A project for the manufacture of handmade paper from elephant dung in north Bengal’s Cooch Behar forest division is at an advanced stage of completion, the required infrastructure is being put in place and the process of imparting training to the staff is underway.

It would be the first of its kind in the country, Raman Sukumar, Professor, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and an internationally acclaimed expert on elephants, told The Hindu on Thursday.

The project would not only solve the problem of waste disposal but would also provide alternative earning opportunities to villagers. The raw material would be collected from the waste of captive elephants in the sanctuary, M.C. Biswas, Divisional Forest Officer, Cooch Behar, said. Presently, there are 59 such elephants there.

A feasibility study for setting up a similar project in the vicinity of the Gorumara National Park is on for which technological know-how has been sought from World Wildlife Fund’s [WWF] offices in South Africa, WWF’s senior programme coordinator, Sikkim and north Bengal, Dipankar Ghosh added.

There are 13 captive elephants at Gorumara, according to Tapas Das, Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife II), Jalpaiguri. “Disposal of the waste of these elephants was a major problem particularly as the dung is not decomposable,” Mr. Biswas said.

“On learning of projects taken up in Thailand and Japan, where elephant dung is being converted into pulp and manufacture of hand-made paper, we took up the matter with the authorities at the National Handmade Paper Institute, Jaipur, and got an encouraging response regarding the feasibility of such a project,” he said.

A peacock that roamed into the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant was attacked by a man who vilified the bird as a vampire, animal-control authorities said.

Beaten so fiercely that most of his tail feathers fell out, the bird was euthanized, said Richard Gentles, a spokesman for the city’s Center for Animal Care and Control.

“It’s just unbelievable that someone would do something to a poor, defenseless animal and do it in such a cruel fashion,” he said.

The peacock, a male several years old, wandered into a Burger King parking lot in the New York borough of Staten Island and perched on a car hood Thursday morning. Charmed employees were feeding him bread when the man appeared.

He seized the iridescent bird by the neck, hurled it to the ground and started kicking and stomping the creature, said worker Felicia Finnegan, 19.

“He was going crazy,” she said.

Asked what he was doing, she said, the attacker explained, “‘I’m killing a vampire!’”

Employees called police, but the man ran when he saw them. Authorities were looking for the attacker, described as in his teens or early 20s.

It was not clear how the bird made his way to the Burger King, but a Staten Island resident who raises peacocks said he had given some to a person who lives near the restaurant.

Next to an open Bible on a table inside the Riverview Animal Clinic on U.S. 280, pet Chaplain Marcus Allison cuddled a sick, shivering brown puppy in one arm, reading aloud a verse of scripture.

Then he stroked the dog’s fur and spoke softly. “The Lord loves you,” he said. “The Lord has shined his grace on you. We love you.”

Becky Pearce, 22, who works at the Riverview clinic, found the female puppy abandoned on a road in Pleasant Grove. She picked her up, brought her to the clinic and named the puppy Paige. A veterinarian contacted Allison, a Homewood-based chaplain who specializes in caring for the spiritual needs of animals.

Pearce said the puppy was in bad shape, and would be difficult to save.

“He said he’d like to see her and pray for her,” Pearce said.

Allison was recently ordained by the Rev. Keith Brown, founder of The Chaplain of Pets Ministry in Stone Mountain, Ga.

Allison’s services include praying for and laying hands on pets, anointing them with oil, providing grief support for pet owners, giving last rites to dying pets and performing memorial services for pets. He draws on traditional Christianity, but he considers the ministry interfaith.

The former grief counselor says he has been through traumatic experiences with pets and was disappointed at how his own pastors have dealt with the issue of animals and the grief of pet owners.

“My ministry is for animals and people,” he said. “My goal is to help people connected with animals to have faith.”

Pets have souls and are an expression of God’s unconditional love, Allison said. “My greatest spiritual lessons have come from animals.”

He believes prayers have helped two of his own pets recover when they were on the verge of death.

“There’s nothing as good as prayer,” Allison said.

Allison, who previously ran a pet-sitting business, said he had a dog that had congestive heart failure and kidney failure, and could no longer walk. He asked his pastor to pray for the dog and the pastor said no. So he did some research looking for a pet chaplain and found Brown, who agreed to pray for the dog.

