Cat’s out of the bag when TSA finds stowaway feline at JFK
DON’T accuse the TSA of catnapping on the job. When an alert agent at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport noticed tufts of orange fur poking out of a slightly unzipped suitcase, it gave him pause.
As the bag went through the X-ray unit Nov. 16, the Transportation Security Administration agent was in for a surprise: Inside were four paws and a tail belonging to a feline stowaway.
“On the bright side, the cat’s out of the bag,” a TSA spokesperson tweeted Tuesday.
The passenger was paged to return to the ticket counter after the cat was found, the spokesperson, Lisa Farbstein, said in an email.
“The traveler said that the cat belonged to someone else in the household, implying that he was not aware that the cat was in the suitcase,” Farbstein said.
“We call that a good catch!” she said.
The stowaway cat, identified by the New York Post as “Smells,” was returned to its owner.
The cat’s owner told the Post that Smells must have crawled into the suitcase of a visiting friend. She didn’t know her tabby was missing until airport officials reached her.
Alaska firefighters help rescue
a moose trapped in a home FIREFIGHTERS in Alaska got an unusual request for assistance last weekend from the Alaska Wildlife Troopers, but it wasn’t your mundane cat-stuck-in-a-tree situation.
“They were looking for some help getting a moose out of a basement,” said Capt. Josh Thompson with Central Emergency Services on the Kenai Peninsula.
The moose, estimated to be a 1-year-old bull, had a misstep while eating breakfast Sunday morning by a home in Soldotna, about 150 miles (240 kilometres) southwest of Anchorage.
“It looks like the moose had been trying to eat some vegetation by the window well of a basement window and fell into it, and then fell into the basement through the glass,” Thompson said.
That’s where it was stuck, one floor below ground. A biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game was able to tranquilise the moose, but the animal wasn’t completely unconscious.
“He was still looking around and sitting there, he just wasn’t running around,” Thompson said.
Once sedated, the next problem was getting the moose — which weighed at least 500 pounds (225 kilograms) — out of the house.
Improvising a bit, responders grabbed a big transport tarp that’s typically used as a stretcher for larger human patients. Once the moose was in position, it took six men to carry him through the house and back outside.
Thompson said the moose just hung out for a while after they got outside until a reversal agent for the tranquiliser kicked in. The biologist also treated minor lacerations on the back of the moose’s legs from falling through the window, the Anchorage Daily News reported.
Once the sedative wore off, the moose apparently had his fill of human companionship and wanted to get back to the wild.
“He got up and took off,” Thompson said.