Stories (not only) from the wildlife

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Re: Stories from the wildlife

Post by Jo UK »

That's a great story. What a good thing they are in the Southern hemisphere and not up here!!
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Post by Brit »

Alice44, what a good story to read! Thank you for sharing!
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As far as the paws carry
Husky the most courageous dogs in the world


TickTickTick. Tick. Tick. Tick. TickTickTick. Continuously the sinister ticking is going through the air. It is the emergency alarm: SOS – rescue us. We are dying. But there is no rescue, because the signal is coming from Nome, 1760 km away. Two days ago the doctor notified the outbreak of diphtheria epidemic: “We need serum“ he said and Leo Seppala did everything – every pilot in the surrounding he contacted, the police, the fire brigade. The answer was always the same: The serum transport to Nome is impossible! The town in the endless expanse of Alaska got since living memory the most severe winter. No engine can stand those extremes. Nome could as well be situated on a far away planet ...

“I harness the dogs”, Leo declares to his family on this very evening. “They will bring me to Nome. With the Serum.” The man knows: before him nobody dared anything comparable: The route goes through dangerous snow banks over frozen rivers and through storms which sweep with 130 km/h over the country. His chances are one to a million – but Leo Seppala is giving in this very night the signal to 16 of his best dogs: ”Go!”

A horde of shaggy mixtures as life rescuers? Put on a route which even in summer is hardly to do within 25 days? Impossible! “Seppala is driving into disaster”, the newspapers write – but the dogs manage the unbelievable: Within 127 hours they reach Nome. Without break they were running, through darkness and ice and temperatures of minus 40°C, to save the life of a town.

In this winter 16 dogs came to world fame and soon later they were accepted as an own breed. 79 years are gone since and many legends twine around the huskies. Much more the deeds of these dogs speak for themselves: concerning to statistics alone in the USA every year the life of 11 peoples are saved due to these animals – they are rooted out, salvaged from storms, defended against polar bears. Nearly eight decades after the miracle of Nome the huskies – all of them descendants of Leo Seppalas dogs - officially were named the most courageous dog breed in the world.

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
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Post by Kuremari »

these are some awesome paws and paw owners!
great dogs, if you look at them- there is pure wisdom in their eyes...
thanks for all these stories :bow:
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Post by Brit »

Why do slide dogs never get lost?
Ice desert, deep snow, polar storm: slide dogs nothing can stop. Even the hardest race in the world is for them hardly more than a training ...

The thermometer shows minus 60°C the wind beats with over 150 km over the icy plain. Since seven hours Bill Pinkham is on the way with his Huskies. The 15-headed team only knows one goal: victory at the Iditarod, the hardest slide dog race in the world. The route goes over 1850 km across Alasca – from Anchorage to Nome. According to the weather the race takes between 10 to 17 days – thereby the huskies get to a speed of up to 50 km/h and need comparatively little energy – already with little frozen fish or meat their food requirement can be covered. If necessary they can also do for days without any food.

Also in matter of orientation nobody can deceive them: Researchers guess, that the sensible navigation miracles have with special super senses the ability to notice tremors under their paws or minimal changes of air a bazillion thousandfold more than humans can do. There are even reports about teams who suddenly stopped because they felt, that the icecover in front of them was too thin to carry their weight, and who without any prior warning changed route, because they recognized a hidden crevasse which was not to be seen with the naked eye. Also amazing: even mistakes in orientation of the team leader the dogs rectify. Again and again the drivers of a slide dog team report that by mistake they got away from the route, drove the slide in the wrong direction – but their dogs immediately noticed the mistake with “sit-down strike” and after the indignant barking of the leader dog made an immediate stop. By that the drivers were forced to get new orientation – only than the dogs were ready for continuation of the drive. “Polardogs miss as well as cats the canine devotion” slide dog race driver Gary Paulsen says. “They don´t let anybody force them to anything – and only listen when they accept the meaning”.

