“Animals” on The Daily Caller

BEIJING (AP) — A rare Siberian tiger attacked and killed a tour bus driver in northern China while the man’s horrified passengers watched, Chinese media reported. (more)

TOKYO (AP) — A giant bluefin tuna fetched a record 32.49 million yen, or nearly $396,000, in Tokyo on Wednesday, in the first auction of the year at the world’s largest wholesale fish market. (more)

The “nightmare well” is dead. But the Gulf coast’s bad dream is far from over. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government hired a New Orleans man for $18,000 to appraise whether news stories about its actions in the Gulf oil spill were positive or negative for the Obama administration, which was keenly sensitive to comparisons between its response and former President George W. Bush’s much-maligned reaction to Hurricane Katrina. (more)

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fired darts from a crossbow at a gray whale off Russia’s Far Eastern coast on Wednesday in the latest in a series of man-versus-nature stunts designed to cultivate the image of a macho leader. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fish, shrimp and other catches from the Gulf of Mexico are being ground up to hunt for minute traces of oil in what’s considered unprecedented safety testing — sort of a “CSI” for seafood that’s far more reassuring than the sniff test that made all the headlines. (more)

Hundreds of animals — birds, dogs, hamsters, gerbils, turkeys, chickens and geese — were rescued from a home in Highlands, Harris County, KPRC Local 2 reported Friday. (more)

TOKYO (AP) — A quarter-century ban on commercial whaling — one of the world’s most successful preservation agreements — could crumble altogether if conservationists cannot persuade Japan to cut back on the tradition it champions. (more)

CRESCENT CITY, Fla. (AP) — A northeast Florida beekeeper is under arrest after deputies say he stole bees, honey and equipment from his competitors. Ruben Josey was arrested Thursday in Putnam County after deputies said they recovered 48 stolen beehives and other goods worth thousands of dollars. The hives were reported stolen in December and January in Putnam and surrounding counties and possibly Georgia (more)

The National Zoo has announced the successful hatching of two rare cranes. (more)

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — Workers eased a giant concrete-and-steel box into the Gulf of Mexico late Thursday, starting the long process of lowering the contraption over the blown-out oil well at the bottom of the sea in an untested bid to capture most of the gushing crude and avert a wider environmental disaster. (more)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Motorists steadily fill up at BP’s environmentally correct showcase gas station in Los Angeles even as the company’s crude oil stains 2,000 square miles of water in the Gulf of Mexico. (more)

GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — Wildlife officials are saying that at least 35 endangered sea turtles have washed up on Gulf coast beaches, but it’s not clear what’s killing them. (more)

WASHINGTON — To hear Obama administration officials tell it, they’ve been fully engaged on the Gulf Coast oil spill since Day One, bringing every resource to bear and able to ensure without question that taxpayers will be protected. (more)

CORDOVA, Alaska (AP) — Communities along the Gulf Coast wondering about what kind of legacy the monstrous oil slick will leave can look no further than the towns along the Alaska coastline that were ravaged by the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989. (more)

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The calamitous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico isn’t just a mess for the people who live or work on the coast. If you drink coffee, eat shrimp, like bananas or plan to buy a new set of tires, you could end up paying more because of the disaster. (more)

TOKYO (AP) — Japan cautiously welcomed an International Whaling Commission proposal Friday that would effectively allow the resumption of commercial whaling for the first time in 25 years — though under strict quotas that the commission argues will reduce the global catch of the mammals. (more)

Fact: Any breed of dog is capable of attacking a human. But 56 percent of all fatal dog attacks in the United States in the past five years were committed by pit bulls, according to a report released last week by the organization DogsBite.org. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will not allow the immediate closure of shipping locks to prevent invasive Asian carp from infesting the Great Lakes. (more)

BANGKOK (AP) — The first known breeding area of one of the world’s rarest birds has been found in the remote and rugged Pamir Mountains in war-torn Afghanistan, a New York-based conservation group said Monday. (more)