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British Gardeners Use Wallabies As Grass Cleaner

British gardeners are increasingly buying wallabies as pets to clean their lawns.

Wallaby enthusiasts say the animal is a cuter, friendlier and more exotic alternative than sheep.

A pair male wallabies cost £150 and females around £650, in addition to food and bedding costs.

Recently landowners seek new ways of keeping their grass neat & clean so they are buying marsupials. Waveney Wildlife, Britain's biggest private supplier, reports a doubling in wallaby orders in five years.

Trevor Lay, who runs the centre in Bungay, Suffolk, now sells 35 a year and says he could find homes for three times as many.

"It's crazy. To be honest, if I had 100 I could easily get rid of them," he said.

Anyone looking to keep a wallaby should have enough land for them to roam, half an acre, and fences at least 5ft high to ensure they cannot jump for freedom.

Proud Father at 111 Years!

A reptile in New Zealand has become the proud father of eleven at the age of 111.

Henry, a centenarian tuatara resides at the Southland Museum and Art Gallery and was a "grumpy old man" until he had a cancerous tumour removed from his genitals in 2002.

The gallery's tuatara curator Lindsay Hazley revealed Henry became less aggressive after the operation and more keen on the opposite sex.
He was caught getting familiar with a female named Mildred last March.

Lindsay said: "I went off the idea he was good for breeding, but once the tumour was removed, he was no longer aggressive."

The museum has 72 of the reptiles after 42 hatchings in the past two years, reports Metro.

Zoo's winter warmers help chilly animals

Animals at a zoo in China are huddling next a fire and electric heaters to beat the cold weather.

As Britain contends with its own big freeze, China is also suffering a blast of Arctic conditions and staff at Chongqing Wild Zoo have installed winter warmers to help the animals cope.

Giraffes spend all day grouped around a roaring fire, while an enormous boa constrictor has been given a blanket and a heater to stave off the cold.

Chongqing Wild Zoo occupies more than 150 acres of land and has more than 230 species of rare wild animals on display.

Last year, it hit the headlines when keeper Luo Yong revealed he was teaching a troupe of wolves to howl along with music.

He claimed all 30 wolves at the zoo had learned to how along to his guitar playing - and hoped to start teaching them to dance next.

Lion Kills Mate

A zoo in Germany introduced a lioness to a lion and his brother in hopes of that the they would mate.

However, as soon as the lion entered the cage he attacked the lioness immediately and killed her.

"It went fine with the first lion, but with the second, his brother, it was quite different," said the spokesman for the zoo.

The lioness was bit and the keepers of the zoo used sticks and hoses to separate them but it was too late.

Virgin Shark Birth

Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska is investigating the mysterious birth of a shark to a virgin mother shark.

Three female sharks live in a tank at the zoo and neither have ever been close to a male bonnethead shark since they arrived as pups.

DNA test are being completed to find out which one of the sharks is the mother and possibly an answer to who the father is.

Vesectomy Reversed on Horse

"This is kind of interesting turnaround," said Dr. Sherman Silber, a St. Louis urologist who pioneered reversible vasectomies in 13,000 humans and helped with the horse surgery. "The human becomes the 'test animal'... We've made so much progress because the human really is the perfect model."Luis Padilla, the zoo veterinarian who performed the reversal surgery in Washington, said the procedure was a first for this species and likely for any endangered species.

A similar surgery was successfully performed while Padilla was a resident at the Saint Louis Zoo in 2003 on South American bush dogs, which resemble Chihuahuas. They are classified as vulnerable but not endangered.The "temporary vasectomy" could have a significant impact on how animals are managed in captivity by giving zookeepers a new way to control the animal's offspring without having to neuter them or use contraceptives that can change an animal's behavior.

Minnesota, the 20-year-old horse, had a vasectomy in 1999 at his previous home at the Minnesota Zoo. A vasectomy may be performed on an endangered animal because of space constraints, the size of species or if an animal has already produced many offspring and its genes are overrepresented in the population, said Budhan Pukazhenthi, a reproductive scientist at the National Zoo's Conservation and Research Center in Front Royal, Va.Scientists later realized Minnesota was one of the most genetically valuable horses in the North American breeding program based on his ancestry.

The Przewalski horse population is based on the genes from only 14 original animals. Zookeepers hope to find a suitable female for Minnesota in July.The breakthrough "could have a very significant effect on how this species is preserved," Padilla said.Still, reversible vasectomies carry notable risks - from putting a horse to sleep for each operation to placing the horse on its back for the surgery.

"I'm sure some people will look at it as a great way for managing species in captivity, and I'm sure others will look at it as something they don't want to do," Padilla said.Cheryl Asa, director of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association's Wildlife Contraception Center, said the reversible vasectomy could be useful in isolated cases but probably won't be adopted broadly.