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Thermit
Joined: 08 Jul 2000
Posts: 3136
Location: Texas |
 Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:24 pm
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Wow, what a story. That's the beautiful side, thanks... |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Wed Jul 27, 2005 7:27 pm
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quote:
Originally posted by Thermit
Wow, what a story. That's the beautiful side, thanks...
Sure is......there's more 
Police: Lions free kidnapped girl
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Posted: 11:56 a.m. EDT (15:56 GMT)
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) -- Police say three lions rescued a 12-year-old girl kidnapped by men who wanted to force her into marriage, chasing off her abductors and guarding her until police and relatives tracked her down in a remote corner of Ethiopia.
The men had held the girl for seven days, repeatedly beating her, before the lions chased them away and guarded her for half a day before her family and police found her, Sgt. Wondimu Wedajo said Tuesday by telephone from the provincial capital of Bita Genet, some 560 kilometers (348 miles) west of the capital, Addis Ababa.
"They stood guard until we found her and then they just left her like a gift and went back into the forest," Wondimu said, adding he did not know whether the lions were male or female.
News of the June 9 rescue was slow to filter out from Kefa Zone in southwestern Ethiopia.
"If the lions had not come to her rescue then it could have been much worse. Often these young girls are raped and severely beaten to force them to accept the marriage," he said.
"Everyone ... thinks this is some kind of miracle, because normally the lions would attack people," Wondimu said.
Stuart Williams, a wildlife expert with the rural development ministry, said that it was likely that the young girl was saved because she was crying from the trauma of her attack.
"A young girl whimpering could be mistaken for the mewing sound from a lion cub, which in turn could explain why they (the lions) didn't eat her," Williams said. "Otherwise they probably would have done."
The girl, the youngest of four brothers and sisters, was "shocked and terrified" and had to be treated for the cuts from her beatings, Wondimu said.
He said that police had caught four of the men, but were still looking for three others.
In Ethiopia, kidnapping has long been part of the marriage custom, a tradition of sorrow and violence whose origins are murky.
The United Nations estimates that more than 70 percent of marriages in Ethiopia are by abduction, practiced in rural areas where the majority of the country's 71 million people live.
Ethiopia's lions, famous for their large black manes, are the country's national symbol and adorn statues and the local currency. Former emperor Haile Selassie kept a pride in the royal palace in Addis Ababa.
Despite their integral place in Ethiopia culture, their numbers have been falling, according to experts, as farmers encroach on bush land.
Hunters also kill the animals for their skins, which can fetch $1,000, despite a recent crackdown against illegal animal trading across the country. Williams said that at most only 1,000 Ethiopian lions remain in the wild.
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:45 am
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Heard it from a pilot who spoke real gooooood! |
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:47 am
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http://www.earthear.com/catalog/thaielephant.html#listen
Thai Elephant Orchestra (Mulatta Records)
Prathida, Luuk Kob, Luuk Khang, JoJo, Phangkhawt, and Phumpuang, with Dave Soldier and Richard Lair
This is, I believe, the first CD ever recorded of instrumental music featuring non-human players. It's a project of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center, a government facility in which domestic elephants are making the transition from forest workers to interspecies ambassadors. In keeping with the center's exploration of human-elephant interaction, a set of instruments were designed with the elephants' particular dexterity and strength in mind. The resulting music is uniquely fascinating.
The overall sound is that of a spacy gamelon orchestra, but as producer Lair's lively notes make clear, the elephant players were not just banging randomly. There is a spaciousness that immediately reflects awareness of the group interplay, and many specific examples of discrete care and discovery on the part of the elephants. Luuk Kob, the "Buddy Rich of elephant percussionists
", redeemed a failed slit drum by discovering its one sweet spot and learning to strike it at the precise angle that would yield an optimum sound. Meanwhile, harmonicas became "the first elephant music fad", with the animals wandering the forest playing through the tips of their trunks.
The disc includes 12 pieces played by the Elephant Orchestra (with humans cueing the start and stop on each instrument, but the elephants choosing all the notes and rhythms), along with six tracks involving more human collaboration and a burst of pure elephant vocalization. All in all, a compelling testimony to the creative impulse in our mammalian brethren.
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:48 am
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Gorillas hold 'wake' for group's leader
Gorillas last respects similar to human behavior
Babs suffered from an incurable kidney condition.
BROOKFIELD, Illinois (AP) -- After Babs the gorilla died at age 30, keepers at Brookfield Zoo decided to allow surviving gorillas to mourn the most influential female in their social family.
One by one Tuesday, the gorillas filed into the Tropic World building where Babs' body lay, arms outstretched. Curator Melinda Pruett Jones called it a "gorilla wake."
