Zoogle News: An apology to our readers
Here at Zoogle News, we take our journalistic responsibilities seriously. And like the New York Times admitting that its coverage of the buildup to the war in Iraq was insufficiently rigorous, Zoogle News is not afraid to admit when it gets things wrong.
For the past week or so, while hibernating in the French Alps, Zoogle News has not been able to provide the sort of coverage of the world of wildlife that its users have grown to expect.
It is Zoogle News’ misfortune and embarrassment that this negligence should have occurred in a week declared the “the best week of animal stories ever” by Guardian columnist Lucy Mangan following a string of headline-grabbing stunts involving a short-legged pony, flossing monkeys, a stone-throwing Swedish chimpanzee, two gay ducks and an elephant with a prosthetic leg.
Zoogle News users can be assured that normal service has now been resumed. In the meantime, here’s a summary of the stories you might have missed.
- A pony called Mayflower with bizarrely short legs prompted a spate of calls to emergency services in Southampton, southern England, from passers-by concerned she was stuck in the mud.
- A elephant in Thailand called Mosha has been fitted with a new prosthetic leg after outgrowing her previous one, fitted after she stepped on a landmine near the Cambodian border.
- Efforts to prevent the extinction in the UK of the Blue Duck have been thwarted after the final two drakes – which handlers at the Arundel Wetland Centre had hoped would breed with the last surviving female duck – turned out to be gay.
- A chimpanzee called Santino, pictured above, at Sweden’s Furuvik Zoo has built up an arsenal of stones and missiles to hurl at visitors. Experts say the animal’s behaviour was evidence of its ability to plan for the future – a trait previously believed to be exclusively human.
- And finally, macaque monkeys living in temple ruins in Thailand have taught their young to floss their teeth using human hair.
What does all this mean? “You can hardly avoid the conclusion that something is definitely up,” Mangan writes. “The next wave of primate evolution has begun. Perhaps all the warmly endearing animal activities have been deliberately undertaken to distract us all from ape plans for imminent takeover.”