Aroma Pets

Residents help stranded elephant seal return to the sea in Chile

An elephant seal has been helped back to sea after it became stranded in a neighbourhood in Chile.

A group of residents in the Chilean town of Puerto Cisnes sprung to action after the enormous seal was spotted.

They surrounded the elephant seal with black tarpaulin and herded it through the streets of Puerto Cisnes.

Footage shows the police and members of the Chilean navy join the locals as they chase the confused seal towards the ocean.

Manuel Novoa, a presenter at local radio station Radio Autentica FM who covered the rescue, said: "Look at all the people who are helping and are using tarpaulin to circle it.

"It's just a few feet from the sea now. The work neighbours have done has been incredible.

"They're giving it time to rest because it's covered around 10 blocks and must be very tired."

After the seal returns to the sea the locals can be heard cheering.

Reference: Evening Standard: ELuke O'Reilly: 2 days ago

Golfer gored by elk that 'freaked out' and attacked him

A golfer is "lucky to be alive" after getting gored by an elk that "freaked out" and attacked him.

Colorado man Zak Bornhoft, 41, had his kidney split in two and ended up in intensive care following Saturday's incident.

He had been playing a round with three friends at the Evergreen Golf Course in Evergreen, Colorado when they were approached by an elk.

"This bull elk was just eyeing us down," Mr Bornhoft told CNN. "We were slowly going forward and he started charging at us and he missed.  

"My buddy gassed it to get away and the elk gored me on my right side."

He added: "It was unbelievable. (The elk) was just freaked out and there was nothing we could do."

Mr Bornhorft was rushed back to the golf course clubhouse, where employees called an ambulance.

He was then rushed to hospital, where doctors found the elk's antler had left a five-inch gash in his side and his kidney sliced in two.

Medics said Mr Bornhoft is lucky to be alive, according to his wife Megan. "The urologist told me three inches higher and we wouldn’t even be sitting here," she told CBS.

"I’m just so thankful he’s here with us and this isn’t worse than it could have been".

Mr Bornhoft was treated at the ICU at St Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, where he was expected to make a full recovery.

Elk are often spotted on the golf course where Mr Bornhoft was gored.  

Colorado Parks and Wildlife public information officer Jason Clay said Autumn is mating season for elk so they can be more aggressive than usual.

He warned people to keep their distance: “During the rut (mating season), the bulls collect their harems and very aggressively will defend them, so it could definitely see a golf cart or people nearby as a challenger”.

On Monday the golf course posted a warning for golfers to beware of elk on the grass.

"Just a friendly reminder to be alert of the many elk present on the golf course at this time of year. Right now, while the fall rut or mating season is going on, the elk tend to be more aggressive. Proceed with caution when around the animals and NEVER APPROACH ANY ELK!'  

More than 5,000 pets found dead in cardboard boxes at Chinese depot after being stranded for a week

At least 5,000 pets have been found dead in cardboard boxes at a shipping depot in Central China in a scene compared to “living hell”, local animal rescue activists said.

Only about 200 animals were rescued from the site at Henan Province’s Luohe city, with thousands of dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs likely dying from “suffocation, dehydration and starvation”, according to one activist who spoke to CBS News. The rescued animals were adopted or sent to veterinary clinics for treatment.

The animals allegedly came from a breeding farm in East China's Anhui Province, the state-run Global Times newspaper reported, and would have been en-route to buyers across the country.

As shipping live animals in ordinary packaging is illegal in China, the activist from animal rescue group Utopia told CBS they may have become stranded at the depot after the logistics company involved refused to sign off on a delivery that violated the law.

However, these shipping regulations were introduced thirty years ago with no corresponding penalising measures in place, a legal expert told the Global Times, making it difficult to punish those responsible.

"The station was cluttered with express boxes with thousands of animals that had already died, and the entire place reeks of rotting bodies," Sister Hua, who founded the charity Utopia, told the broadcaster. “It was like a living hell.”

The caged animals had been left in cardboard boxes with breathing holes without water or food for about a week before they were discovered by authorities. An investigation is now underway.

The shipping company, Yunda, said it was had not been made aware of the incident, but that they allowed live animals to be transported in boxes with air holes, the Chinese newspaper reported.

