good news

After finishing a boat trip on Monday afternoon, Salmon River fishing guide, Shane Thomas, had noticed an itty bitty bird wrapped up in fishing line. The little owl that he found is of the smallest owl species found in New York, and, being the kind, animal-loving man that he is, he absolutely could not leave the bird as it was. 

"It was absolutely appalling to see, so we had to take action. There was absolutely no way I could live with leaving it there suffering," said Thomas, of Salmon River Guide Service in Pulaski, reports syracuse. 

Read more of the story and check out pictures below!

When your cat runs away, that is one of the most horrifying moments. Whether you have a GPS on it or not, seeing that your cat is not home will freak out out. But what happens if your cat's GPS tracker is is going off, showing you that your cat is zooming around the neighborhood, while your cat is... right in front of you? Well, 520-year-old Andy Kindell just experienced that.

His one-year-old cat for whom he bought a £130 collar with a GPS tracking chip, came home one day without the collar and with a nasty injury on its paw, reports Aol. Naturally, Andy was relieved, but he still wanted to find the GPS collar and get it back, so, he went on a chase. And a chase it was, because apparently, the collar was "eaten by a rat."

Read more of the story, including Andy's reaction, and check out some hilarious pictures below!

On Sunday, March 14th, a dog was spotted stranded on ice in the middle of Haines Lake. A post went up on Digby Talks Facebook page, asking if anyone could help the dog. According to The Chronicle Herald, the dog has been seen roaming the area near the lake for weeks, but no one was able to catch her, and no one came forward to claim her as their own. It took the work of multiple great people to rescue the pup, and thankfully, their effort was no in vain. 

The first rescue attempt was by a local drone operator, Zane Lynch, who tied a hot dog to his drone and attempted to lure the dog using that. No success there. In the meantime, Nathaniel Denton and his neighbor Mike Titus ventured out on their canoe to rescue the dog. 

Denton, being an experienced diver and wearing a dry suit, "got out of the canoe and broke a path through the ice so they could get closer." He broke a couple hundred feet of ice in an attempt to get to the dog, but the dog was too scared to approach him. So, he turned around, back to the canoe, and pushed the canoe - with Titus inside - closer to the dog. It took a while for the dog to trust them, but eventually, she did, and they were able to get her back to shore. 

Not only that, but later that day, the gorgeous pup was adopted by the hero who saved her - Dentons, so we know for sure that that her forever home is full of people who would do anything to help her. 

Read more of the story and check out pictures below!

Walking out of her car one day, 28-year-old teacher Georgia-Blue Townshend from Colchester, Essex, spotted something curled up on her driveway. Georgia-Blue is a secondary school English teacher who lives with her partner and 9-year-old son, and the three of them take stray cats into their home. 

"I was just going out to get the things out of my car when a neighbour told me there was something curled up by the back wheel," she said, reports NottinghamshireLive. "On a closer look, I realised it was a fox and all I could think was, 'the poor little thing' – it definitely looked injured."

Taking one of her coats from her car, Georgia-Blue slowly approached the fox, thinking to use the coat as a bed for the fox. The fox, obviously scared and in pain, stayed hiding under the car, but eventually, after presenting the fox with a box of mega box of Dreamies cat treats that she grabbed from her house, the fox came out of hiding. 

"She loved the Dreamies," Georgia-Blue said. "She seemed to perk up when I offered them." A bit revitalized, the fox began to move, attempting to drag herself back onto the road multiple times. Eventually though, after Georgia-Blue managed to lay a towel over her, the fox calmed down, allowing Georgia-Blue to call rescue centers. 

Read more of the story, including Georgia-Blue's comments about how she managed to rescue the cub, and check out adorable pictures below!

If a ten-foot-long dinosaur-looking creature showed up at your house one day, what would you do? Knowing ourselves, we would probably do exactly what this university student did honestly - pick up our phone and film the whole thing. It is not every day, of course, that one gets to encounter a 'dinosaur'.

