Month: September 2013

Camera snaps attack as golden eagle kills a deer

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Pictures from a remote camera in an isolated nature reserve in Russia have revealed an attack by a golden eagle on a young deer. In a sequence from the wild quite probably never before recorded, the bird is seen sinking its talons into the struggling sika deer. The camera is intended to monitor Siberian tigers. The three photos were released by the London Zoological Society. The society’s Linda Kerley said she first realized something was up when she approached the wildlife-monitoring device — also called a camera trap — and found a mangled deer carcass nearby. “Something felt wrong about it,” she said in a statement accompanying the photographs. “There were no large carnivore tracks in the snow, and it looked like the deer had been running and then just stopped and died. “It was only after we got back to camp that I checked the images from the camera and pieced everything together,” she said. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.” Golden eagles are large birds. Their wingspan tops more than 6 ½ feet and, while they typically eat small birds, mammals, or snakes, they’ve been known to target larger animals as well. The eagles are trained by Russian hunters who sometimes send them after prey in flocks The zoological society said the photos were shot in the Lazovsky State Nature Reserve in the Primorye region of Russia’s Far East on Dec. 8, 2011. The pictures were released only after the publication of a scholarly article by Kerley and co-author Jonathan Slaght of the Wildlife Conservation Society in the Ohio-based Journal of Raptor Research earlier this month.

Smoking zero-tolerance is an uncharted land

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The Toronto Board of Health is hoping to get smoking banned in patios, parks and a range of other public places. The matter will soon go to City Council. Make no mistake: smoking is a dangerous, dirty source of grief, including the cause of the occasional house fire. But as in other things of which we properly disapprove, there is with tobacco possible folly — the risk of turning weak-willed nicotine addicts into law breakers. If smoking remains legal but the act of lighting up becomes effectively illegal there is no knowing where the law of unintended consequences will take us.  It seems possible that smokers will be even more secretive and perhaps inspire forms of group behavior that border on the criminal. Again, reasonable rules against things we correctly dislike are welcome so long as a distorted zero-tolerance mentality does not take over. In recent decades Ontario has experienced righteous zero-tolerance against many social ills. In the case of making sure that children were not abused the system managed to convict and imprison people who were totally innocent. Yes, only a few actually over-reacted but there was great popular pressure to get convictions. Of course, the smoking context is different but we will do well to remember that it is called the rule of unexpected consequences for a reason. It might as easily be called the rule of unforeseeable consequences.   

Pan Am executives are singed by Toronto Sun

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That fire-breathing Sue Ann Levy at the Toronto Sun has set fire to the pleasant and respectable image of the Pan Am Games scheduled for 2015 with revelations of careless spending. She names CEO Ian Troup, salary $477,000 a year (inset) as having thrown an $8561 reception in Mexico for 150 people in the fall of 2011. Some of the other expense account items seem petty given the salaries being paid. Somebody collected for a 91-cent parking ticket. It may or may not be as bad as it seems but the Sun News campaign against the Pan Am Games cuts sharper when it asks — nightly it seems — how many people go near these events. And can the City economy possibly generate the business that might offset the billions of public funds spent on them. Today the Premier and Mayor Ford were separately saying they expected better cost control from the organizers. We will see. Sue Ann Levy 

New signage ordered for Bonnie Byford RE

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Yes, it’s time for a new sign. That’s seems to be the sense of Richard Byford’s assessment of the old one at the store at 1536 Bayview Ave. So a new one is coming. It will be among the last of the renovations required after the fire that destroyed Leaside Cleaners at 1540 Bayview in the fall of 2011. Bonnie Byford Real Estate had to do extensive renovating to eradicate smoke damage. Since the fire there have been changes adjoining the former cleaning premises. Sport Clips, the specialty hair cutting business has gone into the former money exchange at 1538 and Smokin’ Cigar has taken over at 1540.  Old reliable,  The Flower Nook is still at 1542 but it had to move out for a while to repair smoke and collateral fire damage. As you may recall, that fire was caused by a lightning strike to a transformer mounted on a utility pole right outside the cleaning store.  

Raps hire rapper Drake to help re-brand, re-wrap

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Must keep positive about basketball in Toronto. Let’s see, a rapper (Drake) will become the emissary for a team named after a type of dinosaur. To paraphrase an old joke, maybe raptors can’t jump. They are looking to re-brand the team too. We’re hoping that brontosaurus won’t find its way onto the new jerseys. CTV 

Charlie the Sheltie found caught in cemetery fence

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Some good news comes with word that Charlie the ginger-coloured Sheltie has been found safe but rather hungry in Mount Pleasant Cemetery. That’s some distance from his Sutherland Drive home  — maybe as much as four or five miles. Charlie was caught in wire fence that was associated with a retaining wall near a creek that runs through the southwest corner of the cemetery. There is no way of knowing exactly how long he was caught.  We hope to have more on this story.  

Girl, 15, robbed of cell, wallet at Bayview-Eglinton

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Toronto Police Service report: A 15 year old female reports that on September 28, 2013 at approximately 2300 hours, she was in the area of Bayview Avenue and Eglinton Avenue East, when she was approached by three male suspects. The suspects made a demand for the victim’s property and removed her cellular phone and wallet. The suspects then fled the scene in an unknown direction. The victim did not sustain any injuries. Police are requesting the assistance of the public in identifying the following described persons in connection with this offence. Description of Suspect #1: Male, black, 16-17 years, 6’1”-6’3”, medium build. Suspect #2: Male, black, 16-17 years, 5’10”-6’1”, thin build. Suspect #3: Male, black 16-17 years, 5’11”-6’0”, medium build.

