Hiker battles bear with iPhone

Bear attack? There’s an app for that.

A Vermont hiker warded of a bear attack armed with nothing more than her trusty iPhone, CNet News reports.

Kris Rowley, Chief Information Security Officer for the state of Vermont, was enjoying a wilderness hike when she noticed a bear taking an unhealthy interest in her progress. Realising she was completely unprepared to repel the impending attack, Rowley reached for the nearest weapon — her iPhone.

“In a semi-panic, I threw the phone at the bear.”

The woodland gods smiled upon Rowley that day, as the bear eschewed the gamey tang of human flesh for the satisfying crunch of Cupertino’s most famous export.

Two days later, Rowley returned to the scene, this time armed with her trusty Louisville Slugger, and retrieved her iPhone from the mossy loam. Sadly, the device was damaged beyond repair. Nevertheless, Vermont’s indomitable CIO decided to wing a warranty request.

Unfortunately, the humourless Apple employees at her hometown’s self-appointed “Genius Bar” refused her petition, no doubt citing the following po-faced exceptions to the Apple warranty:

This warranty does not apply: … to damage caused by accident, abuse, misuse, flood, fire,
earthquake or bear attack; (c) to damage caused by operating the product outside the permitted or intended uses described by Apple (e.g. to ward off a bear attack); (d) to damage caused by service (including upgrades and expansions) performed by anyone who is not a representative of Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider (“AASP”) (e.g. a wild bear); … (f) to consumable (i.e. edible) parts, such as batteries, unless damage has occurred due to a defect in materials or workmanship; (g) to cosmetic damage, including but not limited to scratches, dents and broken plastic on ports (e.g. by scoffing, nibbling, chomping, gumming, nomming or otherwise attempting to consume said device or parts) ; or (h) if any Apple serial number has been removed or defaced (e.g. by a bear).

The moral of the story? Fight bears if you must, Goldilocks, but don’t mess with the mighty Apple.

(Thanks are again due to Tim, whose horoscope this week includes an unexpected visit from a tall, dark and extremely hairy stranger)

Tortoise cheats death on London motorway

A tortoise narrowly avoided coming to a sticky end on the M25 thanks to the intervention of an eagle-eyed motorist, BBC News reports.

John Formby, of Worthing, West Sussex, had his interest piqued when some debris on the slip road at Junction 7 of the London Orbital unexpectedly sprouted a head.

Formby immediately pulled over to the hard shoulder, dodging traffic to bring the kamikaze chelonian to safety.

“Some other cars were coming up and a couple went round the tortoise. Two cars and a van drove straight over it, straddling it, but it didn’t go back into its shell,” he told the BBC.

Having secured the creature in the footwell of his car, Formby stopped at a local supermarket for some lettuce and a few tomatoes. Vets later discovered the reptilian pedestrian had been microchipped by its owners.

Billy Elliott, of Worthing and District Animal Rescue Service, who is not the ballet-dancing son of a coal miner for the fifteen millionth time thanks very much, said: “He must be someone’s pet and the family have relocated from abroad and brought him with them.”

“He’s very lucky to have survived. It would be the icing on the cake if we could reunite him with his owners.”

Gaza zoo paints donkeys as zebras

A zoo in Gaza has come up with a creative solution to its zebra shortage by painting stripes on donkeys, United Press International reports.

At $15,000 a pop, zebras lie beyond the means of Gaza’s “only place of entertainment,” zoo head keeper Mahmoud Barghouti said.

“We used to have two zebras but they died from starvation during the military offensive. Some of the other animals escaped and died and some were stolen,” he continued.

Zoo officials are considering suing Israel for the damage caused during the 2008 Gaza War.

A professional artist was hired to (intermittently) black-up the donkeys, which, along with a few monkeys, cats and dogs, make up Gaza’s piss-poor collection of beasts.

The monkeys are said to have been smuggled into Gaza from Egypt, via the now-infamous tunnels that lie under the border to the southerly Arab republic.

Motorist alerts plod to charity-running “gorilla”

A Leicestershire motorist dialed 999 to report the sighting of a gorilla on the A6, only for police to discover the offending primate was a charity runner in fancy dress, The Daily Fail reports.

Jogger Rory Coleman, pictured, told Middle England’s favourite outrage factory: “I wasn’t very far from Twycross Zoo which has a large collection of primates so maybe motorists thought one of them had made a run for it.”

