A subdued year for Germany’s Carnival, thanks to the virus
Berlin, Feb 11: Germany’s renowned Carnival celebrations got underway Thursday but without any of their usual raucous revelry. Parades, street festivals and other large gatherings were all cancelled and booze banned due to lockdown restrictions designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
In Cologne, the western city whose Carnival festivities are perhaps the best known, Mayor Henriette Reker appealed for residents to stay home and bide their time until next year’s celebrations.
“As a Carnival fanatic, my heart is bleeding today,” she said on Twitter. One of Germany’s first superspreader events stemmed from a Carnival celebration in a town west of Cologne last February where many people came in contact with an infected man. This year authorities were taking no chances.
In addition to shutting down the large events, the public consumption of alcohol and its distribution in many areas was being banned from Thursday through the end of the festival on Feb. 17. Still, the city was doing its best eke out some celebration.
A show was being livestreamed to try and raise money for the artists, stage hands, drivers and dance groups who are without work this year. Instead of its traditional Rose Monday parade, which typically features floats depicting biting, and often bawdy, scenes of political commentary, a puppet theater was holding a miniature version that can be viewed on television.
Cologne festival committee President Christoph Kuckelkorn told Germany’s dpa news agency that Carnival could emerge from this year purified, returning closer to its roots from the increasingly commercial, excessive celebration it had become. “I am a great optimist and see something good in every terrible thing,” he said. (AP)
3 North American river otter pups born at Zoo Miami
Miami, Feb 11: Zoo Miami is celebrating the birth of three North American river otter pups. The February 5 birth was the first for their mother, Zinnia, the zoo’s communication director, Ron Magill, said in a news release. It was also the first birth of this species at the zoo.
The pups were born in a secluded den in the Florida: Mission Everglades exhibit and are being well cared for by their first-time mother, Magill said. It is still too early to determine their genders, he said. Zinnia arrived at Zoo Miami from the Roger Williams Park Zoo in Rhode Island where she was born. She and her pups will remain isolated behind the scenes to ensure they have minimal disturbances while they bond and grow.
The pups’ father is 5-year-old Edison, who came to Zoo Miami in October 2016 after being rescued as an orphan and hand-raised by a group called Wild Florida, the news release said. The father is separated from Zinnia and the pups, which is also the case in the wild, Magill said. Males do no participate in rearing the babies.
North American river otters are are found in a variety of fresh water habitats throughout much of the US and Canada. They can grow up to 4 feet (1.2 meters) and typically weigh between 12 (5.4 kilograms) and 25 pounds (11.3 kilograms). (PTI)