When Dave Neal set out for a day of kayak-fishing recently on Indiana's Wildcat Creek, he could not have imagined the surprise awaiting around a bend, in the form of an enormous Burmese python coiled against the base of a tree.

When the 11-foot reptile began slithering up the bank, a fishing expedition with two friends became a hunting expedition. "I didn't know what to think -- you just don't see this kind of thing in Indiana," Neal told the Journal & Courier newspaper.

Neal, with his cellphone, called the state's Department of Natural Resources while his group tried to keep tabs on the fleeing snake. This was important because Burmese pythons, which are native to parts of Asia, certainly do not belong in Indiana and are a potential threat to children and pets.

Neal recalled that there had been small children playing nearby.

When DNR conservation officer Josh Schoon arrived on the scene, a decision was made to kill the cornered python, which presumably was a pet that outgrew its owner and was turned loose in the wilderness.

The officer wanted to phoned for a rescue team but the snake had led the group to an area in which there was no cellphone service. Burmese pythons, Schoon said, can be aggressive and kill they prey by constricting, or squeezing it to death. The snakes can reach nearly 20 feet in length.

Schoon dispatched the animal with three well-placed shots and afterward told Neal and his friends it was theirs. The snake's hide is now stretched on a board at the home of Terry Linback, Neal's brother-in-law, who was part of the expedition.

Said Neal of the python: "I ain't never seen anything that big in the wild before ... it's kind cute, though."

-- Image courtesy of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources

These are dark days in Taiji, Japan, as far as conservationists are concerned, because this week marks the beginning of the annual dolphin hunt in the remote village made famous last year by the Academy Award-winning documentary, "The Cove."

The hunt began Thursday despite swelling international opposition and protests in Tokyo.

Ric O'Barry, who trained dolphins for the 1960s show "Flipper" and helped produce "The Cove," has traveled to Tokyo to deliver a petition of opposition, signed by 1.7 million people from 155 countries, to the U.S. Embassy. The activist, who also has produced an Animal Planet miniseries called "Blood Dolphins," was forced to cancel a trip to Taiji amid alleged threats from an ultra-nationalist group.

"I wish all these people could be in Taiji,"O'Barry told The Associated Press. "It was too dangerous. The big losers are the people of Taiji."

Most of the dolphins corralled during the hunts are killed and processed for meat, but some of the more robust specimens are captured and sold live to aquariums. Japan allows the killing of about 20,000 dolphins a year and claims the hunts are an important part of the nation's culture and tradition.

Taiji, a community of about 3,500, accounts for about 1,500 dolphin deaths annually. Its "oikomi hunting" practice of herding dolphins into a bay in preparation for their slaughter is what drew worldwide criticism after "The Cove" was released.

O'Barry, 70, and the group Save Japan Dolphins have produced a celebrity-studded public service video -- Jennifer Aniston, Courtney Cox and Robin Williams, to name a few -- intended to tug on heartstrings and convince citizens who appreciate dolphins as intelligent mammals to become involved in the campaign to end the hunts. The video, which has been viewed by 500,000 people, is attached below. Please share your thoughts.



-- Dolphin image courtesy of Animal Planet

With "Shrek, the Final Chapter," Dreamworks presumably has produced the last sequel of the zany animated comedy featuring the large but lovable green ogre and his peculiar supporting cast.

But the movie's star character seems to have been reincarnated as a real-life denizen of the deep, residing off Sado Island, Japan. That's where scuba divers recently discovered an Asian sheepshead wrasse with a face so closely resembling the ogre that it has been dubbed a "Shrek" fish.

Video footage has appeared on the Today Show and, of course, it has found its way onto YouTube. Whether you can see the resemblance or not, you'll probably agree that this is one homely-looking fish:

While most people on the East Coast express concern whenever a major hurricane approaches, surfers typically become excited about the prospects of thrilling rides on huge waves.

They should not get too excited about Hurricane Earl, a powerful storm that will be moving too swiftly toward shore and remain too close to shore to allow for clean conditions with the swells it produces.

"It's not a good scenario at all and it's downright dangerous," said Mike Watson, a Florida-based forecaster for Surfline, which monitors surfing conditions around the world. "Surfers should be more concerned about safety."

Hurricane Earl, as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, was a Category 4 storm packing 135-mph winds, located along the fringe of the Caribbean. It's churning to the west-northwest at 14 mph but will pick up speed and could strengthen to a Category 5 storm before arriving just off North Carolina late Thursday.

The National Hurricane Center predicts it will turn to the north instead of making landfall and essentially skirt the coast as it plots to the north, remaining at hurricane strength through at last Saturday and perhaps forcing large-scale evacuations.

Hurricane Earl will be much closer to shore than its predecessor, Hurricane Danielle, which generated large surf and strong rip currents that led to hundreds of rescues and was blamed for the death of a surfer off Satellite Beach, Fla.

Lifeguards expect more perilous conditions to be created by Earl, with high surf arriving on parts of the East Coast as early as Wednesday.

Watson, who said Florida is the only state that might get clean surf, being far enough south and west of the storm's track, explained that part of the danger associated with Hurricane Earl is its swift shoreward direction. It will follow closely behind the swells it generates, so surfers who are tempted to paddle out in what they perceive to be clean conditions can expect conditions to deteriorate rapidly.

"It's just too close to the coast," Watson said of the storm. "We like to see them out toward Bermuda, where we get the swell but we don't get the weather with it. Danielle was a good swell producer but for the most part with Earl, surfers should be home getting prepared [for the storm's arrival], just like everyone else."

-- Top image shows Hurricane Earl along the fringe of the Caribbean southeast of Florida on Monday. The storm is expected to arrive just off North Carolina late Thursday. Credit: NASA GOES Project. Bottom graphic showing the storm's projected path courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.

The cat was out of the bag soon after X-ray scanners at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport detected what looked like a beating heart inside a woman's suitcase.

It turned out to be a sedated tiger cub that had been placed in the bag alongside a toy stuffed tiger, presumably to try to fool authorities manning the X-ray machine.

Piyawan Palasarn, 31, a Thai national, claimed she was carrying the animal for someone else when she was arrested. She had been booked on a Mahan Air flight to Iran, but it remains unclear if that was her final destination.

The incident occurred Sunday but details weren't revealed until late Thursday. The wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC stated on its website that an investigation is being conducted to determine whether the cub was caught in the wild or captive-bred, and its place of origin.

The cub is being cared for at a Bangkok wildlife care facility and it's hoped DNA will help determine to which subspecies it belongs. It arrived at the facility dehydrated and exhausted but is doing much better and has begun to walk.

"I was a bit shocked because an animal isn't supposed to be treated like this," Nirath Nipanant, chief of the airport's wildlife checkpoint, told the Associated Press. "Had the animal passed the oversize baggage check and gone through four to five hours of travel, its chances of survival would have been slim."

Tiger populations throughout Asia are critically threatened because of widespread poaching and black-market trading operations. Tigers are listed as endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

Chris Shepherd, the Southeast Asia regional director for TRAFFIC, applauded the way authorities handled the situation but added: "If people are trying to smuggle live tigers in their check-in luggage, the obviously think wildlife smuggling is something easy to get away with and do not fear reprimand.

"Only sustained pressure on wildlife traffickers and serious penalties can change that."

Palasarn, who was charged with two smuggling-related charges, faces up to four years in prison and a $1,300 fine.

-- Top image courtesy of Suvarnabhumi Airport Wildlife Checkpoint of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation. Bottom image courtesy of TRAFFIC