Teen victim of terror attack now in Sunnybrook

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Dheeman Abdi

Two Canadian teens injured in the barbaric attack on a Nairobi shopping mall have returned to Toronto with their father. The elder, Fardosa Abdi, 17, has undergone surgery at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre for a seriously injured leg. She and her sister, Dheeman, 16, were hit by both gunfire and grenade shrapnel during the attack. Dheeman was interviewed earlier  in Nairobi where she spoke to the CBC in chilling detail about what happened.  Her right hand has been injured by grenade shrapnel. One finger is broken and another “had a lot of meat torn off”” she said by the same grenade that grievously injured her sister. Dheeman also calmly noted that she had been shot through the thigh. Of the attackers she said dispassionately, “They aren’t normal.”  Saturday officials were talking about seeking assistance from a special funding arrangement of the foreign affairs department for Canadians in distress. The Toronto Star names Mohamed Dubet, a friend of the family, who said he saw Fardosa Sunday night after she got out of surgery. He said her leg was “shattered.” Kenya has arrested 12 people since the attack but three have been freed, Interior Minister Joseph Ole Lenku said during a press conference. He declined to say if any of those arrested had been in the mall during the attack. Investigators have also identified a car used by the gunmen, from the Somalia-based Islamist group al-Shabaab, and found in it “an assortment of illegal weapons,” said Lenku. Pictures (top) Dheeman and Fardosa together and (bottom) Dheeman as she was interviewed by the CBC in Kenya. 

Farm market added at Manor Rd. United Fall Fair

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Sarah wood has kindly reminded us that the Manor Road United Church will have its 30th Annual Community Fall Fair on Saturday, October 26, 2013. They’re promising a browser’s/shopper’s delight with all kinds of items for sale: Jewellery, China, Silver, Crystal, Artwork, Cheese Table, Linens, Book/CD/DVD Table, Plants, Crafts, Children’s and Adult Clothing, Holiday items, Bake Shoppe, Frozen Pies, Fair Trade Coffee, Household items, and a Silent Auction. New this year will be a Farmer’s Market. There will be activities for children and a Homemade Lunch in the Church Cafe. Admission is free. The event runs from 10 am until 2 pm.

Ms. Rosetta Stone of the South Bayview Starbucks

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Have you met Miss Jones?. How about Miss Stone? Rosetta Stone that is. We overhear she is the talk of a South Bayview Starbucks for her excellent translation program. You know. It’s called Rosetta Stone, after the lady herself. Well, this cannot be the first time that urban mysticism has conjured up a flesh and blood person out of the ancient piece of Egyptian granite resting in the British Museum. The lady at the left is an amusing example. Rosetta is, of course, not a person but a thick tablet of script in three ancient languages — Greek, Demotic Egyptian and Egyptian hieroglyphs. In 1798, when a soldier stumbled on it, academics had been struggling to decipher hieroglyphs. It was only a matter of time until archaeologists realized the stone carried the same passage in its three separate languages. One of the languages. Greek, was well understood by academics. Thus it was that we came to truly understand just what the ancient Egyptians were chipping out on their many tombs and temples. The Rosetta Stone came into British possession when they defeated the French in northern Africa in 1802 and the Rosetta Stone has been in the British Museum for more than 200 years. The Egyptians want it back. It’s name comes from the Egyptian town of Rashid, called by Napoleon’s troops Rosette and later Rosetta. Sorry all you Miss Stones.   

Sweet semi on Soudan Avenue sells in one day

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A sweet little semi has sold in one day on Soudan Avenue for $629,000. The home is at 264 Soudan on the north side just a few doors east of Mount Pleasant. It has, as reported in the National Post, an English garden, decks and patio.  The agent said the home had been “impeccably cared for.” A double closet in the foyer, a bay window and a walkout to a deck from the open-concept living and dining room and a centre island in the kitchen were some of the features. The master suite, which has a double closet, shares the second floor with a family room and a four-piece bathroom. The upstairs family room can be easily converted back to a second bedroom.

Wingsuit daredevil in second Chinese thriller

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American wingsuit daredevil Jeb Corliss has done it again. This time it was an incredible flight through a mountain fissure only 10 feet wide (left). Make sure you catch the sequence starting about two minutes into the video. The stunt is even more amazing than his flight through “the eye of the needle”” in a nearby part of China in 2011 (right).  Corliss executed the aptly named “flying dagger” jump Saturday at speeds of at least 100 mph. The narrow opening is located in Langshan Mountain, in Zhejiang Province. Corliss’ other jumps include the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Space Needle in Seattle, the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, and the Petronas Twin Towers in Malaysia.In 1999, he hit a waterfall in South Africa when his chute collapsed, leaving him with a broken back. Ten years later, he broke his leg after hitting a building in Kuala Lampur, Malaysia.And in 2012, he broke both ankles when he crashed into a bridge during a wingsuit jump in South Africa.