The latest arrival at San Diego Zoo Safari Park is a healthy newborn gorilla delivered through caesarian section. The procedure is rare for animal births, but in this case, it was an emergency.

After a London Zoo awareness event called Streak for Tigers took place this past August, the good will of a dozen or so naked runners has apparently worked wonders for preservation. Last month, Melati, a rare Sumatran tiger at the ZSL London Zoo, gave birth to three cubs. There are less than 300 Sumatran tigers left on Earth.

David Foster Wallace's famous essay "Consider The Lobster" explores unsettling questions about how much pain lobsters feel when we cook them. By law, that introductory sentence must be on this blog post, which is about new research into whether lobsters and crabs feel pain.

Why did the fluffball chicken cross the road?

Terrible and adorable at the same time.

Despite considerable protests, a Danish zoo has killed a two-year-old "surplus" giraffe called Marius, whose only crime was being in the wrong place (Copenhagen) at the wrong time (ever).

A new report finds that between 365 and 988 million birds die annually from crashing into windows in the United States alone. That's 10 percent of the bird population of the entire country, according to the Washington Post.

When an Italian porn star brought his parrot named Amore to see Pope Francis on Wednesday, the pope treated the green bird with the dignity and respect owed to any parrot. The bird received a papal blessing.

This strange and savage American winter has produced many oddities, and the appearance of Snowy Owls from the Arctic Circle has been the only delight in a season of ice and gloom. And then a Washington DC bus struck a beloved white owl a block away from the White House Rose Garden.

Call of the Wildman, Animal Planet's blockbuster chronicle of a wildlife trapper, is one helluva romp. It's also a drama-staging, zebra-drugging, wallaby-kidnapping, raccoon- and bat-killing crock of shit, according to a disturbing new in-depth investigation by Mother Jones.

Earth is a vast and incredible place, especially when a falcon unknowingly picks up a camera disguised as an egg and then flies over a rockhopper penguin colony.

This pet dog from Maryland went missing in Maine during nine days and nights of insanely cold weather, and it was only rescued after it was hit by a car that nearly killed it. How's your January going?

Why are so many ferrets being stolen in the U.K.? You can tell us your theories in the comments, but know this—if you ever get caught jacking a ferret, just say yours is not the one cops are looking for: "I'd suggest one ferret looks very much like another. That's going to be one of the issues at trial."

This is not for the faint of heart. But if you eat frozen pizza, you might owe it to yourself to see where the cheese came from.

Wives and husbands come and go, children leave, friends fade into abstractions on Facebook. The dog is generally there for life, all of his or all of yours, whichever comes first. Hunter, who died Sunday night at home and surrounded by his people, was there for life. It was really his second life, which began when I pulled his numb body from a freezing, half-empty swimming pool 10 years ago this month.

The fox is a clever beast, famously outsmarting human and animal rivals in ancient fables, recent movies and a current Top 10 song. Humanity's relationship with the fox has long been balanced between bemused tolerance and "let's shoot them for fun and raise them in cages, for fur." But there are abundant signs that the foxes have had quite enough of people, and are making coordinated global moves to take over civilization.

Swino the feral pig was a happy drunk. An Australian boar who roamed free among the Pillbara wilds, he managed to live an undetected hobo's existence for years, sleeping under the stars and feasting on strangers' trash until one fateful evening, when Swino embarked on a bender few men could match. In one night, the hog stole 18 beers, rumbled with a cow, and swam a glorious victory lap in a nearby river, all for the benefit of bemused spectators.

Sir Stuffington is a cat pirate. As legend has it, he sailed the high seas in search of buried catnip treasure, conquered doggy islands, and raided mouse villages. He lost his right eye in a swordfight with a flock of mutated seagulls and broke his jaw in battle with a sea monster. In fact, he was one of the most feared feline plunderers in kitty-pirate history—until one fateful night, when his lady love's captors spayed and neutered her, and the distraught Sir Stuffington got so drunk he crashed his ship.

We all grieve differently, and at Natasha's Equine Clipping Spa, they remembered and honored 9/11 by shaving the fallen World Trade Center towers into a horse's rear end.

After initial fictional reports that "marijuana" was the cause of the devastating High Sierra inferno that nearly burned up Yosemite National Park, the actual cause has been found. It was a man shooting wildlife in the forest, and his illegal campfire started the 370-square-mile Rim Fire.