Babs' 9-year-old daughter, Bana, was the first to approach the body, followed by Babs' mother, Alpha, 43. Bana sat down, held Babs' hand and stroked her mother's stomach. Then she sat down and laid her head on Babs' arm.
"It was like they used to do in the exhibit, lying side by side on the mountain," keeper Betty Green said. "Then Bana rose up and looked at us and moved to Babs' other side, tucked her head under the other arm, and stroked Babs' stomach."
Other gorillas also approached Babs and gently sniffed the body. Only the silverback male leader, Ramar, 36, stayed away.
Keepers said the display wasn't surprising.
"She was the dominant female of the group, the peacekeeper, the disciplinarian, the one who kept things in a harmonious state," Pruett Jones said.
Koola, 9, brought her infant daughter, whom Babs had showered with attention since her birth in August.
"Koola inspected Babs' mouth for a while, then held her baby close to Babs, like she loved to do the last couple months, letting Babs admire her," Green said.
Babs had an incurable kidney condition and was euthanized Tuesday. Keepers had recently seen a videotape of a gorilla wake at the Columbus, Ohio, zoo and decided they would do the same for Babs. Gorillas in the wild have been known to pay respects to their dead, keepers said.
"I had a headache for the rest of the day after all the tears I cried watching them," Green said.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/08/gorilla.wake.ap/index.html
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:50 am
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3430481.stm
Parrot's oratory stuns scientists
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent
Feathered prodigy: N'kisi leads the field
The finding of a parrot with an almost unparalleled power to communicate with people has brought scientists up short.
The bird, a captive African grey called N'kisi, has a vocabulary of 950 words, and shows signs of a sense of humour.
He invents his own words and phrases if he is confronted with novel ideas with which his existing repertoire cannot cope - just as a human child would do.
N'kisi's remarkable abilities, which are said to include telepathy, feature in the latest BBC Wildlife Magazine.
N'kisi is believed to be one of the most advanced users of human language in the animal world.
About 100 words are needed for half of all reading in English, so if N'kisi could read he would be able to cope with a wide range of material.
Polished wordsmith
He uses words in context, with past, present and future tenses, and is often inventive.
One N'kisi-ism was "flied" for "flew", and another "pretty smell medicine" to describe the aromatherapy oils used by his owner, an artist based in New York.
When he first met Dr Jane Goodall, the renowned chimpanzee expert, after seeing her in a picture with apes, N'kisi said: "Got a chimp?"
School's in: He is a willing learner
He appears to fancy himself as a humourist. When another parrot hung upside down from its perch, he commented: "You got to put this bird on the camera."
Dr Goodall says N'kisi's verbal fireworks are an "outstanding example of interspecies communication".
In an experiment, the bird and his owner were put in separate rooms and filmed as the artist opened random envelopes containing picture cards.
Analysis showed the parrot had used appropriate keywords three times more often than would be likely by chance.
Captives' frustrations
This was despite the researchers discounting responses like "What ya doing on the phone?" when N'kisi saw a card of a man with a telephone, and "Can I give you a hug?" with one of a couple embracing.
Professor Donald Broom, of the University of Cambridge's School of Veterinary Medicine, said: "The more we look at the cognitive abilities of animals, the more advanced they appear, and the biggest leap of all has been with parrots."
Alison Hales, of the World Parrot Trust, told BBC News Online: "N'kisi's amazing vocabulary and sense of humour should make everyone who has a pet parrot consider whether they are meeting its needs.
"They may not be able to ask directly, but parrots are long-lived, and a bit of research now could mean an improved quality of life for years."
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:51 am
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Dog Drives Off As Owner Watches Hockey
Thu Sep 16, 3:02 PM ET
WHITEHORSE, Yukon Territory - An exuberant dog left in a truck while the owner watched Canada win the World Cup of Hockey managed to throw the vehicle into gear and coast down a city hill.
A man out for a walk called police after seeing the vehicle coast by with a black Labrador retriever behind the wheel.
Police arrived to find the truck in the middle of a road, blocking traffic, with the dog still at the wheel. No one was injured and there was no damage.
Going door to door, police managed to track down the owner.
"Subsequent investigation indicates that the dog was celebrating the Canadian victory in the world hockey game and knocked the truck into gear, causing it to roll down the hill," Whitehorse Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Wednesday in a firmly tongue-in-cheek news release.
"No word yet on how the dog is doing studying the rules for negotiating the new traffic circle."
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:52 am
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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137066,00.html
Dog Calls 911, Opens Door for Police
Friday, October 29, 2004
RICHLAND, Wash. — Faith the service dog phoned 911 when her owner fell out of her wheelchair and barked urgently into the receiver until a dispatcher sent help.