But the four legged runners don´t have only an unbelievable sense of direction. Also their strategy against the bone-chilling cold is unique: so the dogs roll together and put their bushy tail over the snout. Thus the breathing air is warming their body. Also is their fur water resistant and produces heat as soon as the dogs move – a perfect heating system. As after eleven days and two hours the dogs of Bill Pinkham finally cross the finishing line of the Iditarod race there is only one in the team who is perished and alights - the driver who didn´t walk one single meter of the race himself.

by Daniele Palu

Englische Übersetzung von Brit
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Post by alice44 »

the last sentence there made me giggle


When I was young we had a little mixed bread of a dog (we picked him up when we saw him tossed from the car ahead of us) -- probably with some Samoyed, he loved being with us, but he really wasn't all that comfortable in the house it was just too warm.
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Post by Brit »

The shadow of the white wolf
Arved Fuchs made dozens of expeditions. This time he crossed the Arctic with his dog slide. Than a white wolf shows up and makes this adventure to a very special moment in his life ...


Like a ghost the wolf showed up one evening. Slowly and without any fear he approached our dogs. Worried I am looking over the ice fields – does a whole pack lurk around over there? I cannot discover anything. No sign on the horizon. Our dogs react cool: The wolf is approaching them with downward pointing tail, a sign of surrender. He did not deign a look at us – sure we are the first humans he is meeting.

The approach of the wolf is somehow miraculous. How can he survive all alone in this region? These animals hunt in packs – only so they can kill musk oxes and cariboos. What from is he living? Lemmings are at best a tidbit for him; mountain hares much too quick. And suddenly it came into my mind: the animal is looking for a new pack. Either his comrades of last winter didn´t survive, or he was outcasted. Whatsoever: he was fond of our dogs – for him the chance to found a new family. While we were cooking in the tent, we watched how the wolf approached them. They were sniffering at each other, started even to play together. The wolf puts up with everything although he is much taller and stronger, he tries to integrate.

In the following days our companion is hardly to part from the dogs – he wants to carry them away and this he is trying with great skills: While they are running, the wolf approaches them from the back and is putting himself directly infront of the team. Than he slowly is changing the route and is guiding his new comrades in direction to inland! We have to stop, get the wolf in distance and bring the dogs back on route. But this is not so easy, again and again he is coming in front of the dogs. With an empty slide the pack most likely would uncontrolled run behind him …

In the evenings, when we are lying in the tent the wolf is going from dog to dog and is spending the whole night with them. On the eighth day he is secluding himself: Sitting on a snow bank, head far in the neck he is howling his disappointment of the unsuccessful try to find a new pack far audible into the arctic horizon. Our dogs listen. The howling is repeated again and again from farer distance. The wolf is leaving us, but the parting is hard for him. Maybe it is also a question of survival for him: can he survive without pack? We´ll never learn that.

by Arved Fuchs

English translation by Brit
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Post by Kuremari »

Thank you Brit , for these wonderful stories!
Merry Christmas to you! :wave:
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Post by Brit »

Thank you, Kuremari. And have a Merry Christmas too! :wave:
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Post by Jo UK »

Happy Christmas, Brit.
Your stories are all moving and interesting. Now I feel I must know what has happened to that wolf
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Post by juta »

Thank you Brit for all this stories and translations!
Merry Christmas!
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Post by Brit »

Merry Christmas to all of you! Have a nice holiday!!! :wave:
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The most beautiful present
Memories of a very special event


My grandmother was an eccentric lady. Visitors she usually received, boldly taking a pull at her cigarette holder, lying on her divan as Greta Garbo did, and at family celebrations she loved to tell jokes, which were so saucy, that even my father blushed. I loved this woman. I adored her. And every year I was looking forward to x-mas, because we celebrated this at hers. She decorated the whole house – and always with the most colorful angles, balls and snowmen. Everywhere it was gleaming and sparkling – so much that the eyes were hurted. Those were Christmas events every girl is dreaming of. And the presents! My grandma always bought for me what my parents could not afford: rocking horses, dolls, tricycles. Huge wonderful things, which hardly fitted all in the car.

