, I knew some of these dogs when they were just puppies, but I'm very hopeful that their chances for adoption are much better over there," said the Germany citizen who adopted one of the canines herself.

She said people in Lebanon don't have much connection with animals. "The attitude here is very different from Europe or the United States. A lot of people are afraid of animals, they kick them around."

She also noted there are no laws to protect animals, and chances of them being adopted were much higher in the West.

Fish Is Used to Detect Terror Attacks

A Common Variety of Fish Is Used to Detect Terror Attacks on Municipal Water Supplies

By MARCUS WOHLSEN

The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - A type of fish so common that practically every American kid who ever dropped a fishing line and a bobber into a pond has probably caught one is being enlisted in the fight against terrorism.

San Francisco, New York, Washington and other big cities are using bluegills also known as sunfish or bream as a sort of canary in a coal mine to safeguard their drinking water.

Small numbers of the fish are kept in tanks constantly replenished with water from the municipal supply, and sensors in each tank work around the clock to register changes in the breathing, heartbeat and swimming patterns of the bluegills that occur in the presence of toxins.

"Nature's given us pretty much the most powerful and reliable early warning center out there," said Bill Lawler, co-founder of Intelligent Automation Corporation, a Southern California company that makes and sells the bluegill monitoring system. "There's no known manmade sensor that can do the same job as the bluegill."

Since Sept. 11, the government has taken very seriously the threat of attacks on the U.S. water supply. Federal law requires nearly all community water systems to assess their vulnerability to terrorism.

Big cities employ a range of safeguards against chemical and biological agents, constantly monitoring, testing and treating the water. But electronic protection systems can trace only the toxins they are programmed to detect, Lawler said.

Bluegills a hardy species about the size of a human hand are considered more versatile. They are highly attuned to chemical disturbances in their environment, and when exposed to toxins, they experience the fish version of coughing, flexing their gills to expel unwanted particles.

The computerized system in use in San Francisco and elsewhere is designed to detect even slight changes in the bluegills' vital signs and send an e-mail alert when something is wrong.

San Francisco's bluegills went to work about a month ago, guarding the drinking water of more than 1 million people from substances such as cyanide, diesel fuel, mercury and pesticides. Eight bluegills swim in a tank deep in the basement of a water treatment plant south of the city.

"It gave us the best of both worlds, which is basically all the benefits that come from nature and the best of high-tech," said Susan Leal, general manager of the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

New York City has been testing its system since 2002 and is seeking to expand it. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection reported at least one instance in which the system caught a toxin before it made it into the water supply: The fish noticed a diesel spill two hours earlier than any of the agency's other detection devices.

They do have limitations. While the bluegills have successfully detected at least 30 toxic chemicals, they cannot reliably detect germs. And they are no use against other sorts of attacks say, the bombing of a water main, or an attack by computer hackers on the systems that control the flow of water.

Still, Lawler said more than a dozen other cities have ordered the anti-terror apparatus, called the Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring System, which was originally developed for the Army and starts at around $45,000.

"It provides us an added level of detection of the unknown," said Tony Winnicker, a spokesman for the city's Public Utilities Commission. "There's no computer that's as sophisticated as a living being."

Associated Press
Oct. 2, 2006 10:23 AM

FORT MEYERS, Fla. - A pit bull who was recently adopted by a family after wondering onto a construction site may have saved a teen girl from a house fire on Friday.

Jerrica Seals, 17, was already safely out of the house by the time firefighters arrived, the News-Press of Fort Meyers reported.

"She called me screaming," said Leticia Vega, 36, the sister of Seals' boyfriend Javier Garcia, 23, who owns the home. "She said the dog woke her up barking, jumped on the bed and bit her on the leg."

Seals was taken to the hospital for a checkup, but Garcia said she was going to be fine.

Deputy fire Chief Steve Clyatt said blaze appears to have been caused by a bad extension cord on a window air conditioner.

Vega said her oldest brother, Gabriel Garcia, found the dog while he was working.

"He didn't pay no mind to it," Vega said. "He just kept working and the dog just stayed there so he brought it home. He doesn't usually bark. He's real friendly."

How to keep fires down in California scrub: Chew it.

Teddy bear slaughters 2,500 trout

Fish Is Used to Detect Terror Attacks

A Common Variety of Fish Is Used to Detect Terror Attacks on Municipal Water Supplies

By MARCUS WOHLSEN

The Associated Press