Lab who walked 30 miles back home adopted

August 1, 2014 6:51 PM

SEDAN, Kan. (AP) — An aging black Labrador retriever who walked 30 miles back to a Kansas family who didn't want her took a private jet to her new home with a Florida heiress.

Once called Ma Kettle but now known as Lady, the slightly grizzled dog has struggled to find a permanent home since she was taken to the Chautauqua County Animal Shelter after her owner died in 2012.

Kelsey Loyd has twice cared for Lady at the shelter. She told KWCH-TV (http://bit.ly/1nZU08v ) that the first family who adopted her returned her because she was rough with their puppy. Then she escaped from the backyard of the Independence woman who had subsequently adopted her, trudging the 30 miles back to the family's home.

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Urban fox's record-breaking country walk

By Ella Davies

Reporter, BBC Nature

A fox has been tracked more than 40 miles (70km) away from its home range, breaking the previous British record.

The fox was named Fleet by University of Brighton researchers and fitted with a satellite tagged collar.

Scientists were surprised to record Fleet walking a total of 195 miles (315km) as he headed into the Sussex countryside from his home in the city.

Naturalist Chris Packham joined the team to retrace the animal's path for BBC Two series Winterwatch.

"Foxes will disperse for lots of different reasons, mainly to find some space to form their own territories," explained Dr Dawn Scott who led the study.

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Dog missing for 8 years finds its way home to Gibsonville

GIBSONVILLE, N.C. — Jack Russell terriers are known for being smart but there is one in Gibsonville that may be one of the smartest after he found his way home after being gone for eight years.

Jessica Reid got Junior on Christmas morning back in 2004 and he was the only thing on her Christmas list.

“I woke up to him licking my face. I was so happy, so happy I was crying,” remembers Jessica Reid, Junior’s owner.

For about a year, Junior fit right into the Reid family and their morning routine.

Read on

The 70 miaows purr hour cat: Feline survives trip on motorway on top of van’s roof rack

When van driver Helen Stevens was flashed on the motorway, she thought there might be something wrong.

There was. A wide-eyed black and white cat was clinging to her Ford Transit’s roof rack.

It had travelled for 35km (22 miles) as she drove down the M1 in Leicestershire, hitting speeds of 70mph. ‘The van was carrying stepladders and the cat was clinging on for dear life,’ said Ms Stevens. ‘He was terrified. It must have got on at a petrol station when we stopped in Melton and we’d already gone all the way down the M69 and the M1.’

Ms Stevens, 30, of Wigston, near Leicester, took the feline hitcher to a veterinary clinic where he was found to be uninjured.

The vets put out an appeal online that was spotted by Ellise Pepper, mother of Kick Buttowski’s owner, five-year-old Connor Russell.

Connor, from Melton Mowbray, who has been reunited with the stowaway, said: ‘He held on and he didn’t fall off, but I bet he was scared.’

Mrs Pepper, 25, said: ‘He’s never done anything like this before, although he does hate to be on his own.’

In case you were wondering, Kick is named after a daredevil TV cartoon character.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/21/the-70-miaows-purr-hour-cat-feline-survives-trip-on-motorway-on-top-of-vans-roof-rack-4155747/

Mystery as cat is set to be reunited with its owner a year after he went missing... and was later found in a bank 450 miles away

• 9-year-old silver tabby Pablo disappeared from south London, last October
• His distraught owners had given up looking for him, thinking he was dead
• But last week the cat strolled into a branch of TSB bank in Rosyth, Fife
• He settled for a nap on a chair after learning how to activate the door

A wandering cat is set to be reunited with his owner in London a year after he went missing - after being discovered 450 miles away from home, in a Scottish bank.

Nine-year-old silver tabby Pablo disappeared from Brockley, south London, last October, with distraught owner Siobhan Campbell giving him up for dead 

But last week the cat strolled into a branch of TSB bank in Rosyth, Fife, after learning how to activate the automatic door.