Only in the year when I became ten years old, everything changed: “Your grandmother is not feeling well”, my father explained, before we started to drive to her. I didn´t understand, what he meant. The house was decorated as usual. But one thing indeed was different: Beneath the fir tree weren´t lying any colorful wrapped presents. But only one little box on which my name was written; Teresa. As I opened it I was disappointed: The box was empty. I turned it in my hands back and forth and was terribly scared that I could have done something so bad, that I didn´t owe any presents. There my grandmother came to me and said:”This, what is inside this box you neither can see nor touch nor taste. But it will guard you and make you strong and give safety to you whenever you need it. It will last over all times and from all the presents, which I ever gave to you I hope that this is the only one you will remember on a day to come”: I looked up and asked:”What is it?” And she said:”Love. All the love which I feel for you.”

Eight days later my grandma died. And she was right: Of the many presents which I got from her in all these years only one remained. A yellowed box with scraggy edges, which did not contain anything, but all. Love. The most valuable present in the world.

Author unknown

English translation by Brit
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Post by Brit »

The Christmasdream
A touching story from author Paulo Coelho


This story tells about three legendary cedars, which grew in the once most beautiful woods of Lebanon. Cedars grow, as well known, only very slowly, but outlast centuries – time enough to think about life and death, men and nature.

Our three cedars witness the returning home of the scouts of King Salomon and later the battle with the Assyrians, who soaked the country with blood. They got to know Queen Jezebel and the prophet Elias, who were deadly enemies. And they also were standing there when the alphabet had been invented and were happy about the caravans, who loaded with colorful material passed by.

One day they talked about the future. “After all what I have seen”, the first tree said, “I would like to become the throne of the most powerful sovereign in the world.“

“I would like to be part of something, which converts the evil forever into good”, the second meant. And the third one added:”If I could choose, I would wish that when people look at me they think about God.”

Again years passed when one day the woodcutters came. The cedars were cut down and brought far away by ship. Each of the trees had done its wish, but reality don´t ask for dreams. The first tree was prepared as a shelter for animals, from the leftovers a manger for hey. Out of the second tree a simple table was made which later was bought by a furniture dealer. Because for the wood of the third tree no buyer was found, it was dissected and brought to a storage in a big town. Unhappy they wail:”Our wood was good, nobody made anything beautiful out of it.”

Time passed and in a starry night a couple, who didn´t find a hostel, spent the night in the stable which was made out of the first cedar. The woman gave birth to a child at pains and put it in the hey of the wooden manger. There the first tree understood, that his dream came true: there was lying the King of the Kings.

Year later several men sat at the table which was made from the wood of the second tree. Before they started to eat, one of them said a few words about the bread and the wine which were standing in front of him.

And there the second tree understood, that it was not only the underlay for a glass of wine and a piece of bread, but the band between God and man.

On the next day two pieces of the third cedar were taken from the store. A cross was made out of them, which was thrown careless into a corner. A few hours later they brought a heavy injured man and they crucified him on the wooden cross. The cedar complained about the cruel fate which life had prepared for it.

But before three days past, the cedar understood its fate: the man, who was crucified at its wood, was now the light which illuminated everything. The cross made out of its wood was now not anymore the symbol of agony, but the sign of victory. However as it happens with dreams, it was also for the three cedards from Lebanon – but not like how they had imagined.

English translation by Brit
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Post by Brit »

Adventure Life
Xiang Xiang is the one of Chinas hopes fort he future – the first Panda who ever was put back to the wilderness




The biggest moment in the history of Panda research only took two minutes. In whole China the TV transmitters interrupt their program to broadcast life. What than happens is unspectacular – at least on the first view: a young panda shoos out of his cage and disappears somewhere in the thicket in the province of Sichuan. And yet: with every step this bear is carrying the hope of survival in him. Because he is entrusted with the most daring mission of all times ...



