Thread: Amazing animal stories

Sunday, September 16, 2012 9:44pm PDT

Fisherman adrift for 106 days in Pacific says shark led him to rescuers

By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com

A man who survived while adrift in the Pacific for 106 days is crediting a shark for helping to save his life.

Toakai Teitoi, 41, a policeman from the Central Pacific island nation of Kiribati, had been traveling with his brother-in-law on what was supposed to be a short voyage, beginning May 27, from the Kiribati capital of Tarawa to his home island of Maiana.

But the mariners decided to fish along the way, and fell asleep during the night. When they awoke they were far at sea and adrift in their 15-foot wooden vessel. They soon ran out of fuel, and were short on water.

"We had food, but the problem was we had nothing to drink," Teitoi told Agence France-Presse news service.

Dehydration was severe. Falaile, the 52-year-old brother-in-law, died on July 4. That night, Teitoi slept next to him, "like at a funeral," before an emotional burial at sea the next morning.

Teitoi shared scant details of the ordeal after arriving in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, on Saturday. He said he prayed the night Falaile died, and the next day a storm arrived and, over the next several days, he was able to fill two five-gallon containers with fresh water.

Days and weeks passed, however, and Teitoi, a father of six, did not know whether he'd live or die. He subsided mostly on fish and protected himself against the searing tropical sun by curling up in a small, covered portion of the bow.

It was on the afternoon of Sept. 11 that he awoke to the sound of scratching against his boat. A six-foot shark was circling the boat and, Teitoi said, bumping against its hull.

"He was guiding me to a fishing boat," Teitoi said. "I looked up and there was the stern of a ship and I could see crew with binoculars looking at me."

The first thing he asked for after he was plucked from the water was a cigarette, or "a smoke." He was given food and juice and his rescuers continued to fish for several days before delivering him to Majuro.

Teitoi, who seemed in good health, said he booked flights back to his home island, adding, "I'll never go by boat again."

The record for drifting at sea is believed to be held by two fishermen, also from Kiribati, who were at sea for 177 days before coming ashore in Samoa in 1992.

Dog stands guard over deceased owner’s grave for six years

By Eric Pfeiffer, Yahoo! News
Reporter










Capitan keeps watch over Miguel Guzman's grave (La Voz)An extremely dedicated dog has continued to show its loyalty, keeping watch on its owner's grave six years after he passed away.

Capitan, a German shepherd, reportedly ran away from home after its owner, Miguel Guzman, died in 2006. A week later, the Guzman family found the dog sitting by his grave in central Argentina.

Miguel Guzman adopted Capitan in 2005 as a gift for his teenage son, Damian. And for the past six years, Capitan has continued to stand guard at Miguel's grave. The family says the dog rarely leaves the site.
"We searched for him, but he had vanished," widow Veronica Guzman told LaVoz.com. "We thought he must have got run over and died.
'The following Sunday we went to the cemetery, and Damian recognized his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing as if he were crying."

Adding to the unusual circumstances, Veronica says the family never brought Capitan to the cemetery before he was discovered there.
"It is a mystery how he managed to find the place," she said.

Cemetery director Hector Baccega says he and his staff have begun feeding and taking care of Capitan.
"He turned up here one day, all on his own, and started wandering all around the cemetery until he eventually found the tomb of his master," Baccega said.

"During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o'clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave, stays there all night."

But the Guzman family hasn't abandoned Capitan. Damian says the family has tried to bring Capitan home several times but that he always returns to the cemetery on his own.
"I think he's going to be there until he dies, too. He's looking after my dad," he said.

A six-foot shark was circling the boat and, Teitoi said, bumping against its hull.

"He was guiding me to a fishing boat," Teitoi said.

Гммм, вероятно, акула не настолько приводила чувака к рыбакам, насколько он плыл вслед за акулой, которая ощущала рыбки в сети.

I mean to say: Most likely, the shark was not so much "guiding" the dude to the fishermen, so much as the dude was following after a shark, that had sensed some small fish caught in a net.

This seems very different from, for instance, the famous 19th-century case of some Australian killer whales who evidently taught themselves, by trial-and-error, how to guide human whaling boats towards groups of baleen whales, and also to "herd" the baleen whales into the harbor so that the human harpooners could kill them more easily. Which meant that both the orcas and the humans were able to obtain more whale-flesh with less work. (Essentially, these orcas functioned as "hunting dogs," but unlike dogs, they weren't bred and trained by humans for such work -- сами собой выдрессировали себя!)

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