Shocked staff only noticed their new guest after he settled down for a nap on an armchair.

Workers handed him in to the Cats Protection charity, and when he was checked for a microchip it revealed he was 449 miles from home.

His owner’s mother Kate Partridge said she could not believe her ears when she took the call - though she admitted that Pablo - nicknamed Six Dinner Sid after a children's book - has always been a 'character'.

Before he made his road trip, Pablo was well known in Brockley, where dogs crossed the street to avoid him and he would force motorists to drive round him by sitting in the road.

Just like the children’s book character Six Dinner Sid, he also had several houses he visited to be fed.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2465348/Mystery-cat-set-reunited-owner-year-went-missing--later-bank-450-miles-away.html#ixzz2iAbBQxsG

Rambling American Crocodile Caught 350 Miles from Home

An 11-foot-long (3.3 meters) American crocodile has made an epic journey around the tip of Florida. Born just south of Miami in 1999, it traveled at least 350 miles (563 kilometers) through the southern part of the state before it was captured recently outside of Tampa.

Credit: Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

Last month, the crocodile was caught in Lake Tarpon and a tag on its tail revealed just how far it had ventured.

Wildlife officials had marked the roving reptile soon after it was born in the waterways around the Turkey Point power plant, a site at the southeast tip of Florida near the city of Homestead, said Gary Morse, a spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC). 

By 2008 the croc had traveled more than 100 miles (160 km) from its hometown. That year, authorities found the animal on a golf course in Naples, a city on the southwest coast of the state, and had to remove it.

"Subsequently, it decided to take a long journey," Morse told LiveScience.

The animal worked its way up the west coast of Florida, into Tampa Bay, through Pinellas County and ended up in Lake Tarpon.

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Stowaway cat found on freighter from Philippines to LA

LOS ANGELES – A 4-year-old cat that stowed away in a container ship headed from Manila, Philippines, to Los Angeles is gaining weight and getting stronger after the trip without food or water left it near death.

Los Angeles County animal control director Marcia Mayeda says the orange and white female cat was weak and frail after the 7,300-mile trip. But after two weeks of treatments, the feline is in fair condition.

Hospital staff named the cat Pinay, a common name for a female Filipino.

The cat has cleared quarantine but needs to be adopted into a calm home because she is still skittish. Potential adopters can email daccevents (at) animalcare.lacounty.gov.

A year ago, a kitten named Ni Hao survived a freighter trip from China and was placed in a home.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/31/cat-found-on-freighter-from-philippines-to-la/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fnational+%28Internal+-+US+Latest+-+Text%29#ixzz2acmmIk1Z

Mystery cat travels 1,800 miles from Arizona to Michigan, but how?!

Being lost 1,800 miles from home would be pretty scary. 

Luckily for Ace the cat, there was a way to track his owners — even after he was missing for almost a year. 

Ace, a cat from Tucson, Ariz., arrived on the doorstep of the South Wood County Humane Society in Grand Rapids just outside of Wisconsin Rapids on Monday. In a new carrier crate, Ace looked well-taken care of but had no tags and no notes or other identification. 

Except for one thing: The 10-year-old Siamese cat had been microchipped. 

“We brought him in and, like we do with all animals, get him set up, get him comfortable and check him for a microchip,” said Bridget Chariton, the executive director at the Wood County shelter. 

The shelter’s pet care coordinator, Beth Peabody, contacted the microchip company, Chariton said. 

“(The company) provided us with the contact information of the vet’s clinic,” Chariton said. 

The clinic was in Arizona. 

“Who would have thought? This is pretty rare; we find animals that sometimes have microchips, but it’s usually in our area, in our community,” Chariton said. 

Staff members reasoned that the owner must have moved to the area and just forgot to update the chip information. 

Nope. The owner still lives in Tucson. 

