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Animal Journeys

rynner2

Gone But Not Forgotten
(ACCOUNT RETIRED)
Joined
Aug 7, 2001
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This thread is just an excuse to post this link on Geese Migration - lots of loverly pics from the air as well as from the ground.

Not particularly Fortean or crypto though - no doubt quite a few people would like to leave Canada during the winter!

But some animal journeys are pretty strange: pets who cross a continent to find their owners again, turtles and albatrosses who cross wide oceans but still return to their birthplace to lay eggs or breed.

And then there is the strange case of European eels, which apparently migrate to the Sargasso Sea to breed. Has this ever been proved/disproved, or explained?

Anyhow, here's a thread for Animal Travels.
 
A few years ago i was walking through our hallway at home when i heard a quiet knock on the door.I opened the front door but no one was there.As i went to close the door i looked down and a racing pigeon hopped off the outside step and walked through the door into the hallway and proceeded to walk towards the kitchen.I left the front door open and tired to shoo it back out but it wouldn't go.
As it was a ringed racing pigeon i just presumed it may have been tired out and wanted to rest.i opened the door that leads to the garage and the pigeon hopped in.I left it some water and crumbs and left it there for the night.
In the morning,i managed to get the pigeon outside,it hung around the garden for another day and the day after that it had gone.The other slightly strange part was that my grandad,who kept a lot of pigeons,had passed away fairly recently.It just seemed a strange occurence.
 
Wooo! Good story, JN. Perhaps I should shift this thread to Ghosts or Reincarnation...

(That's the trouble with Fortean stuff - it refuses to be categorised.)
 
Monarch butterflies make an amazing migration, up to 3000 miles from Canada and the northern US to Mexico. They have never seen their destination, since they are three generations removed from the ones that started north in the spring. Yet they not only know which direction to go, but they follow specific routes to get by obstacles like the Great Lakes.

We live on a monarch flyway, and it is fascinating to see them fluttering southward, seemingly too small and fragile to fly any farther than the next garden, but capable of covering 50 miles a day.

http://www.MonarchWatch.org/tagmig/index.htm
 
Animal journeys, pah.

I only realised about 2 years ago that one of my favourite childhood books, 'The Incredible Journey', was about things animals did when no humans were there, and so was ALL MADE UP.
 
Dog Comes Home After Seven-Month Absence
Dog Comes Home to Widow After After Disappearing for Seven Months

LE MARS, Iowa March 25 —
A retired school teacher couldn't believe her eyes last week when her dog, Taffy, returned home after disappearing seven months ago.

"When I went out to do the chores, he was standing on the deck waiting for me just like he always did," said Betty Jordt, who lives just north of Sioux City. "I thought, 'It can't be Taffy, it can't be.' But as I got closer, he looked up at me as if, 'I waited for you.'"

The dog, a taffy-colored Labrador mix, returned March 19 just in time for Jordt's birthday.

Jordt, a widow, found Taffy at the Siouxland Humane Society about five years ago. The dog always came when called, until he vanished seven months ago, she said.

In an attempt to find her pet, Jordt placed advertisements in local publications and enlisted the help of the sheriff's office.

Jordt didn't get a new +dog+, because she didn't want to risk losing another companion.

Taffy showed up last week wearing the same collar, but no tags.

"I must say he's in excellent condition," Jordt said. "Whoever took him or took care of him did take very good care of him."
From ABCnews

Aaaah!
 
escargot said:
Animal journeys, pah.

I only realised about 2 years ago that one of my favourite childhood books, 'The Incredible Journey', was about things animals did when no humans were there, and so was ALL MADE UP.

Wuh? Nooooooooo! It was real! it was! Waaa haa haa haa haa
 
Judge Nutmeg said:
racing pigeon


My brother sold a friend of his the same group of homing pigeons three times...

I was recently told (third hand) about a homing slug which someone removed from their kitchen several times. Apparently, the last time it was placed on the centre of a roundabout about a mile from the house, and took two weeks to come back. I suspect it was more than one slug, personally...
 
