The Free Press, Mankato, MN

Local News

September 5, 2010

Weird News: Conversing with the animals

By Chuck Shepherd

— The Animal Planet channel, perhaps hard-pressed for new series ideas, has reportedly ordered “The Skunk Whisperer” into production, but there remain multi-use whisperers who claim they can talk to and analyze all critters, with New Zealand’s Faye Rogers the latest to draw attention (and she singled out her ability with “worms”). All beings, she said, are “connected by a higher consciousness,” allowing, for example, traveling birds to pass on important “international information” to fish. She disputed a notion spread by “horse whisperer” Bill Northern that cats are “wily” — explaining that cats merely appear wily because they prefer to be asked specific questions rather than generalities. In an August interview with the Christchurch Press, she referred to “clients,” indicating that at least some people pay the $65 (N.Z.; $45 U.S.) an hour for her services.

Alcohol was involved

Donald Wolfe, 55, was charged with public drunkenness in March in Brookville, Pa., after neighbors spotted him giving, as he described it, mouth-to- mouth resuscitation to a roadkill possum along Route 36.

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