Year in review: Animal stories
Matthew Simmons gets a lick from his wolf dog, one of 29 that were rescued from small cells where they were bred and imprisoned in Anchorage, Alaska. They now live in a 20-acre wolf sanctuary in the Los Padres National Forest.
More: Los Padres sanctuary goes to the rescue of wolf dogs (Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Pandas, dogs, seals, horses and more -- 2012 has had its share of animal tales. We’ve assembled 10 this year’s most memorable.
A 400-pound black bear known as Glen Bearian, or Meatball, visited the Glendale area three times in 2012 to plunder trash cans and play cat-and-mouse with the authorities, who twice returned him to his home in the Angeles National Forest. The next stop? It was to be a wildlife sanctuary in Colorado, but now his current caretakers at a San Diego County sanctuary are making plans to build him a permanent home.
More: “I looked out the window, and he was standing there, 5 feet away” (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)
Johnny Benton tends to two young colts that were abandoned and left to starve on a ranch in the Central Valley. Now recovering in the Sierra National Forest, they are being retrained for use as pack horses.
More: The number of abandoned horses has more than doubled (Arkasha Stevenson / Los Angeles Times)
Dennis Christen of the Georgia Aquarium feeds a beluga calf being rehabilitated at the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward.
More: Rescued baby beluga not out of the woods yet (Mark Thiessen / Associated Press)