I recently saw a brief reference about the American parapsychologist Rhine having conducted research into animal journies. To find more info, I Googled on "Rhine, research, ...etc"


...and found a very interesting site site about dredging the waterways of Rotterdam!

(More on the animals later.)
 
Animals will follow their human companions to the grave and perhaps even beyond. There is another kind of following called psi-trailing, and from the cases that have been thoroughly researched, there can be absolutely no doubt that this phenomenon exists. One of the most celebrated cases was Lassie, a mongrel dog who was left behind at a small farm in Kentucky when his owners moved out west to California. The dog left the people who had adopted him, and months later, he located his family in Pacoima, California. A cat named Clementine did a no less incredible 1,500-mile journey from Dunkirk, New York, to Denver, Colorado, to find her owners. Another cat named Tom holds the distance record of 2,500 miles or more, traveling from the home place in St. Petersburg, Florida, to San Gabriel, California, to find his owners in their new home.

Several years ago, when a psychiatrist friend of mine was a teenager, he was given a dog by neighbors who moved from Brooklyn to live in Queens, New York. Alan had the dog only a couple of days when it ran off. The owners called a few days later saying that they had found their dog walking up and down their new street in Queens and were so amazed, since the dog had never been there before, that they felt they had to keep him after all.

A similar case of psi-trailing was reported on national news in the spring of 1983. A little mongrel dog, left with neighbors in Colorado, made an incredible journey over the Rockies in the dead of winter and found its owners at their new home in California, where the dog had never been.

A young cow called Blackie was recently sold, along with her calf, at an auction in England (Agscene, February 1984). The two animals went off to separate farms. That night Blackie escaped and was found the next morning suckling her calf on the farm where her calf had been taken. Her owner was traced via the auction tag that was still on her back. Out of compassion and amazement, her owner allowed her to stay with her calf. The farms were seven miles apart, and Blackie had never been there before. The bellowing of a calf could surely not travel that distance, nor its scent, unless cows have remarkable senses. Whether Blackie was psychic or telepathic, or had supersensory abilities, is an open question; but no less remarkable is the strength of her maternal instinct and desire to be with her calf.
....

One of the best publicized cases of ESP in a dog occurred during World War I. An English dog named Prince somehow crossed the English Channel and roamed France until he found his beloved master in the battlefront trenches.
...
The late Dr. J. B. Rhine from Duke University investigated a number of alleged cases of psychic abilities in pets. The following cases leave no doubt that animals certainly do possess such abilities. One of the most amazing cases of psi-trailing involved a female dog who was adopted by a family at their summer vacation home. By the end of the summer she had presented them with a litter of pups. They were unable to take the dog and litter back to their New York City apartment, so they found a good home for them near their summer home. About a month later the dog turned up at their apartment in the city, an incredible feat since the dog had never been there before. It was some thirty miles from the vacation cottage. The dog was carrying one of her pups. She deposited it at the feet of her amazed owners and then asked to go out. Several days later she returned with another pup and was off again until she eventually had brought her entire family to the apartment. Naturally the people decided to keep her. This story is hard to accept but is one that Dr. Rhine thoroughly investigated and authenticated.

Another of his cases involved a little terrier named Penny. One and a half years after the death of her mother, a daughter in the family came home to make a visit to the graveyard to pay her respects at her mother's grave. She took Penny with her--the dog had never been there before. While the daughter was freshening up some flowers at the cemetery before going to her mother's grave, Penny got out of the car. To the woman's surprise, when she went to her mother's grave, there was the dog lying on it, whining pathetically. No other family member had been there for months, so it is unlikely that there would have been any familiar scents for the dog to detect.
...
For nearly thirty hours in the spring of 1983, villagers on the island of Minorca searched for a lost three-year-old child, to no avail, Mayor Jose` Tadeo, leader of the search party, returned to his home two miles away, and his two-year-old Irish Setter greeted him but kept whining and scratching at the door to be let out. The man complied and the dog got him to follow right to the area where people had been searching for the boy. The dog found the semiconscious boy in a small crevice concealed by undergrowth. How could the dog have known, since it had been at home, two miles away, all day?
...
The most thoroughly researched and publicized case of homing in a pet was of a Collie named Bobbie. He was lost in Indiana, and his owners had to return to their home in Silverton, Oregon, without him. Somehow he was able to find his way to his owners' new home, some three thousand miles away, in midwinter. This dog's feat was sufficiently well publicized such that people who had given him food and shelter on his long journey home made themselves known. This way, the route taken by the dog was approximately reconstructed.
Animal Spirits... (There are also plenty of stories of psychic animals on this page.)
 
