Wild animals that have helped people I was looking at Facebook the other day and I realized there are some genuinely unexpected videos of animals, both wild and domestic who have gone out of their way to help people. Some of the videos I have seen were of wild animals who seemed to want to warn humans of danger. Let me give you an example you may have seen. A moose stood in front of a school bus, at least that is what I thought it was, and refused to move making all sorts of noises. The driver got out and noticed a large deep hole on the road ahead. He gave the moose a hug and petted his head. What would not only give a wild moose the understanding of this danger but the where with all to want to prevent the bus from getting into an accident? Some might call it Divine Intervention. A 12 year old girl living in Ethiopia was the victim of violent kidnappers. As they tried to abduct her some wild animals came on to the area and protected her. What are the animals you would least expect to be helpful? If you said lions, you would be correct. After the lions drove off the kidnappers they remained with the girl until the authorities came. The girl said the lions had seen her being beaten. Experts who were trying to figure this one out, said maybe the girl’s cries sounded like that of a lion cub. Who knows what was going through their mind at the time. A young boy who was only 3 years old, somehow got lost in the woods. What a relief it must have been when his parents found him. The boy when asked how he survived, said a kindly bear protected him. The boy had been lost for two days. He was totally unharmed. Who would have thought a bear would protect a human and not attack. Perhaps this was because the bear didn’t perceive the small child as a threat. There is a fisherman living in Costa Rica who nursed a crocodile, which was dying, back to health years ago. Somehow the two became close which seems impossible, yet it happened and the crocodile allowed the fisherman to be in the water with him and now they perform in a show and the fisherman’s good deed allowed him to make a nice living, so in a strange way, this crock has helped his human friend. I think many of us remember the tsunami that killed over 200,000 people in Indonesia. One lucky girl owes her life to the elephant she was riding. The elephant managed to get her to safety. The tsunami was caused by a 9.1 earthquake which happened under the sea. In the report the location of the rescue was cited as Indonesia by one reporter and Thailand in another. I can’t verify this, but it was reported not one elephant died in the tsunami. A small child was at a zoo with his parents. This particular zoo had an open pit like area for the gorillas. Somehow the small child fell into the gorilla pit. This has to be a parent’s worst nightmare. A huge gorilla went over and guarded the boy who was unconscious. The gorilla was huge and probably the biggest there and was known as a gentle giant. A report came out about 25 years ago about a 10 year old boy who had been living in a cave in Argentina with a pack of wild dogs. The dogs protected him from harm. Some say he thought of them as his family. His parents had abandoned him and he was originally put in a home which he escaped from. Ivan Mishukov was born in Russia and it is said he escaped from the home when he was only 4 years old and was adopted by a pack of dogs. He would help the dogs find food and they in turn protected him from danger. It is said after a while he became the leader of the pack. When he was six the Moscow police figured out how to get him away from the dogs. They left food in an area where the dogs would leave him unguarded for a second and grabbed him. A zoo keeper became very friendly with the lions and tigers at the zoo, so much so that they would let him rub their bellies and pet them. One day when he was in the big cat enclosure a leopard tried to attack him. As the leopard attacked, he was cut down immediately by a tiger who was quick to save his friend. Another tiger story had to do with a tiger cub which was thought to be a kitten. A boy living with his grandfather brought it home and took care of it. The grandfather realized it was a tiger and was trying to figure out how to take it back to the forest as it got bigger. He didn’t want to hurt the boy’s feelings since he had no friends. Finally, he was able to show the boy the fangs it was growing along with the long thick nails. He then brought it into the woods and released it. Three years passed and one day the boy went into the woods and was about to be attacked by a wild boar. Out of nowhere a large tiger grabbed and killed it. It turned out the boy was saved by the tiger he had partially raised. He ran over hugging the tiger to the grandfather’s fears, but all was fine and the tiger went back into the woods. A man was traveling in the jungle taking photos. He had gone to an Orangutan sanctuary. He saw a man going into the water after a poisonous snake which are dangerous to Orangutans. The man got his legs caught in the mud. An Orangutan saw the man struggling. The Orangutan put out her hand to help the man get out. The man didn’t accept the help and explained later the Orangutans are very strong and he might have gotten hurt unintentionally. He also said they were told not to ever engage with the wild animals. I think that was because they were only there to be nursed back to health and had to be able to survive on their own after they were rereleased. One might expect a dog to do some incredible things to save a person, especially one who it knows. They have been known to risk life and limb to save people, but wild animals saving humans is a completely different story. It shows we might be underestimating the ability of some of them to understand and help people and other animals in danger.
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