Mexican authorities searching a man with a bulge under his shirt at the airport in the nation's capital found 18 monkeys hidden beneath his clothes, police said.

Investigators grew suspicious after Roberto Sol Cabrera Zavaleta, 38, became "markedly nervous" when asked what he was transporting, Mexico's Public Safety Department said.

Two of the tiny titi monkeys he was carrying in a belt were dead, the department said in a statement, and 16 of them survived the journey from Lima, Peru.

Cabrera has been detained as authorities continue their investigation, the statement said.

In an interview with authorities released by police, Cabrera said he first carried the monkeys in his suitcase, but then hid the animals in his clothes so they would not be harmed by X-ray machines at the airport.

Cabrera described the animals as "pets" and told authorities he had purchased them for $30.

Titi monkeys are protected endangered species requiring a permit for possession, police said.

Images released by police show the tiny creatures, many of which are tied up in pouches, squirming in a cardboard box.

Virginia Beach, Virginia, authorities have decided not to file charges in a shooting incident that happened at a birthday party for Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick.

Investigators know the identity of the shooter, but the victim and witnesses would not cooperate with the investigation, police said. Authorities said they will not release the name of the shooter because he has not been charged.

Michael Vick is not a suspect in the case, police said.

Vick returned to the National Football League in 2009 after serving 18 months in prison on a federal dog fighting conviction.

The shooting happened shortly after 2 a.m. June 25 in the Town Center area of Virginia Beach. Officers who arrived at Guadalajara's Restaurant were told that a man had been shot but he had left. Police said people had gathered for a party at the restaurant, and when it ended a fight erupted.

The injured man was shot in the leg and left in a vehicle, police said. He later was stopped by Virginia State Police and was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

Recently, we’ve learned of some wildlife news that’s just Peachy!  An elk species that was down to only two animals just about 100 years ago, has rebounded from near-extinction.

The Tule Elk, a subspecies of elk, lives only in California.  In the late 1800s, the impact of the Gold Rush brought these animals to the very brink of extinction.  Some believe that only 2 animals – a male and female – remained.

Today, however, the numbers have climbed back to nearly 4,000 Tule Elk.  Commented Joe Hobbes, a California Department of Fish and Game biologist:

Elk herds in California have grown to healthy populations recently

Recently, we’ve learned of some wildlife news that’s just Peachy!  An elk species that was down to only two animals just about 100 years ago, has rebounded from near-extinction.

The Tule Elk, a subspecies of elk, lives only in California.  In the late 1800s, the impact of the Gold Rush brought these animals to the very brink of extinction.  Some believe that only 2 animals – a male and female – remained.

Today, however, the numbers have climbed back to nearly 4,000 Tule Elk.  Commented Joe Hobbes, a California Department of Fish and Game biologist:

“It’s one of the greatest wildlife success stories in California.  We’re pretty much running out of places to put extra elk.”

Intensive reintroduction efforts for elk in California is part of the reason for the success.  In addition, big thanks go to private property owners who have allowed the state to place elk on their land.

In fact, the preservation efforts have been so successful that number now need to be controlled by the only means available: hunting.  Natural predators of the Tule Elk (grizzy bear and wolves) are no longer found in California.  So, hunting licenses are issued each year to keep populations within control and to avoid conflicts with farms and neighborhoods that have expanded into the elks’ habitat.

In a single year, the number of permits issued grew from 330 to 350.  Yet, 26,000 hunters applied for these coveted licenses.

The large swing in population has led to a number of questions that continued to be pondered by wildlife officials:

* how will re-introduced elk affect plants, especially invasive species?
* why are some herds still suffering disease outbreaks?
* how can we safely keep elk populations under control?
* should we up hunting licenses or use birth-control drugs?

Its almost luxurious to be considering these questions, given how far the elk species has rebounded from near-extinction.  As humans have caused the tipping point nearly to be reached with these animals, they now are responsible for the opposite extreme.

While hunters nearly wiped out the Tule Elk in the 1800s, they are now being called in to help balance Mother Nature and the food chain in California.

Some say ironic, others cite the circle of life.  In either event, its worth celebrating that this nearly-extinct subspecies is now thriving!

You probably can guess our answer. anything to open the awareness of animal abuse should be done at this point. We believe we simple eons behind in what we should be doing to help and preserve animal life.

Here is the story:

Cruelty to animals, it is said, is often a precursor to graver crimes. So would there not be some usefulness to a registry of individuals convicted of felony animal abuse? Legislators in California want the Golden State to be the first to establish such a record — just as California was the first in the nation to create a registry of sex offenders.