“She suddenly got better,” Allison said. “She just came back alive and could walk around the block with me again.”

Earlier, he had a dying cat. “I prayed, `Let me accept your will,’” he said. “She lived another year and a half.”

Allison likes to cite biblical references to animals.

“In Revelation, Jesus rides a great white horse,” Allison said. “Where’d that horse come from if there are no animals in heaven? Scripture says the lion will lay down with the lamb. How can the lion lay down with the lamb if there are no animals in heaven?”

Allison believes animals have souls.

“God created animals before man, before the fall,” Allison said. “They can’t sin. They don’t need salvation. It’s already assured to them. Who could be more pure than an animal? The greatest teachers of God’s love are animals. It’s the closest we can come to God’s unconditional love.”

Many people like to have a memorial service when a pet dies, Allison said. He does services to celebrate the lives of pets.

“A lot of people feel left out in the cold by the attitude of ministers toward people grieving over animals,” he said. “That’s why animal clergy is needed. Some people experience more grief when an animal dies than when a person dies.”

Not everybody has been welcoming of his offers to pray for pets, or his views on pet salvation. Some think he may be kidding, or crazy.

“Some people think it’s silly or look at me like I’m from Mars,” Allison said.

Still, some veterinarians have welcomed Allison, saying patients may find spiritual support with their pets helpful.

“Marcus is real sincere, very kind and caring,” said Dr. Arthur Serwitz, co-owner of Riverview.

“For certain people, spirituality is very important and they want to be reminded that their pets are God’s creatures,” said Dr. Amy Tate, also an owner at Riverview.

A day after the visit from the chaplain, Paige the puppy took a turn for the worse. Tate said the puppy may have had congenital kidney problems.

“It was a real complicated case,” Serwitz said.

The puppy died on Monday. “It was comforted at the end,” Tate said.

Visitors to the Taiwan Zoo can hold baby crocodiles while the keepers themselves are brave enough to clean their teeth.

Expert and park owner Chui-Hsi-He often performs for onlookers with the zoo’s main attraction, a 25-year-old salt water croc.

Over the years he claims to have built up a trust with this and other crocodiles.

According to Chiu-Hsi-He, the secret to keeping the crocs tame is down to the Buddhist prayers played to the reptiles every day, coupled with the fact they are never fed moving prey.

Due to the method, the predators not only turn peaceful but also allow to brush their teeth and ride their backs.

Successful experiments of the crocodile trainer have made the Taiwan Zoo popular among the tourists as well as local people.

‘The crocodiles keep quite due to the benevolent aura. We daily invite Buddhist monks to pray in our zoo,’ he says.

A Memphis man is recovering at the hospital after getting shot in the back by his dog.

The shooting happened around 2:30 Thursday morning in the 3800 block of Kerwood.

We warn people all the time about keeping guns out of the reach of children. Now, there’s good reason to give the same warning when it comes to dogs–or any pet for that matter.

When police officers arrived, they found a man shot in the back.

According to witnesses, the dog, - a Great Dane, was playing in a front room when the “dog” knocked a gun off of a table.

The gun discharged and the bullet ended up hitting the owner in the back.

At the home Wednesday you could hear a large dog barking in inside but no one answered the door.

Police investigators said that no charges will be filed in this case and they said that’s why officers are not releasing the injured man’s name.

A police spokesman said that the injured man is 21-years old and his condition is listed as critical but stable.

South Africa — Police say the unusual sight of a minibus taxi carrying 23 goats has led to the arrest of three suspected stock thieves in KwaZulu-Natal.

Spokesperson Charmaine Struwig said officers from the Ladysmith stock theft unit were following up a lead on the theft of goats when they made the arrest.

They spotted a taxi at the side of the road between Colenso and Estcourt.

Struwig said: “Upon closer inspection, they were surprised to find 23 goats being transported in the vehicle.”

“The three men could not give the officers a good enough account of where the stock came from and they were arrested for the possession of suspected stolen property.”

The goats were believed to have been stolen in the past two weeks. All carried the same ear marks.

