TILTING AT WINDMILLS: GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES

Saturday, June 20, 2009

GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES

Rómulo, one of the rhinos at the Bioparc in Valencia, is receiving therapy to stop him walking round in circles. Apparently he has acquired this habit as he lived in a confined space for 22 years in the city’s old zoo.

The technical director of the Bioparc, Miguel Casares, says the 30-year-old rhino turns in circles of 18 metres in diameter. That was the room he had in his former enclosure and even though he now lives in a much large space he sticks to his old habits.

To help change the habits of nearly a lifetime the Bioparc has changed the objects around the rhino and introduce the smells of other species to get Rómulo to react and hence break away from his circular life.

Casares admits that there is only a small possibility that Rómulo can be cured but insists that otherwise the rhino is in good health.

I don’t know about you but I have been going round in circles for years with no sign of breaking the habit. Changing the sand, tree trunks and smells around me might help. I will let you know. Meanwhile if any reader knows a better cure – you know where to find me.

No comments:

Post a Comment

TILTING AT WINDMILLS

Sancho Panza is much less learned but a good deal saner than his master.

"At this point they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that are on that plain.

"Fortune," said Don Quixote to his squire, as soon as he had seen them, "is arranging matters for us better than we could have hoped. Look there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or more monstrous giants rise up, all of whom I mean to engage in battle and slay, and with whose spoils we shall begin to make our fortunes. For this is righteous warfare, and it is God's good service to sweep so evil a breed from off the face of the earth."

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," answered his master, "with the long arms, and some have them nearly two leagues long."

"Look, your worship,'' said Sancho. "What we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the vanes that turned by the wind make the millstone go."

"It is easy to see," replied Don Quixote, "that you are not used to this business of adventures. Those are giants, and if you are afraid, away with you out of here and betake yourself to prayer, while I engage them in fierce and unequal combat."”