Animals with Jobs

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Donna Davis, the 55-year-old director of Avian Environmental Consultants. It has been edited for length and clarity.

In 1985, I set up Avian Environmental Consultants with my husband. We flew hawks and falcons at Royal Air Force bases and flour mills in the UK to scare off gulls and pigeons; I never thought the 153-year-old All England Club would become our office.

I've always been a tennis fan, but there was one match in particular that I remember watching: when Pete Sampras played at Wimbledon in 1999.

Right in the middle of the action, a pigeon landed on the grass court and stopped play.

When this — frequently — happened, a ball boy or girl would try to chase the interloper away, but I knew I had the solution

His name was Hamish. He was a Harris's hawk, weighed about 1 pound, 7 ounces, had a wingspan of 120 centimeters, and flew at speeds of up to 28 mph. I gave the All England Club a call, offered Hamish's services, and within weeks he became the chief bird scarer and patrolled the grounds regularly.

Each week, Hamish would patrol the club to stop pigeons from roosting in the grounds and chase them away from the lawns, where they would land to nibble at the grass seed. His grandson — Rufus — has now followed in his footsteps and, after working at Wimbledon for 14 years, is a firm fixture of the tournament.

Not only do professional tennis players such as Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray ask to meet him, but one American fan chose to dress like Rufus, and other fans follow Rufus on Twitter.

We live on a farm in Northamptonshire, but during the tournament we stay in Wimbledon Village.

As it's a family business, my husband, my daughter, or myself will wake at 3:30 a.m. on competition day and be on the site by 4:30 a.m. with Rufus. We also take two other hawks — Castor and Pollux — to help split the work.

As soon as we arrive at the court, we make sure they have their GPS trackers on and weigh them to check they are at their ideal flying weight of 1 pound, 7 ounces.

If they are too heavy, they have eaten too much and won't be in the mood to chase pigeons.

Our first port of call is Centre Court, where I release Rufus

At this time of day, we have the place to ourselves, and it's magical. To be working and flying hawks here is unreal.

When you bring a hawk to a new venue, you need to show it where it needs to look through hand signals. However, after 14 years, Rufus knows that he needs to check under the roof to see if there are any pigeons roosting, and fly over Murray's Mount — where the avian invaders could be snacking on picnic remnants.

Usually, the patrol goes smoothly. Occasionally, one of the hawks may mistake a BBC sound boom for a rabbit and try to grab it.

Rufus is a wild bird, so he will sometimes bask in the sun on the court roof or fly over to the nearby golf club to take a bath in a water feature. He only comes back for food, which is a diet of quail, day-old chicks, or pigeon. It wouldn't be ideal if he caught a pigeon himself; he wouldn't be interested in coming back to me.

The birds will patrol the courts for 95 pounds per hour until 9 a.m., when the crowds start to arrive. Castor and Pollux may go back to their aviary at our rented home where they can relax and have a bath, and Rufus may stay to do his media rounds.

We only truly had one stressful time bringing the hawks to Wimbledon

In 2012, someone stole Rufus from our vehicle. But luckily, with all the media interest, the kidnapper apparently gave up and three days later a passerby found Rufus in his cage, unharmed, on Wimbledon Common.

We bring the hawks to the venues from an early age so they can get used to the sights and sounds of the city. However, Harris's hawks are very placid: We can train one within three weeks through food. They start to fly free once they get used to us feeding them.

We start by placing the hawk on a perch and attaching the bird to a light cord called a creance. We will show the hawk the food in our gloved hand, and the bird will simply hop to the fist to claim its reward.

The following day, you will step further back and repeat the process. By the time we are three meters away from its perch and the hawk is flying to our hands to receive food, we are comfortable to let it fly free: It now knows that we are a food source.

We also work with peregrine falcons and gyrfalcons

While the hawks will scare off the pigeons, we use the larger falcons to scare away any gulls.

For the Queen's Jubilee, we worked at St. Paul's Cathedral and used our birds to scare away the gulls that dive-bombed the camera crews and security.

