Back Bay Restaurant's Loss Is Zoo's Gain

Lions To Feast On Capitol Grille Steaks

MENDON, Mass. -- On a busy weekend night, a table at Boston's Capitol Grille might be reserved for a party of fat cats. On Thursday, the restaurant hand-delivered steak dinners to them, at the zoo.

Lions at the Southwick Zoo in Mendon are the benefactors of the Back Bay power outage as the Capitol Grille Restaurant is donating 2,500 pounds of grade A steaks to the zoo.

A transformer fire caused a Boston power outage on Tuesday night. The restaurant has since had it's power restored and is fully operational. according to Capital Grille spokesman Hunter Robinson.

"It's great to be able to put this meat to good use knowing that we can't use it in the restaurant, so it's good to turn a negative to a positive," Hunter said.

"It costs thousands of dollars for us to feed the cats," zoo owner Betsy Brewer told the Milford Daily News.

The zoo's lions, tigers and leopards eat about 15 pounds of meat at each feeding. Brewer said zookeepers feed them every three days or so.

Missing Dresden, Maine boy found alive

(Dresden, Maine) - Maine game wardens teamed up with volunteers to do a grid search of woods near the area where 12-year-old Michah Thomas was last seen.

Search and rescue teams brought in dogs to try and pick up Micah's scent on the ground while airplanes and helicopters searched from above and boats looked along the shores of the eastern river.

Then, during an afternoon media briefing, Maine game wardens stopped in the middle of a press conference. A moment later, an ambulance raced away from the fire station and game wardens announced Thomas had been found alive and was being treated by EMS.

Game wardens say a civilian searcher found Micah along the river, his voice hoarse from yelling all night long, barely being heard.

A marine patrol boat brought him to the shore to the waiting ambulance. Micah told game wardens he got lost in the woods and spent the night along the shore of the river.

For Micah's family, it was the outcome they had hoped for after 22 hours of worry and fear.

Micah was taken to a nearby hospital for evaluation, but game wardens say he's lucky - Micah spent a very cold and wet night all alone in the dark and survived - and now he gets to go home with his family.

UPDATE: Mini horses rehab in Methuen after rescue

Food and shelter were hard to come by just last week for the 32 miniature horses rescued from a small farm in West Boylston. Now, 19 of the horses are being treated at Nevins Farm in Methuen for malnourishment and other ailments after their owner voluntarily surrendered them.








These were some of the before photos of the Miniature horses when they arrived at Nevins Farm in Methuen:

Rails-to-trails video: Is it Safe?

Is It Safe? from Rails-to-Trails Conservancy on Vimeo.

Grassroots Go-Ahead: Massachusetts Communities Take On Their Rail-Trail Ambitions

Undeterred by all the debate about trail funding at the federal level, local communities continue to let their trail-building actions do the talking.

Flicking through local newspapers out of Massachusetts during the past week, it is great to see local agencies and community groups rolling the sleeves up to advance their rail-trail ambitions. This grassroots energy speaks volumes about the demand across America for trail networks and bike and pedestrian infrastructure that better serve residents and local businesses.

In the state's northeast, the Danvers Rail Trail Advisory Committee has launched a mile-marker sponsorship program to fund the maintenance and improvement of the Danvers Rail Trail. The advisory committee is a town-appointed group that has directed development of the 4.3-mile rail-trail since the town of Danvers leased the corridor from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in 2008.

Aware of the trail's tremendous recreational importance to the town, the citizens of Danvers have responded enthusiastically. A wide variety of locally owned businesses--everything from a hardware store and a beer company to a fish market, a photography business, even a dental-care practice--have paid $150 for a 4-inch by 4-inch marker along the trail, or $500 for a 4-inch by 8-inch marker in prime locations. Each blue-and-white decal (above) bears the sponsor's name, logo and dedication message. Local families have made generous contributions, too.

The homegrown energy behind the trail extends even further; the markers were prepared and installed by volunteers, and the initial cost of the posts and mileage decals was paid for by a local advocacy group, the Danvers Bi-Peds. 

The new fundraising effort has so far generated about $4,100 to help realize the town's immediate plans for the trail, which include improving the trail surface in some sections with a compacted top coat of crushed-stone dust, and improving a boggy section north of Wenham Street.

About 30 miles to the west, in the town of Concord, town officials are discussing how to bring the growing Bruce Freeman Rail Trail into their community.

Following the 25-mile route of the former New Haven Railroad's Framingham and Lowell line, the Bruce Freeman Rail Trail currently encompasses Lowell, Chelmsford and Westford. Having observed the popularity of the trail in those communities, the residents of Concord, and nearby Acton, voted to approve plans to extend the trail. Sudbury and Framingham, farther to the southwest, are also eager to develop the rail corridor into a connecting trail in their townships.

And today, the city of Newburyport is celebrating the beginning of a much sought-after project to connect the Old Eastern Marsh Trail and the Clipper City Rail Trail (above).

For proof that this project that will greatly please local residents and businesses, look no further than the list of guests of honor at the launch-- Secretary of the Massachusetts Department of Transportation Richard A. Davey, state Rep. Michael Costello, and state Sen. Steven Baddour.

With Newburyport's and Salisbury's rail-trails booming in popularity, a safety issue emerged for those wanting to cross Route 1 at the northern end of the Gillis Bridge, to pass from one rail-trail to the other. Work on the connection, which will unlock a great expansion in the region's trail network, is expected to start in mid-March.

Photo of the Danvers Rail Trail sponsored mile-marker courtesy of the Danvers Rail Trail Advisory Committee.
Photo of the Clipper City Rail Trail courtesy of Geordie Vining/TrailLink.com.