ON THE DHOLE

On febuary the 11th a pack of 20 dholes or Indian hunting dogs, escaped from their enclosure at Howletts Zoon near Cantabury, Kent. 12 returned to their enclosure themselves. This is quite normal as escaped zoo anima;s, most of whome were captive born, become confused and scared in the wild and head back to were they feel secure. 5 more were tranqualized by vets, one died and two more are still at large. Dholes are not generally considered dangerous to humans though captive ones may have lost their fear of people.

Spokesperson Tricia Corkhill said it was unclear how they had escaped but everything was being done to catch them.She said: "The situation is under control and we have trained animal keepers and vets with tranquilliser guns looking for the missing dogs."They pose little or no danger to the public but they shouldn't be approached anymore than you would approach a fox or stray dog." They are captive-reared and used to the park so will want to get home."

Engineer Ben Towler, 27, was driving through Wingham on Wednesday morning when he almost ran over the sandy-haired one. "It looked like a big ginger wolf with a lion's mane – kind of like a fox on steroids," he said.

The wild dogs, were made famous as villains in Kipling’s timless classic The Jungle Books in the story Red Dog were they threthern Mowgli’s wolf pack. Mowgli defeats them with the aid of the giant python, Kaa. In the vacuous Disney verstion they are ommited and Kaa, a wise and noble creature in the books is turned into a nasal, whining villain.

The reasoning being that ‘The American public would not except a snake as a hero’.

NEIL ARNOLD WRITES: Jon, here are a couple of links regarding the recent escaped Dholes from Howlett's Zoo Park at Canterbury. please could you slip maybe a mention of this into the book ? And maybe use them for your daily blog, as the links provided below include a video. tragically, these animals, on the verge of extinction, in two instances, were shot by the police...bastards.

http://www.kentonline.co.uk/kol08/article/default.asp?article_id=56973&commented=1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/kent/7883629.stm

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/kent-news/Two-escaped-wild-dogs-still-missing-from-Howletts-newsinkent20884.aspx?news=local