Zoo

State police on Friday charged the driver who investigators said pulled out in front of a tour bus carrying a group of Kent County kindergarten students and parents to the National Zoo in Washington. Carl Trenz Jr., 49, of the 100 block of Big Holly Court in Stevensville faces reckless driving, negligent driving and related charges after the Queen Anne's County crash that sent 17 people to area hospitals on Thursday. Trenz was driving a 2010 Volkswagen Toureg and pulled out from White Marsh Road onto southbound Route 213, directly into the path of the southbound tour bus, state police said.

Zoe, a 16-year-old giraffe at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore , died Thursday after receiving anesthesia during a medical procedure. The reticulated giraffe was a favorite of visitors who occasionally were allowed to feed her "We are stunned by the sudden loss," Zoo president Don Hutchinson said in a news release. "Zoe was truly part of our zoo family. " Zoe was anesthetized while getting her hooves trimmed — a procedure that is medically necessary to prevent overgrown toenails from becoming painful, and interfering with a giraffe's ability to walk.

Cue the oohs and ahhs. Otto is ready for his debut. The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore unveiled its newest addition — a male Coquerel's sifaka — to the public Wednesday. "People should be very proud to come to their zoo and see these," said Meredith Wagoner, the zoo's mammal collection and conservation manager. "It is very rare that they will be able to … see these. " The addition of Otto is a "highly significant birth for the sifaka population in North America," according to Mike McClure, general curator for the zoo. Coquerel's sifaka are lemurs and native to Madagascar, an island off the eastern coast of Africa.

They don't squeal like pigs, cluck like chickens or quack like ducks. In fact, you scarcely get a sound out of them unless you pick one up and try your hand at music. That is why teachers at Glenwood Middle School in Howard County are hosting an "instrumental petting zoo" on Saturday, hoping that area youngsters take to a cafeteria filled with orchestra instruments they way they do to barnyard filled with animals. Exposing students as early as first grade to the instruments could spawn an interest in the school's music program when they reach third or fourth grade, said Trish De Orio, strings teacher at Glenwood Middle and Gorman Crossing Elementary schools in Laurel.

More of Dr. Ellen Bronson's patients are developing the afflictions typical of old age, including arthritis, failing eyesight, muscle atrophy, kidney problems, flagging appetite, cancer and bad teeth. The problem is that none of her patients can tell her where it hurts. Some are too big for her examining table, and others might prefer to eat her. Bronson, 39, is the head veterinarian at the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore , and as better husbandry and veterinary care lengthen the life spans of animals in captivity, she and her counterparts around the country are spending more time on geriatric care.

The size of 833 ordinary groundhogs, Tuffy the African elephant steps slowly from barn to holding pen, oblivious to his looming place in Maryland meteorological predictions. If he sees his massive shadow, winter soon will end. If not, it's six more weeks of dreary skies, mush and slop and cold nights without power. That Phil, the groundhog in Punxsutawney, has predicted an early spring matters not to Tuffy. He's an elephant and cannot read. If there's a shadow to be cast, Tuffy is up to the tusk, er, task.

Mary, the 24-year-old matriarch of the Maryland Zoo's giraffe herd, was euthanized Tuesday following a three-year bout with arthritis. "About two and a half years ago, she started showing signs of arthritis," zoo spokeswoman Jane Ballentine said. "The staff worked to manage her pain, keep her comfortable. But a few weeks ago, she seemed to become more uncomfortable, shifting her weight from leg to leg. "Her condition progressed very rapidly," she added. "As the days went on, they realized the treatments they were using just really weren't working for Mary.

Visitors to the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore have often had to search a towering white oak to spot the zoo's two prized African leopards, Amari and Hobbes, which frequently scaled the trunk and took to the branches. The cats would each perch on a sturdy limb that gave the best view of a boardwalk filled with people and the neighboring enclosure co-habited by zebras, ostriches and two white rhinos. It was as close to living in the wild as two cats could get. But by the end of Saturday, only a stump will remain of their favorite spot.

Buoyed by stronger finances, the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore will be open in January and February for the first time in five years, zoo officials announced this week. The zoo will be open four days out of the week during those two months, said Don Hutchinson, the zoo's president, and visitors will get half-off admission prices. The zoo had primarily been closed in the past in January and February because of cost considerations — Hutchinson said attendance in January and February was historically low, and the zoo could save money by reducing its staff from 250 to 185 during those months.

Marya Tregellas Strong, a retired volunteer and animal-rights advocate, died of congestive heart failure Oct. 29 at Stella Maris Hospice. The Homeland resident was 89. Born Marya Tregellas in Baltimore and raised on Enfield Road, she attended Bryn Mawr and Roland Park Country schools. Her father, John Tregellas, was a real estate developer who worked in Anneslie and Parkville. After high school, she attended the College of Notre Dame of Maryland and the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she met her future husband, Lloyd A. Tinker, an Army veteran who worked for the Atomic Energy Commission at Los Alamos, N.M. While there, she developed a lifelong love of southwestern Native American culture and art, family members said.