It was in December 2006 when I got an austrian newspaper-article about stork “Flori”, a stork with a leg prothesis like "Fritz", living on a Storchenhof in Tillmitsch/Austria. Of course I was very curious to learn more about and contacted this Storchenhof. The people there were so happy about the interest and so I still get once in a while pictures from the animals there and their stories. I could imagine, that you also have fun reading about!? Here is their HP:
der-storchenvater.com/
Somewhere is written, so to say as a motto:
Störche kennen keine politischen Grenzen und verbinden auf ihrem Zug ganze Kontinente. Also nehmen wir Menschen uns dies als Vorbild und versuchen, in unserem Verein ein harmonisches Miteinander von Mensch und Natur zustande zu bringen.
Storks don´t know political borders and combine whole continents on their migration. So let us peoples take that as an example and try in our club (!? Verein) to manage a harmonious cooperation between men and nature.
But here comes Flori´s story as I read it in the newspaper: Flori was about 6 years old, when he stepped into a (forbidden) pitfall. His leg was so bad damaged, that the vet had to amputate his left leg. What than came was blessing in disguise. The vet contacted an orthopedics company which belonged to Mr. Karl Skergeth. When this animal lover heard about Floris disaster he didn´t even think a minute but was immediately ready to make an artifical leg (!? prothesis). They didn´t find anything like this in the internet, so they tried themselves and made one out of synthetic fiber. Already the very first steps worked fine!
And here are pictures and "the stories behind", which I got from the Storchenhof
Flori with his prothesis:
The pitfall in which Flori lost his leg. The prothesis is leaned against it:
Now you must imagine one thing, Flori was a breeding stork and he was looking for food for his brood when it happened. But Flori wanted to take care of his brood! So he flew around with this pitfall on his leg,- imagine! His wife got such a shock, that she didn´t take care of the brood anymore she was only all the time with Flori and Flori wasn´t able to find food, because he couldn´t walk,- but fly! So the firebrigade was very helpful and every day (I don´t know how many times a day they came) climbing up and feeding the chicks!
Flori they couldn´t catch because he could fly. When he was already very weak they were able to catch him and bring him to the vet - who only could amputate that already black coloured leg.
Helmut Rosenthaler taking care about Flori after the amputation:
Flori with “his team” :
the two on the left made the prothesis, 2nd from left is Karl Skergeth. 2nd from right is the vet beside of Helmut Rosenthaler.
der-storchenvater.com/
Somewhere is written, so to say as a motto:
Störche kennen keine politischen Grenzen und verbinden auf ihrem Zug ganze Kontinente. Also nehmen wir Menschen uns dies als Vorbild und versuchen, in unserem Verein ein harmonisches Miteinander von Mensch und Natur zustande zu bringen.
Storks don´t know political borders and combine whole continents on their migration. So let us peoples take that as an example and try in our club (!? Verein) to manage a harmonious cooperation between men and nature.
But here comes Flori´s story as I read it in the newspaper: Flori was about 6 years old, when he stepped into a (forbidden) pitfall. His leg was so bad damaged, that the vet had to amputate his left leg. What than came was blessing in disguise. The vet contacted an orthopedics company which belonged to Mr. Karl Skergeth. When this animal lover heard about Floris disaster he didn´t even think a minute but was immediately ready to make an artifical leg (!? prothesis). They didn´t find anything like this in the internet, so they tried themselves and made one out of synthetic fiber. Already the very first steps worked fine!
And here are pictures and "the stories behind", which I got from the Storchenhof
Flori with his prothesis:
The pitfall in which Flori lost his leg. The prothesis is leaned against it:
Now you must imagine one thing, Flori was a breeding stork and he was looking for food for his brood when it happened. But Flori wanted to take care of his brood! So he flew around with this pitfall on his leg,- imagine! His wife got such a shock, that she didn´t take care of the brood anymore she was only all the time with Flori and Flori wasn´t able to find food, because he couldn´t walk,- but fly! So the firebrigade was very helpful and every day (I don´t know how many times a day they came) climbing up and feeding the chicks!
Flori they couldn´t catch because he could fly. When he was already very weak they were able to catch him and bring him to the vet - who only could amputate that already black coloured leg.
Helmut Rosenthaler taking care about Flori after the amputation:
Flori with “his team” :
the two on the left made the prothesis, 2nd from left is Karl Skergeth. 2nd from right is the vet beside of Helmut Rosenthaler.
Viele Grüße von
Brit
„Man sieht nur mit dem Herzen gut. Das Wesentliche ist für die Augen unsichtbar.“
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Brit
„Man sieht nur mit dem Herzen gut. Das Wesentliche ist für die Augen unsichtbar.“
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry