Tag: rescue

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Cottage Life

Elaborate search continues for cow lost on the Trans-Canada last spring

Photo courtesy Jennifer Teresinski

A cow stranded on the Trans-Canada Highway south of Wawa, Ontario, since last spring has become a local phenomenon and the subject of an elaborate rescue plan. The single steer is believed to be the last of a truckload of an estimated 50 cows that were destined to a slaughterhouse when the truck transporting them drove off the road on May 14, 2022. Cattle were spotted alongside the highway near Old Woman Bay for several months, and by August all but five were either rounded up or euthanized.  

Sault Ste. Marie-based rancher Jennifer Teresinski is one of several locals interested in rescuing the steer, which has been observed roaming the highway shoulder just north of Old Woman Bay, in Lake Superior Provincial Park, as recently as Christmas. Terensinski drives the highway weekly, watching for signs of the animal and working with counterparts from Wawa in leaving hay, corn, and oats in hopes of keeping the steer alive while resources are assembled for a rescue.

With baiting stations already in place, Teresinski says a crew is ready to set up a temporary corral to get about “cowboying, ranching, and doctoring” the cow, which she’s already named Tucker. There’s a “stock trailer and team ready,” Teresinski adds. “We have an arborist, snow machines, ranchers, and ropers ready. Tranquilizers are ready if needed, medical care supplies are packed and ready.”

Sneak a peek at wildlife using overpasses

Teresinski has also lined up the services of a local large-animal veterinarian to check over the steer before it’s delivered to its “forever home,” a friend’s hobby farm in the community of Echo Bay, just east of Sault Ste. Marie. “Tucker is in the bush doing his thing,” says Teresinski, the owner of Wild Hearts Ranch. “He’s using his survival instinct and his body is in the dormant stages for winter to hold heat and fat. I think he has a chance to survive out there. It’s humans who are deciding his fate, and that affects his options more than wildlife predators.”  

Teresinski believes the time has long passed for the transport company to meet its obligation under the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs to round up the entire load of cattle. “We decided after the Christmas snowstorms to keep searching,” she says. “We are networking and travelling, planning snowshoe trips. There’s no time limit, just a focus to get the cow back to a normal life at a rescue farm.”  

Watch a beaver lead a herd of cattle across a Saskatchewan field

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Categories
Cottage Life

What three words can save your life?

By bodnar.photo/Shutterstock

If you were in an emergency, what three words would you choose to get help to your location as quickly as possible? Smartphone’s GPS services are not 100 per cent reliable and, even street addresses can be too vague.

A new application, what3words, has assigned every three square metres in the world a unique and precise address, using three distinct words. The words are randomly assigned to each square and are unchanging.

Ontario emergency services are increasingly using the app to find people who are lost, like a 70-year-old Huron County man who lost his way going out one day in April and was not rescued until 6 a.m. the following day.

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) introduced the app to locals December 1, 2020, and since, provincial communication centre agents recognize and are trained to coordinate emergency rescues with the app. What3words uses minimal cellular data to generate the three-word address. If the caller does not have the app already, dispatchers can send a link that can quickly generate the address.

“It’s a real game changer for us in the north,” says Andrew Hurlbut, the boating, safety, and emergencies rep for the Georgian Bay Association (GBA).

When the app launched, Hurlbut thought, Wow. The Georgian Bay itself spans 15,000 square kilometres. When you include the kilometres of coast and its 30,000 islands, “there are all kinds of places you can disappear,” Hurlbut says.

While longitude and latitude coordinates are just as precise, the three-metre-square approach is easier for the everyday person to relay over the phone, Hurlbut finds. This is why the association is actively encouraging their members to adopt the app.

“Whether I’m at my dock, whether I’m out back, whether I’m off to the side in the woods, or on my particular island…it makes that kind of rescue that much easier,” says Shannon Farquharson, the GBA’s communication and executive services coordinator. “My in-laws, who are in their 80s, have it on their phones, and my son, who is 11, has it on his. It’s something that anybody of any age can use, and can figure out how to use in a hurry,” she says. The GBA wants the bulk of their members to be at least aware of the app, and hopefully also start downloading it and using it.

