Sandra Frosti, a 69-year-old central Floridian, found an 8-foot long alligator prowling in her kitchen late Monday night, authorities said.

Frosti said the gator must have pushed through the back porch screen door and then went inside through an open sliding glass door at her home in Oldsmar, just north of Tampa. It then apparently strolled through the living room, down a hall and into the kitchen.

A trapper with Animal Capture of Florida removed the alligator, which was cut by a plate that was knocked to the ground during the chaos. But no one inside the house was injured.

The 8-month-old pooch spent three months adrift in the Pacific with his owners and a parrot until their 48-foot sailboat ran aground in December on tiny Fanning Island, 1,000 miles south of Hawaii. Snickers and Gulliver had to be left behind as their owners hitched a ride on a cargo vessel.

Then in March, the SOS was sent out in a boating journal that the orphaned critters were to be destroyed on Fanning, one of 33 scattered coral atolls that make up the remote island nation of Kiribati.

As word spread, a bevy of people worked to rescue the cocker spaniel and the macaw, including a man who desperately wants to adopt them: retired Las Vegas resident Jack Joslin.

“I love animals,” Joslin told The Associated Press on Friday. “I had two dogs up until the middle of March. Then I had to have my border collie euthanized. The day they called saying the ashes were back was when I read the story (about Snickers). It occurred to me I could do something.”

On April 9, Norwegian Cruise Line workers rescued Snickers from Fanning and dropped him off on Oahu island, Hawaii, where he will remain in quarantine until he is flown to Los Angeles.

Hawaiian Airlines, moved by the dog’s survival story, has given the go-ahead on flying the animal for free to the mainland, said Peter Forman, a Hawaii-based airlines historian who helped negotiate Snickers’ transport.

Forman said he expects Snickers to arrive sometime in the next three days.

Snickers’ original owners, Jerry and Darla Merrow, had set out from California’s Moss Landing but their catamaran developed mast problems, said Gina Baurile of the Hawaiian Humane Society.

The boat drifted to the tiny atoll, where it hit a reef and the couple swam 200 yards to shore with Snickers and Gulliver.

Baurile said the pets were left in the care of islanders.

“They don’t have the same concept of taking care of pets,” Baurile said.

Efforts to contact the Merrows on Friday were unsuccessful. Joslin said he has been unable to contact the pair, and Baurile said she believes the Hawaiian Humane Society never tried to reach them.

“The Merrows got to the point where they had to move on with their lives,” said Forman, who is friends with Robby and Lorraine Coleman, a couple with a sailboat off Fanning Island who originally talked to a boating journal about Snickers.

“The Merrows basically signed a release of ownership of the dog,” Forman said.

Robby Coleman started watching out for the dog and parrot on the island, Forman said.

“Robby put out the SOS and a lot of people got involved,” Forman said.

Contacted by Joslin, the Hawaiian Humane Society took the lead on Snickers rescue.

The organization worked with Norwegian Cruise Line, and a ship was sent out to Fanning Island to pick up the dog, said Norwegian Cruise Line spokeswoman Krislyn Hashimoto.

The Hawaiian Humane Society provided pet carriers, flea treatment and food, Baurile said.

The dog landed in Honolulu on Wednesday, cleared Customs and has been in quarantine since, awaiting transport to Los Angeles, Hashimoto said.

Getting the parrot off the island will be more difficult, said Joslin, who wants to adopt the animal.

There is a plan to move Gulliver to Christmas Island, near Fanning Island, and eventually to L.A., one of two U.S. ports that accept exotic birds.

“Snickers is going to live with me, I hope, for a long time,” Joslin said. “And we’re trying like hell to get the bird back here.”

Rompres state news agency says police found a caged 3-year-old lioness, as well as two deer, a stag and two peacocks roaming the garden of the man’s home in the southern village of Pietrosita.

The 28-year-old man is being charged with illegal possession of wild animals and could be sentenced to up to a year in jail. He also faces a fine of up to $4,430.

The daily Evenimentul Zilei newspaper said Wednesday the lioness will be taken to the Bucharest zoo, but that police will let the man keep the peacocks and his dogs.

The discovery represents hope for the species, said Doug Hendrie, the Vietnam-based coordinator of the zoo program.

Turtle expert Peter Pritchard, president of the Chelonian Research Institute, confirmed the find based on a photo Hendrie showed him.

“It looked like pretty solid evidence. The animal has a pretty distinctive head,” Pritchard said.

There have been rumors for years of a mythical creature living deep in the waters of a northern Vietnam lake. Some in a village west of Hanoi claimed to be blessed by catching a glimpse of its concave shell as it crested above the surface of their lake.

A national legend tells of a giant golden turtle that bestowed upon the Vietnamese people a magic sword and victory over Chinese invaders in the 16th century. Whether that sacred turtle has materialized in the 21st century will be a matter of cultural debate among the Vietnamese.

“This is one of those mythical species that people always talked about but no one ever saw,” said Geoff Hall, zoo general curator.

Of the other three Swinhoe’s soft-shell turtles in captivity, two are in Chinese zoos and the other is cared for in the Hoan Kiem (”Returned Sword”) Lake in downtown Hanoi — the lake in which the legendary turtle appeared to reclaim the sword from the emperor.

Pritchard said an amateur photographed a Swinhoe’s soft-shell turtle in southern China about six months ago that he believes was legitimate.

“It’s on the very brink of extinction, so every one counts,” Pritchard said.