Those giant spiders you have to liberate from the bath are supposed to home too,put them carefully outside and they will only try to get back in.
 
really? it wont be long until the spider revolution happens.. take my word for it
 
The European eel is rumoured not to breed at all, and is only the result of the American eel migrating to European waters. Once it gets there, it can climb thousands of feet up rivers and even over land to get to pools high up in the Alps, where it remains for 10 or 20 years. Then it returns to the sea and attempt to get back to the breeding grounds in the Sargasso sea, but never makes it.
 
Meant to add, I've no experience of animal journeys, but we did have a cat that wandered off. We'd long given up hope of seeing it again when we got a phone call 3 years later from someone in London (150 miles away at that time) saying they'd found the cat with collar intact. We picked up the cat and it lived happily ever after... ahhhh.... :p
 
Marion said:
Those giant spiders you have to liberate from the bath are supposed to home too,put them carefully outside and they will only try to get back in.
Thus you can see the act of squashing them, and jumping up and down on the remains before flushing them down the loo as an act of liberation - freeing them from their destiny to be compelled to return time and time again.
 
beagle migrates south for summer?

From this morning's paper...

Beagle strays 800 miles from home

The Associated Press

Monday, May 19, 2003

Auburn, Ala. — Stray dogs show up all the time around Auburn University

But they don't usually belong 800 miles away in Kansas.

But that was the case with Norman, a beagle who wandered off from his owner in Solomon, Kan., one day in March and showed up Friday outside an Auburn University computer repair shop.

"I didn't think much of it -- we've found dogs out here before," said Daryl Waites, Auburn's digital repair manager. "Usually just some student lost them."

Waites, a dog lover and owner, coaxed the beagle into the repair shop, where he and receptionist Cindy Darby checked the dog's collar. The collar's dull brass tag was inscribed: 2003, City of Solomon, KS.

Darby called City Hall in Solomon, a small town about 90 miles west of Topeka, and gave the tag number and a description of the dog.
photo
AP Photo
Norman the beagle is checked by veterinarian Martha Thomas, left, while being held by assistant Brandy Kirwan in Auburn, Ala. Norman was found Friday morning in Auburn, 800 miles away from his home in Solomon, Kan.


"It sounded like a description of Norman," said an astonished Tallie Baetz, Solomon's city clerk.

Norman belonged to Baetz's neighbors, Tim and Jennifer Cross, two local schoolteachers. They had named the chubby dog -- a wedding gift from Tim to his bride -- after the character on "Cheers."

"She said she had our dog, but no idea how he got there," Jennifer Cross said. "I was crying too hard to teach after she called. I ran to tell Tim, but he didn't believe it was true."

No one knows how Norman came to arrive in Alabama. Stretches of interstate and railroad alike run through both Solomon and Auburn. If he walked all the way, he would have had to average about 20 miles a day.

"I wasn't going to take a vacation this year, but it looks like we're going to make a drive to Alabama to get Norman," Jennifer Cross said.

Waites will keep the dog until the Crosses can make the trip.

Copyright © 2003 The Lawrence Journal-World. All rights reserved.
 
Animals Returning

:) I live in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, and my state has an agreement with another state 2000 miles away to accept each others "problem" bears. The bears are trapped, shot with tranquilizer darts, tagged, and while still unconscious, flown to the receiving state, where they are released in very remote areas of forest. Almost ALL of these bears seem to immediately set off to return to their original home territories.:confused: :( The saddest part is that each bear gets only one chance at being relocated. As soon as they show up back "home," they're shot!:eek: :sob:
 
Wildlife, what a cr*p idea that is!

