Mistaken identity: An ABC TV framegrab shows a lost baby humpback whale trying to suckle from an Australian yacht in the belief it was its mother at Pittwater near Sydney on August 19, 2008.
Credit: ABC/AFP
PARIS: From bats hidden in bras to drug-smuggling pigeons, here's a selection of unusual animal goings-on in 2008.
- MOTHER SHIP – A lost baby whale mistakes an Australian yacht for its mother, and tries to suckle on it. It has to be put out of its misery to end its suffering.
- NELLIE THE JUNKIE – An elephant kicks its heroin habit after a three-year stint at an island rehab centre in southern China. The four-year-old Asian elephant, called Xiguang, had become hooked on the narcotic after animal smugglers captured his group by luring them with bananas laced with heroin.
- HOUND BREW – A dog is admitted to a veterinary clinic in Austria barely able to stand on his own four paws and reeking of booze. The hungry pooch had stolen and devoured half a kilogram (a pound) of fresh yeast dough – which had fermented inside his stomach.
- BRAZAN BAT – A young British woman expresses surprise after finding a live baby bat in her bra. Abbie Hawkins, 19, harboured the creature in her bosom for over four hours and had felt a slight twitching but thought it was her mobile phone vibrating.
- GORILLA WARFARE – Rebels and the government in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who have blighted the Nord-Kivu province with months of fighting, cut a deal to allow armed park rangers back into the famed Virunga Reserve to care for its long-neglected gorillas.
- GRABBING A BITE – In the U.S. state of Arizona a woman jogger runs for a mile with a rabid fox clamped to her arm. On arriving at her car she manages to lock the animal in the trunk, and race to a hospital for treatment.
- HOP FOR FREEDOM – A small kangaroo boxes its way out of its enclosure in a German town and flees, with with emergency workers in hot pursuit. Firefighters are finally able to net the 70-centimetre tall wallaby unharmed.
- CLONE REPRODUCTION – Snuppy, the first cloned dog, becomes a father after the world's first successful breeding involving only cloned canines.
- AVIAN ACCESSORY – Bosnian police impound a pigeon after finding that prisoners used it to smuggle drugs into one of the country's highest security jails.
- CENTENARIAN SEX – A rare and ancient 111-year-old New Zealand reptile, Henry the tuatara, is to become a father for the first time in at least 38 years, after regaining an interest in sex.
- BOX OF CHICKEN – A Swiss court orders that a chicken be locked up in a soundproof box every night so its neighbours can get a good night's sleep.
- SOMETHING TO REMEMBER – A stray parrot is reunited with its owner in Japan after repeating his name and address at the local veterinary clinic that took it in.
- HOLE IN ONE – Emergency surgery saved an Australian python that swallowed four golf balls after mistaking them for chicken eggs.
