Meet Nzou, the Famous "Buffalant"

They say elephants never forget, but there’s one unique animal who seems to have forgotten that she’s an elephant. Nzou is an elephant who now identifies as one of the Imire Rhino and Elephant Reserve’s buffalo. Nzou — the African word for elephant — was brought to Imire in the 1970s when she was found orphaned. She was put with the largest herd animal — the buffalo — and has identified with them ever since. They understand her rumbles, and she in turn seems to understand them. The relationship that Nzou has with the buffalo is not an easy one. Buffalo have a patriarchal social structure, and over the 40+ years that Nzou has been in charge, she has killed 14 young male buffalo who challenged her leadership. After several attempts over the years to encourage her to become part of the elephant herd, conservancy managers decided that her rightful place should be back with the buffalo, and there is where she has remained ever since. Nzou has never lost her elephant’s instinct for loyalty. One of her handlers was one day charged by one of the young male buffalo and badly gored. Nzou stood over him as he waited for help to arrive, guarding him against further attacks from the buffalo. Nzou no longer communicates with the other elephants at Imire. Perhaps she has forgotten how and no longer understands what they're saying. She's happy with her unusual herd, and as long as they don’t step out of line, she's happy and content to be their matriarch. 

 

 

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Chonkers the Sea Lion Draws Crowds to San Francisco’s Pier 39

An intrepid sea lion nicknamed Chonkers is waddling his way into the hearts of tourists and locals who have flocked to San Francisco’s Pier 39 for a glimpse of the massive mammal. Chonkers likely came from up north off the coast of Washington or Oregon and is estimated to weigh between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds. He has been one of the few Steller sea lions to venture to the pier, which is protected from predators and crashing waves while providing a fish-filled buffet. “There’s plenty of food in San Francisco Bay for them, so the fish, the rockfish, the anchovies, the herring, there’s a lot of easy prey for them,” said Laura Gill, public programs manager at The Marine Mammal Center in nearby Sausalito. Sea lions have become synonymous with the popular tourist pier, but they didn’t start gathering there until after the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. One lone male was quickly joined by dozens more and by February 1990, the sea lion population had grown to more than 300.

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Montreal Warns Vigilante Pavers to Stop Patching Potholes

Montreal’s potholes have gotten so out of hand that vigilantes are taking to filling them in themselves. I recent days, two people have gained notoriety because they’ve patched dozens of potholes on their own time and with their own supplies. Both resorted to repairing craters after breaking parts of their cars on potholes. Earlier this week, downtown resident Saad Tekiout (pictured) became an Instagram hit after videos of him filling potholes around the city were widely shared. Tekiout said he was frustrated after he busted a tire while running over a pothole, and after a friend got a flat tire on the same pothole, he decided enough was enough. Little by little, family members, friends, and then strangers contacted him to ask him to patch potholes around the city. He’s now up to about three a day and has been doing it for about a month now, filling around 100 potholes so far. Tekiout gets asphalt and shovels it out from his truck for patches that he said will stay in place for about two years. Another vigilante worker is also getting in on the act. Anthony Khan has often fixed potholes as part of his day-to-day work as a landscaper. “If we pave someone’s driveway and there’s a pothole there, I’m going to fill it in,” he said. He figures he has fixed between 10 and 15 potholes since the beginning of the year. Both Khan and Tekiout say their goal isn’t to gain notoriety, but rather to do their part to make the city safer. The City of Montreal, however, says what these men are doing is illegal, pointing out that they're basically modifying a public infrastructure. With videos of both men repairing potholes posted on social media, the city has all it needs to either sue the men or heavily fine them.

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Covert Communication: The CIA Shoelace Code

Let’s say you’re about to meet a friend in public and you need to communicate an extremely important message. However, you can’t say a word, write down anything, or make any visible gestures. How would you communicate your message? This is a dilemma that was faced by government operatives during the height of the Cold War, since they never knew when they were being watched or listened to, and they couldn’t leave behind any evidence of their true intentions. These days, it may sound like something out of a spy movie, but there were many real situations when lives depended on sending a message in public without alerting passersby. The need for silent and covert communication led CIA operatives to develop creative solutions. One of these solutions involved subtle variations to an often overlooked piece of apparel: shoelaces. Because shoelaces are inserted in shoes in three standard ways, any deviation in these ways becomes useful for signaling. The illustration below shows a few potential shoelace code variations. These particular patterns include “I have information for you,” “I’ll follow your instruction,” and “I have brought another person.” As you might imagine, shoelaces were only one of many secret visual cues. There were also subtle variations in shirt button shape or color, pen or pencil placement in a pocket, or even sticking a thumbtack in a specific location on the heel of a shoe. All of these signals could be used to send messages which had been previously agreed-upon between operatives.

 

 

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