Fingernail-gnawing police, who, I might add, are looking an awful lot younger these days, initially refused to accost the manimal, fearing it might be some kind of swan-roasting asylum seeker hell-bent on depressing house prices in the region.

“I think [the police] twigged I wasn’t an actual gorilla when they saw I was wearing trainers and had a rucksack on my back,” Coleman mused.

A sheepish spokeswoman for Leicestershire police said: “We did receive a call from a member of the public on Wednesday at about 4.30pm who reported seeing a gorilla on the A6 and was concerned for their safety.’

Belgrade kangaroo killed in hit-and-run

Belgrade zoo lost two of its kangaroos last Wednesday, one to a hit-and-run driver, Associated Press reports.

Serbian police were alerted to the escaped ‘roo, but arrived to find it dead, the apparent victim of a traffic accident.

“Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do,” shrugged senior officer Zeljko Perosevic.

Later that day, bewildered authorities were summoned to Belgrade zoo to investigate the death of yet another kangaroo. An intruder had evidently scaled the wall of the marsupials’ enclosure, slain the mother and made off with the joey.

The deaths come a year after a female kangaroo took fright at an emu, dropped her infant and refused it any further access to her pouch. It is not known whether it was the same macropods who perished in this year’s incident.

According to a recent study back home Down Under, kangaroos have caused over two thousand traffic accidents in the past decade. A human is treated for injuries sustained in just such an accident every three days.

As for the death toll among the marsupials themselves, a 2006 study found that kangaroos were killed at a rate of 0.03 animals per kilometer per day on a sample stretch of road in New South Wales.

The Road Kill Café — motto: “You kill it, we grill it” — has recently expanded into Australia from its native Montana. Whether they intend to open a branch in downtown Belgrade remains to be seen.

Escaped red panda found mortally wounded

To lose one Red Panda, as Lady Bracknell might have observed, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both, as Galloway Wildlife Park in Kirkcudbright did last February, looks like carelessness.

The adult female, Pichu, was recovered two months later. Her cub Isla remained at large until last Thursday, BBC News reports.

Sadly, last week Isla was found injured by the side of the road between Kippford and Dalbeattie in Kirkudbrightshire. She was taken to a vet, but later succumbed to her injuries.

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At the time of the escape, park owner John Denerley expressed cautious optimism for the future of the pandas, telling the BBC: “To cope with the lack of food during the winter months, red pandas have evolved several ways of meeting their energy demands. They … have a very low metabolic rate – almost as low as sloths – and can slow their metabolism even further in colder temperatures.”

Last week Denerley said: “Amazingly, Isla survived in the wild for such a long period and was in good condition since she escaped … We are devastatingly upset over her death.”

The Red Panda, also known as the Lesser Panda, or Firefox, is of uncertain phylogenetic affinity. Scientists have reached some agreement on what it is not: a cat, a raccoon, a fox or a bear. Indeed it may not even be a panda. But what it is remains a contentious issue.

A recent discussion of the phylogeny of this Asian curiosity can be found in Flynn et al. (DOI: 10.1006/mpev.2000.0819), who place it among the badgers.

“Sydenham Panther” strikes again

Proving Tibor Fisher’s admonishment that “South London is not fit for human habitation,” London Lite reports a new sighting of the “Sydenham Panther”.

Dog walker Sara Hill, 32, discovered the mauled remains of a domestic cat as she pushed her 8-month-old son through the park. The unfortunate feline had every morsel licked from its bones, save the head.

Displaying an intimate knowledge of cryptozoology hitherto unrecognised in the residents of SE26, Ms Hill stated: “It could only have been a big cat. No other animal would do that kind of damage. A dog would have torn it limb from limb and a fox would have finished it off.”

The attack reawakens painful memories for the good burghers of Sydenham, who were traumatised by a “big cat” attack four years ago.

Tony Holder obtained his 15 minutes when he bravely recovered his moggie from the jaws of The Beast in 2005.

Holder was attempting to recall “KitKat” when he spotted “a 5ft-long animal” chowing down on his beloved tabby. Immediately responding to the intervention, the “black, panther-like creature” relinquished his meal and leapt at Holder.

“I could see these huge teeth and the whites of its eyes just inches from my face. It was snarling and growling and I really believed it was trying to do some serious damage.”