The goal of the registry, which would list crimes against both pets and farm animals, is to make it easier for shelters and animal-adoption groups to identify people who shouldn't be allowed access to animals. It would also be a boon to law enforcement because animal abuse, the bill's authors' say, often escalates to violence against people. Abuses covered in the bill would include the malicious and intentional maiming, mutilation, torture, wounding or killing of a living animal. It would also target pet hoarders and operators of animal-fighting rings (such as dog-baiting and cockfighting) who have felony convictions.

"We think California is primed for this kind of a bill," says state senate majority leader Dean Florez, who introduced the bill in late February. "We've progressed to the point where we as a legislature are moving in a direction of this bill, which is ultimately, How do we in essence prevent repeat offenses when it comes to cruelty to animals in the state of California?" It is an issue that, Florez says, Californians care for deeply. About 60% of California residents own pets, he says; add in farm animals, and 80% of the population has some kind of ownership of animals. (See pictures of people raising goats in Oakland, Calif.)

The bill's biggest stumbling block may be the funding it would require. Created with the assistance of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, the bill would raise the approximately $500,000 to $1 million necessary for its launch through a 2- or 3-cent tax per pound of pet food, says Florez, a Democrat who is chairman of the Food and Agriculture Committee. He estimated that after it's launch, the project could cost between $300,000 to $400,000 a year to maintain. Yet even that relatively small amount has some organizations, including a national pet-product trade group and even the Humane Society, raising concerns. Jennifer Fearing, California senior state director and chief economist for the U.S. Humane Society, supports the measure's aims but worries about whether it can get passed. Says Fearing: "I would be shocked if this legislature is prepared to enact any tax this year, much less one levied on pet owners who are struggling to care for their animals, when many of them are dropping them off at shelters."

Ed Rod, vice president of government affairs for the American Pet Products Association, says the proposal is inherently inequitable."You're looking at pet owners paying for something that's really going to benefit everyone," says Rod. "And animal abuse certainly affects pets, but it also affects agricultural animals as well, and in this case I don't believe there is any provision to impose a fee on livestock feed. The goal we support, certainly, but we think this is kind of a blunt instrument to reach that goal."

There may be other ways to fund the registry. Fearing says the Humane Society supported a similar law in Tennessee that called for those convicted of animal abuse to pay $50 toward the cost of an animal-abusers registry. The bill, however, was defeated. Florez says having offenders pay a fee toward the operation of the registry is also under consideration in the California legislation.

Even if those convicted of animal-abuse felonies were charged a fee, however, that may not be enough to cover the cost of the registry, since only a small percentage of animal-abuse cases result in felony charges, according to Madeline Bernstein, president of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Los Angeles. "The bottom line is that there aren't a lot of felony convictions for animal abuse in the state of California," says Bernstein. The proposal also puts an added burden on local police — operating at a time of state funding cuts — by requiring them to gather registry information on convicted felons and transfer the information to the Department of Justice within three days of collection.

Despite the obstacles, Florez expects to push the legislation as far as it can go. Could he get the two-thirds majority required to turn the bill into law — particularly from the Republican minority that pledged not to raise taxes? "In this case," he says, "the issue is simple. Do Republican members ... really want to be seen on the side of animal abuse? I don't think they do."

A baby red panda was born at the National Zoo in Washington, DC on June 16. The newborn is the first red panda to be born at the zoo in 15 years.

The proud parents, two-year-old Shama and three-year-old Tate, first met in February 2009, and got busy immediately. But because red pandas mate only once a year, and “because the two were inexperienced,” it took them a few tries to get Shama pregnant, the National Zoo said in a press release.

“This birth indicates that the animals are comfortable and well-adjusted in their home here,” said Tony Barthel, curator of the Zoo’s Asia Trail. “We are excited about the opportunity we’ll have to watch and learn from the interactions between the red pandas as Shama raises the cub.”

Despite their name, red pandas (Ailurus fulgens, also called “lesser panda,” “bear cat” and “firefox”) are more closely related to raccoons than to giant pandas. They live in cool bamboo forests in the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces in China, in the Himalayas and in Burma. Fewer than 2,500 red pandas remain in the wild, making this birth a victory for conservationists worldwide as well as for its first-timer parents.

The red pandas’ enclosure at the zoo is closed to the public to let Shama and her baby bond, but these early pictures are high-pitched-squeal-inducingly cute.

They're at the top of the ocean's food chain -- but it is still a mystery how the oil disaster is affecting the shark population in the Gulf of Mexico.

Even if sharks never touch the oil slick, their sources of oxygen and food are at risk. And a reduced shark population could impact the entire Gulf ecosystem, according to Neil Hammerschlag, a researcher at the University of Miami, who has been studying sharks for a decade -- tagging them to determine their migratory patterns and other behaviors.

