The owner of the Marah Land zoo in Gaza City said he had used masking tape and black hair dye, applied with a paint-brush, to disguise the white females.Mohammed Bargouthi said it would have cost him more than £25 000 to bring in a real zebra via smuggling tunnels.“The first time we used paint but it didn’t look good,” said Bargouthi.“The children don’t know, so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new.”All the real animals at the zoo, including monkeys and a tigress, had been smuggled under the border at great expense, he said.Two genuine zebras died of starvation earlier this year during the Israeli military offensive, he added.The animal restrictions are part of the Israeli blockade of Gaza, imposed in an attempt to reduce rocket attacks and weaken the leadership of Hamas. –– Ananova.
ON THE PILL: Grey squirrels could be put on the pill in a bid to prevent them from threatening red squirrels on the Welsh island of Anglesey.Reds are thriving on the island after the greys were culled in a conservation programme launched 11 years ago, reports the Daily Post.But greys in forests on the mainland are now using the Menai and Britannia bridges to cross the water and reinvade the island.Now conservation group Friends of Anglesey Red Squirrels has volunteered to trial a contraceptive drug to be placed in bait.Spokesman Dr Craig Shuttleworth said: “Despite having the barrier of the Menai Strait, some grey squirrels are still making it across the bridges.“Short of having guards there 24 hours a day there is not a lot we can do about it.“Culling has been successful on the Anglesey side but there is less enthusiasm for that on the Gwynedd side, where there are large numbers of greys in forests near the Strait.“If we can prevent the squirrels breeding there then this would be a good long-term solution for reducing numbers and be more publicly acceptable than culling.”The technique involves treating squirrels with a drug, fed to them through bait, that would trigger the females’ immune systems to reject the males’ sperm. –– Daily Post.
PLAYBOY SIMPSON: “D’oh!” doesn’t even start to cover it. Marge Simpson –– the blue beehived matriarch of America’s most loved dysfunctional family –– is Playboy magazine’s November cover, the magazine said on Friday.Simpson, tastefully concealing her assets behind a signature Playboy Bunny chair, is the first cartoon character ever to front the glossy adult magazine, joining the ranks of sex symbols like Marilyn Monroe and Cindy Crawford.Playboy said the cover and a three-page picture spread inside was a celebration of the 20th anniversary of the The Simpsons and part of a plan to appeal to a younger generation of readers.Playboy magazine’s circulation has slipped in recent years in the face of competition from the Internet, which offers free and plentiful pictures of naked women online.The magazine’s circulation fell nine percent as of the end of June 2009.Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie have already been honoured this year with a set of US postal stamps marking the 20th anniversary of the longest-running comedy series on US television.The Simpsons debuted in December 1989 with a Christmas-themed episode called “Simpsons Roasting on an open fire.” It has won 24 primetime Emmys and was renewed by Fox television earlier this year for two more seasons. –– Reuters.