Of course, the video of the incident that was posted on TikTok that went viral terrified some people while being very amusing to others, specifically, to Australians. As Daily Mail reports, Isabell Ryan who is 18 and lives near Warrigal, was studying when she noticed the enormous reptile - which is either a lace monitor or a tree goanna - come to her glass door. The video, which you can watch below, went viral, and the response was hilarious. 

For over a decade, Sakae Kato has stayed behind in Fukushima, rescuing cats abandoned by neighbors who fled the radiation clouds emanating from the nearby Fukushima nuclear plant. He refuses to leave. 

His story is one of heartbreak and selflessness, and we are thankful for all the work that he's done. 

"I want to make sure I am here to take care of the last one," Kato said from his home in the contaminated quarantine zone. "After that I want to die, whether that be a day or hour later."

Read more about his incredible story below.

Another day, another adventure gone slightly wrong for Freddie, the trouble-seeking seal. 4 rescues, 3 countries, and he's back out in the wild and, going by probability, we will most likely see Freddie pop up in another rescue story at some point. 

As Mirror reports, Freddie's adventures started at only 9 months old. "The adventurous pup... started his journey in the Netherlands last year where he was treated at a hospital in August where he was given his name. After he was released, he then turned up in Calais France in January, where he was treated at another seal rescue centre suffering from lungworm. Three weeks ago having made a good recovery, he swam the Channel before making his way 70 miles up the river Thames to Teddington Lock, south west London."

And... a week later, Freddie was found, yet again, in the Thames as he was snagged in the mouth by a fishing lure. He's totally fine, by the way, as adventurous as ever, but we wouldn't expect anything else of this trouble maker. 

Read more about the story and check out pictures from the rescue below.

Thatsaphon Saii, a twenty-three-year-old Thai sailor, still wearing his pants, jumped into the water and swam toward the wreckage of a burning ship to rescue 4 kittens that were stuck on board. All of the 8 crew members who were on the ship have, thankfully, already escaped the fire and were saved by a shipping boat that was sailing past them, but 4 terrified kittens were left on the ship, clinging to a finishing crane as flames roared all around them.

According to Metro, the moment Thatsaphon realized they were there, he, without hesitation, plunged into the water and swam toward them, grabbing the three kittens - placing three into an old rice sack and the fourth right onto his shoulder. Then, he paddled back to the navy vessel and somehow managed to save kittens without a single one of them being hurt. The ship was left to burn and sink in the ocean.

Read Thatsaphon's comments about the incident and check out pictures below!

A Laysan albatross named Wisdom - who is the oldest known wild bird - not only turned a whopping 70 years old this year but also reared a new chick. This chick is at the very least her 40th one, and that is a feat which stretches far and wide the knowledge humans have of how birds live. 

Wisdom, according to Gulf Doday, was banded in 1956 and is the oldest known wild bird in history. She may even be older than 70, being that her age was estimated to be 5 years at the time - earliest age an albatross reaches maturity. "Last month her new chick hatched on the Midway Atoll – a tiny scrap of land, 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean."

She has been raising her little chicks with her current mate, named Akeakamai, since about 2010, according to the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS). Albatrosses are known as birds who mate for life, but considering Wisdom's amazing age, she has had a couple mates over the years, having outlived her previous companions. 

Until early in the 21st century, it was thought that Laysan albatrosses lived around 40 years, but "Wisdom has rewritten the natural history books." "We don't know exactly how many chicks she's raised, but certainly at least 35 based on what we know about her recent years performance," said US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Beth Flint. 

For more wholesome bird stories, read about these two pelicans who have been trying to have a baby for six years and finally succeeded. 

Earlier this month, after someone had reported hearing a crying tiger left out in the cold on a property nearby, Elsa the tiger was rescued by Bexar County deputies. As reported by KHOU 11, she is six months old and 60 pounds in weight. She has a raw wounded area on her forehead from having rubbed against her cage for so long while being stuck in it, according to the Humane Society US, as well as some fur missing from having been wearing a dog harness. 

But now - finally - she's getting her happy ending Black Beauty Ranch in Murchison, Texas.

Read more of her heartwarming story and see pictures below.