The name of the bear is Xiang Xiang – the Favourable. He is the first Panda, born in captivity, who ever was returned to the wild. Something which was always thought to be impossible. Because “the survival instinct are with these animals not instinctive” Xiang Xiangs trainer Liu Bin is explaining. “A Panda first has to learn which plants are eatable, how to build a sleeping place. Unlearned bears even don´t know simple behaviours like barking, biting or frightening away rivals”. But Xiang Xiangs doesn´t have a mother who could teach him – as nearly all Pandas in captivity conceived by artificial insemination and brought up in an incubator. That ensures, at least in zoos, the preservation of this species, but helps the conspecifics in the wilderness little: only 1600 pandas are living in freedom – and they get less and less food. The only alternative? “We have to educate the tame Pandas and release them to freedom”. Liu Bin says. „Somehow“.

More than 10 years the experts work scientifically on a trainings program: they work with most modern psychological experience, which is also used with human children, covering all details.

Expenses: 25 Million Euro. Xiang Xiang is the first Panda who finished this education. Within three years he learned everything what he needs for survival. Even more: he is moving quicker than his wild comrades, explores territories more thorough, drawing on a bigger food offer. If everything works like planned the Panda population in China will be, only thanks to him, doubled. Xiang Xiang is carrying the hope for the future of his total population. In these two minutes, when the TX stations report he is just: a young bear, facing the adventure of his life…..

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
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Post by Brit »

December 26 2009:

KNUT and GIANNA
VIDEOS from Monika


Image

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

VIDEO 3
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Post by Olga »

:loveshower: Knut and Gianna! Amazing..Thank you very much! Thank you for all other posts and pictures too.
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Post by Brit »

Another three Videos from KNUT and GIANNA
by Monika, this time from December 27 2009:

VIDEO 1

VIDEO 2

VIDEO 3
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Post by Brit »

A Colt for any case
The worldwide toughest rescue dogs are trained in Italy. Their speciality is unique: the jump from the helicopter into the open sea ...


“Go!” Ferruccio Pilenga is calling and Colt is going: with an enormous jump the Newfoundland dog ejects from the vacillating helicopter from a height of two meters into the sea. He plunges into the floods and starts paddling straight to the man who is drifting in front of him in the water. For nearly 2000 meters Colt will pull the drowning man to the shore, while the men in the helicopter will watch each of his movements. Because this rescue is the worldwide hardest test – the last of 6 exercises which Colt has to pass on this day, to become graduate of the „Scuola Italiana Cani Salvataggio“ – the first academy for water rescue dogs.

The S.I.C.S. graduates are considered to be the best rescue dogs in the world and their mission starts when anything else failed: ”Our dogs” school founder Pilgena says “ don´t know any fear – they are trained for almost 4 years for the work in extreme situations.” S.I.C.S.-dogs are not only forming the only unit who is superior to humans with water rescue – they also go beyond the barrier of what experts thought to be possible: since water rescuing animals seemed to be unsuitable because they supposedly could judge neither panic reactions of drowning peoples nor having enough strength. The S.I.C.S. graduates prove the exact opposite: they are not only in the ability to pull a boat with 30 men over 2000 meters – but also must be able to do during night diving rescues and also be rappelled from a helicopter during storm. Compared with human standards their capability matches with a double ascent of Mount Everest. It provides: the animals can only for utmost 30 minutes mobilize their energy before they get fever due to exertion. Within these 30 minutes they perform miracles. “ A dogs capability equals 50 head human search party” Pilenga declares “their nose even locates victims who are three meters under the water surface – altogether a dog can rescue 20 time quicker than a human” The price? It´s high. Rescue dogs, so a study, die 3 years earlier than others. Beside strict training sessions Pilenga is relying on one thing: love. At least one hour a day their owners have to do what dogs like most: clamor, cuddle, play hide and seek. “These animals” says Pilenga “save lifes and which each life they give up part of their own life. They have a right to know for what they are doing it ...

by Dorothee Teves

English translation by Brit
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Post by alice44 »

I feel a wimp, so many of these stories bring tears to my eyes
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