Being able to use an ancient art form as a sustainable solution in the modern, urban landscape is incredible. The pigeons don't get hurt; they just know they need to roost elsewhere.

We are not afraid that Rufus will retire in the near future. The world's oldest Harris's hawk in captivity is over 30, so Rufus is just going through his teenage phase.

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While this is more of a hobby, I thought we could still welcome Tofu into our community of useful animals :D

"He looks like a drowned rat. But clinging to his very own surfboard, this is simply a pet exploring his wild side.

Tofu, as he is known, and his 14-year-old owner hit the waves twice a week at their local beach in Hawaii.

Along with his fellow rat Fin, Tofu catches waves of up to 4ft and even rides tunnels of water known as 'tubes'.

'Running on a wheel isn't enough for Fin and Tofu - they like a more extreme rush,' said owner Boomer Hodel.

'When they first started they were pretty shaky and would fall off quite a lot, but now their balance is so good they fall off less than most human surfers.'

The rats - both one-year-olds - surf for 20 minutes at a time before drying off in the sun. Each time, they are raring to get back to the water. 'Rats are natural swimmers,' Boomer said. 'And they have a very adventurous spirit.'

Hodel started their training by gently pushing the rats into tiny ripples at the water's edge before moving them on to more advanced waves.

Both the rats can swim and, after some early tumbles, can now perform tricks - often catching tubes in front of stunned onlookers.

Hodel draws big crowds of spectators at his local Laniakea Beach.

He said: 'They love surfing. Fin's favourite trick is a tube ride - where the wave breaks over him and he rides through a tunnel of water.

'Sometimes he falls off his board and I have to take him back to the beach to warm him up with a towel. But he is always raring to get back out there.

'The first time I took the rats down to the beach it was to give them a wash because they were all dirty. But they loved the water so much I had to take them back.'

The water-loving rats are even on a special diet to stay in shape.

'It has really boosted their performance,' said Hodel.

'I give them high protein, low carbohydrate foods. Rats are natural swimmers and have a very adventurous spirit.'

He made the 1ft-long surfboards himself with the help of pals Jeremy Martin and Akila Barrnett , both 14.

Hodel got the idea when he snapped his surfboard on a big wave and decided to turn each half into a smaller surfboard using sandpaper and fibreglass.

His incredible pets were caught on camera by Hawaiian photographer Clark Little.

He said: 'I saw these kids walking down the beach with two rats and some tiny surfboards so I went over to see what they were doing.

'I couldn't believe it when the rats started surfing. They was really good, surfing very fast and having a grand old time.

'I thought it was weird at first at first but they both seem to really enjoy it and the rats are good swimmers.

'Rats are survivors. Maybe that's why these ones are so good at extreme sports.'"

Source (It's a Daily Mail article, click at your own risk)

As the saying goes, every dog has his day. But in Sunol, a sleepy rural community between Fremont and Pleasanton, one particular dog has a legacy.

Running as a “Re-pup-lican” with the campaign slogan “A bone in every dish, a cat in every tree, and a fire hydrant on every corner,” Bosco’s unconventional platform suited Sunol’s eccentricities.

“Everyone knew Bosco, so he just became a write-in candidate and he won all the votes,” Rogers said. “It was pretty much a landslide.” And, Rogers added, “he was the best mayor we ever had.”

It wasn’t long before the spotlight became an international incident. In 1990, China’s People’s Daily newspaper ran an editorial attacking Bosco’s election as proof that in Western democracy “there is no distinction between people and dogs.”

In response, a group of Chinese students wanted to adopt Bosco and take him to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco — as a mascot for freedom. Stillman agreed, and Bosco and the students piled into an El Camino and drove to the consulate, holding a pro-democracy rally with dog in tow.

“I don’t know what they were saying; I can only imagine,” Stillman said. “I don’t know if he changed the world or anything, but he became a symbol for democracy.”

Whenever Bosco went missing, as he occasionally did, the search resembled a manhunt. But Stillman was never too concerned; Bosco habitually followed folks wherever they went. Then there were his “multiple trysts.”

