Two years at sea have fostered a close relationship between the two fellow sailors as they cross the globe, through warm weather and cold.

One is a 24-year-old male. The other is a hen.

Guirec Soudee – the 24-year-old – is the one who does most of the hard work on board the boat.

Monique is the hen, who spends most of her time admiring the view from the deck, and laying the occasional egg.

The two have started building up a close following online in recent months as French media have picked up on their unusual adventure.

Guirec, who is from Brittany in France, began his trip around the world with Monique in May 2014.

After starting from the Canary Islands, Spanish territory near Africa’s west coast, the pair sailed to St Bart’s in the Caribbean before moving into the Arctic last August.

“I knew she was the one straight away,” Guirec tells the BBC from western Greenland, where he is now moored.

“She was only about four or five months old then, and had never left the Canary Islands. I didn’t speak any Spanish and she didn’t speak any French, but we got along.”

Guirec had planned to bring along a pet for company, but a hen wasn’t originally on the cards.

“I thought about a cat, but decided it would be too much effort to look after it,” he says.

“The hen was an ideal choice. It doesn’t need that much looking after and I’m able to get eggs at sea. People told me it wouldn’t work, that the hen would be too stressed and wouldn’t lay eggs.

“But there was no problem, she laid eggs straight away. She adapted to it perfectly – she was very comfortable very quickly.”

Over an average week, Monique lays six eggs, even in the cold climate of Greenland and even during three months there without sun.

Guirec says locals in Greenland have reacted with some curiosity to her presence – understandable, perhaps, given there is no poultry farming there.

Life is pretty comfortable for Monique on board the 11.8-metre (39ft) boat, named Yvinec after the island on which Guirec grew up.

While she is free to roam the deck most of the time while at sea, Guirec makes sure to put her back into her hutch when the weather worsens.

“At the beginning, I was very worried – there would be huge waves and she might stumble, it would look for a second like she might go overboard, but she would always regain her footing. She’s very brave.

“But when there are bad winds now, I’m much more careful and she goes inside.”

One thing Guirec may also have to be careful about is quarantine regulations. While his and Monique’s friendship survived its only encounter so far with customs officials, in Canada, he acknowledges it may not be so easy next time.

Not that Guirec is apprehensive about the prospect of their relationship being broken up. “I’m not too worried about that,” he says. “I’m a positive person.”

There are positives to be taken, too, from having a hen instead of another person on board. “Compared with people, she doesn’t complain at all.”

“She follows me everywhere, and doesn’t create any problems. All I need to do is shout ‘Monique!’ and she will come to me, sit on me, give me company. She is amazing.

“But I won’t lie, she can get on my nerves sometimes.”

Monique’s diet is grain, corn and the occasional fish. “She’ll eat absolutely anything,” Guirec says

So what do Guirec’s family and friends make of his choice of seafaring companion?

“They found it very funny,” he says. “They’ve always known I’m not totally normal, anyway.”

The next part of the trip will take the pair through the Arctic and down the Bering Strait towards Nome in Alaska.

And from there?

“We’re not sure yet,” Guirec says. “We haven’t talked about it yet, but we will.

“We talk a lot, Monique and I.”

You can follow Guirec and Monique on Instagram and on Facebook.

source: bbc

Here are a few expressions from the text for you. Can you make pairs of the adjectives and the nouns?

Key:

1. e.

2. a.

3. g.

4. j.

5. b.

6. d.

7. c.

8. i.

9. f.

10. h.

These adorable images are a young boy’s way of keeping a long-distance bond with his serviceman father. Julian Becker, 7, poses for cute pictures with his huge Newfoundland doggy friends, Max, 8, and two-year-old Bruce, who has a brown coat. Julian’s mother Stasha says that with her husband away regularly in his role as a naval officer, the pictures began as a way of keeping in touch.

The family live in Whidbey Island, Washington, America, although both Julian and Max were born in England. Stasha, Julian and the dogs are currently travelling in America for the summer before joining Julian’s dad in Japan.

Stasha explains: “Jason is still in the Navy, in fact he is currently on a ship and stationed abroad. We still call Washington home but we are travelling cross-country to spend the summer upstate NY before joining Jason in Japan. Of course the dogs are with us all the way. I really wanted this time to be special for us seeing how there are a lot of changes ahead and daddy is gone again and I want Julian to have all my attention. My son Julian and Max were both born in England, where we were stationed before moving back to the States. My boy still drinks tea every morning but has mostly lost the accent. Max still barks with a Yorkshire twang. They have been together all day, every day since Julian was born. I started taking photos of them in front of the garage every day before we got into the minivan when I joined Instagram. It was mostly to send them to family and my husband when he travels.”

The three-year-old mix breed has become an online celebrity after his owner, Aina Stormo of Hedmark, recently posted a video of the long-haired feline acting like a sled dog and pulling her on her cross-country skis.