As pet owners, we know that whenever anything happens in our house, one of our first thoughts is where is out pet and how do we help it. But when a fire started in a four-plex apartment building in Minneapolis' Near North neighborhood, and the residents inside were harmed, the ones who came to the resident's cat's rescue were the firefighters. And thankfully, after giving the little feline an oxygen mask, it came out of the ordeal unharmed.

Read more of the story and check out pictures of the incident below!

It's the end of February, and we're about to end it in the best way possible - by talking about the most positive animal news stories of the month.

February may be a shorter month than most, but that doesn't mean that there was any shortage in positive animal news stories, and that's all that matters to us right now. Because although this month was just as difficult as the last one for some of us, the animal world is thriving, and for animal lovers like us, that is the best new to hear. And because hearing positive animal news makes us happy, at the end of every month, we collect the best ones we can find and give them to you.

So, please enjoy these nothing-but-positivity animal news stories, and let's hope that next month there are just as many if not many many more. 

Three months ago, in an event that puzzled wildlife carers, hundreds of bat pups were abandoned by their mothers at the Rockhampton Botanical Gardens. The number of bats that needed help was so massive, it overwhelmed local volunteers. It ended up taking three three groups from Brisbane and one from Townsville getting together to rescue all of these bats. 

Today, according to ABC News, "[m]ore than 70 baby black bats on the brink of starvation... are now being released into the wild after carer groups from across Queensland united in their rescue."

Read more of the story and check out pics of the adorable bats below.

An amazing world-first achievement: Saba and Nairo, two captive-born cheetahs from the UK have been released into the wild in Africa. 

The two brothers, as IFLSCIENCE reports, were born at Port Lympne Hotel & Reserve in Kent, England, on July 15, 2017. Very quickly though, Saba "showed signs of illness and it was discovered that his liver wasn't functioning properly." To keep him alive, he had to be removed from the litter and hand-raised by Damian and Victoria Aspinall of The Aspinall Foundation. Under their watchful care, he made a full recovery. Of course, because of the way he grew up, he inevitably grew used to playing with humans and being fed, qualities which he would have to overcome if he were one day released into the wild.

"Saba rejoined his brother Nairo in December 2018 and despite their time apart the pair immediately formed a bond." And today, after honing their cheetah instincts for 12 months, the two of them have been released into the wild in Africa.

Read more about the story and check out pics of the adorable brothers below.

All cats love climbing, but this three-year-old British shorthair has full-on mastered it. After a video of her climbing a wall effortlessly went viral in China, she dubbed the 'spider-cat', and her purrfessional climbing skills took over everyone's hearts. 

The owner of Qiqi, Ms Luo, a high school teacher, told MailOnline that her cat has always loved climbing and enjoys spending her days leaping up and down from supposedly unreachable places. "Qiqi loves climbing the walls, the doors. Wherever is the highest, she would try to get up there," Ms Luo explained.

In the beginning, Ms Luo would watch Qiqi every single time she climbed, worried that she would fall and hurt herself, but Qiqi never disappointed, continuously impressing her owner, and now us, with her amazing climbing skills. Ms Luo had been capturing videos like that and sharing them on Douyin, one of them going incredibly viral. 

Millions of viewers on social media were impressed with the little spider kitty, and we are part of them now. For more spider cats being totally impressive weirdos, click right here.

Story vid: MailOnline

In New Miami, on Thursday, a church staffer came out of the church and found a suspicious-looking lack carrier bag outside of the building's front door. Fearing what may be inside, the staff called the authorities. Quickly, Daily Mail reports, "[m]embers of the Butler County Bomb Unit descended on the scene to inspect the 'suspicious package' but were left startled when they heard the sounds of purring coming from inside the bag."

That was definitely an unexpected ending to a situation that could have ended way differently -  bag full of abandoned kittens and their momma with a note left inside, saying that the owners of those kittens and cat could no longer take care of them. Thankfully, they found themselves in good hands and are now being taken care of and getting prepared for adoption. 

Read more of the story and check out pictures of the incident and the note below.