Why don't they just shoot the bears and have done with it right away? :confused: :(

Puir wee bearies. :(
 
Scientists discover how the monarch butterfly navigates 2,000-mile migration without a map
By Steve Connor Science Editor
23 May 2003


Scientists have solved one of natures most enduring mysteries - how the monarch butterfly is able to navigate more than 2,000 miles on its annual migration route.

A series of experiments has revealed how this tiny insect is able to marry a sophisticated biological clock with the sun's position so that it can fly across the North American continent without losing its way.

Monarch butterflies migrate between their wintering roosts in central Mexico to their summer breeding grounds as far north as the US-Canadian border. Scientists have now discovered that they employ an internal biological clock that enables them to use the sun as a reliable compass no matter what time of day it is.

This form of navigation is so accurate that it allows some monarch butterflies to return to the same trees in the Mexican mountains that were used by their great, great grandparents as roosting sites the previous winter.
Complete article
 
rynner said:
Scientists discover how the monarch butterfly navigates 2,000-mile migration without a map
from
Complete article
This is why I hate sub-editors. What the Fort do they expect a monarch butterfly to do with a map? I mean, they don't stop and ask for directions either.
 
Two page article from the NY Times about a wild turkey in Manhattan. It's even been seen 28 floors up!
The turkey that has been spotted this year in Manhattan is clearly a female: she is smaller and less colorful than a male and lacks a male's wattles.

"The population all around is so healthy, I would not be surprised to see one or two turkeys wander into Manhattan each year," said Greg Butcher, an ornithologist and director of citizen science for the National Audubon Society. "Turkeys are going to want woods and fields, and New York City parks provide them," he said, "but I would be surprised to see a self-sustaining population in Manhattan."

Not everyone is convinced that a wild turkey could find its way into the center of Manhattan on its own.

"If it's real, I'd say it was assisted into the city by some person," said Stephanie Easter, director of dispatch for the city's Center for Animal Care and Control, which rescues injured animals and birds.

"We've never seen one in Manhattan," she said, "and I don't think the average person in this city knows what a wild turkey looks like."

John Rowden, the curator of animals at the Central Park Zoo, said that no one had yet reported a wild turkey in his park but that recent sightings in the Bronx and Inwood might explain how one or more was spotted near the Hudson River on the West Side.

"Turkeys are not great dispersers or fliers," he said, adding that they rarely range much over 12 miles. Even their limited flying abilities would allow turkeys to cross the narrow expanse of the Harlem River from the Bronx, find their way to the Hudson and migrate down its shoreline, he said.

That appears to fit the pattern. Mr. McAdams, of the city's Audubon Society chapter, said the first two sightings were in February and mid-April, when what seems to have been the same bird was spotted trotting in the West 60's between West End Avenue and the West Side Drive.

Then, on April 20, came Mr. Lindenauer's encounter on his 28th-floor balcony, in the Lincoln Towers apartment complex, just off West End Avenue. He said he spotted the turkey leaning against his living room window, as if she were taking a nap.

Mr. Lindenauer, who was at home with his wife, Jinx, a sculptor, said he tapped on the window to get the turkey's attention. The bird stood up reluctantly, he said, and walked along the railing, posing for photographs for 15 minutes or so before she took off.

That episode has mystified bird experts, who say turkeys have not been known to fly as high as the 28th floor.

"They are not vertical fliers," said Mr. Butcher, the ornithologist. "You will see them maybe 20 feet up in trees, but not 100 feet. I'd say that turkey went up an elevator."
 
Pigeon home after New York detour
A racing pigeon who took a wrong turn on his way from France to Merseyside and ended up in New York has finally come home to roost.
Billy the pigeon was only due to fly the 425 miles from Calais to his home in Merseyside in the race three weeks ago.

But he took a remarkable 3,321 mile detour and ended up on New York pigeon fancier Joseph Ida's terrace among his flock of 100 racing birds.

Billy now has to spend a month in quarantine before getting back to his creature comforts.

"You could see that he had been out," said Mr Ida, who added that Billy looked a little tired, thin and run down.
Saving Billy another marathon journey over the Atlantic, bosses at British Airways agreed to bring him home for free.

The pigeon touched down at Manchester Airport on Wednesday morning following a six-hour flight from JFK International Airport, and was reunited with his owner John Warren, of Bootle, Merseyside.

