The existence of human definitely have given so much impact to the nature. One thing most noticeable in how we have changed the nature to fit our lifestyle is by building infrastructures like dams, buildings that later will become cities, and highways.
You might often hear about roadkill events, when sudden appearance of animals crossing the road lead into a crash. Sometimes, direct impact cannot be avoided and the creatures, that got hit by the vehicles, become the only victim on the scene.
Those animals live by their instincts, so we can blame them for committing suicide by hitting themselves to the passing cars. We are the ones responsible for changing the environment so much that sometimes we separate the animals from the resources they need on the other side of the highway we build.
Since we are the ones to blame for such incidents, we also are the ones to be more concerned about it. The question is, how? There are so many answers to be listed in response to that question, yet in this article we will only focus on the ‘pay attention’ and ‘volunteer yourself’ part of it.
Although most roadkill events happen all in a sudden, because the animals just leap into the highways, there are also times when those animals appear to take their time crossing the streets. We should pay more attention to such events, and if we can do something to help them doing it safely we should help.
Here we will give you a list of heartwarming events when human voluntarily help animals crossing the streets safely. We hope it will inspire you to be a better person too.
The Crossing Ducklings
“I was helping a customer and just happened to glance over and see this little black object walking. Or, waddling, I guess, as fast as a baby duckling can move, near the road,” said Grahm Gallupe, an assistant manager at Mr. Tire in West Asheville, North Carolina, United States.
“So obviously I dropped everything and just went out and stopped cars on Patton (Avenue),” he said. Understanding the facts, Gallupe and his co-worker Michael Rhodarmer decided to wear their invisible capes and became the superhero for the ducks. They started stopping cars and people actually “slowed down pretty easily,” said Gallupe.
The workers did well in saving the ducks from possible dangers in the end. But that’s not the only moment people see ducks crossing the road. Yes, ducks are among the most common animals known to cross the road. This is not a ‘chicken crossing the road’ joke, but it is a fact.
Imagine such little animals coming down to the most dangerous environment possible for them, helplessly, and risk their lives doing so. Let alone the fact that their size is not noticeable enough for most of the drivers. Thus, next time we are going down the road, we should also consider about this possibility to exist.
Slow Walking Turtles
Ducks are not the only animal people often find crossing down the road, turtles are also often found crossing down the streets. But unlike ducks which got more ‘speed’ to run away from incoming cars, turtles can just rely on their hard shells in defense.
However, apparently their shells are not strong enough to be burdened with hundreds of kilograms weight of the cars. The only possible result is the shell gets crushed by the cars, which will then also crush the turtles’ hopes to continue their lives.
The only thing we can do to avoid it is by stopping. Yes, stop your car and help them speed up the process of crossing the street. You can grasp them by their sides and take them to the direction they are heading to.
You can do it just like how this cop help the snapping turtle crossing a busy highway. If it is too heavy for you to do alone, don’t hesitate to ask for help. Definitely the people behind you will choose to give you some help rather than waiting the turtle doing it by its own.
The Flying Sloth
Turtles are slow, but sloths are slower in some way. The problem is, in many encounters people find this slow animal try to cross the street alone. Rather than waiting for the animal to do the job alone, it is wiser for us to help them.
This video filmed in Costa Rica will show you the funny side of such encounter. The sloth, trying to crawl from one side of the street to another, got a help from a man. Maybe, knowing that he got some attention from the man, the sloth took its time to play a little.
It spread its leg and arms out wide, mimicking a stance of flying. “Love how it stretches out it’s arms when he lifts it up,” written in the caption of the video. Well, maybe even sloth knows the R. Kelly’s song.
Classy Cat
When cats cross the street, most of the times we know that they will be running as fast as they can. Yet, not all cats do it so. A video from Indonesia showed how a cat cross the street slowly and elegantly. Yet, it doesn’t mean that both the crossing cat and travelers on the road are safe.
Cats are as unpredictable as they are, and a single false prediction might lead to an incidents that will harm both the cat and the travelers. That was why a police officer decided to just escort the cat crossing the street in such elegant style.
For your information, this video of police officer escorting the elegant cat crossing the street became viral.
Mama Bear?
We have talked about the small ones, but what if the ones crossing the street are the huge ones? In New Hampshire, United States, people ran into a female black bear leading her pups crossing the street in a cloudy day in May 2017.
Mama bear might be able to do it easily if only she was alone, but those ‘naughty’ pups seemed to think the dangerous activity as playing. So the mother had to escort those pups thoroughly to avoid getting hit by the cars. In addition, one pup seemed to be slower than the others.
“She wants all 4 cubs to remain with her. The problem is that 1 of the 4 is also very weak,” said Jane Langmaid, one of the travelers who witnessed the event. In order to prevent the bear and the travelers get into a dangerous situation, local police officer decided to do his job controlling the traffic and escorting the bear family crossing the road.
Although it might be dangerous for the policeman to do so, since bears are aggressive creatures, but apparently the mama bear could sense the good intention from him. The bears showed no signs of aggressiveness to the police officer and instead mind their own business adorably.
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