 Continued: http://www.wisconsinrapidstribune.com/article/20130424/WRT01/304240486/Ace-cat-his-way-home-video-?nclick_check=1

Missing one-eyed cat treks through snow to find home

A one-eyed cat from Nottingham proved nothing could keep it from getting home after it trekked five miles in the snow to get back to its owner after being lost for ten days.

Ginger originally escaped from its cage when its owner Jayne Middleton was taking it to Oak House Veterinary Centre in Nottingham.

The 55-year-old thought she had lost her beloved pet after searching high and low for the missing feline, including an initial one-hour hunt in the snow and then two searches every day from when it went missing.

But the four-year-old surprised her worried owner when he returned by himself to the house in Arnold, Notts.

Veterinary nurse John Tuohy added: ‘It is very rare for a cat to make its way back after being so far away.

‘He crossed some busy roads. I have never heard of anything like it before.’

Ginger had to navigate several hazards in order to get back, including the busy A60 road.

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/12/missing-one-eyed-cat-treks-through-snow-to-find-home-3613313/

A Cat’s 200-Mile Trek Home Leaves Scientists Guessing

Nobody knows how it happened: an indoor housecat who got lost on a family excursion managing, after two months and about 200 miles, to return to her hometown.

Even scientists are baffled by how Holly, a 4-year-old tortoiseshell who in early November became separated from Jacob and Bonnie Richter at an R.V. rally in Daytona Beach, Fla., appeared on New Year’s Eve — staggering, weak and emaciated — in a backyard about a mile from the Richters’ house in West Palm Beach.

“Are you sure it’s the same cat?” wondered John Bradshaw, director of theUniversity of Bristol’s Anthrozoology Institute. In other cases, he has suspected, “the cats are just strays, and the people have got kind of a mental justification for expecting it to be the same cat.”

But Holly not only had distinctive black-and-brown harlequin patterns on her fur, but also an implanted microchip to identify her.

“I really believe these stories, but they’re just hard to explain,” said Marc Bekoff, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Colorado. “Maybe being street-smart, maybe reading animal cues, maybe being able to read cars, maybe being a good hunter. I have no data for this.”

There is, in fact, little scientific dogma on cat navigation. Migratory animals like birds, turtles and insects have been studied more closely, and use magnetic fields, olfactory cues, or orientation by the sun.

Scientists say it is more common, although still rare, to hear of dogs returning home, perhaps suggesting, Dr. Bradshaw said, that they have inherited wolves’ ability to navigate using magnetic clues. But it’s also possible that dogs get taken on more family trips, and that lost dogs are more easily noticed or helped by people along the way.

Continued:  http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/19/one-cats-incredible-journey/

Cat Lost on Vacation Travels 190 Miles Home

A cat with an extraordinary sense of direction managed to find her way home after becoming separated from her owners while on vacation.

In November, Jacob and Bonnie Richter brought their cat, Holly, along on a road trip to the Daytona International Speedway, 190 miles from their home in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Spooked by fireworks one night, Holly bolted from the Richters’ motor home. For days, her frantic owners handed out flyers and alerted local agencies, before they finally headed home, distraught and without Holly.

Fast forward 62 days to when Barb Mazzola found an emaciated cat in her Palm Beach Gardens yard.

“She was so skinny, all bones and weak and she could hardly walk,” Mazzola said.

She bought the feline food and took her to a veterinarian on Saturday, where Holly was scanned for a microchip.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/cat-lost-on-vacation-travels-190-miles-home/

Happy ending for Boris the cat

A mystery moggy who turned up in East Devon – 200 miles away from his Essex home – is finally enjoying the goodlife again with a new owner.

Experts were baffled as to how Boris managed to find his way from his house in Basildon to Upottery.

He weighed just two-and-a-half kilos when he was found, in July, and was covered in fleas. He also had to have 30 ticks remove.

Honiton branch of the Cats Protection League Boris in and during treatment, at the vets, a microchip was discovered showing where he had originally been registered.