Billy will have to spend 31 days in quarantine before returning home.

A British Airways spokesman said: "He had a pleasant flight. It was a pleasure to have a VIP - a very important pigeon - on board."

The spokesman said Billy was "very perky" following the flight in a pressurised hold.
 
Ted the Cat's Excellent Adventure!

More a journey of time, than distance...
----------------------------------------------------
California cat and owner reunited after 10 years

Thursday, September 25, 2003

(09-25) 10:29 PDT SAN CARLOS, Calif. (AP) --

A feline named for a character in the movie "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure" has completed an amazing adventure of his own -- he has been reunited with his owner a decade after vanishing from home.

Ted was found about 13 miles south of where he used to live in Burlingame. The black cat was brought to the Peninsula Humane Society's animal shelter, which tracked down Chris Inglis using a microchip implanted in Ted before he disapeared in 1993.

"It's pretty monumental," Inglis said. "It's almost surreal."

Even though the information on the microchip was outdated, the shelter was able to track down Inglis, shelter outreach coordinator Malu Trehan said Thursday.

When the pair reunited Wednesday, "(Ted) rubbed his face on my hand, climbed right up and started purring," Inglis told the San Francisco Chronicle.

Exactly where Ted spent all those years is a mystery, but it seemed clear someone was tending to him.

When Inglis and Ted started co-habitating in 1991, Inglis was divorced, renting a one-bedroom Burlingame duplex, teaching high school and driving an old Honda Civic. Now he's married, with a four-bedroom house in San Carlos, a job as a financial planner, two daughters at home and a son in college. And he drives a Mercedes.

Inglis remembers that one of the things he and Ted liked to do was cruise around in the Civic.

On their way home from the shelter, Inglis let Ted loose in the Mercedes and "he put his front paws on the dashboard," just like the old days.

The recovery rate for missing microchipped pets statewide is 9 percent, said Bill Hamilton, president of Friends of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. Nationally, he added, about 10 million pets were lost last year -- 1,939,817 carried chips, and 157,423 of them were found.

©2003 Associated Press
 
Meant to add, I've no experience of animal journeys, but we did have a cat that wandered off. We'd long given up hope of seeing it again when we got a phone call 3 years later from someone in London (150 miles away at that time) saying they'd found the cat with collar intact.

I once had a workman round and when he went to leave he found my cat Dream curled up on the passenger seat of his van. If Dream had climbed in the back instead he probably wouldn't have been noticed and would have ended up god knows where.

Maybe it was something similar?
They are inquisitive little buggers after all.
 
150 mile dog journey

Dog returns to previous owner - 150 miles away

A Maine woman was surprised to get a visit from a dog she used to look after who had been adopted three years ago - by a family 150 miles away.

Julie Brown operates an animal shelter at her home and looked after the white German shepherd, Maxie, for about a year and a half.

Three years ago a couple from Palermo adopted Maxie, reports Yahoo.

Ms Brown heard that a stray white German shepherd had been spotted near her shelter, and no one had been able to catch the dog. Ms Brown found Maxie behind a shop in Whiting, and offered her some biscuits.

She said: "I just spoke to her, gave her some food and told her: "Oh, I used to have a dog that looks just like you"."

Ms Brown later realised, by a scar over the dog's eye, that it was Maxie and decided to give her a permanent home.

She said people had adopted hundreds of dogs and cats from her over the years, but this was the first to return: "She is my dog, I guess."


Story filed: 12:08 Wednesday 15th October 2003

http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_829000.html?menu=news.quirkies
 
*PARP!*

Threads merged. That wasn't me, by the way, it's this chair. It creaks a bit when I move. :nonplus:
 
Animal commuters

Animal journies are great Fortean fare but there are also the smarter animals who take advantage of available transport.

I remember tales of pigeons using the underground a while ago and the Gaurdian' notes and queries had a question about animal journeys which someone asnwered with a tale about Lampo an Italian dog which used to commute from Campiglia to Genova (?) and Rome in the 1950s.

I did some searching (as this hasn't come up on the board) and came up with more detils.

