UPDATE, MAY 24, NOON.: Perhaps it was the lingering effects of my midnight pork chop/chicken gizzard/butt roast sandwich, but I really screwed the tofu dog on this item. Actually, FARM will pay you the buck to watch its undercover factory farm and slaughterhouse video.

ORIGINAL POST, MAY 24, 8:12 A.M.: Today, the Farm Animal Rights Movement (FARM) ends its three-day "10 Billion Lives Tour" stop at UC Irvine, where a custom-built van with eight TV monitors has been showing a four-minute video of undercover footage from factory farms and slaughterhouses--to anyone who'll pay a buck and paying anyone who will watch a buck.
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Irvine Republican Congressman John Campbell has locked paws with a Democrat to seek a House investigation into the federal government's wildlife damage control program.

Campbell and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) are asking Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, to conduct a hearing on the federal Wildlife Services program, which kills animals deemed to be threats to agriculture, the public and the environment.
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The Huntington Beach City Council is poised tonight to pass an ordinance that would outlaw pet stores that get dogs and cats from commercial breeders.

The so-called "puppy mill" ban, which was approved on first reading two weeks ago, is scheduled to go before the council meeting at 6 tonight.
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In the first prosecution since federal Marine Life Protected Areas were established off the California coast, a Riverside County diver was ordered to give up his gear, spend seven days in jail, pay more than $20,000 in fines and promise to stay out of MLPAs for poaching lobster from Laguna Beach waters. Marbel A. Para was spared being steamed in water and his own juices before parts of him were ripped off and dunked in drawn butter, however.
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Wikipedia Commons

Pelecanus erythrorhynchos, without bent beak

The Wetlands and Wildlife Care Center in Huntington Beach is cheering the success of the first surgery to repair the bent beak of an American White Pelican whose jaw was out of alignment.

When the call came in about "Nigel," as the Pelican has been nicknamed, it had lost weight, its wing was tangled in fishing line and lure, and his pouch had been ripped by a fishing hook.

Veterinary surgeon Marcos Unis of the VCA All-Care Animal Referral Center was brought in to help, and it was decided surgery was necessary Sunday.
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Jaime Arturo Garcia--who pleaded guilty last month to setting fires inside his Stanton home and killing his dog Dexter by poisoning the 7-year-old dachshund mix and slitting his throat--was sentenced today to five years in state prison.

The 31-year-old had copped to felony arson of an inhabited property, felony animal cruelty, misdemeanor unlawful causing a fire to property and a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon.
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A Garden Grove man has a pretrial hearing scheduled Monday on charges tied to his allegedly keeping a filthy and unsafe home for five bulldogs and a rabbit in his backyard, where six dead newborn bunnies were also found.

Khuong Anh Nguyen, 35, faces eight felony counts of animal abuse and the possibility of seven years and eight months in Orange County Jail with a conviction.
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"June" or "Ellen" the whale

Two marine mammals whose plights led to much nail biting by human mammals on shore have apparently returned to the open sea, hopefully unscathed.

The bottlenose dolphin that had been swimming in circles in shallow water within the Bolsa Chica wetlands is believed to have left some time this weekend. Meanwhile, the gray whale found entangled in fishing nets off the Laguna Beach coast in mid-April was finally freed Thursday from the lines he was dragging near Bodega Bay off the Sonoma County coast.
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Junior, no more Kung Pao chicken for you

Here's a tasty story for our readers to chew on:

Gawker has linked to an article about a Zoo in China where a baby leaf monkey named Francois accidentally ate a peanut thrown into its cage. Employees noticed the tiny primate had become dangerously constipated.

Not wanting to use dangerous laxatives on the youngling, they allegedly sought a more . . . creative solution.
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Jaime Arturo Garcia pleaded guilty today to setting fires inside his Stanton home and killing his dog Dexter by poisoning him and slitting his throat.

The Stanton 31-year-old could get four years and eight months in state prison at his May 7 sentencing after copping to felony arson of an inhabited property, felony animal cruelty, misdemeanor unlawful causing a fire to property and a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a deadly weapon.
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