Social media marveled at the “amazing” and unusual pet, which seems to make your average kitty a couch potato.

California-based animal behaviorist Jill Goldman, on the other hand, was unfazed.

“If he has the physical attributes to be comfortable, such as a long coat, and has adjusted over time to be comfortable with the activity, it’s not surprising the owner can ski with her cat,” Goldman says.

In other words, despite what Internet memes like Grumpy Cat might suggest, domestic cats are very adaptable creatures—if they’re taught young, as Jesper was.

Stormo, who adopted Jesper as a kitten, quickly discovered it was easy to bring the youngster along on her family’s outdoor activities, such as cross-country skiing and horseback riding.

“We wanted to make it possible for us to live the same life we had before we got Jesper, and it’s more fun to bring Jesper with us!” Stormo told National Geographic in an email.

Acclimating the kitten to traveling and being outside was only the beginning—Stormo also applied the same training techniques she had previously used with dogs to Jesper.

For instance, when Jesper behaves the way Stormo wants, she uses positive reinforcement, such as a soothing voice or a snack. “I never punish him when he has bad behavior, instead, I just try to ignore it,” she says.

Making an Adventure Cat

So you want to turn your kitten into an adventure cat? Goldman thinks that’s fabulous.

“It’s enrichment, it’s exercise—so long as it’s done with the proper care,” for instance by not putting the cat in extreme weather and safely securing it, for instance with a harness and leash.

“The first step is to start exposing the cat to the outside in a safe manner. Bring it in a knapsack, so that the cat starts to become familiar with smells and sights” of the outdoors.

Goldman agrees with Stormo’s method of positive reinforcement using treats and avoiding punishment, because it “undermines the relationship.”

“They need to trust us, and if we cause them harm, they don’t trust us,” Goldman says.

Know When to Stop

Stormo says that she works with Jesper only for short amounts of time, and stops before he gets tired.

It’s not always easy, she adds: “If they don’t want to do it, then it doesn’t matter how much you try.”

In the same vein, Goldman says, if your kitten starts running from the knapsack, stop the training—he’s just not interested.

Even Jesper, who clearly enjoys his outdoor lifestyle, has his limits.

In the viral video, “you can tell when Jesper had had enough, he plunked itself down, and she had to carry him,” Goldman says.

“There’s no ambiguity,” she says, “with a cat.”

source: National Geographic

There are quite a lot of words beginning with the letter ‘a’ in the article. Can you match the words and the definitions?

Key: 

1. d

2. g.

3. a.

4. h.

5. b.

6. e.

7. c.

8. f

Heartbreaking photos show a sick baby orangutan found dumped in a cardboard box by a British animal charity in Borneo. Gito was left out in the broiling midday sun to die after his cruel owner tired of keeping him as a pet.

The group that saved him, International Animal Rescue, said he was so lifeless when they reached him that, at first, they thought he was dead. “He was lying corpse-like with his arms folded across his chest and this, along with a lack of hair and gray flaking skin, made him look almost mummified in his cardboard coffin,” said Alan Knight, CEO of the charity which runs an orangutan sanctuary in Borneo.

Gito was being kept as a pet by the head of the village of Hamlet Giet, Merawa Village, in Simpang Hulu District, about 100 miles from IAR’s orangutan rehabilitation centre in Ketapang. He had been bought for less than £20 from a man who had almost certainly killed his mother in order to steal and sell her baby. He was kept in a cardboard box sodden with urine and fed entirely on condensed milk. When IAR found him he was severely dehydrated and malnourished.

Gito was in such urgent need of medical attention that the local Forestry allowed the rescue team to rush him to the International Animal Rescue clinic without waiting for a BKSDA official to accompany them. They set off at sunrise by motorbike and arrived back at the IAR centre to find the medical team waiting for the arrival of the sick baby after a torturous nine-hour journey.

Gito, who is only between three and four months old, was put on a drip to rehydrate him and given a thorough medical check up. He was dehydrated, feverish, had stiff hands and feet and was suffering from diarrhoea. Tests also revealed that he was suffering from a highly contagious skin disease that causes intense itching and irritation. Treatment was begun immediately to relieve the condition and the medical team have been massaging coconut oil into Gito’s skin to soothe and soften it.

Alan Knight added: “It’s hard to stomach the shocking state Gito was in when we rescued him. Our team has seen a significant increase in the number of baby orangutans being kept as pets and some of them have only recently been taken from the wild. Gito is in safe hands now and receiving expert treatment and care at our centre in Ketapang. But tragically there are many more like him in desperate need of our help. Forest fires in Ketapang Regency have resulted in an increase in the number of baby orangutans being captured. These helpless animals can and will be rescued – but we urgently need more funding for our work. The public responded magnificently earlier this year when we rescued Budi the baby orangutan and I’m praying for the same generous response once again when people see the sorry state of little Gito and read his story.”

source: Rex Features