Good morning and greetings, wildlife lovers. Last week was a horrific one on the wild animal front, as 49 animals that had been set free from their cages in a compound in Zanesville, Ohio had be slaughtered to protect the public’s safety. This included 18 Bengal tigers, 17 lions, six black bears, three mountain lions, two grizzly bears, two wolves and a baboon not named George Bush.

Wildlife expert ‘Jungle’ Jack Hanna, the Director of the Columbus Zoo and frequent guest on Late Night with David Letterman, said it was especially heartbreaking to see so many Bengal tigers killed when they are on the verge of extinction. He says the actions by the police saved a catastrophe. The pictures of the carnage were beyond heartbreaking. “It’s like Noah’s Ark wrecking right here in Zanesville, Ohio,” Hanna said.

Three leopards, a grizzly bear and two monkey were captured and taken to the Columbus Zoo. Ohio has some of the most lax regulations of exotic animals in the country. Now here’s the kicker. Ohio requires permits for bears but doesn’t regulate the ownership of non-native animals, such as lions, tigers and Carolina Panthers. “There is an epidemic of private ownership of dangerous exotic animals in the United States,” says Wayne Pacelle, head of The Humane Society of the United States. “It’s a bit of a free-for-all in states like Ohio.” Just ask anyone involved with the football program at Ohio State.

This leads me to a story written by Carolyn Jones in last week’s San Francisco Chronicle. The Oakland Zoo, which is not Raider fans residing in the end zones of the Oakland Coliseum, now has four new tigers that were brought in from in zoo in Brownsville, Texas. Zookeeper Erica Calcagno had only planned on bringing home only one of these six-year-olds, who are all sisters, but in her words, “”There’s no way we could take just one. They’re gorgeous. Even when they’re sleeping they’re gorgeous.” I wish I had a nickel for every time I heard those words uttered about me.

The zoo staff hopes the tigers serve a broader purpose beyond entertaining visitors and locked out NBA players: to educate the public about tiger mills. As Tony the Tiger once told me, “They’re not Grrrrrreat!”

Owning tigers is legal in 21 states, including California. More than 8,000 tigers live or rent in the U.S., far more than live in the wild globally. Of the 8,000, only a few hundred live in accredited zoos. The rest live in backyards, condos or studio apartments.

“People get tigers because they’re cute and cuddly when they’re cubs. But then suddenly you’ve got this 200-pound thing that ate your dog,” said Jerry Stones, facilities director at the Gladys Porter Zoo in Brownsville, where Oakland’s newest big cats came from. That would create a problem when you want to play fetch with Rover.

Much of the backyard tiger action is in Texas. These big cats are not in great demand at zoos because most of the tigers are mutts — neither Bengal, Princeton, Siberian, Auburn, Sumatran, LSU nor other endangered sub-species, and therefore not suitable for breeding. They’re simply called generic tigers or by their Latin name, Detroit Tigers.

These four striped sisters were part of a roadside freak show, where visitors could pay $20 to have pictures taken with them, along with a couple of two-headed turtles and a 100-pound critter billed as the largest rodent in the world. I know the US government considers the biggest rat to be Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange.

Then the tiger’s owners divorced and the new wife wasn’t crazy him about spending more money on raw chicken than chicken cordon bleu. The husband then told his ex-wife he was going to shoot the tigers, and the ex-wife called the authorities. Within a few hours, Stones was at the man’s house for a quick snack before herding the tigers onto a truck and bringing them to the Brownsville zoo. Then six more tigers came in from a similar rescue situation and the call went out to the Oakland Zoo and the Cincinnati Bengals.

This big cat dilemma is a critical issue for zoos, as many of the animals in Oakland were rescued from some less-than-ideal situations. It’s something to think about next time you visit your local zoo and wonder, how did these exotic animals end up here? And though it’s off the subject, how does that polar bear, who feels at home on ice flows, feel about his forced residence in the Bay Area?

So good ol’ Texas, home to the Alamo, the NBA champion Dallas Mavericks and hair model Rick Perry, is the centerpiece in the billion-dollar exotic animal trade industry. Owning and breeding tigers is legal in Texas and 11 other states, including California. There are almost no regulations of exotic animals, so breeding, smuggling and snuggling with these giant cats, much like my second serve, is booming in the Lone Star State.