Soon after the grim rescue operation, Utopia learned of another similar incident in the nearby village of Dameng. Only half of the roughly 2,000 animals were saved, Ms Hua said.

The activist said both incidents highlighted the issues of animal welfare as well as a risk to public health, and urged Chinese authorities to enforce the rules around transporting animals.

"Given the Covid-19 pandemic we are facing, it's so terrifying to have those live animals transported that way, and even ending up dead," she said.

“Go for adoption instead of illegal buying and shipping of animals,” the activist added.

Read more
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Stop the Yulin Dog Meat Festival in China: Animal welfare campaigners restart petition amid distrust over government 'ban'

‘Shut it down’: Pressure piles on China to rethink relationship with wild animals as pandemic causes global chaos

Reference: Independent: Clea Skopeliti 4 days ago

Yorkie's death at airport facility fuels legal fight

NEW YORK (AP) — It may not rate as an international scandal, but the death of a Yorkshire terrier in U.S. custody is fueling a messy legal battle over the importation of a group of purebred canines imported from Russia. The dog died in September at a private facility at New York’s Kennedy Airport used to hold animals from overseas that are denied entry to the U.S. by federal officials. The news was heartbreaking for a woman who says she was the owner-in-waiting for the female Yorkie.

“It’s been really, really rough for me to deal with her death,” Rachel Hobbs, of Dayton, Ohio, said in a recent interview.

The Yorkie, named Uti-Puti Knopochka, was among 11 dogs — including three Dobermans, a Dalmation and a golden retriever — flown into the country from Moscow via courier on Sept. 8. They were quarantined after they didn’t clear customs, with federal agents claiming they didn’t have the proper paperwork for rabies vaccinations and accusing the courier of smuggling two dogs in carry-on luggage.

The courier and the buyers of the dogs insist the papers were in order and have sued in federal court to get them released to the people claiming they are the rightful owners. After the government argued on a Sept. 18 telephone conference that the dogs should be sent back to Russia, U.S. District Judge Frederic Block put off a decision on their fate.

“Make sure no harm comes to them until I sort all this out,” Block said at the time.

Three days later, prosecutors wrote a letter to the judge saying Uti-Puti had "unfortunately passed away.”

The standoff has left the buyers, some of whom paid breeders thousands of dollars, in distress and the dogs in limbo. Hobbs said that while deciding on her purchase for an emotional support dog, the breeder in Belarus sent videos and photos of the Yorkie wearing hair ribbons that got her hooked.

“I fell in love with her,” she said.

Hobbs still had hopes of bringing the Yorkie home until word came from the animal quarantine facility, known as The ARK at JFK, that the dog had died. A necropsy found that the dog tested positive for the highly contagious canine parvovirus. A second Yorkie named Wonderful Baby Blue Diamond was under the care of a veterinary clinic suffering from an intestinal illness, according to court papers filed this week.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are now claiming they were kept in the dark about the condition of the dogs at The Ark, calling it a “disease-ridden facility.” They also say the dogs were unnecessarily revaccinated for rabies without the owners’ permission.

The rabies vaccinations mean the dogs must remain at The ARK for another 28-day quarantine period before the question of whether they can legally enter the country or not is finally settled, prosecutors said. The owners call that unfair, in part because they say they’re being threatened with having to pay $250 a day per dog for their care.

“The question of who is responsible for any of these charges rests upon whether the seizure was reasonable and constitutional,” the plaintiffs say in court papers.

Officials at The Ark have weighed in as well, complaining to the court that the case is harming its reputation as a “state-of-the art, multi-million dollar, climate-controlled facility” that offers first-rate animal care. The organization is still waiting to get paid for “providing valuable service for U.S. citizens and dogs” even though it “had no role in the smuggling of dogs or their counterfeit papers,” lawyers wrote in a court filing.

Hobbs says all the wrangling only serves as a cruel reminder of “the unnecessary death” of the Yorkie she planned to rename Pixie once settled in Dayton.

“There’s no reason she had to die,” she said.

Reference: By TOM HAYS, Associated Press 4 days ago