“There used to be a joke that he was related to every dog in town,” Stillman said.

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Since the 1980s, hundreds of ducks have patrolled Vergenoegd Löw The Wine Estate outside Cape Town, South Africa. It's a centuries-old practice that helps keep the vineyard free of pests.

Today, the winery "employs" some 1,600 Indian Runner ducks -- a flightless species with a peculiarly upright stance and highly developed sense of smell. As ducks cruise around the vineyard grounds, they eat pests such as snails, fertilizing the ground as they go.

The ducks aren't always at work; they do get "annual leave" from the winery during harvest, to prevent them from eating the grapes. During that time, they forage on an open farm pasture, swim in a nearby lake, and undergo selective breeding, according to Corius Visser, Vergenoegd Löw's managing director.

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The dishwasher started to burn during the night and the parrot wake them up by couffing and screaming "Oh it's hot ! It's hot !"

Article in french, use a translator

For seven years, Wren — a 10-year-old yellow Labrador — has been working at the Zebra Child Protection Centre, a facility that supports children who have suffered physical or sexual abuse as a case moves through the court system.

In 2015, Wren made history as she sat alongside a teenager taking the stand to testify against her alleged abuser. It was the first time a judge in Edmonton had granted an application for a support dog to sit inside a courtroom.

In court, there are strict rules barring any contact between a child and a support worker who may sit beside them on the stand. The legal concern is that contact from the support person could sway the child's testimony.

"When we have support people on the stand, we can't talk to that child or touch them or comfort them in any way but the dogs can."

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In the video, the dog can be found clinging on to a window and was finally rescued by members of the Mexican Navy who arrived on a boat.

However, not all hope was lost and life took a happy turn for the dog as he now has found a new family. The Mexican Navy shared the news on Twitter to announce that the dog has been adopted by them.

In another video posted by their account, the dog is seen wearing his new uniform, looking very much a part of his family. The rescued dog will now undergo training to become a search and rescue dog.

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A team of sniffer dogs set up at a British airport at a cost of 1.25 million pounds ($1.7 million) have proved adept at discovering small amounts of cheese and sausages but not so good at finding smuggled drugs, a report said on Thursday.

An inspection of border security at Manchester Airport in northern England found that during a seven-month period, the six dogs had failed to find any illegal class A drugs, those considered the most dangerous such as heroin or cocaine.

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Roselle was the recipient of the Award for Canine Excellence (ACE) in the service dog category in 2002. She died in June of 2011, at age 14, with Michael and Karen Hingson by her side.

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Magawa died Jan. 8 at age 8, about six months after being retired from mine hunting.

For his work, he was given a gold medal by the British veterinary charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA) in 2020—the highest civilian award an animal can receive, and the first time a rat received such an honor. PDSA said that at the time, he was able to make 35 acres of land safe and livable for Cambodians. The award turned Magawa into an international hero.

Magawa was one of hundreds of “hero rats” that have been trained since the 1990s by APOPO to detect landmines. In 30 minutes, these rats can scan swathes of land as big as tennis courts for any presence of explosive chemicals. A human being with a metal detector will take four days to do the same job. While other animals can be trained to detect mines, APOPO found rats best suited for the job due to their small size—weighing less than three pounds, they are too light to set off the landmines.

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This week, the Puy du Fou theme park in western France put some new employees in the field: six trained rooks, members of the crow family, picking up small pieces of paper and cigarette butts in exchange for food.

The Puy du Fou trash collection system is similar to Klein's "vending machine," rewarding birds with food for picking up certain items off the ground. It uses two different sections of a wooden box, one to receive trash and the other to offer up food.

"The park is very clean," Puy du Fou President Nicolas de Villiers tells NPR by phone. "The purpose of the crows ... is to educate the people, to open their minds, to think, 'OK, the birds are able to do something that we are much more able to do than them, so we should do this by ourselves.' "

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Here's Wakanda with her daughter - adorable!