Because no state or federal agency tracks the number of animals that are privately owned, no one knows how many tigers or other exotic animals pay taxes in Texas, which has the highest tiger-to-people ratio in the world. Estimates are that at least 4,000 are legally owned as pets by private citizens, which means more tigers are homeowners in Texas than roaming around the Taj Mahal in India.

According to Silva Hayes from hubpages.com, there are over 12,000 tigers owned as pets in the US. A federal law prohibits businesses from displaying tigers older than six months with humans because the cats have become too big and dangerous. So then what do with all of these big boys and girls? I don’t even think Wayne Newton or Sigfried and Roy have the answer. When I asked when Mr. Las Vegas about this problem, he replied, “Danke Schoen, darling, Danke Schoen.”

Tigers are not difficult to breed in captivity, as the female just expects to be taken out to dinner first. And they can be had for free. A recent ad in Animal Finders, a subscription-only newspaper that advertises exotic animals for sale read “Tiger, free to a good home. Good with children and snapping the necks of antelope, rhinos and wild boars.”

Tigers love to swim, can long jump 14 feet and much like some kids I went to sleep away camp with, will spray bucket loads of urine all over everything they wish to claim as theirs because this is how nature has taught them to guard territory.

Once tigers are mature they no longer feel any love for their mother and if they run into her in the wild will kill her. Instinct and the internet tells them that they are competition and that their survival depends on being solitary. I admit to at times being perturbed with my mother but rarely wanted to administer a lethal bite to the nape of her neck.

Most tigers weigh on average 650 pounds and like my therapist, possess phenomenal strength. Their bite can easily crush your femur or sever your vertebrae, killing you instantly, which would really spoil the weekend. Tigers are unpredictable and can kill you even when they are playing, which for me, would take a lot of fun out of the game.

But fear not, as the good news is that when tigers do attack people, they rarely eat them. The bad news is that if you’re a honey-collector, woodcutter or fisherman in Sundarbans Tiger Reserve in India and Bangladesh, you might want to stay out of the mangrove jungle area. Between 1975 and 1989, 521 people were classified as dinner.

Silva Hayes says the only way to save tigers from being overbred and abandoned is to make it unlawful to breed or possess a tiger. Tigers deserve to be free in the wild, where they can hunt and monitor their territory instead of stalking prey at Dallas Cowboy cheerleader auditions.

For today’s photo foray, we are taking in the beauty of a couple of early October sunsets from the cliffs above Natural Bridges State Beach. The sunset season is just getting underway, as the really good stuff doesn’t usually hit until November, and then we party through till the end of January. Of course, there are exceptions to this color chart, but these are the three keys months in my sunrise/sunset calendar, so stay tuned.

On to the late night. “Bronco Rick Perry is the first candidate I’ve ever heard say he’s not doing well because he’s sleepy. You know, we criticized George W. Bush a lot, but there was one thing he was very disciplined about, and that was getting his full eight years of sleep.” –David Letterman “Rick Perry said America’s revolutionary war was fought in the 16th century. When told it was actually the 18th century, Perry apologized and said, ‘I never said I was a geology major.'” –Conan O’Brien

“Herman Cain said, starting today, if you buy into his 9-9-9 plan, he’ll throw in a free 32-ounce soda.” –David Letterman “Herman Cain is surging in the polls. Many polls have him ahead of Mitt Romney. He hasn’t said who he would choose as his running mate yet, but according to a report, he’s had several meetings with Papa John.” –Jay Leno “Herman Cain has moved ahead of Mitt Romney. Can you believe that? Political analysts say this is because Americans don’t understand Mormonism but they do understand pizza.” –Conan O’Brien

“President Obama had beer with four unemployed construction workers. When the check came, Obama was like, ‘Do you guys want to split this five ways?'” –Jimmy Fallon “Brian Williams said if he ever left his wife for a man, that man would be Bruce Springsteen. Which is a really weird way to begin the nightly news.” –Conan O’Brien

