Lost and Found Pets is a group with 20, 000 Facebook followers. It aims to reunite pet owners in Bristol and South Gloucestershire with their lost animals. The group is one of the largest of its kind in the country. Since it was set up four years ago it has reunited hundreds of pets with their owners. Most of these have unsurprisingly been cats and dogs but the group has found several more exotic species too, including a snake!
Raining Koi
One of the more unusual finds was a koi carp which was reported to the group by a local woman. She had been out walking when the fish fell out of the sky and landed on the pavement in front of her! She immediately rushed to get a bucket of water and the fish survived its ordeal. This might seem like a rather unlikely story as fish don't generally fly but it is believed that the koi had fallen from the mouth of a heron thathad poached it from someone's pond. The story does go to show that if you have lost a fish, that there's a chance, however slim, that it just might turn up somewhere!
California Koi
Meanwhile a Californian koi keeper has also had a big surprise recently, although none of his fish have been seen airborne. Bob Bramley, a resident of Oakhurst in the mountains of Fresno County, had become concerned about his koi pond. When he visited his pond in the morning he discovered that some things seemed to be out of place. He feared that he had been the victim of an intruder and so he decided to review the footage from his security camera. That footage did indeed reveal the presence of an intruder but not one of the human variety. What Mr. Bramley saw on the film was a bear using his pond as a bath. Despite the freezing cold water in the pond, the bear spent some time relaxing in the water and did not attempt to take any of the fish. The fish were quite small and would not have made much of a meal. Mr. Bramley has said that he appreciates the wildlife of the region and will not be putting any measures in place to deter the bear from making a return visit. However, he is going to be very careful if he has to spend time in his garden at night.