THIS is not the time of year for bad news stories, so I have found a couple of items that should really give you that seasonal warm and cuddly feeling.
Specifically, they deal with animals actually seeking the help or protection of human beings.
Firstly, from Cincinnati, Ohio, comes a glorious story about a mother goose.
A Cincinnati Police Department patrolman was sitting in his patrol car in a parking lot eating his lunch when a goose walked up to his vehicle and started pecking at it.
He threw it some of his lunch, but the goose ignored it and carried on pecking.
Then it walked away, looked over its shoulder and then came back and started pecking at the car again.
Eventually the patrolman gave up and climbed out of his vehicle and the goose immediately started to strut off with a definite purpose in mind.
He followed it and it led him to a nearby stream where he saw a gosling entangled in fishing line.
He wasn’t sure what to do so he radioed the local SPCA.
There were no rescuers available, but a colleague heard his radio message and soon arrived on the scene.
She set to and untangled the gosling, closely watched by Mother Goose, who then took charge.
She marched off with her gosling in tow, having made use of the Cincinnati Police Department.*
And from Sweden comes a story of brown bears cuddling up to humans for a change.
Observations show that female brown bears with young cubs are moving much closer to human habitations, apparently for the protection humans might give them.
It seems that during the mating season male brown bears go in search of mates, naturally, and if they find a suitable female already with cubs, they kill the youngsters.
Up to a third of all cubs born during a season are being killed in this way, and the females seem to be finding their own solution to the problem.**
From Australia comes a tale that gives a new twist to the term ‘footlights’.
The city authorities in Sydney have disclosed that additional sets of pedestrian road crossing lights are to be installed in the pavement ‘to cater for people who are too pre-occupied with their ‘mobile phones to look up’. It really makes one wonder, doesn’t it?***
And finally, in another adaption to suit a modern trend, this time of correctness (not really political in this case), in the English county of Hertfordshire the oldest pub in Britain, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in St Albans, founded some 13-hundred years ago, has been told to change its name ‘to reflect today’s rejection of needless violence and help celebrate chickens as the intelligent, sensitive and social animals they are’.
A local animal rights group has suggested the alternative name of Ye Olde Clever Cocks.***
On that note I’d like to wish you all a blessed Christmas, take care and if you’re travelling, travel safely, Cheers!
*Internet, **Daily Maverick and the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, ***The Week: The Best of the British and Foreign Media.
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