odds ’n’ ends

PIERRE, SD:

From historical details of Native Americans’ final great wild buffalo hunts to tales of the animal’s rescue from near extinction, a new self-guided tour across 10 sites in the western Dakotas tells the story of the last stand of the American bison, the national mammal.

The trail, which is accompanied by the tour book “Buffalo Trails in the Dakota Buttes” oriented toward history and nature enthusiasts, officially opens June 11. Starting in Hettinger, North Dakota, the route runs — at times across gravel or pasture roads — into South Dakota before returning north with an opportunity to see the Standing Rock Sioux’s tribal bison herds.

“They’re authentic places, and not only that, but most of them are unspoiled,” said Francie Berg, the tour book’s author. “There’s one place where it’s good to be able to roll under a fence.”

Tens of millions of bison, also known as buffalo, once thundered across a range stretching from central Canada through the Great Plains and northern Mexico. After a century-long slaughter driven by commercial hunting for buffalo pelts, the population dwindled to a thousand or fewer near the end of the 1800s.

At the tour’s second stop in North Dakota, visitors see the valley near Hiddenwood Cliff where the “Great Buffalo Hunt” began in June 1882 on the Great Sioux Reservation. According to the book, for the previous 15 years those grasslands were empty of buffalo as white hide hunters had pushed them west and most herds had been killed. (AP)

PHILADELPHIA:

A gorilla at the Philadelphia Zoo has given birth to a healthy baby after a difficult labor that required medical techniques typically used for delivering humans.

A keeper noticed 17-yearold Kira had gone into labor on Thursday. Gorilla labor is typically very quick, but by Friday, it had not progressed and she seemed unwell.

Concerned about her and the baby’s health, the zoo brought in a team of veterinarians and doctors who treat people. They included an ob-gyn, surgeons and anesthesiologists from hospitals affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania and Thomas Jefferson University, as well as University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine.

A similar team was in place for a gorilla birth at the zoo last year, but the emergency response wasn’t needed.

After 1-1/2 hours, the team delivered the male baby using forceps and an episiotomy, a procedure to enlarge the birth opening.

“It was an anxious and dramatic day at the zoo, but in the end a tremendously rewarding one,” said Andy Baker, the zoo’s chief operating officer. (AP)