Then the 4-year-old Rottweiler (search) unlocked the front door so the responding police officer could come in.
"I sensed there was a problem on the other end of the 911 call," said dispatcher Jenny Buchanan, who answered the call from Faith.
"The dog was too persistent in barking directly into the phone receiver," Buchanan said at Benton County's Southeast Communications Center (search). "I knew she was trying to tell me something."
Faith is trained to summon help by pushing a speed-dial button on the phone with her nose after taking the receiver off the hook, said her owner Leana Beasley, 45, who suffers grand mal seizures.
Guided by experts at the Assistance Dog Club of Puget Sound (search), Beasley helped train Faith herself.
"She's a real trooper," Beasley said Thursday.
The day of the fall, Faith "had been acting very clingy, wanting to be touching me all day long," Beasley said.
The dog, whose sensitive nose can detect changes in Beasley's body chemistry, is trained to alert her owner to impending seizures before they happen.
But that wasn't what was happening on Sept. 7, and Faith apparently wasn't sure how to communicate the problem. During Beasley's subsequent three-week hospital stay, doctors determined her liver was not properly processing her medication for the seizures.
"So my whole system was not working right," she said.
Faith "was just very concerned," Beasley recalled. "She wouldn't let me out of her sight. She wanted to be touchy-feely."
After her adult son left for the graveyard shift, Beasley tried to go to sleep. But Faith kept jumping up on the bed, which is off limits.
"It's kind of hard to sleep when you've got an 80-pound dog running around in circles on your bed," she said.
So Beasley got up and checked to make sure all the doors were locked and that there was no one outside. She made another attempt at sleep, but Faith would have none of it. "Within five minutes she was doing the same thing all over again."
So Beasley got up again and decided to make some hot chocolate.
The last thing she remembers is reaching for the tea kettle.
"I didn't feel anything," she said. "I just went unconscious."
After the call from Faith, Buchanan dispatched Richland police Cpl. Scott Morrell. He arrived to see Faith and her predecessor, now-retired service dog Bronson, peering at him from Beasley's front window.
Morrell knocked, and then realized the door was unlocked.
"Faith had already opened the door for him," Beasley said. The dog has been trained to recognize police officers, firefighters and medical personnel as "special friends with cookies."
Inside, Morrell found Beasley on the kitchen floor — unconscious after striking her head in the fall and suffering a seizure — and called for medical assistance.
Faith watched intently while a paramedic tended Beasley and at one point tried to tell him that another seizure was imminent. He didn't recognize the signal, but minutes later, "Boom, I went into another seizure," Beasley said.
She woke up in the hospital several days later. Faith joined her after her transfer to the Veterans Administration hospital in Walla Walla.
Authorities learned about Faith's intervention when Beasley stopped by to thank Buchanan and Morrell after her release from the hospital.
A Benton County Emergency Services news conference Thursday put Faith and her owner in the limelight.
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Swamp Gas
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 4254
Location: On a Hill in the Lowlands |
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Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:56 am
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Swimming Cow Saves
Farmer's Wife
By Paul Chapman
The Telegraph - UK
2-18-4
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- A farmer's wife who was swept away by floods in New Zealand yesterday had her life saved by a cow.
Kim Riley praised the animal - known only as Number 569 - and described it as "an ugly old tart".
The area around Mrs Riley's farm at Woodville, near Palmerston North, has been lashed by severe storms that have claimed two lives, washed away wooden houses and forced the evacuation of hundreds of North Island homes. Insurers put the cost of damage at £40 million.
Mrs Riley was leading in a herd of 350 cows in early morning darkness when they were caught in a torrent of floodwater.
"It was just amazing how the current picked me up," she said. "Before I knew it, I was being pushed along with the cows."
Mrs Riley said several of the panicking animals went over the top of her, leaving her badly bruised from their kicks. Then she saw that a group of cows had made its way to an outcrop of dry land.
"I couldn't swim there, the current was too strong," she said. "I tried to grab a tree, but missed. I thought if I was washed into the main river I would be gone. That's when I realised I was in real trouble.
"I thought most of the cows had abandoned me. They were strong swimmers and left me in their wake. But I looked back and saw one of the last cows bearing down on me, number 569. As she went by I threw my arm over her neck.
"She was strong, and the warmth that was coming from her was so reassuring. I just laid back and relaxed, and said, 'Take me home'.
"When we actually hit hard ground, we both sat there quite exhausted, puffing and shaking.
"I could never have made it on my own. She's an old cow, an ugly old tart, but I'll have to say 'thank you' to her for saving my life."
© Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2004.
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