But attempts to contact his owners failed as they had moved home, leaving no forwarding address.

Then just as rescuers thought they had found someone to take Boris in he was diagnosed with a heart condition which the new owner felt unable to cope with.

After reading about his on-going troubles Musbury resident Christine Pearce, finally came to the rescue and has given the loving cat a permanent home.

Continued:  http://www.midweekherald.co.uk/news/happy_ending_for_boris_the_cat_1_1660508

Cat survives 1,000 mile trip via airplane, in suitcase

ORLANDO, Fla. — A pet owner got quite a surprise when she opened her suitcase after a trip out-of-town. Ethel Maze found her 14-month-old cat Bob-Bob in her bag.

The cat traveled almost 1,000 miles from Ohio to Florida after climbing in Maze’s suitcase.

“I thought how in the world did this happen?” Maze said.

Maze’s friend Mike Groleau was helping pack for the group’s annual trip to Disney World when he thought he saw something move in the suitcase. He says he didn’t give it a second thought.

“It was early in the morning, I’m not fully up yet so maybe my eyes are just playing tricks on me, it never dawned on me,” he said.

Maze was scared that her cat didn’t survive when she found it in the bag.

“Well, I’m just amazed that he made it because he was just soaked when I got him,” she said.

The cat’s trip will home will be in a pet carrier. Maze will have to pay $65. As for Bob-Bob he is safe and healthy. His owner says he has a healthy appetite and things are getting back to normal.

A spokesman for the TSA said the technology used to scan bags is programmed to pick out explosives and weapons, but not animals.

Continued:  http://wtvr.com/2012/09/16/cat-survives-1000-mile-trip-via-airplane-in-suitcase/

Missing cat comes home after four years

The owners of a cat that went missing four years ago got a late surprise Christmas present when they were reunited with her the day after Boxing Day.

Willow, who is now 10 years old, disappeared after being let out to play from her home in Princetown, Devon, in 2007.

The black cat was one of three that vanished from the same close in the town on Dartmoor within months of each other.

While one of them turned up in Taunton, Somerset, Willow was finally found in Plymouth.

"It's really only sinking in now, but it's the best Christmas present ever," owner Cristel Worth said.

"How she managed to stray from Princetown to, about 20 miles away, to get to Elburton, I have no idea. It's a long journey right across the moors."

Willow was taken in six months ago by a family from the Elburton area of Plymouth until a space became available at a nearby animal rescue centre.

But it was not until last week that the Gables Farm Dogs' and Cats' Home in Plymouth finally identified her thanks to an implanted microchip.

Worth, 32, said she was with her husband, Mark, 31, and their two young daughters when she received the call from the charity last Tuesday.

"We had almost given up hope that we would ever find her again and it was a really wonderful experience to know that she had finally come home," she said.

"I wish she (Willow) spoke, as all we know is that for the last six months she's been living in Elburton, but the previous three and a half years are a mystery."

Worth said the cat, which she had rehomed from an RSPCA centre, was now doing well but had seemed timid on the first night she was home.

She added that her six-year-old daughter, Izzy-May, was able to remember Willow, but the cat was a "delightful" new addition for two-year-old Olivia-Rose.

"Izzy-May has been feeding her special treats and giving her extra attention during feeding time and she's now met our second daughter.

"Izzy-May is extremely excited as she used to see her in the photo albums and didn't quite understand why she went, but she now has her back, which is wonderful.

"I'm not sure what has happened to her during the last four years but she does seem a lot more timid than before she left our family … She's now getting lots and lots of TLC, lots of cuddles and more cats' toys than you could imagine."

Worth said she also wanted to send a huge thankyou to the family who took Willow in looked after her until a place became available at the Gables.

Katie Barkell, from the Gables, said: "It's so difficult to match cats up with their owners, especially when the cat's been missing for four years … so having them microchipped is fantastic as we can get them straight back in contact.