“The protests are getting pretty rowdy. This morning, they overturned Donald Trump’s hair and set it on fire.” –Craig Ferguson “The Saudi government is upset about this plot to assassinate their ambassador. As you know, Saudi Arabia condemns all acts of terrorism unless, of course, they’re sponsoring them.” –Jay Leno

David Letterman’s “Top Five Reasons Chris Christie Endorsed Mitt Romney” 5. Romney sounds like pastrami 4. Perry wouldn’t let him fry eggs on the Texas electric chair 3. Acting on direct orders from Colonel Sanders 2. Mistook Mitt’s repeated ‘bi-partisan’ references to mean two kinds of cheese 1. Only other options were the nutjob, the crackpot, the pizza dude and Newt

So there’s that’s our report from the Animal Planet. Not a good week for Muammar Quaddafi fans, but hopefully a better week for the families of the Pan Am Flight 10 Lockerbie bombing victims. We’ll catch you going deep in October. Aloha, mahalo and later, Albert Pujols fans.

Good morning and greetings, tropical storm fans. What is it with the national weather picture? If you’re keeping a scorecard at home, the weather across our nation has been wackier in 2011 than the statements coming out of the mouth of Texas Governor Rick Perry.

It has been a year of extreme conditions in the USA, with killer tornadoes, paralyzing blizzards, unrelenting triple digit heat, record-setting drought, massive flooding, raging wildfires, unusual earthquakes and most significantly, the Yankees having the second-best record in baseball with just one proven starting pitcher.

In an article written by Associated Press Science writer Seth Borenstein, he states that total weather losses so far for the year top $35 billion and 25 cents, and that’s not counting Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee or the upcoming NBA lockout. This is not to say that the rest of the world has been having a picnic in 2011, as there was the horrific earthquake and tsunami in Japan, major flooding in Australia, the devastating drought in Africa and the bring your guns to home and work program sponsored by the Mexican drug cartels.

And as Andrew Luck would have it, we’re right in the middle of September, when hurricanes and pro football take center stage. In the first six months of 2011, there were 98 natural disasters in the United States, not to mention the current field of Republican presidential candidates. That is double the average of the 1990’s, which doesn’t include the Columbine school massacre, the O.J .Simpson murder trial and “Beverly Hills 90210.”

Then there’s the unforgiving, relentless, sweltering heat that has been massacring the southwestern states. Tens of thousands of daily weather CD’s and records, including most consecutive mornings on West Cliff Drive without seeing the sun, have been broken or tied. Nearly 1,000 all-time records have been set, with most of them heat or rain, or in the supreme words of Diana Ross, “No wind, no rain, nor winter storms, can stop me babe, oh babe.”

This has also been the hottest summer in Texas history. How hot has it been? It was so hot, Tim Duncan saw an Amish guy buying an air conditioner. More records have been broken than at my high school graduation party. The word scorching doesn’t begin to describe it or Dirk Nowitzki’s outside shooting in the NBA Finals.

The Lone Star state has also experienced it’s worst fire season in history, with over 3.5 million acres burned to go along with it’s driest one year period ever. The stars at night may be big and bright, but it’s been a blazing inferno deep in the heart of Texas. And if that weren’t enough, in July, Oklahoma went into the books as America’s hottest month by any state in recorded history. And this doesn’t include Timothy McVeigh burning in hell.

One of the most troubling aspects of the extreme heat is the record-high nighttime temperatures. It may cool off at night here on the central coast, but a good part of the nation gets treated to the relaxing in an oven experience. The evening highs shows that the country isn’t cooling off at all in the evening, which is what the crops, the human body and my night nurses need.

So why in the wide, wide world of sports do I bring this up? Because here in Santa Cruz, instead of percolating in the heat, we’re still waiting for things to warm up. We had one day last week that I would describe as Indian summer, as the rest of the week was more like August fog mode. Now I’m not complaining, as I’ll take the fog and clouds any day over sweltering heat, but if it warmed up a tad and the sky turned blue before Oprah comes on in the afternoon, Steadman and I wouldn’t be upset.

For today’s photo relay we are going vertical, with three waterfall shots followed by three from the rainbow files from the Garden Isle. The first photo is Wailau Falls, followed by a brilliant red clay waterfall that I shot on the road to Waimea Canyon. The next are cascading waterfalls from after a rain on the mountains that form the backdrop to the town of Hanalei. This was the view from my bedroom on the north shore of Kauai along with an box of Mauna Loa chocolate covered macadamia nuts. It was a tremendous place to quietly read and sob in silence.

