If you have a cat that is not spayed or neutered and you haven’t done it because of financial reasons, the Oakland Pet Adoption Center in conjunction with.

The Michigan Pet Fund Alliance and the Michigan Humane Society are booking now for our low-cost, low-income Oakland County residents spay/neuter clinics.

The clinics are held every month at the Oakland Pet Adoption Clinic, 1700 Brown Road in Auburn Hills, and costs $20.00 per cat. The price includes distemper and rabies vaccinations, wormer, and flea and earmite treatment.

Don Moore, animal care director at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park, said many people still watch the bear 24 hours a day. Moore added Tai-Shan's "kind of full of himself." "These guys are reach sexual maturity around age five or seven, but there's not a dominant male in his exhibit with him here, so he's coming in a little early and he was doing a thing called 'power walking' this year. The Chinese own the pandas that are in the United States and they want (the pandas) to go back at age two, but he's going back this year."

Moore said Tai-Shan will soon be 'power walking,' a mating technique, with a young female panda at the breeding center when he leaves next week for Sichuan, China. Moore said Tai-Shan will be doing the giant panda population a service, particularly when one considers the species' critically endangered status. He said there are fewer than 2,000 giant pandas in the world.

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WHY DO THEY do it? Why does an animal weighing perhaps 35 tonnes spend such energy propelling itself clear of the sea, twisting long, knobbly pectoral fins in the air to land on its back in a great gout of spray? It’s the most forceful, spectacular action known among mammals, shared even with blue whales, the biggest mammals in the world, writes MICHAEL VINEY.

It’s to shake off parasites, say some – all those little whale lice chewing in the folds of its skin. Or to strip off a harmless but often heavy load of barnacles (on one humpback’s head they weighed 1,000lb or 454kg). Or to slough off dead skin. Or to stun a shoal of herring. Or to scare competitive dolphins.

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That's how long you have to get to the National Zoo to say farewell to Tai Shan, Washington's beloved giant panda. The zoo announced last month that the 4 1/2 -year-old bear would be sent back to China soon. On Monday, the zoo said that date will be Feb. 4. The last day to see Tai Shan will be Feb. 3.

Tai Shan's parents, Mei Xiang and Tian Tian, are on loan to the zoo from China. Tai Shan was supposed to go back to China when he was 2 years old, but the Chinese government let him stay longer.

The zoo is having a big Tai Shan going-away party Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and on Tuesday, KidsPost will publish some of the "Goodbye, Tai Shan" cards that readers made and sent to us.

Her name is Lola, but, as the song goes, she’s no showgirl. She’s a warthog like Timon’s sidekick Pumbaa in “The Lion King” — ugly tusks and all.

She is a little on the prissy side. She doesn’t like broccoli. And she doesn’t like cold weather, either, so don’t ask her to go out when it’s colder than 45 degrees.

Which means that this bitter January, Lola — like the other African animals at the Kansas City Zoo — has spent a good deal of time inside.

The zoo is open year-round, even when Swope Park looks more like an Antarctic outpost than the middle of Kansas City. But because the lions and hippos and cheetahs and elephants can’t go out in the cold and ice, the zoo reduces admission in the winter.

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The Calgary Zoo says four deer that died at the zoo did not die because of human error, contrary to claims made yesterday by the group Zoocheck.

The animals died over the course of several months last year, not over the last week, as claimed by Zoocheck in information sent to media outlets Monday. The group said a zoo employee reported that four mule deer died as they were being rounded up.

"This is not the case and this is not true," said Calgary Zoo spokesman Simon Scott. "We had no incident involving mule deer last week nor any incident involving human error and mule deer last week." Four mule deer did die at the zoo between September and December of last year, said Scott.

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What's living in your backyard? There may be more than squirrels, deer, and coyotes. When Bolton resident Janet Pesaturo set out to visit Harvard Conservation land one snowy February morning.

She was hoping to find some fox tracks, or perhaps some evidence of the otter she suspected was living in the wetland habitat.

However, as she made her way across the habitat, she stumbled upon something rather unexpected.

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The big freeze has boosted sales of dog coats and rabbit hutch covers at Pets at Home, with the retailer enjoying bumper trading over the Christmas period and improving its prospects of finding itself a buyer. Like-for-like sales climbed 6.7% in the six weeks and to 7 January Sales were up 9.8% in the 41 weeks to 7 January.

The 252-store chain has put itself up for sale and is in talks with several private equity firms but has not ruled out a stock market flotation. Today's figures could boost the retailer's price tag in an auction. A total of 1.4m presents were bought from Pets at Home over Christmas. The cold snap led to a surge in sales of products to keep pets warm, from rabbit hutch covers to dog coats. It sold 70% more dog coats than last year. The retailer also sold more than a thousand tonnes of wild bird food.

But John Lewis was less lucky during the cold snap. It reported a 1.4% slide in sales for last week as the snow and ice kept shoppers away from the high street. In the same week - John Lewis's peak clearance week - back in 2008 the department store group enjoyed a 9.9% sales surge.

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Crews with the Marine Mammal Center are still hoping to find three California sea lions that were spotted over the weekend with entanglements around their necks, a center spokesman said today.

The sea lions all appeared to have become entangled in what looks like a fishing line around their upper bodies, center spokesman Jim Oswald said.

The first was spotted late Friday night at Pier 39, but because it was too dark and dangerous to attempt a night rescue, crews decided to return early Saturday to try to pick up the animal, Oswald said.

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Hippopotamuses mate in water, are born in water and spend most of the day wallowing in muddy pools — but there comes a time in every hippo’s life when she simply wants to have dry feet.  For Nikica, aged 11, that moment came this week after floodwaters surged through the zoo in Montenegro where she spends her days. Seizing the moment, she bobbed to the top of the cage and swam to freedom.

Now Nikica, weighing in at two tonnes, is a hippo on the run; an uneasy, lurking presence in the village of Plavnica. For the time being, there is no going back: the private zoo, on a small island on Lake Skadar, is completely submerged.

So, trailed discreetly by two armed security men from the zoo, Nikica is roaming freely, sizing up the locals. Children in the village have been told to stay indoors; sound advice, not only because hippos tend to be grumpy, but also because they spin their tails like rotor blades when excreting. The idea is to mark out the maximum expanse of territory — plainly, it does not do to stand too close.

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