Struwig said the trio would appear in the Ladysmith Magistrate’s Court within a day or two.

Marti Healy believes God gave man dominion over the creatures of the earth with strings attached: Rule with kindness, love unconditionally and listen for lessons of the heart.

A lifelong animal lover, Healy has discovered a deep spirituality in her relationships with dogs and cats, lessons she explores in her book, “The God-Dog Connection“.

The Aiken, S.C., writer, who self-published the volume in 2003, is preparing a companion workbook that will help Christian churches develop small-group pet ministry programs.

“It’s been a ministry I’ve felt called to,” says Healy, who shares her home with two dogs and two cats.

The 25 lessons in “The God-Dog Connection” are gentle stories about the animals she has cared for, their particular behaviors and what those behaviors say about the human relationship to God.

Healy admires the ability of her cat Sparkey and her now deceased dog Pookey to sit quietly in contemplation, a reminder that we humans need time to contemplate the “still, small voice” of God.

Pookey’s willingness to take a young pup in hand, housebreak him and show him how to dig a hole and bury a bone reminds Healy that Christians must witness to others and teach them the faith.

When Sparkey was missing one evening, Healy thought of the story of the prodigal son, who, despite his failures and wanderings, is greeted with great love upon his return home.

She expects the faith lessons will appeal to all ages, those with animals and those who simply believe that humans must care for four-legged creatures.

“I think we are the only species that has the ability to be responsible,” says Healy.

University of South Carolina religion professor Hal French said humans are drawn to the natural world to express spirituality, recalling that Albert Schweitzer first coined the term “reverence for life” after seeing a herd of hippopotamuses in Africa. That philosophy became Schweitzer’s signature.

“Anything that inspires reverence toward animals, pets, other species is a great thing to see and a great counter-agent to all the news about dogfighting,” says French, also a dog lover.

Before moving to Aiken in 2004, Healy, 62, developed a pet ministry program at her United Methodist church in Zionsville, Ind.

What do you feed worms? Worm Chow, of course, made by Purina just like Puppy Chow and Dog Chow and Cat Chow.

You can also feed them organic material.

And what do you get?

Wonderful stuff to enrich your garden.

“Everything they produce is used in organic gardening,” worm entrepreneur John Lask said last week, standing in the worm-breeding area in his Alamogordo home.

He and his wife Penny have a room-full of hybrid red worms in two incubators. There are thousands of red worms, the adults around 2 inches long.

It’s s hobby, Lask said. They’re really good pets, you just have to feed them. They don’t make any noise and you don’t have to house-break them or walk them.”

As a matter of fact, the worm droppings are valuable for fertilizer and compost.

When the Lasks are not raising worms, John runs the Alamo Tire service department and Penny is a certified patient account technician for gastroenterologist Dr. Juergen Muller.

Lask, 63, heard about the worm potential from a friend in Texas who was raising them. He decided it would be a good sideline as well as a hedge against the day he retires.

“It’s a business adventure and a hobby,” he said.

Worms are good things. They improve the soil. Our alkaline rock- and caliche-ridden soil does not provide a good environment for worms. If put directly into the soil, they would die.

However, a gardener can add worms into compost after it has heated and cooled, and add the worm-enriched compost to the soil, which will then improve the soil. The worms can continue to live and continue improving the soil.

Worms should be handled with plastic gloves, Lask said.

“They tell you to do that because the acids and oils on human skin could eventually render them sterile, and that would not be good for breeding worms,” he explained.

Worms are hermaphrodites; each is both male and female, but they require another worm to mate.

According to the literature, mature breeding worms mate, then release a ring, which sheds off and has both sperm and eggs inside. Both ends of the ring seal and form a cocoon. Two or more baby worms will hatch from one end of the cocoon in around three weeks.

“Every day I learn something I don’t want to know. I’m not really a worm person,” Penny said.

Maybe that’s because the worm operation took over what was going to be the family room.

“Now I live with John and the incubators of worms,” she said.

There are two 3-feet by 6-feet incubators, made of fiberglass and computer-controlled to keep the temperature between 72 and 80 degrees.

“If everything is just right, if they have food and water and the right temperature, they keep breeding all the time,” John Lask said. “I just come in every day and say, ‘Get to work, guys.’”