The Cleveland Metroparks Zoo began its effort to preserve and protect Asian turtles in 2003 amid reports of increased killings for food or to make traditional medicine from their bones. Development and pollution also led to loss of nesting habitats along rivers, zoo officials said.

The zoo has put more than $275,000 into Asian turtle conservation efforts since 2000 and has supported Hendrie since 2003, officials said.

His team and scientists from Education for Nature-Vietnam had searched lakes and wetlands along the Red River for three years before hearing about the creature living outside Hanoi.

The turtle remains in the lake and researchers have notified the Vietnamese government of its existence, Hendrie said.

Picatinny Arsenal officials will investigate how a 2-pound piece of an artillery round fired from the base ended up crashing through the roof of a Jefferson Township home Friday afternoon, Brig. Gen. William N. Phillips said in a statement.

The Star-Ledger of Newark says the 6-by-4-inch object landed on the bed of a 10-year-old girl. She had left about 20 minutes earlier to go to a sleepover at a friend’s house. But the family cat was injured and had to be put to sleep.

The house is about two and a half miles from the Picatinny Arsenal, which was conducting weapons tests at the time.

Phillips said he visited the home Friday night and apologized.

Picatinny is the site of the Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, which conducts research, development and engineering for weapons systems.

The suit, filed in Massachusetts Superior Court in February, seeking unspecified damages, moved up to U.S. District Court in Boston this week.

In papers filed in the state court, Nancy Magee charged that a Petsmart in Warwick, Rhode Island in March 2005 sold a hamster infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus, or LCMV, to a woman not named in the suit.

That woman later died of stroke and her liver was implanted in Magee’s husband, Thomas, in April 2005. A month later, Thomas Magee died of LCMV.

Two other people who received organs from this woman died and one became seriously ill, the suit says, noting that medical authorities later tracked down the hamster in question and found it to be infected with LCMV.

Petsmart spokeswoman Jessica Douglas said the Phoenix, Arizona-based company does not comment on pending litigation.

Police arrived at the house at 111th Avenue and 96th Street around 4 p.m. to respond to a report of a break-and-enter, said EPS Sgt. Guy Kinney.

Once inside, officers made a gruesome discovery. Apparently, a sickness had spread among the cats.

“The woman didn’t want to be separated from them, so she began to put them into a freezer as they died so they would be close to her,” Kinney said.

Another 20 live cats were found in the home, but those animals are likely to have the disease and “are expected to succumb to it,” Kinney said.

Global News reported that 35 bodies were found in a freezer in the garage while another six were found in a different freezer in the basement of the home. Animal control officers were then brought in.

Neighbours said at least one child lived in the home with the woman. Social Services seized that child from the home, according to Global News.

One woman who lives across the street said investigators brought a lot of pet carriers into the home, but few animals came back out. Shortly after, the woman who lives at the home was handcuffed and put into a police car, the neighbour said.

Spokeswoman Dianne Shannon said the Humane Society was not involved in the investigation, but the society and Capital Health would likely become involved today.

No charges have yet been laid, but not seeking required medical attention for an animal is illegal under the Animal Protection Act of Alberta.

On Saturday, the manager of the Fields store in Ponoka called police at about 10:30 a.m. after a customer spotted the tabby cat hanging by its neck from a light post nearby.

RCMP Const. James Lai responded and took the dead cat down.

Four or five strands of copper wire had been braided into a rope and tied around the cat’s neck. It was hanging about 4.5 metres above the ground.

RCMP now believe someone hung the cat between 1 a.m. and 8 a.m. on Saturday. There would have been quite a bit of street traffic downtown during that time, Lai said.

“We’re crossing our fingers someone is going to come forward. We would definitely like to have a chat with the people responsible for this.”

About seven months ago, several people in Ponoka put a cat in a bag and beat it to death, but Lai said that incident is not related.

Judy Berens was airlifted Saturday to Delray Medical Center, but it appears her injuries are not life-threatening, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office said.

Berens owns and operates Panther Ridge Conservation Center, which provides homes for exotic cats, authorities said.

She was conducting an exhibition with two male cheetahs in an enclosure on Saturday when one became distracted by a ball being bounced outside, the sheriff’s office said. The cheetah moved toward the ball quickly and knocked her to the ground.

The cheetah then pounced on her and began biting and clawing her, said Gabriella Ferraro, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission spokeswoman. At some point the other cheetah attacked her as well, Ferraro said.

Several people entered the enclosure and rescued her, authorities said.

Ferraro said the cheetahs remain on the property in cages.

Wildlife officers are investigating the attack, but so far it appears there no violations and no laws were broken, Ferraro said.

NAHA, Japan - At a Zen Buddhist temple in southern Japan, even the dog prays.

Mimicking his master, priest Joei Yoshikuni, a 1 1/2-year-old black-and-white Chihuahua named Conan joins in the daily prayers at Naha’s Shuri Kannondo temple, sitting up on his hind legs and putting his front paws together before the altar.

It took him only a few days to learn the motions, and now he is the talk of the town.

“Word has spread, and we are getting a lot more tourists,” Yoshikuni said Monday.

Yoshikuni said Conan generally goes through his prayer routine at the temple in the capital of Japan’s southern Okinawa prefecture (state) without prompting before his morning and evening meals.

“I think he saw me doing it all the time and got the idea to do it, too,” Yoshikuni said.

The priest is now trying to teach him how to meditate.

Well, sort of.

“Basically, I am just trying to get him to sit still while I meditate,” he explained. “It’s not like we can make him cross his legs.”