2012
Ornithologists urged city dwellers to feed the birds. Without human assistance, the birds will die, due to record frosts in central Russia.
21 December 2012
RIA-Novosti
What do you do if you’re stuck with two elephants on a Siberian highway, your elephant-transporting truck is burning, and the pachyderms are freezing in -40 degrees weather {-40 degrees Fahrenheit… the only place where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales coincide: editor}? The correct answer is that you make them jog and give them vodka. A local official said that the problems started when the two Indian elephants, owed by a travelling Polish circus, were enroute from Novokuznetsk to Omsk in Novosibirsk Oblast late Thursday. The hay in the truck caught fire from the diesel generator heating the cargo section, where the elephants were. The truck had to be stopped and the elephants promptly released. They escaped the fire unharmed, but were left stranded on a Siberian highway in winter.
The handler made the animals jog so that they didn’t freeze. Meanwhile, the local authorities were alerted, and the animals moved into a heated garage nearby. As an added precaution, the elephants were served two cases of vodka mixed with warm water. The official told RIA-Novosti, “They roared like it was the jungle… they must’ve been happy”. A spokeswoman for the Omsk city circus said that the animals only suffered minor frostbite to their legs and tips of their ears, nothing that’d disrupt their performance schedule. Their handler was admitted to hospital, also with frostbite.
14 December 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20121214/178159421.html
2012
For them not in the know, -40 is the only time where the Celsius and Fahrenheit scales intersect.
Two elephants were dumped into the 40-degree frost (-40 degrees Fahrenheit) after the truck carrying them caught fire. To warm the animals, their trainer plied them with two cases of vodka mixed with warm water.
14 December 2012
RIA-Novosti
http://ria.ru/caricature/20121214/914804345.html
Editor’s Note:
RIA-Novosti gets a Big Green Weenie Award on this one. In the Russian version (which I used), Yolkin portrayed the elephants with “red” trunks… the English version lacked this vital visual clue to drunkenness. Yolkin was making a visual “play” here and the ham-fisted English editor removed it, destroying the fun of the cartoon. The red trunks were a cue that these elephants were nothing but two drunks full of the usual “vodka wisdom”… and the editor removed them! They must be related to somebody with blat… that’d explain why RIA would keep on such a klutz.
BMD
On Thursday, Yelena Mendoza, head of the Department of Public Relations of the Moscow Zoo told RIA-Novosti that topsy-turvy Moscow weather didn’t discomfit the brown and Himalayan black bears, noting that they went into hibernation on schedule in late November, saying, “In the wild, bears usually hibernate by late November, we try to get them to bed at the same time. They’re hibernating now”. She explained that the keepers reduce the amount of feed to the bears, putting them on a “light” regimen, then, they stop the food and only put water into their enclosures. Thus, the animals realise that it’s time to hibernate. The zoo has two brown bears and three Asiatic black bears, which hibernate with the arrival of cold weather. They usually wake up at the end of March, when the snow begins to melt. In addition, a sloth bear, a spectacled bear, and polar bears live in the zoo, but they’re active during the winter, Ms Mendoza said.
She added that, in general, the zoo’s inhabitants of the zoo are quietly adapting to the advancing cold in Moscow, noting, “We’ve changed the animals’ diet. For instance, with the large cats, we have to give them more meat”. Ms Mendoza went on to say that they put more hay in the waterfowl pond, and the birds enjoy basking in it. Now that we have decreasing temperatures, she added that all of the animals are now in their “winter” living quarters. In November, the Moscow Zoo switched into its winter routine; it’s now open to the public from 10.00 to 17.00 MSK, but the box office at the main entrance and the petting zoo will cease operation one hour before closing at 16.00 MSK. On 31 December, New Year’s Eve, the zoo will close at 15.00 MSK, and on 1 January, New Year’s Day, as usual, it’s open free of charge. During school holidays, the zoo will be open even on Mondays.
13 December 2012
RIA-Novosti
2012
A rise in the average temperature of Atlantic currents such as the Gulf Stream and North Atlantic Current has led to an increase in the intensity of the movement of air masses from west to east, increasing precipitation in European Russia.
4 December 2012
RIA-Novosti
The above image is from a postcard with a 1911 postmark, but most sources give it an earlier (unspecified) date. It’s Niagara Falls… and this is photographic proof that we’ve just gone through a “cold cycle” in climatic fluctuations. Now, it’s time for a warmer trend for a century or two… all very normal, and all very cyclical.
I’ve upset both the “conservatives” and “liberals”… that means that I must be on the right track. Remember… the truth doesn’t fit neat categories… the devil’s in the details… always has been, always will be… pass the jug, this was thirsty work.
BMD
Theme: Rubric. Blog at WordPress.com.