Lask has been in the worm business for about a year. “It takes about seven months to build up to the point you can harvest them. When you start with 30 pounds of worms, it doesn’t take long.”

Penny agreed: “They’re as bad as rabbits.”

To harvest the larger worms, Lask first lets them get a little hungry by not feeding them for a week. (Don’t worry about cruelty to worms; they can safely go a month without being fed, he said.) The larger worms come to the top of the damp paper and peat moss bedding, looking for food.

Then he places a filter of sorts made of 1/8-inch netting on top of the incubator, and puts Worm Chow or organic material on it. The adult worms go to the top to feed, and the babies drop through the mesh back into the incubator.

Lask dumps the worms into a plastic kid-sized pool, and feeds them. “Just like anything else, cows or pigs, you fatten them up before you send them to market,” he said.

He packages them for delivery, usually sending them in 60-pound packages, 20 pounds to a bag.

For every pound of worms, he puts in a pound of dirt and uses peat moss wet to the consistency of a damp sponge to keep them alive en route. “They ship well,” he said.

For example, he said he is sending worms to Kansas City and Iowa in the next two weeks. One batch goes to a company called Ecology Technology.

“They use the worms, thousands of pounds of them, from different suppliers all over the United States, to clean up organic waste and matter in old dumps, and the worms are real good at that,” Lask said.

He sifts the castings out of the bedding, and harvests the urine through a spout on a lower chamber on the incubator.

“It’s one of the best fertilizers, their castings worm manure and their urine,” he said. “The more you break down what you feed them, the faster they work on it and the more they breed, And the smaller the pieces are, the less smell there will be.”

Lask said the worm products are then tilled into the soil.

“You can’t put your compost pile in direct sunlight, it will be too hot,” he said. “Put it under a tree or in the shade, or build a lean-to over it.”

Lask said he “doesn’t make a habit” of selling his worms other than in bulk commercially, but he will make an exception for fishermen and local gardeners.

He usually sells worms in 3-pound packages, for $15 a pound.

Call him at 434-2251 for a price quote.

Better compost with worms

First, don’t use night crawlers.

“They are nomads, they will leave,” Dr. Curtis Smith said in a telephone interview. He is the New Mexico State University Extension horticultural expert.

Red wigglers, like those Lask sells, will stay in the compost.

Smith said worms will compost kitchen waste as well as yard waste. For an in-depth discussion, he refers gardeners to the NMSU Extension composting with worms guide, “Vermicomposting Guide H-164,” which is available at the Otero County Extension office at the fairgrounds, or online at www.cahe.nmsu.edu under Resources, Gardeners.

Vermicomposting says, in part, “Red worms and brandling worms prefer the compost or manure environment. Passing through the gut of the earthworm, recycled organic wastes are excreted as castings, or worm manure, an organic material rich in nutrients that looks like fine-textured soil.

“… Earthworm castings in the home garden often contain five to 11 times more nitrogen, phosphorous, and potassium as the surrounding soil. Secretions in the intestinal tracts of earthworms, along with soil passing through the earthworms, make nutrients more concentrated and available for plant uptake, including micronutrients.”

Here’s the method Smith said he would use in his own garden.

Build a worm bed. Take a 3-foot by 10-foot (or larger) piece of black plastic, and lay it on the ground. Start in a corner and put kitchen waste, like coffee grounds, carrot tops, lettuce trimmings, tea bags and corn cobs, and yard waste, under a corner of the plastic.

“Once you have a good population of worms you can use ‘forbidden compost,’ like macaroni and cheese, meat, bread, almost anything you could eat and didn’t,” Smith said.

Add worms. If you start with a quarter of a pound (In this small area), you should be OK. Cover the plastic with something like burlap bags of leaves and dry grass for insulation.

“When you see them begin to decompose the material, continue adding the kitchen waste in a zigzag pattern under the plastic, touching what’s already there,” Smith explained. “When you are ready to harvest your worms, when they have reached the end of the plastic where you started, pick up the worm castings with the worms in it, and build a pile in a sunny location. The worms will retreat to the center of the pile because they prefer darkness.