"It was just brilliant to be able to tell them their cat is home … They rushed in and she [Mrs Worth] was just lost for words, she said it was just the best Christmas present they could have hoped for."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jan/02/missing-cat-home-four-years

Lone wolf outfoxes hunters in 1,000km quest for mate

A young wolf has become a US celebrity while evading capture – dead or alive – in an epic search for a mate.
The animal has traced a zigzag path across 1,200km (730 miles) of mountains, deserts and highways, from Oregon to the California border.
He left his home turf on September 10 just before state officials issued a death warrant on members of his pack – including his alpha male father – for killing cattle.
The fear is that the wanderer, known only as OR-7, may be the target of a poacher, rancher or government hunter.
His progress has been tracked thanks to a GPS collar he was fitted with by a state biologist last February.
His appearance startled lodge owner Liz Parrish who locked eyes with him on the edge of Upper Klamath Lake in southern Oregon. ‘I was stunned – it was such a huge animal. We had a stare-down, then he just evaporated into the trees,’ she said.
But her neighbour, cattle rancher Nathan Jackson, said: ‘We worked hard to exterminate wolves 50 years ago or so. They don’t seem so beautiful and majestic when they are ripping apart calves and colts.’
While wolves are state protected in Oregon, federal protection has been lifted in the east of the state.
One government hunter shot at but missed him before conservation groups won a stay-of-kill order.
OR-7 is following a well-worn instinct to strike out alone when reaching the age of two in the search for empty territory and a mate.
His meandering route from home has taken him across numerous county lines and each time he enters a new area, he makes it on to the local news.
Oregon wolf co-ordinator Russ Morgan said he was surprised by the way the public and media have embraced the wolf. ‘People have taken a shine to him,’ he said.
However, not everyone feels the same way, so a competition has been launched to change his name to something more people-friendly – and make him too famous to be shot.
The first entry, from a little girl in OR-7’s home territory, is already catching on: Whoseafraida.


Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/883181-lone-wolf-outfoxes-hunters-in-1-000km-quest-for-mate#ixzz1fBk67tKF

Kidnapped dog finds its way home

A Polish woman could not believe her eyes when her pet dog found its way home - after being dognapped 30 miles away.

Edyta Kowalska, 44, from Sochaczew, had gone to the capital Warsaw for the day with her two-year-old Dachshund, Cherry.

But as they walked down the road a car suddenly pulled up and three masked men jumped out. The trio bundled the dog inside a car and sped off.

"It was terrifying. They leapt out of their car and ran over towards me. I thought they were going to attack me, but instead they grabbed Cherry, jumped back in the car and drove off," said Edyta.

"I went to the police and filed a report, but I don't think they took it very seriously.

"But I was beside myself with grief, and just couldn't understand why they had taken Cherry and what they would do to her."

For five days, Edyta fretted until she looked out of her kitchen window to see Cherry trotting up the garden path.

"I couldn't believe it. She was a bit thin and bedraggled, but she had made it home," she said.

"I'll never know what happened and why they took her, but now she's back and that's all that matters."

http://web.orange.co.uk/article/quirkies/Kidnapped_dog_finds_its_way_home

Pit bull rescues blind cocker spaniel from freezing to death

Volunteer Alan Borland's daily walk with Nala, a pitbull-lab mix from the Humane Society of Redmond, took a strange turn early this month. The usually well-behaved Nala began looking south and pulling — hard.


"This is the first time she ever refused to stop pulling," says Borland, 55, a retired policeman. " I finally gave in and let her pull me into a ditch. It's a deep and brushy, about four feet deep and 15 feet across."


What they found at the bottom was a black and white ball of fur curled up, with baseball-sized balls of snow covering his feet. "I thought it was dead at first," says Borland, who immediately knew it was a dog. "As I bent down I saw it was breathing, but it didn't move."

Borland sought help from the Humane Society and its veterinary facility, just 200 yards away.

