GOD at work

Just for a moment there…..

View from a Rhino House: one for the birds

In Australia this week the theft of an adult emu from a wildlife park left only a small pile of feathers & questions about the motive for snatching a flightless & ugly bird that is common & has no cash value.

The thieves are believed to have stolen the bird at night, a theft that involved lifting the 2 metre tall, 35kg bird (known for its speed, powerful legs, clawed feet & extremely bad attitude) over electrified barbed wire mounted above a 2 metre fence, while at the same time eluding a guards & security cameras.

Police think a getaway vehicle was parked about a kilometre away, said Chad Staples, a senior curator at Featherdale Wildlife Park.

“It would have had to be carried the whole way & lifted over the fences twice,” he said.

Chad said he was mystified by the theft, the first of its kind.

“Emus don’t have any monetary value because they are so common,” said Staples.

Must be aliens or KFC……

Take me to your leader..... — Take me to your leader…..

View from a Rhino House: take a drive on the wild side….

This week Australian police have issued a warning to drivers using Apple’s less-than-stellar iPhone mapping software after a number of motorists became stuck in a barren, snake-infested, desert corner of the country while using their iPhones or iPods for route directions.

Police in Victoria state said they had rescued a number of motorists who had become stuck for up to 24 hours “without food or water” after the app had directed them to the middle of the arid Murray-Sunset National Park, instead of the tourist town of Mildura, 70 km away.

“We had a guy trapped there on Friday night after his car became trapped in loose sand. He saw several snakes & was too scared to get out of the car,” Police Inspector Simon Clemence said.

The Murray-Sunset National Park is in Victoria’s far northwest, a sparsely inhabited semi-arid area, usually accessible only by 4-wheel-drive vehicle.

The Inspector said that more the half-a-dozen vehicles had become stuck on the park’s loose-sand trails after being directed by the iOS mapping app to turn-off a lengthy & poorly sign-posted stretch of highway.

“So far these people have still been rescuable. But we’ve just had a day with temperatures at 46C. If they were out there in that temperature & out of phone range, they would have been in serious trouble,” he said.

Clemence said police had contacted Apple over the issue. But while the company had now corrected the route to Mildura’s for people driving from South Australia, motorists seeking directions from Melbourne were still being directed into the middle of the Park.