IRISH TIMES ODDITIES: THE FIRST ALL-IRISH CAMELThe first Dromedary camel born at Dublin Zoo in more than 10 years arrived this month. He has been named Gerry. With a Dublin-born father and a Belfast-born mother, Gerry is the all-Irish camel. His mother, Mariban, was brought from Belfast Zoo in 1962.
The first camel ever at Dublin Zoo was presented by a British Army surgeon, William Carte, in 1857. This camel was captured from the Russian Army on the battlefield at Alma during the Crimean War.
July 25th, 1975
CHILD ‘KIDNAPPED’ BY LEOPARD
A strange story of a five months’ old child who nearly became a “Tarzan” comes from a remote jungle village. The mother was at work, states Reuter from Colombo, and had left the child in the care of its elder brother. Suddenly out of the jungle stealthily came what the elder child afterwards described as an animal “like a dog”. The animal tenderly picked up the infant in its jaws and carried it off into the dense undergrowth. The alarm was raised. The men of the village combed the jungle for hours. At last they heard faint cries, and eventually found the missing baby safe and sound in a hollow covered with dried leaves. A leopard had been seen in the neighbourhood, and the villagers think that the animal had lost its cubs and had carried off the child with the intention of feeding it.
July 1st, 1933
A FISH IN A TREE
A farmer and his son living near Jefferson City, Missouri, were recently fishing in the Moreau River. They were standing on the trunk of a big sycamore tree that had fallen out over the stream and was partly submerged in the water, when a peculiar bumping noise that came from the inside of the log attracted their attention, and they began to investigate. They supposed at first that there was some sort of wild animal in the hollow of the log, and on cutting it open were astounded to find that it was a 65 pound catfish! The fish had evidently made a trip into the hollow log during high water, and did not attempt to get out until after the freshet had gone down, and then was stranded, as there was not sufficient water in the log to permit his exit. It was a blue channel catfish and furnished choice steaks for the farmer’s table for a week.
October 16th, 1897
SNAKES AND DOGS IN FLOOD EXODUS
Deadly rattlesnakes and packs of ravenous dogs yesterday joined the human exodus to escape the worst floods in Brazilian history. The snakes and dogs added a new dimension of horror for tens of thousands of starving survivors from the floods which have left more than 300,000 people homeless in 10 states.
Officials say that the death toll could reach 4,000 but reports reaching Rio de Janeiro from stricken areas tell of thousands of people missing or buried in the mud and troops piling victims into mass graves. Police in the partially destroyed Rio Grande do Sul city of Tores said that rattlesnakes joining the rush for high ground had already killed five people. And a 19-year-old girl in the city had part of her leg ripped off by a pack of hungry dogs before she was dragged away by troops.
April 3rd, 1974