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The Rocky Mountain News reports that the sale of wild horses to slaughterhouses is on the rise. The 1971 Wild Horse and Burro Act was written to end the mass slaughter and abuse of wild horse herds in 10 western states. The Bureau of Land Management gathers the horses, lets suitable owners adopt them and, after a year, turns over title.

?If you look at the legislative history, it?s clear that Congress never intended these horses to be slaughtered,? says Andrea Lococo, of the Fund for Animals? western office in Wyoming. Wild horse advocates, including the Fund for Animals, have BLM records that show hundreds of wild horses were sold for slaughter shortly after the owners received title.
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The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports that the citizens of Bedford, a small town in Virginia, are trying to solve a mystery code that may be worth millions that has baffled treasure hunters for over a century. It?s known as the Beale Treasure, which is supposed to be a pile of gold worth $20 million which was buried in the hills of Bedford in the early 1800s by a gold miner named Thomas J. Beale.

One man moved his neighbor?s silo a few years ago to dig under it but ran out of money before he could put it back. A woman was jailed for excavating parts of the town cemetery, and the two brothers go to a local orchard to dig more trenches every fall.
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Countries around the world are trying to cope with climatic catastrophe, as a big freeze chills Europe and North America, Brazil recovers from torrential rains, bushfires blaze in an Australian heatwave and Saudis pray for rain. North America was plunged into an intense cold front that buried Buffalo and sent 3 feet of snow to New York.

In Europe, the chill has claimed hundreds of lives. A winter cold snap in Poland has killed 178 people since October, well above the 112 killed by the cold last year. Authorities in Bulgaria declared a state of emergency after the worst snowfalls in 30 years. Moscow authorities said three people died in the sub-zero temperatures, bringing to 250 the number to perish in the city?s chill this winter.
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The National Audubon Society?s annual Christmas Bird Count shows that birds are being spotted in places hundreds and even thousands of miles from their traditional habitats. It may be due to the changing weather, but scientists can?t really explain it. ?It?s shaping up to be very interesting,? says Geoff LeBaron, the national coordinator for the annual Christmas-time tally.

The Christmas Bird Count, now in its 102nd year, tracks changes in the continent?s bird populations over the years by using local birders who look for birds in 15-mile diameter circles between Dec. 14 and Jan. 5. So far this year, more than 50,000 participants have logged more than 1.8 million birds from the Caribbean Islands to Nome, Alaska.
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