A doctor who had gone fishing in Montana was in the right place at the right time to save a life.  But it wasn’t just any patient she saved – it was the life of a baby moose.  According to The Huffington Post the moos was trying to cross a river with its mother, but the current was too swift.

When the calf stepped off the gravel bar into the water to follow its mother, it was swept downstream.

“It was small, and the river was swift,” Sciascia said. “We lost sight of the baby. It was hurtling downstream and was being pushed by the river. It was too small to ever fight the current.”

Sciascia and guide Seth McLean with Four Rivers Fishing Co. in Twin Bridges followed downriver, finally spotting the tiny moose’s nose just above the water.

“We got up alongside it, and I just grabbed the little bugger. I scooped it up from the river under its front legs,” Sciascia said.

The baby was delivered to the other side of the river and its cries brought the Momma moose back to its side. A happy ending.

My dogs absolutely devoured one round of cicadas when they (the cicadas) were here several years ago.  Given how fat they got chowing down on the bugs, it doesn’t surprise that these every now and then visitors to our realm are considered “the shrimp of the land.”  From NBC News.com,

“They are arthropods, which means they have an exoskeleton,” she said. “We regularly eat the arthropods of the sea and those are the shrimp, lobsters and crabs. And so cicadas are arthropods too.”

Like other edible insects, cicadas are nutritious, according to Betancourt. She says their bodies are high in protein, low in fat and feature a lot of muscle.

Betancourt suggests trying to grab the magicadas when they’re fresh from the ground and undergoing their molting stage…

Sounds delish, but I may have to pass!

A beehive that has been in the eve of a log cabin in Utah was removed after 60,000 bees had made it their home for 17 years.  When the family finally saw that the bees were making their way indoors, they decided the risk was too great for their two children to remain.  Sensitive to the decline of the species, the family wisely had the bees relocated by professionals.  From NBC News.com,

… they called Bachman, owner of Deseret Hive Supply, a hobbyist store that can’t keep up with demand for honeybees. Bachman used a vacuum cleaner to suck the bees into a cage.

“It doesn’t hurt them,” he said.

The job took six hours. At $100 an hour, the bill came to $600.

“The bees were expensive,” said Paul Bertagnolli, the cabin owner. He was satisfied with the job.

I know with proper equipment, it’s fairly safe to do but I would have a very difficult time not panicking in the midst of that many bees!

Photo from Capital Bay.

10-year old Wendell Overton witnessed a group of boys torturing a cat.  He bravely stepped in and rescued the kitty.  As a result, Jackson the cat is recovering nicely and will soon be ready for adoption.

Meanwhile, Wendell’s story is going viral.

“WOW! Words cannot express how moved we are by the overwhelming response to Wendell’s story. We wanted to give everyone an update on Jackson, the cat saved by Wendell’s compassion and bravery. He is recovering well, resting comfortably, eating like a king and will be looking for a new home soon!”

Thanks to his parents for raising such a great kid and congratulations to Wendell for the kindness he showed that is now making him a national celebrity!

In one of the cutest photos ever seen, a child wore a polar bear costume to the zoo.  And the polar bear loved it!  From The Huffington Post,

There isn’t much to say about this magical moment at the Minnesota Zoo.

Maybe this little one was so excited to see the “Russia’s Grizzly Coast” exhibit at the zoo that he or she wanted to dress up like a bear? Maybe he or she wears this everyday? Maybe the kid is actually a bear? Who knows? We just know that it’s awesome.

We know it’s not because the bear wants to eat the kid for dinner! It’s because it’s a baby bear! So cute!

I worry about how these polar bears eat when we learn 20 of them have been living on a floating iceberg.  According to BBC News, the bears may be taking sanctuary from hunters or they could have simply been stranded when the chunk of ice broke away during warmer months.

But now it is clear that not all polar bears return to land. Some spend the summer months surviving on large tabular icebergs off the coast.

Presenter Chris Packham commented: “What’s there for them is security, and I think they are taking advantage of that. So I think they are living on this iceberg to stay safe, and just wait for the sea ice to come back in.”

American biologist and polar bear expert Steven Amstrup said this was the first time he had heard of the bears living in large numbers on a tabular iceberg out at sea.

Seriously, how do they eat? Do they hop off long enough to catch fish and then climb back on? Scratching my head!

With flood waters quickly rising at a crocodile farm in Pont Drift, Limpopo, South Africa, the owners had to release 15,000 crocodiles to keep them from drowning. Now only a few have been recaptured, so the search is on for the rest!  From Time,

The opposite of a cat burglar must be a cat smuggler, right?  A pretty white cat in Brazil was a frequent guest of a prison and finally guard stopped it.  It had been smuggling items to prisoners, including cell phones, drill bits, and other no-no items.  From PopFi,

The facility holds 263 inmates, all of whom are suspects in the cat smuggling ring.  However, officials don’t believe that they’ll be able to track down who was responsible for the animal.  The cat was intercepted on New Years Eve, no doubt on his or her way to give one happy inmate a pretty great beginning to 2013.  However, the crooked kitty is not giving up its master quite yet.

Prison officials don’t expect to discover who was behind this sneaky plan.

A dolphin stampede. Who would’ve thought?  But this is exactly what happened and from our home we now get to watch it form someone lucky enough to catch one on video.  From The Atlantic,

The phenomenon, which involves sub-pods joining together into one splashy social — and which does indeed resemble the crowd dynamics of wild horses — is an amazing sight: The creatures, choreographed in a synchronized system that would put our own social networks to shame, leap and churn and leap some more in frenzied-yet-graceful unison.

Here’s the video from Youtube.

I did not know “they” made cheese from donkey milk.  Even more interesting details from Cup of Joe Powell,

The world’s top-rated male tennis player, the Serbian-born Novak Djokovic, has apparently just  bought the world’s supply of Donkey Cheese for a chain of restaurants he is opening. The year’s supply is made on one farm in Zasavica, and costs anywhere from $500 to $2900 a pound.

What do you think of that?