Today, his research focus has changed.

"The oil spill opens up a whole new avenue for critical research," says Hammerschlag.

As with most weekends, Hammerschlag leads a university research team packed into a boat with interns and high school students, to fish for sharks.

They research the impact of the oil on sharks and other species of fish in the Gulf of Mexico.

Because sharks eat nearly everything beneath them on the food chain, they provide a lot of information about the ecosystem.

"If you see high levels of oil in a shark, you better believe it's in the whole food chain," says Hammerschlag's assistant, Austin Gallagher.

In order to take biological samples from the sharks, first they must be caught.

Ten lines are baited in areas believed to be attractive to sharks.

"Sharks don't chew their food they swallow it," Hammerschlag says.

The lines are equipped with special circle-shaped hooks to prevent the sharks from harming themselves when they swallow the bait.

Swallowing a circle hook, with an inward point does not hurt the shark, Hammerschlag says. The shark swallows the bait and, as it starts to swim away, the hook turns and catches the animal's jaw.

He compares it to a lip piercing.

"It heals very, very quickly," he says.

Once a shark is on the line, it is pulled up to the side of the boat. Larger sharks are kept in the water.

The researchers lean over the side of the boat and gather tissue and blood samples, before attaching a tag to the fin.

The process usually takes just a few minutes from the time it is reeled in until the shark's release.

The information has been used for creating protected marine areas, as well as medical research.

Large sharks that migrate long distances -- bull, hammerhead, and tiger sharks -- are outfitted with satellite tracking devices with sensors.

When the shark breaks the water's surface, its location is sent to a satellite. Hammerschlag then receives an e-mail containing the coordinates.

The data on the sharks' movement -- published on the University of Miami's website -- will tell researchers whether the sharks encounter the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hammerschlag thinks the odds are high that sharks will swim through water filled with oil, but he can't be certain because there's no precedent.

He's hopeful the sharks can outsmart the environmental disaster.

"There is a possibility that these animals might be able to anticipate the oil and sense the oil and actually move away from it," he said.

Swimming through the oil could be deadly for sharks.

"Sharks breathe through the water," says Hammerschlag. "They take in the water, the water goes over their gills and they extract oxygen out of the water."

If the water is mixed with oil, it would hinder their normal breathing pattern, he says.

It's still too early in Hammerschlag's research to determine whether sharks are swimming through the oil.

"Hurley" the hammerhead shark had transmitted a signal nearly every day for three months, until just a couple of days after the rig explosion that caused the oil spill.

"The tag could have failed or it could have headed off somewhere else into deep water and just not come up in the last few months," Hammerschlag says. "But that's very unlike the shark's characteristics."

Either way, as long as there are fish in the oiled area, Hammerschlag and his team will be looking at the effects on sharks.

"You know, there's fishing areas closed in the Gulf of Mexico because they don't want people catching and eating that fish," he said. "But I don't know if the sharks got the memo."

A small Arizona restaurant found itself at the center of a nationwide backlash that included a bomb threat after it announced plans to offer lion burgers this week as part of a World Cup promotion.

But following the supply chain back to the mom-and-pop butcher that processed the alleged lion meat turns up an even more bizarre tale.

The story started when Cameron Selogie, owner of Il Vinaio restaurant in Mesa, Ariz., bought about 10 pounds of so-called African lion meat, planning to mix it with ground beef to make burgers honoring the FIFA World Cup's South African location. Selogie sent an e-mail newsletter to his restaurant's patrons advertising the special.

That newsletter -- which was the sole publicity Selogie had planned -- exploded into a media blitz when one of the e-mail recipients turned out to be an animal activist.

She spread word to a local TV station, and the news has since circled the globe, even garnering a brief write-up in the online version of London's Daily Telegraph.

Lion burgers are an attention-grabbing idea, but it raises the question: How, exactly, does an Arizona restaurant manage to get its hands on African lion meat?

Welcome to the mysterious world of back-alley exotic meat purveyance.

Selogie said he bought the meat through a Phoenix distributor, Gourmet Imports-Wild Game -- a one-man operation owned by Rick Worrilow. Selogie says he did his research, and was told that the meat came from a free-range farm in Illinois that is regulated by the United States Department of Agriculture.

Meanwhile, Worrilow, who essentially serves as a middleman between farms, meat processors and restaurants, also said the meat came from a completely legal plant in Illinois. And even though he didn't know the name of that plant, Worrilow said he was confident that the meat was inspected by federal regulators.

So where's this supposed African lion farm in Illinois?

