Ten Year Old Bonds With Elephants

Winston in southern Oregon is where many tourists stop on their journeys north and south along Interstate 5; it’s where Wildlife Safari is.  Recently the park acquired some help in the form of Wylie Malek, an autistic young boy people are calling a “natural elephant man.”  It seems he’s bonded with the gentle giants, and has had breakthroughs of his own.

The young man’s communication skills have improved through the interactions, his father said, both with the adults at Wildlife Safari and with kids in his classes at Green Elementary. Sometimes it is hard to get the otherwise reserved boy to stop talking about the elephants, his father said. When he recites for the fifth time how much an elephant can eat, his family has to change the subject, Kris Malek joked.

Link | via The Obscure Store and Reading Room | Photo Credit: Robin Loznak

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Beauty and the Beak

Remember the story of Beauty, the Alaskan bald eagle who lost her beak? National Geographic has an update on her story, as well as six other animals who have received artificial limbs and other body parts. Link

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Great Escapes by Animals

WebEcoist has twelve tales of animals escaping from captivity. Some were recaptured quickly; others weren’t so simple.

When zookeepers found that a Macaw had vanished, they were baffled because they knew his wings were clipped, preventing him from flying away. They later found that did not stop him from fluttering out of the enclosure and catching a ride inside an RV’s engine cabinet.

Link -via Unique Daily

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Good Detroit News (For a Change): the Beavers Are Back!

That’s right, delicious and nutritious beavers are returning to the Detroit River after being gone for decades. This is an encouraging sign that efforts to clean up the waterways are working. See, it’s not all almost-free homes and urban blight.

(I made up the stuff about beavers being delicious and nutritious)

The Detroit Free Press reports that a beaver lodge has been discovered in an intake canal at a Detroit Edison riverfront plant. Officials believe the beaver spotted by the utility’s motion-sensitive camera marks the animal’s return to the river for the first time in at least 75 years.

(Photo: Detroit Edison)

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by atanguay.

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