“Scrape off the outer edges of the castings pile and put them in the garden or use in potting soil. When you get to the center of the pile, you’ll find your worms have congregated there and you can collect those worms to start a new worm bed.

“The old worm bed can be roto-tilled and become an excellent garden.”

Lask said gardeners can use the castings for roses, tomatoes, whatever. “You are recycling kitchen waste, turning it into better soil, and providing yourself with fishing worms.”

Gardeners’ mailbag

Q. The leaves on my tomato plants near the ground get yellow spots then turn yellow and drop off. What do you suggest?

A. The easiest thing to do, according to “vegetable guy” Master Gardener Jim Money, is to simply snap off the spotted leaves before they drop. You should be feeding tomatoes at least at least once a week, with a good diluted soluble fertilizer, he said.

I note that the hot wind, in addition to the general heat and low humidity are taking a toll and putting your tomatoes, as well as most other plants, in stress.

Watering and a dose of fertilizer should help. Due to our water restrictions, I water three times a week. Try deep watering; if water doesn’t get to the roots it doesn’t do any good. One way to do this is punch holes in a piece of PVC pipe and sink it to root level. Another is to stick the hose nozzle into the dirt at the drip line (NOT the stem) and turn the hose on, medium-fine, for around 20 minutes. Bigger woody perennials like my apple trees I do 30 minutes.

Again, try using a Moisture Meter, which can be purchased in garden supply departments. Stick the metal probe into the soil at root-depth, and read the meter.

You cannot tell from looking at the soil, or sticking a finger into it, whether the roots are moist or dry.

Plan ahead

The next Master Gardener class sponsored by the Otero County Master Gardener Association through the New Mexico State University Extension will be held in the fall of 2008.

“In this area, we are way too busy in the spring,” said Connie Klofonda, president of the OCMGA.

Previously, the 14-week class has been held in the spring. It brings in expert NMSU speakers on a variety of topics.

Bev Eckman-Onyskow is an Alamogordo-based freelance writer and vice president of the Otero County Master Gardener Association.

A rubber horse is the latest training tool being used by firefighters in south Wales to help in animal rescues.

Lucky the horse stands at 5ft (1.52m) tall, with a 70ins (1.77cm) girth and weighs in at 70 stone (450kg).

He will be used to help South Wales Fire Service’s new large animal rescue team train for dealing with incidents.

Last year the brigade received 129 calls to animal rescues with about a third of them to help large animals who had become trapped.

The rubber horse was imported from the USA and cost £5,000 as part of the brigade’s £50,000 investment into large animal rescue training.

About 132 firefighters are due to receive specialist training.

Jane Denman, a firefighter from Ebbw Vale, will be one of the trainers involved.

She said: “We can put lucky into positions to show the crews the safest way to rescue the animal without them getting hurt.”

A spokesman for the brigade added: “Lucky has articulated limbs, an optional tail attachment, is completely rust proof and accepts standard horse harnesses, glides and other associated rescue equipment.

“He can be used in all weathers, in mud, in water and is designed for training indoors and out.

“His feel and articulation closely simulates a sedated horse, which means that students can learn correct positioning and application of the necessary rescue equipment in scenarios that recreate the challenges of real life incidents.”

A bizarre mix of horse and rabbit blood is keeping a schoolgirl alive.

Antibodies drawn from the animals’ blood are giving 14-year-old Cara Heaney a chance of survival as she fights bone marrow failure.

Pioneering doctors are hoping to kick-start the youngster’s immune system and cure the rare illness, known as aplastic anaemia, which affects only one in 200,000 people.

“Without this treatment Cara would not be alive today,’ said Cara’s 41-yearold mother, Miriam. ‘She gets very down but never moans.’

As well as receiving horse antibodies, known as immunoglobulins, and rabbit-blood products over the next few months, Cara must also have at least one blood transfusion every fortnight plus platelet replacements every week.

Cara, of Killingworth, North Tyneside, who has been left in a wheelchair by the illness, said she had ‘tried to be brave’.

Tomorrow the youngster’s courage will be recognised when she is presented with a Brave Hearts award – given to children who have shown great strength in overcoming illnesses.