Well, here's one clue: When the meat arrived at Il Vinaio on Tuesday evening, Selogie said it came in packaging with the name "Czimer's Game & Sea Foods."

Czimer isn't a free-range farm. It's a butcher shop located just outside of Chicago in Homer Glen, Ill.
Lions, ligers and bears ...

Czimer's website advertises standard wild game: pheasants, quail, ducks, venison, buffalo and so on. But then, sprinkled through the product list, some wilder offerings pop up. Like llama leg roasts. Or camel cutlets.

And African lion meat. You can snag it in shoulder roast, steak, tenderloin or burger form -- or, for a bargain, try the ribs at $10 a pound.

So where does Richard Czimer, the company's owner, get these lions?

The meat is the byproduct of a skinning operation owned by another man, Czimer said in an interview with CNNMoney.com. He declined to name that gentleman.

"This man buys and sells animals for the skin, and when I need something and he has ability to get it, I will bargain for the meat. It's a byproduct," he said.

And where does that mystery man get the lions? "I wouldn't have any idea," said Czimer, who operates a small retail store in addition to his wholesale business. "He has his sources, and I do not infringe on his business, just as he does not infringe on mine."

He's willing to take a hands-off approach: "Do you question where chickens come from when you go to Brown's Chicken or Boston Market?" he asked.

Czimer's exotic-meat dealings have landed him in hot water before. Back in 2003, Chicago newspapers covered his conviction and six-month prison sentence for selling meat from federally protected tigers and leopards. Czimer admitted to purchasing the carcasses of 16 tigers, four lions, two mountain lions and one liger -- a tiger-lion hybrid -- which were skinned, butchered and sold as "lion meat," for a profit of more than $38,000.

His supply chain may be murky, but like the Arizona restaurateur and the meat salesman, he expressed total certainty that his lion meat is USDA-approved and thoroughly inspected by regulators before it reaches his processing plant.

But here's a twist: The USDA says it doesn't inspect lions bred for meat. That's the job of the Food and Drug Administration.

Is it legal to eat lions? Yes, according to the FDA's communications team. The African lion isn't currently a federally protected endangered species and it qualifies as a game meat, FDA spokesman Michael Herndon said in an e-mail.

While the African lion is not considered endangered by U.S. regulators, it is classified as "threatened" by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, an international protection agreement.

As for Czimer, his shop is officially registered with the FDA and has been inspected by state regulators, Heardon said.

Meanwhile, back in Arizona, Selogie is taking the protests in stride. He plans to have bins of ice water outside for picketers who brave Arizona's 100-degree heat to protest as he serves up the burgers on Wednesday and Thursday night.

"I do feel bad that people are so concerned about this. But for most people, this is the king of the jungle and that's the only reason they can give me for their concern," he said. "We're not doing anything to endanger the species."

Had it not been for the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, federal investigators might never have known about conditions inside U.S. Global Exotics, the "massive international exotic-animal wholesale facility in Arlington" raided on December 15. For seven months, PETA had a man on the inside gathering evidence that owners Jasen and Vanessa Shaw were allowing tens of thousands of exotic animals to live -- and, in most instances, die slow, horrible deaths -- in what PETA calls "continuous, cruel confinement." As a result, U.S. Global Exotics was shut down -- and now, Jasen Shaw's on the run, a fugitive from federal authorities who allege, among other things, that he violated the Lacey Act.

Following this morning's story about Shaw's apparent run to his native New Zealand, PETA's David Perle, in its D.C. office, directs our attention to its newly updated Web site filled with graphic, often grisly, footage -- the very evidence it used to convince federal authorities to raid the facility shortly before Christmas. The special section devoted to U.S. Global Exotics is called "To Hell and Back: A Journey Inside the Pet Trade," and, fair warning, it lives up to its name.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday forcefully struck down a federal law aimed at banning depictions of dog fighting and other violence against animals, saying it violated constitutional guarantees of free speech and created a "criminal prohibition of alarming breadth."

The 8 to 1 ruling, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., was a ringing endorsement of the First Amendment's protection of even distasteful expression. Roberts called "startling and dangerous" the government's argument that the value of certain categories of speech should be weighed against their societal costs when protecting free speech.

"The First Amendment itself reflects a judgment by the American people that the benefits of its restrictions on the government outweigh the costs," Roberts wrote. "Our Constitution forecloses any attempt to revise that judgment simply on the basis that some speech is not worth it."

The decision was the second major First Amendment ruling of the term, and far more unified than the first. In January, a divided court ruled in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that corporations and unions have a right to use their general treasuries and profits to spend freely on political ads for and against specific candidates.