And then, an incredible realization.

The dog, a 10-year old blind and mostly deaf Cocker Spaniel, had been a resident of the shelter. The month before, a woman with a soft spot for disabled animals adopted him. Named Chadwick, he moved two miles from the shelter but wandered away and travelled for a week through miles of heavy snow back to the Humane Society.


"I was pretty surprised," says Chris Bauersfeld, the shelter's manager. "We knew that Chadwick was lost, but we never expected him to manage his way back here. I think he heard the other dogs barking and his bearings took him this way."

Did Nala, a shelter resident since April, recognize the scent of her former shelter neighbor?

"Several dogs walked by that morning on their morning walk and didn't alert to him at all," says Bauersfeld. "On a daily basis, these dogs do something that makes me just stand in awe."

Once Chadwick was rehydrated and warmed up, his distraught owner — searching for him since he disappeared seven days before — picked the pup up. Bauersfeld does not know how Chadwick escaped from his new home.

Nala, however, still needs a home. Great with humans, she doesn't get along with many other dogs. "Alot of other people have offered to adopt her," says Bauersfeld, "we haven't found the right situation for her."

When Freekibble.com heard the story they were so inspired by Nala's rescue they jumped in to donate 10,000 meals of Halo Spot's Stew to the Redmond Humane Society.

"We just happen to live in a neighboring town, and when we heard of Nala rescuing this brave but scared little Cocker Spaniel, we wanted to help out with a large donation of good food in Nala's honor," says Freekibble's Kelly Ausland. "She saved her friend, she's a hero!


http://www.halopets.com/freekibble/donation8.php

Poisonous snake discovered in box of grapes

A poisonous snake has been discovered in a box of grapes in a factory in County Armagh.


The 10" long adder was found during a quality check by a worker at Orchard County Foods in Craigavon.

The grapes were imported from Spain.

The staff member did not panic and raised the alarm with management.

The USPCA was called to the scene and took the snake away to a specialist reptile shop in Belfast.

Wayne Hull from City Reptiles says he is sure the snake is an adder but has yet to distinguish the exact species.

He said: "The order came from Spain so I need to identify it as a European species. I can't really say much about it until I have properly identified it.

Venomous glands
"He is a baby. He is about 10 inches and will probably grow to around 18 inches.

"This is the first time we have had this kind of snake brought in to us. We get a couple of stray snakes because of inadequate housing and people not looking after them. But this is a first."

Wayne said the reptile is poisonous and dangerous to anyone who is allergic the bee stings.

He added: "You can tell that it is some sort of adder because of the shape of its head.

"It turns into a diamond shape when it gets annoyed. This is because it has venomous glands on either side."

Wayne says the snake is currently feeding on small mice.

A spokesman for the USPCA said the finding has now been reported to the Environment and Heritage Service.

He added: "Discoveries like this do happen, more commonly with spiders. This is the first time we have seen that species of snake.

"As it is not a native species it cannot be re-homed here. I suspect it will go to one of the Environment and Heritage Service' s facilities in England and then possibly back to Spain."

Orchard County Foods said it did not want to comment on the discovery other than to say it has launched an internal investigation to find out how the snake got to Northern Ireland.

Humpback travels from Brazil to Madagascar – Breaks whale distance record

October 2010. When Norwegian tourist Freddy Johansen snapped a photograph of a diving humpback whale in Madagascar, he had no idea that his holiday snap would lead to an important scientific discovery. Researchers from College of the Atlantic's Allied Whale saw the image on the internet and found that the same whale had also been photographed in the waters off Brazil. Not only did this journey take the whale a quarter of the way around the globe - further than that recorded by any mammal, ever - the whale moved between two different breeding groups, a rare occurrence for this species. This finding has implications for understanding and managing whale populations worldwide say College of the Atlantic (COA) scientists.


