Behind a blockade through which only humanitarian and basic supplies are allowed, Gaza's Happy Land Zoo gets creative when it comes to introducing new animals to the community's children.

"The zebras are locally manufactured," Zoo Director Mahmud Barghut told AFP. "We take a donkey and draw stripes on it."

He said the process requires two days, masking tape, and French hair dye.

While some smaller things--including the zoo's ostriches--can be smuggled in through an elaborate system of tunnels, bringing a zebra through would have cost $30,000.

"Happy Land" tries to live up to its name--but with everything tightly rationed, the lion gets only half of his recommended allowance of meat, and some animals died when workers couldn't access the zoo for three weeks during a military offensive last year. No medication is available to treat animals when they become ill.

Barghut, who opened the attraction with his own money, is now trying to sell due to lack of maintenance funds.

"The zoo is meant for children. When they come here, they are happy, they run, they have fun," Barghut said. "They want to see the lion and the zebra--they believe it's real."

See a video from Reuters.  

Horse owners in southern Minnesota are on the alert after several horses were attacked by a large animal. A cougar is the leading suspect.

Four horses have been attacked, reported the Shakopee Valley News. One attack occurred in Shakopee, and another three horses were attacked Oct. 10 on a farm west of Forestville State Park. Those horses broke through their fence. Two had injuries to their front legs, chests, and sides, while the third horse has not been found.

"Wolves and dogs go for the hamstrings, but our horses have wounds on their backs and on their sides," owner Curt Vreeman told The Post-Bulletin newspaper. "There's no marks on the backs of their legs."

Vreeman said his neighbor's horses also broke through their pasture fence on the same night.

The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has not confirmed whether a cougar is the culprit. No information was available on the whereabouts of Courtney Cox on the nights in question.

Election officials in Afghanistan are relying on a unique brigade of workers as the country's runoff vote approaches--a veritable army of donkeys, rented from local farmers, have the crucial task of carrying ballots to remote regions.

The New York Times recently covered the efforts under way to access remote regions as winter approaches in terrain that's beyond extreme--in the first election in August, some ballot boxes were lost off the side of a cliff.

Read the story and see a photo.  

A zedonk (a zebra/donkey hybrid) at a farm market in Spring Lake, Fla., attacked a worker last weekend, biting the man on his feet and legs as he attempted to crawl away.

Hernando Today reported that James Oleson, 34, was painting an outer perimeter fence when the zedonk ducked under its own enclosure fence to bite him on the foot. Oleson was knocked to the ground and the animal continued to bite at his feet and legs as he crawled under the outer fence. The attack resulted in cuts and bruises.

Oleson received a tetanus shot and the zedonk will be quarantined for 14 days. Read about zoonotic disease potentially transmitted from equids to humans via bites.  

Along with the citrus business, Boyett's Grove is also an animal attraction with exotic birds, monkeys, alligators, pigs, and deer. And at least one zedonk.

The man who allegedly videotaped the 2005 incident in which a Washington man died after having sex with a horse is back in the news.

MSNBC reports James Tait, 58, of Columbiaville, Tenn, was arrested last week and charged with felony animal cruelty after police investigated a citizen's e-mail tip containing a photo of a man having sex with a pony. Farm owner Kenny Thomason, 44, was charged with two counts of the same crime.

Authorities found horses, ponies, goats, and dogs on the farm. Capt. Jimmy Tennyson told MSNBC authorities have recovered pictures of Tait engaging in the acts with a horse.

In 2005, police identified Tait as the man who filmed the fatal encounter between Kenneth Pinyan and a horse in Enumclaw, Wash. Pinyan later died of internal injuries. Investigators looking into that incident said they found numerous videos of Tait and others engaging in bestiality, which at the time wasn't illegal in Washington (that's since changed). He entered an Alford plea to charges of criminal trespassing and was sentenced to one year probation and a $300 fine.

You can read more at MSNBC.  

To end on a lighter note, photographer Barbara Livingston (a frequent contributor to The Horse and our sister publication The Blood-Horse) has a beautiful new book out on unusual and uniquely colored horses. (And it even includes a zedonk! See how that came full circle?)

I'm especially fond of this one as my own horse made the cut by way of a rather unique facial marking. Check out a video interview with Barbara and see behind-the-scenes footage of Duncan's photo shoot.  

Ahh, Aruba. White sand, turquoise water, and donkeys.

Donkeys?

Yes, lots of them, as I was lucky enough to be able to verify in person last week.

Before cars overtook the Dutch Caribbean island about 30km off the coast of Venezuela, donkeys were a major form of transportation. But when their usefulness was eclipsed by the auto, many of the long-eared equines were set loose to fend for themselves on the arid, rocky landscape.

So in 1997 the Aruba Donkey Sanctuary was formed. It's home now to about 60 animals.

I read about the sanctuary when I was researching things to do, and knew I had to see it. So on our one day with a rental car, we wandered along the northern coast and past the Ayo rock formation. Guided by small signs (and thank goodness for those, as the roads weren't otherwise marked), we actually found the place!

Sad thing was, they were closed for the afternoon. I hopped out and made some friends and took some pictures anyway. I suspect they frequently charm morsels out of visitors, as most were very eager to come up and say hello!

(Interestingly, we stopped at our favorite restaurant on the way back--per a certificate on the wall, they're the official sponsor of a donkey named Roland!)

We also went on a short ride on the beach. The Paso Fino stallion below was our guide's horse--isn't he lovely?

Sorry for my absence last week. We'll have weird news coming back up shortly!

According to ChinaDaily.com, a horse in Inner Mongolia "ran amok" in a business hall after escaping from a slaughter house, where it was due to be killed.

The report said the horse broke through the hall's glass doors and began running around the business hall, frightening three clerks working behind the counter.

Five days after she went missing, Houston mare Miss B turned up at a bus stop, The Houston Chronicle reported. Her owners' friend alerted the family when she saw the mare tied to a metro sign on Tuesday about a half-mile from home.

The neighborhood search for Miss B began last Thursday, when the mare, spooked by thunder, bolted from her shed. With neighbors on the lookout, no one's sure where she spent her free time--but there's one clue.

“It looked like somebody had been riding her. I could tell that a saddle had been put on her,” her owner told the paper. But she said she's just grateful whoever had Miss B left her in a location where she was easy to find.

An Australian man was arrested after allegedly videotaping a horse as it died after he shot it with a crossbow and kicked it, The Australian reports. Someone who saw the video reported the incident to the police.

As you might have read in the "Horses and The Law" blog, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week heard oral arguments in United States v. Stevens, in which a key issue is whether regulating depictions of animal cruelty limits free speech. Read more about that case.  

There are LOLcats and LOLdogs. Can we propose a site for LOLponehs?

That's it for now, peeps--I'm going to be out of the office for the next few days. As always, if you see something weird and horsey, holler at me or put it in the comments below!