There is also a book:

This collection of true stories celebrates the lives of a handful of vagabond dogs who spurned confinement and one-family ownership. Each dog's tale is unique: Boozer had his own bank account and appeared on Good Morning America; Owney spent his life riding U.S. mail trains and can now be seen in the Smithsonian Institute; Greyfriars Bobby snuck into the cemetery every night for 14 years to sleep on his deceased master's grave; Lampo became famous for riding the railways of Italy but always returned to the same station; Tricksey offered companionship to the residents of a nursing home; Patsy Ann watched the shores of Alaska and knew before all others that a ship was arriving even though she was stone deaf. These atypical dogs all share the same independent spirit that inspires human admiration and devotion. It Takes a Dog to Raise a Village is a tribute to their spirit and their unusual bonds with the humans who knew them. The text is highlighted by pencil drawings.

http://www.willowcreekpress.com/Mer...ct_Code=3001&Category_Code=dgeneral&Offset=10

I also found this:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0394813138/

Is there any more info on this as online information is scanty - is it even true?

One odd thing is that the tale of lampo seems to be a staple of Chinese (?) language lessons (a lot of the search results are a comprehension test based on the story) e.g.:

http://www.engtide.com/article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=263&ArticlePage=2

Anyone know of any more tales of animals commuting like this?

Emps
 
Swans unlock migration mystery
Tiny transmitters have been attached to migratory swans so their epic journey can be tracked for the first time.
One whooper swan and five Bewick's swans are being tracked by satellite so their progress can be followed online.

The researchers hope to reveal where the swans stop to rest and their exact flight path, along with many other trials the birds face on the journey.

The study is being carried out by the BBC and the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust, who hope it will aid conservation.


Shrouded in mystery

Of the three species of swans that live in Britain, two - the Bewick's and the whooper - fly thousands of miles each year, to and from their breeding grounds.

The reason these birds migrate is to make use of a productive but very short summer in the Arctic tundra, where they breed. Many of them then return south to over-winter in more forgiving climates.

Until now, their long-distance flight paths have been shrouded in mystery.

Previous research has focused on the swans at the beginning and end of their journey, but this is the first time individuals will have been tracked along their whole route.

Scientists travelled to Arctic Russia in August to find the stars of this project - the Bewick's swans Alexei, Andrei, Anatoli, Kostya and Pechora, and Huc the whooper.

"We found the swans in the Pechora Delta, which is about as far north as you can go before the land runs out," said Julian Hector, Editor of Natural History Unit Radio. "They are all non-breeding adults, who were hanging around in sort of teenage gangs.

"At that time of year they are flightless, due to the moult, so we were able to catch them with giant butterfly nets."

Pit stops

Researchers hope that the transmitters will also reveal which lakes the swans stop at to rest and replenish their energy reserves.

Information like this will be helpful in conservation efforts.

"Detail is very important when designing conservation strategies for migrant swans," said Tony Richardson, WWT Director.

"Knowing that they put down in Estonia is not enough. We need to know what lakes they use to feed en route. Something like the size of a lake we can conserve and manage, not something the size of a country."

Biologists know that thousands of Bewick's swans spend the winter in Britain and Holland but virtually nothing is known about where whooper swans from the Russian tundra migrate to, or their flight path.

"It had been assumed that they travelled directly south to winter in places like Kazakhstan, but Huc is heading this way, which is a real surprise," said Mr Hector. "As we speak he is on the Russian/Finnish boarder."

The transmitters fitted to the birds are very sensitive, conveying their position within a square kilometre, their speed and even temperature.

But, sadly, the news is not always good.

"Kostya flew 1,700 miles and landed in a lake in Estonia. Then his signal suddenly stopped," Mr Hector told BBC News Online. "We are very worried about him because we know a lot of shooting goes on around there."

The remaining swans' progress can be tracked online from the BBC Radio Four website, and the Today programme will give daily updates from Monday.

Julian Hector said: "We are not only finding out their route for the first time, we are unpicking the event to reveal a huge amount of information and surprising facts."
R4 Link
 
What about arctic terns?

They migrate from the arctic to the antactic
 
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