Paul M. Smith, a Washington lawyer who had filed an amicus brief in the animal cruelty case on behalf of civil libertarians who opposed the law, called it "quite a strong decision" and said it was more evidence of a "court that is moving in the direction of strong enforcement of the First Amendment."

The law was enacted in 1999 to forbid sales of so-called crush videos. They appeal to a certain sexual fetish by depicting the torture of animals -- cats, dogs, monkeys, mice and hamsters, according to Congress -- or showing them being crushed to death by women wearing stiletto heels or with their bare feet. While dog-fighting and other forms of animal cruelty are already illegal, Congress said the legislation was necessary to stop the production of videos for commercial gain.

But the government has not used the law to prosecute any producer of a crush video. Instead, the case before the court, United States v. Stevens, involves Robert Stevens of Pittsville, Va., who was sentenced to three years in prison for making videos of pit bulls fighting. An appeals court overturned the conviction when it ruled the law was unconstitutional.

Roberts' opinion said the court was not passing judgment about whether a narrower statute limited just to crush videos and "other depictions of extreme animal cruelty" might be constitutional.

But the court said the legislation passed by Congress was far too broad. Anyone who "creates, sells or possesses a depiction of animal cruelty" for commercial gain can be imprisoned for up to five years. A depiction of cruelty was defined as one in which "a living animal is intentionally maimed, mutilated, tortured, wounded or killed."

Roberts wrote that the definition was so loose that it could include all depictions of wounding or killing animals, even hunting videos or magazines. He said the law's exemption for works of "serious religious, political, scientific, educational, journalistic, historical or artistic value" was not enough protection, and the court was not reassured by the government's argument that prosecutions were rare.

"We would not uphold an unconstitutional statute merely because the government promised to use it responsibly," he wrote.

Besides, he added, when President Bill Clinton signed the measure into law, he said the Justice Department would limit prosecutions to "wanton cruelty to animals designed to appeal to a prurient interest in sex." That was not the case in the Stevens prosecution.

The court has identified only certain categories of speech as outside the First Amendment's protection: obscenity, fraud, incitement, defamation and speech integral to criminal conduct. The last time the court decided speech was so unredeeming it did not deserve such protection was 25 years ago, and the subject was child pornography.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was the lone dissenter in Tuesday's opinion.

He said the law was enacted "not to suppress speech, but to prevent horrific acts of animal cruelty." He said that the entire law need not be found unconstitutional, and that the "practical effect" of the ruling would be to spur production of crush videos, which opponents such as the Humane Society of the United States said had decreased with passage of the 1999 law.

Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said his organization was prepared for the court's ruling given the tough questioning of justices at oral arguments last fall. "We're hopeful that a more narrowly tailored law aimed at vicious and illegal acts of cruelty" would pass constitutional muster, he said, adding that work already is underway with supportive members of Congress.

David Horowitz, executive director of the Media Coalition, said in a statement that the court rightly decided that if the First Amendment were rewritten "every time an unpopular or distasteful subject was at issue, we wouldn't have any free speech left."

Horowitz -- whose organization represents publishers, booksellers and producers, and retailers of movies, videos and video games -- said that "animal cruelty is wrong and should be vigorously prosecuted, but as the court today found, sending people to prison for making videos is not the answer."

A young 37-foot whale stranded on the shore in West Seattle, and it had a summary of what we're doing to our oceans held within its stomach. As photographer Chris Jordan documented in birds' guts, our marine animals are filling up not on nutritious sea life, but the junk we toss out that makes its way into the oceans. Fifty gallons of contents were examined from this near-adult male gray whale, and you won't believe some of the garbage this poor beast had swallowed.

According to Cascadia Research Collective, 50 gallons of stomach contents were sorted through. Most of it was real food - algae and other bits common to a gray whale diet - but also included were more than 20 plastic bags, small towels, surgical gloves, sweat pants, plastic pieces, duct tape, and a golf ball.

If there were any doubt before, there is none now - the ocean has become a landfill. However, if there's a bit of a silver lining, the trash made up just about 2% of the total contents, and it doesn't seem to have been the cause of death. But what Cascadia Research points out, "It did clearly indicate that the whale had been attempting to feed in industrial waters and therefore exposed to debris and contaminants present on the bottom in these areas."

Gray whales are bottom feeders and get their nutrition from the sediments in shallow waters. They filter small organisms as their food, but apparently they aren't always able to filter out human pollution. Researchers are currently studying the whale to find out the cause of death, which could be anything from not getting enough food (three other whales that died in April during migration appeared emaciated and perhaps didn't get enough to eat in Alaska last year) to pollution and chemicals in the water. The results won't be known for several weeks.