We finish up with some vivid Hanalei rainbow moments. According to my lunar calendar, we have one more week’s worth of South Pacific photos before returning to local action, so sunrises, sunsets and more of my fascinating life story are on the way.

On to the late night. “The Republican presidential candidates will have a debate at the Reagan Library. They were going to have it at the George W. Bush Library but they couldn’t fit all eight of them in the bouncy house. The oil industry said if they were allowed to drill more, they could create over a million new jobs. Of course most of those jobs would be cleaning oil off ducks. In Iowa Sarah Palin ran a half marathon and came in second place. Of course no one saw her do it, because she refused to tell anyone she was running.” –Conan O’Brien

“A town in Arizona wants to have its own version of Spain’s running of the bulls. Right. If there’s one thing Arizona is missing it’s thousands of Spanish-speaking people running for their lives.” Apparently, Mitt Romney is planning to build a huge addition onto his beach house in California. And here’s the cool part: They’re using the same wood that they used to build Mitt Romney. A woman in Alaska punched a bear in the face after it threatened her dog Or as Sarah Palin put it, ‘Teach me, sensei.'” –Jimmy Fallon

“‘The White House agreed to move President Obama’s speech from Wednesday to Thursday because the Republicans have a debate scheduled for Wednesday. So the debate that no one is going to watch holds more weight than the speech no one is going to believe. “Michele Bachmann said that if she is elected president, she would consider eliminating the Department of Education because ‘the states could do a gooder job.’ “A New Mexico state trooper in full uniform was caught having sex with a woman on the hood of her car. She was so drunk that halfway through she said, “Hey, that’s not a Breathalyzer!” –Jay Leno

That’s our national weather report. So enjoy the last full week of summer and the start of the new fall TV season.
We’ll catch you banging winners from the baseline. Aloha, mahalo and later, Brooklyn Decker fans.

Good morning and greetings, summer breeze fans. Santa Cruz is blessed with a Mediterranean climate, which consists of warm
to dry summers and mild to cool, moist winters. This climate is found in
only a few areas of the world, which includes southwestern Australia,
central Chile, the western cape of South Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, coastal California and a strip mall in Hoboken, New Jersey.

So we’re talking no freezing temps in the winter and little
rain in the summer. Although we don’t see much precipitation at this time of year, Santa Cruz seems like a pretty moist place, from the fog that hugs the coast to the Pacific Ocean that looms as an ever-present force of moving moisture. After the rainy winter and spring, we are in no danger of any drought action, but unfortunately, a good part of our nation cannot say the same. You’ve heard of dry counties, we’re talking dry country.

What they’re calling the Great Drought of 2011 has spread across 14 states, from Florida to Arizona. 14% of the country has suffered through the driest six months since 1895. Hardest hit is Texas, where no part of the state has been left untouched by the virtual lack of rain. Taking the biggest shot is cotton, which accounts for half the U.S. crop, as the plants are too weak to break through the soil that is drier than my sense of humor.

Life has been miserable for Texans due to excessively high heat, scorching dry winds and the retirement of Yao Ming. More than 30% of the state’s wheat crop may be lost. It’s law of the jungle, the wheat shall perish.

Back in June, the U.S. Department of Agriculture designated 213 counties in Texas and the Oakland A’s batting order as natural disaster areas. Even if the weather changes, the rains come and the A’s start hitting, agricultural losses in the state will surge beyond $3 billion due to the blistering heat and lack of precipitation.

Oklahoma has only had 28% of it’s normal summer rainfall. It has been
triple-digit scorching hot for days on end and last week Governor Mary Fallin asked Oklahomans to pray for rain and Russell Westbrook to
pass more. And this comes after Texas Governor Rick Perry earlier in the year asked Texans to pray for rain and to try and forget his serious social networking faux pas when he singled out members of the media and blocked them from following his Twitter account.