Remarkable distance and destination
According to Peter Stevick, an Allied Whale research associate, this whale's journey is remarkable for both its distance and its destination. It is nearly twice as far as the passage typically made by humpbacks in their annual north-south migration between winter breeding grounds in warm tropical waters and the nutrient-rich colder waters where they feed in summer. This whale has travelled across the Atlantic Ocean, around Africa and well into the Indian Ocean. Humpback whales seldom move between breeding areas, so the breeding groups or stocks are thought to be isolated from one another. Even more unusual, this whale is a female. Usually it is the males who are the long-distance travellers.

Says Stevick, a COA alumnus, "While the journey of this one whale is extreme, her example shows us that we should pay attention; whales may not always do what we expect, or remain in tidy groups. The picture of their behaviour is messier, and their east-west movement could well be more important than we have previously recognized. Because of that, our management focus needs to be more expansive."


New understanding
Humpback whales were hunted to exceedingly low numbers in past centuries, and those in the Southern Hemisphere were particularly devastated. Some 200,000 were killed before hunting was outlawed in the 1960s. While humpbacks have recovered well in some places, they remain scarce in others. Discovering how they move between regions helps scientists understand the way in which their populations respond both to the end of hunting and to ongoing human impacts such as ship strikes or fishing gear entanglements.

Distinct markings
The connection between the two distant sightings of this wandering female was made possible thanks to pioneering work in the 1970s by researchers and students at COA, proving that the humpback whales have distinctive tail markings. Like human fingerprints, these markings distinguish individual animals. This revolutionary discovery enables scientists to follow individual whales with a camera and telephoto lens.

Whale ID catalogue
Allied Whale, COA's marine mammal research program, has been curating extensive photographic catalogues of humpback whales for more than 30 years, projects that depend upon international collaboration and the willingness of scientists and individuals to share data. The catalogues consist of photographs from breeding and feeding areas throughout the humpback's range in both northern and southern hemispheres, providing a unique clearinghouse for scientific analysis of humpback movements.

First seen off Brazil

This whale was first identified by scientist Mariana C. Neves who studies whales off Brazil through the Instituto Balaie Jubarte. Johansen, who took the matching photograph just over two years later, represents the hundreds of tourists, tour guides, and other non-scientists who have contributed photographs to the effort. Other non-specialists, including students and volunteers, assist scientists in matching diverse images. The two sightings of this whale were matched by long-time Allied Whale associate and volunteer Gale McCullough, an avid citizen scientist in Hancock, Maine.

College of the Atlantic
Founded in 1969, College of the Atlantic is a small college of some 345 students on the coast of Maine fostering interdisciplinary approaches to complex environmental and social problems. The academic program encourages hands-on, experiential learning and asks students to view the world as an interactive whole by bringing together traditional disciplines through the unifying perspective of human ecology.

This finding was published in the United Kingdom's Royal Society scientific journal Biology Letters.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/humpback-migration626.html

Lost racing pigeon turns up in Panama

A British racing pigeon called Houdini got lost on her first race - and ended up 5,200 miles away in Panama City.


The 10 month-old bird was supposed to be in a six hour race from Guernsey to Dudley, reports the Daily Mirror.

But she failed to arrive and its owner Darren Cubberly, 45, had give up hope the bird would return from the 224 mile trip.

He was surprised to get a phone call this week from Panama City, where the bird had ended up.

He was told the bird was alive and healthy despite her mammoth trip. It's thought she landed on a ship travelling to the area.

The bird had been taken in by Gustavo Ortiz after she landed on his roof. Mr Ortiz rang Mr Cubberly after noticing contact numbers on it.

"I was gobsmacked. I didn't even know where Panama was," said Mr Cubberley.

"I've no idea how Houdini got there - I can only assume she hitched a lift on a ship across the Atlantic."

He believes she must have been fed on the boat as she appeared to be in "perfect shape".

The pigeon, now reportedly learning Spanish, will stay with her new family in Panama as it's too expensive to ship her home.