lundi 27 juin 2016

Do some birds and mammals have a super-human ability to find their owners?


Pets have made some long distance journeys to return to their homes:

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Moon the Siberian Husky

Moon traveled a staggering 77 miles to find her way home to his owner, Doug Dashiell. Dashiell had taken his three dogs on a trip and on the way back, at Railroad Valley, briefly let them out of his truck to stretch their legs and make pee-pee when Moon suddenly bolted.
Amazingly, Moon managed to travel the distance back to Ely. The dog crossed desert, the White River, and the Ward Mountain ranges.

Kuzya the Cat/Wondercat

Kuzya ran away from his owners, the Efremovs, when they took him with them on vacation from their native Olenyok to Yakitsk in eastern Russia. It took the Destroyer an entire three months to find his way home to his family. If that sounds like a long time, consider this: Kuzya the Destroyer traveled 1,300 miles across Siberia to finally reach his family, crossing woods, rivers, and lakes. When he finally arrived home, his only problems were a few bite marks on his tail, a bit of weight loss, and the fact that his claws were worn down to nothing...

Skittles the Cat

the Sampsons, lost Skittles while they were vacationing in the Wisconsin Dells for Labor Day, 350 miles from their home in northern Minnesota.
It took ...Skittles 140 days to return home across a distance of 350 miles.

Max the Airedale Terrier
Two-year-old Max was lost when his owner’s convertible was involved in an accident in Sterling, Connecticut
Then, one Tuesday, Clark returned home to find Max sitting in his back yard, having found his way home from 45 miles away
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Here is another long distance journey:
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Dog Travels 500 Miles Home to His Owner
ABCNEWS.com

Bucky, a 3-year-old black Labrador, somehow traveled 500 miles from Virginia all the way home to Myrtle Beach, S.C., to be reunited with his owner, Mark Wessells.

"I thought I was going to cry, but I didn't. He definitely recognized me instantly," Wessells told TV station WPDE. "It's just crazy he made it down here on his own. You know it's like homeward bound is what I'm thinking."
This past January, Wessells had to leave the dog with his father in Winchester, Va., because dogs were banned from where Wessells lives in Myrtle Beach. But Bucky wouldn't have it. Somehow, the dog managed to travel all the way home to South Carolina, by himself.

Max the Airedale Terrier




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How do they do it?

Magnetism?
Quote:

Animal navigation

In the 20th century, Karl von Frisch showed that honey bees can navigate by the sun, by the polarization pattern of the blue sky, and by the earth's magnetic field; of these, they rely on the sun when possible. William Tinsley Keeton showed that homing pigeons could similarly make use of a range of navigational cues, including the sun, earth's magnetic field, olfaction and vision.
...
Pioneering researcher William Keeton showed that time-shifted homing pigeons could not orient themselves correctly on a clear sunny day, but could do so on an overcast day, suggesting that the birds prefer to rely on the direction of the sun, but switch to using a magnetic field cue when the sun is not visible. This was confirmed by experiments with magnets: the pigeons could not orient correctly on an overcast day when the magnetic field was disrupted.


Homing Pigeon

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Magnetic Attraction

Perhaps the richest and most widely available navigational aid is the Earth’s magnetic field, a force generated by the planet’s molten core and serving as a 4,000-mile-long bar magnet. Creatures from bats and mole rats to butterflies and bacteria carry within them bits of a crystalline iron oxide, called magnetite, that helps them orient in relation to the Earth’s magnetic force lines. Recent studies demonstrate that many animals use magnetic sensing for more than just direction-finding. Like the Fraser River’s sockeye salmon, they’re identifying where they are and where they need to go as if they were carrying a GPS, though biologists are not exactly sure how the mechanism works.

