WebClawer: Elephants rescued in Malawi, rare stripeless white tiger born, two-legged Sheltie inspires in Denver

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From elephants and tigers to inspirational dogs and bad, bad cats, animals are making headlines all over the world today. These are a few of the stories that made us take notice:

-- Wildlife advocates have successfully moved 83 African elephants from the Mangochi district of Malawi to a game reserve 100 miles away. Farmers in the area had resorted to shooting or trapping the elephants, which in recent years have raided crops and gored or trampled 20 people to death. Cheering villagers lined the roads as the sedated elephants were trucked away. A helicopter, a crane and two large flatbed trucks -- as well as an estimated $170,000 -- were needed to complete the project. (Greenspace)

-- A 6-month-old Bengal tiger cub is so unusual that it’s believed that there are fewer than 20 like her in existence. The cub, named Fareeda, is a resident of the Cango Wildlife Ranch, a breeding facility for endangered species in South Africa -- and she’s stripeless.’Some cubs develop stripes in their first few months, but after six months it’s clear that Fareeda is truly one of the rarest of her kind,’ said Odette Claassen of the Cango ranch. (Most white tigers have stripes, although sometimes the stripes are so light in color as to virtually disappear.) (Telegraph)

-- A Denver-area Shetland sheepdog is cheering up hospital patients and special-needs children while drawing attention to the ongoing problem of conditions in American puppy mills. The dog, named Dare, has only two legs (the front and rear right ones) and was rescued from a puppy mill. At the mill, another dog chewed off his left rear leg before he was a week old. His left front leg was fractured and dislocated when it became stuck in a wire cage and had to be amputated.’He gives you an incentive to try and do better no matter your disability,’ said multiple sclerosis patient Rochelle Rotruck. (Denver Post)

-- The investigation into a Queensland, Australia, house fire centers on whether a cat urinating on a laptop could have started the blaze. Two teenage boys were home when the fire started (neither was seriously injured) and reported that, although they’d let their pet cat outside hours before the fire started, it had somehow gotten back inside and urinated on the computer to which initial investigations traced the fire’s origin. (Courier Mail)

-- Lindsay Barnett