Warming to his theme, Holder continued: “I really thought my life was in danger,” before noticing scowls from his wife.

“… but all I was worried about was my family.”

In response to the 2005 attack, gleeful Plod armed themselves with Tasers and tranqilizer darts, nosing around warrantless in the gardens of the innocent before eventually calling it a night.

Following this year’s attack, Big Cats In Britain rent-a-quote Mark Fraser proclaimed: “This could be the work of a big cat but we need more evidence.”

Winston the carrier pigeon bests SA’s Telkom

It is quicker to send data by carrier pigeon than use South Africa’s largest ISP, Reuters reports.

Winston, an 11-month old carrier pigeon, lugged a data card from the offices of Unlimited IT in Pietermaritzburg to Durban in one hour and eight minutes. Staff spent a further hour fumbling with the medium before the transfer was complete. In the meantime, a download over the backhaul of Telkom was a paltry 4% complete.

Without a hint of irony, Reuters reports that Telkom “could not immediately be reached for comment”.

Algal blooms menace Pacific, Channel coasts

Recent news confirms the suspicions of hydrophobics everywhere: the oceans are revolting. Last month, the Anchorage Daily News reported a vast flotilla of marine gunk, the likes of which had never before been seen by residents. A “thick, dark, and gooey” mass drifted across the Arctic ocean, indiscriminately sullying pristine snowbound coasts and emerald icebergs alike in its inexorable advance toward Anchorage.

“It kind of has an odor; I can’t describe it,” a visibly shaken Petty Officer 1st Class Terry Hasenauer told the ADN.

During its landward march, the disgusting slime has drawn to its deathly bosom several jellyfish and a goose, the latter reduced to a mere tangle of bones and feathers.

Samples of the terrifying seafaring mass were sent to a local laboratory for analysis. Peering down the microscope, Ed Meggert of the Department of Environmental Conservation in Fairbanks, AK, identified it as “marine algae,” to a chorus of sighs of relief from the local fishing population.

“Had it been petroleum, then we really would have had our work cut out for us,” said Terry Whitledge, director of the Institute of Marine Science at the University of Alaska.

Nevertleless, Alaska Natives resident in the region claim never before to have seen its like; green and red algae are not unheard of, but “black, viscous gunk” is ominously unprecedented. The colour could perhaps be attributed to decomposition, Whitledge mused.

The filthy maritime ooze has thusfar proved innocuous, unlike a similar phenomenon presently soiling the coast of Brittany.

Decomposing piles of Ulva lactuca recently washed up on Breton shores have already claimed the life of a horse whose rider narrowly escaped suffocation. The equid’s death is attributed to hydrogen sulphide fumes, inadvertently released from the rotting tangle by the passage of the animal’s hooves.

Many of Brittany’s beaches have been closed by French authorities for fear that unsuspecting holidaymakers will plunge into a noxious pothole of their own manufacture.

Alain Menesguen, director of research at the French Institute for Sea Research and Exploitation told BBC News: “When you walk into the crust of such accumulation, you make a hole in a reservoir of hydrogen sulphide, and this gas is very toxic.”

“It can make animals or people unable to breathe, so you can die in less than a minute.”

Algal blooms, as any A-Level biology student will know, are frequently attributed to NPK fertiliser run-off from intensively-farmed arable land. Excess nitrates encourage the runaway growth of algae, which rapidly consume all solute oxygen, creating “dead zones” otherwise devoid of aquatic life.

So think twice before accepting your government’s claims that ‘organically’-grown produce provides no health advantages.

Escaped flamingo eyeballed on Texas coast

A flamingo that fled the clutches of Sedgwick County Zoo, KA, has been photographed sojourning on the Gulf Coast, the Wichita Eagle reports.

The bird, one of a pair that escaped the zoo in June 2005, has been spotted a number of times since he slipped his captors. The other, blown northward by a storm, has proven more elusive, having been spotted only once, on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, in 2008.

“It’s good to know that [the more southerly flamingo] is still doing well,” said Christan Baumer, spokeswoman for Sedgwick County Zoo.

The flamingoes were due a wing-clipping to prevent just such an escape, but their primaries proved too short for the procedure. Days before they were destined for the veterinarian’s knife, strong winds helped them aloft, and thence to freedom.