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"Pets in My life"

Answering Interview Question:
What the best animal-based memory that you have ever seen or heard?

auntsandy wrote:
"My Night saving a Kinkajou :
My favorite memory involving an animal is when my mother found a Kinkajou on her front screen door. Just hanging there like a big spider. She called me and said she had trapped what she thought was a ferret and asked me to bring over some cat food for this thing. She had captured it and had it in a cardboard box on her porch. Well, the second we saw it we knew this was no Ferret! It had HUGE eyes, clearly nocturnal and a large prehensile tail. It's fur was matted and it smelled really bad. It had been in the wild for a while. We were not sure what it was, but suspected it had to be someone's pet that had been let go, as that is very common in Florida. We thought it should be released in a less populated area and not given to animal control for disposal. (That is a killing facility)So, we decided to take it out in the country, where it would have a chance, and let it loose. When we got about 20 miles from town, we stopped at the Fire station out there, hoping there would be someone I used to know when I worked for EMS, years before. Sure enough it was 2 of my old EMT students on duty there for the Fire department. The one guy instantly identified this thing as a kinkajou! He had remembered it from a trip to the Naples Zoo, formerly known as Jungle Larry's. We got on the computer and looked it up. Sure enough that was it! Now we didn't know what to do with this, fearing it would not find food or be killed by a gator. Meanwhile, it gets out of the box in the bay of the fire station and we are all chasing this thing around the fire truck all afraid ity might bite us and not knowing if it might have rabies or something. the firemen put thier big gloves on and after 30 minutes of chasing it back and forth, we cought it. Now, what to do? The fireman says he used to date Jungle Larr's daughter and thought we should see if they would take this poor thing. We called him and he said we would have to bring it to him. He might be able to locate the original owner, as you needed special permits for these as pets. so, back in the car with this thing, all the while thinking he will escape in the car and it would be like the "Facehugger" in the "Alien" movie or something and kill us. Particularly when he started barking and growling in the car.
Turns out they are known as the honeybears of the rainforets in Central and South America and eat honey and nectar. Jungle Larry's called me a week later and said they never locared the owner, but they would care for the animal. I hope he ended up in the zoo one day!"

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