One species that has demonstrated this ability spectacularly is the loggerhead sea turtle (left). On Florida’s Atlantic coast, loggerheads hatch on beaches months after their mothers have lumbered back into the surf. If they can evade pelicans, gulls and other predators, the 2-inch hatchlings crawl into the ocean and begin a multiyear, transatlantic migration—alone. Weak swimmers, they’re aided by the North Atlantic’s clockwise currents. Keeping them on course is their ability to tune into the Earth’s magnetic field.
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See also:
Animal Magnetism: How the Magnetic Field Influences Animal Navigation
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But in these stories below there is something more than simply returning back to their physical starting point, ie returning to their house in a set location:

Quote:

Miniature schnauzer determined to find owner walks right into Iowa hospital
Dog finds owner at hospital

A miniature schnauzer walked 20 blocks to the hospital where her owner was staying following a cancer surgery (KTRK)

Friday, February 13, 2015
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa --
There's no denying the bond between dogs and their owners. A miniature schnauzer from Iowa showed just how strong that bond can be.

Nancy Franck has been recovering at Mercy Medical Center in Cedar Rapids for the past two weeks following a cancer surgery. She and her husband, Dale, own two miniature schnauzers, Sissy and Barney.

Dale Franck said Sissy ran away from home last Saturday. As it turns out, she was on a mission.

Surveillance video shows Sissy managed to navigate her way to the hospital where Nancy Franck was staying. That's about 15 to 20 blocks from the Franck's home.

She walked right into the lobby and down the halls, looking her owner. The family still can't figure out how Sissy knew where to go, since she had never been there before.


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Two other dogs in the story below, more extreme circumstances!:

Quote:

Heartbroken Dog Makes Amazing Two-Mile Journey To Find Owner, John Dolan, In Hospital

Zander, a 7-year-old husky, was able to track down his owner John Dolan, who had checked into New York’s Good Samaritan Medical Center for a skin condition, according to Fox News. The dog traveled two miles, under a busy parkway, by a stream and across a four-lane road, to find Dolan. Zander cried and sulked for days when his owner, who rescued the dog five years ago and saved him from starvation, went into the hospital, Dolan’s wife, Priscilla, told Fox News. One day, while Dolan lay in his hospital bed, an employee came to him and said the dog was outside the building. “It’s not nonsense that he was at the hospital,” Dolan told ABC News. “He was moping around for the days I was already at the hospital, sitting in my seat and rolled up and depressed. My wife said he had water in his eyes and looked like he was really sad.” “Some of [the dogs] seem to have a special human-animal bond that leads them that way, whether it’s a sixth sense,” veterinarian Dr. John Charos told CBS News.

The strength of an animal’s love for his or her owner may seem incomprehensible sometimes, but Zander is not the only dog whose story shocked a community.

A loyal German Shepherd named Capitán ran away from home after his owner and best friend, Manuel Guzman, died in 2006, according to a September report. A week later, Guzman’s surviving family found the dog at Guzman’s gravesite. “We had never taken him to the cemetery so it is a mystery how he managed to find the place,” Veronica Guzman, Manuel’s widow, told the Sun. The dog maintains his position in the graveyard, sometimes leaving to visit the family but always going back before nightfall. “I don’t think he wanted to leave Manuel on his own at night,” Veronica added.
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Here is more on the second story:
Quote:

Dog sits by owner’s grave for six years
By MATT ROPER
13th September 2012, 3:11 pm

A FAITHFUL dog has refused to move from his master’s grave for SIX YEARS, a family claims. German Shepherd pet Capitan ran away after his owner Miguel Guzman died in 2006. A week later Mr Guzman’s family went to pay their respects at his tomb and found the heartbroken hound sitting there, howling. Since then the grieving dog has rarely left the spot at the cemetery.
Mr Guzman bought Capitan as a present for his 13-year-old son Damian in 2005 but died suddenly in March the next year. When his family returned from the funeral Capitan was gone.



“The following Sunday we went to the cemetery and Damian recognised his pet. Capitan came up to us, barking and wailing, as if he were crying. “We had never taken him to the cemetery so it is a mystery how he managed to
find the place.

“During the day he sometimes has a walk around the cemetery, but always rushes back to the grave. And every day, at six o’clock sharp, he lies down on top of the grave and stays there all night.”
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Misele the Farm Cat Goes to the Hospital


When 82-year-old Alfonse Mondry was taken to a hospital in France, his cat *Misele missed him greatly. So she took off and walked across cattle fields, rock quarries, forests, and busy highways. She entered the hospital -- where she had never been before -- and found her owner's room. The nurses called the doctor right away when they found Mondry resting comfortably with his cat purring on his* lap.
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