Before technology like what3words, people relied more on themselves and good samaritans, Hurlbut says. Not long ago, marine radios were used to contact the Coast Guard—an asset in and around Georgian Bay, he adds—and rescues went from there, often coordinated by the Coast Guard Auxiliary volunteers dotted around the bay. Otherwise, boaters relied on paper charts.

“Imagine,” Hurlbut says. “Big waves, rolling thunder and winds and this map is blowing around,” he says. “Technology has been a boon to boating safety.” He reminds us that outdoor safety starts with a few basics: “If you’re travelling out, it’s best not to go alone. Go with someone, and notify people of what your intentions are, where you’re going, and when you expect to get there, so people know to look for you when you don’t show up.”

For emergencies at your cottage, Hurlbut says to consider giving the three-word address for your dock if it’s the easiest access point to your property. Before you go off hiking in the woods, figure out the what3word start point and end point. This is useful for trips on foot and boats. “You can be 3,000 metres off and it can point you back in the direction you came from.”

Farquharson says the app can also help you mark, for example, a picnic spot you found and want to get back to. “Every family on the Bay,” she says, “has a story about a rescue.” On the Bay, she adds, quoting Hurlbut, “you’re your own first responder and you have to rely on yourself first.” A tool like what3words makes the responsibility a little less daunting. “If I can pull out my phone and say ‘911 can get me’, it’s a load off.”

Categories
Pets Files

Social Petworking: How social media is saving pet lives

Social networking has taken the internet by storm, and for good reason. Not only are these websites fun, they’re useful for connecting with friends and services in ways we never have before.

Have you seen my dog?
If you’ve ever experienced the terror of a missing pet, you’ll know that putting up ‘Lost Dog’ posters and checking the local pound was pretty much all you could do. But these days savvy pet owners are mobilizing the collective efforts of the Web to locate their missing companions and bring them home.

Take the story of Patch, the adventurous Jack Russell terrier who decided to satisfy his wanderlust by boarding an Irish Rail train without his owner. When the two-legged passengers brought Patch to railway staff, they published a photograph of the pooch on the company’s Twitter account, which went out to their 18,000 followers and was retweeted almost 500 times. Within 32 minutes, the dog’s owner was in touch with the station to claim the lost pup.

Social networking can also help reunite pets and owners following a natural disaster, as in the case of Oscar, a brindle boxer that went missing following a tornado in Texas in April. When Oscar’s owners saw the destroyed back fence and dog house, they feared the worst, but thanks to the collective efforts of Facebook, Oscar was back home within two days.

Need a pet-sitter?
Social networking can also take the guesswork out of finding services for your furry companion, like Spotwag, an online service to help you find a pet-sitter when you’re heading out of town. Instead of hiring a stranger, you can use your existing Facebook network to see if any of your friends are willing to volunteer for the task, without the awkwardness of having to ask outright.

Whenever you’re in need of a sitter, you post the dates of your trip and how you’re willing to compensate your friends: cash, karma or trade. Your offer then gets posted to both Spotwag and your social networks, and the replies are tracked by the service.

Send out an emergency call
The power of the Web is also being harnessed to help pets desperately seeking new homes to connect with owners who can give them the love and stability they need. Perhaps you’ve even used social networks to find a new furry addition for your own family.

A social media campaign has been credited with sparing the lives of more than 80 dogs that were scheduled to be put down because of shelter overcrowding in Fort Worth, Texas. When word got out of the pups’ grim fate, rescue groups began spreading the news on social networking sites and the huge upsurge in pet adoptions brought the shelter back down below capacity by the time the campaign was over.

Social networking also helped the Happy Valley-Goose Bay SPCA in Labrador, which was struggling to get dogs out to foster homes in Halifax. The shelter posted a plea on Facebook for a plane to carry the pets. The request was then forwarded through Twitter by one of their supporters, where it came to the attention of FedEx Canada. On July 14, the first trip of the “Labramushkadoodle Express” arrived safely in Halifax with 60 precious puppies aboard.

Credit photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net