So after a spring that was dominated by floods, tornadoes and the Dallas Mavericks, why is the earth being scorched like this? Four out of five meteorologists who recommend sugarless gum blame the high-pressure system that won’t leave the country’s midsection, making it impossible for cooler air from the north to break through. Many in the parched regions are now hoping for heavy tropical storms, drenching monsoons and the end of the NFL and NBA lockouts for relief.

The outlook through late September shows some possible improvement, but the chances of this natural disaster continuing are stronger than my weakside help defense. Further blame goes to La Niña, which is cooling our Pacific Ocean but bringing less moisture to the atmosphere, which prevents the storm systems from getting anywhere near these parched regions. We’re talking dead landscape, which much like the recent actions of the Republican Party, will take years to recover from. At this point, hope is flying solo.

And as an added bonus, a massive heat wave hit the upper midwest states and east coast last Friday, which topped off a week of record-breaking temperatures from Minneapolis to JFK airport In New York. Which brings us to the words of George Carlin as hippy dippy weatherman Al Sleet, “Temperature at the airport is 88 degrees, which is stupid because I don’t know anyone who lives at the airport.”

As of late last week, 900 high temperature records in the United
States had been tied or broken. And the bad news is, for July heat and humidity fans, as Karen Carpenter once whispered in my ear, “We’ve only just begun.”

Speaking of airports, last Wednesday night, 40 planes at Denver International Airport were damaged as hail stones larger than Carmelo Anthony’s ego fell for 15 minutes during a severe thunderstorm. Winds reached 70 MPH as a new single day record for rainfall was set. And
remember, Colorado borders Oklahoma and is a stone’s
throw from Texas, where the rain gauges have been emptier than my invoices paid box.

Moving onto today’s photo lunch special, we’re are going totally lunar. Last Thursday, as I was returning from my son’s summer league basketball game and on the way to my daughter’s softball game, I noticed the full moon rising as I cruised by COSTCO. I really would have preferred to see my favorite natural satellite rising up over Monterey Bay, but my timing and jump shot just aren’t what they used to be.

So instead, let’s head back to January of 2009 and take a look at the
biggest and brightest full moon of that year. I took in this lunar experience from West Cliff Drive on the cliffs above Cowell’s Beach. As you can see, this night was spectacular, and with the stars up above in my eyes, this evening goes down as my favorite among lunar loveliness. Or as my friend Van Morrison commented later, “What a marvelous night for a moon dance. And a fantabulous night for your blog.”

On to the late night. “A report says that a growing number of Americans are worth $1 million. The bad news: last year they were worth $5 million. Hitler’s birthplace in Austria has revoked his honorary citizenship. Talk about a rush to judgment. Michele Bachmann and her husband run this institution where they try to ‘pray away the gay.’ They want gay guys to think outside the bun.” –Jay Leno

“In Arizona they had a dust storm that was two miles high and 15 miles wide. It looked like something out of a movie. Visibility in Arizona they said was so bad that police were hassling white people.” –Bill Maher “A lawmaker in California is pushing for 13 counties to break away and form a new state called South California. Meanwhile, residents are pushing for a more fitting name: ‘North Mexico.'” –Jimmy Fallon “Arnold Schwarzenegger announced today he’s going back to the thing he does best. No, not that thing; the other thing. He’s going to star in a new Western. I think it’s called ‘Butch Cassiday and the Illegitimate Kid.'” –Craig Ferguson

David Letterman’s “Top Six Signs the United States Is Running Out of Money” 10. For $10,000, you get your face on the dollar
9. The White House now has a two-drink minimum 8. There’s a listing on eBay for North Dakota 6. Americans now attempting to sneak into Mexico 4. Costs $25 for each bag the president wants to check on Air Force One 1. Applied for a $40 billion loan from Oprah

So despite a tough finish, congratulations go out Abby Wambach and the U.S. Women’s soccer team for their inspiring play during World Cup action. And the same goes for the writers, actors and
crew from the epic series “Friday Night Lights,” which just
finished an wonderful five-year run on NBC. No program, with the possible exception of “Sons of Anarchy,” has ever moved me emotionally like this show did about families and high school football. The series finale was exceptional. As they say, “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose. Texas forever.” We’ll catch you down the right field line. Aloha, mahalo and later, Tim Riggins fans.