Teenager hacks off his leg to escape earthquake rubble
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 11:10 AM on 10th October 2009
AN 18-year-old hacked off his own leg using a blunt hoe and then a saw after he was trapped in rubble following an earthquake.
Construction worker Ramlan, from Padang, Indonesia, had been working on the seventh floor of a new building when the tremors hit the island of Sumatra on September 30.
He was trapped by a concrete girder which crushed his right leg up to the shin as he tried to flee with his fellow workers.
Fearing aftershocks the teenager decided his only way to escape was to cut off his leg and he grabbed a hoe. He hacked at the limb but the instrument was too blunt to cut through to the bone.
His colleagues had all fled but he used his undamaged mobile to phone one, Eman, who returned to help.
Eman, 53, handed him a trowel which he tried to use to hack at the bone. When he could not get through it Eman found him a wood saw.
Ramlan continued until the pain became too much. His friend, who lived in the same street and called him Adik, meaning little brother, finished the amputation.
The earthquake in Indonesia on September 30 devastated a stretch of more than 60 miles, damaging at least 180,000 buildings.
Eman wrapped his t-shirt around the wound and carried his friend to Yos Sudarso Catholic hospital where doctors cleaned his wound and made a more surgically skilled amputation slightly further up.
His story was revealed by the charity Caritas, an international partner of British charity Cafod, a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee (DEC).
Eman told Caritas worker Tim O'Connor: ' I just thought I have to save my friend and I raced back up to where he was. I did not think of the danger, just the welfare of my friend.'
DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said: 'Ramlan's actions were extraordinary and the courage and determination he showed is typical of many survivors with whom we are working. 
A major international aid effort has been launched to help earthquake victims in Sumatra.
'After the earthquakes in Indonesia, and the typhoons in the Philippines and Vietnam, survivors would have been the first to help themselves and others.
'Now they urgently need international support, including that being provided by DEC members and partners who are bringing in urgently-needed aid and medical supplies.'
Indonesian officials said the death toll from the quake had reached 784, with 242 people still missing.
At least 180,000 buildings were toppled or damaged and landslides swept away entire villages in the hills.
International aid groups from 30 different countries have been taking part in the relief effort.
Oregon Man Accused of Sex Crimes Involving Teens, Dog Hit With New Charges Against 4-Year-Old Girl
Friday, October 09, 2009
McMINNVILLE, Ore. — An Oregon man accused of using Craigslist to arrange group sex with a 14-year-old girl and photographing it has been indicted on new charges involving a 4-year-old girl.
Darrin Daily of Newberg appeared in Yamhill County Circuit Court in McMinnville on Friday to hear the charges in a new indictment involving the child. The 44-year-old Daily was charged with sex abuse and using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct.
His bail was set at $1 million on the new charges. His bail had been set at $1 million on previous charges involving the teenager, bringing the total to $2 million.
Also appearing in court were Robert Thompson of Portland, and David Garcia and Alisa Nice, both of McMinnville. The three face charges involving the teenager.
Daily, 44, of Newberg, was accused of rape, sodomy and other sex-related crimes, including posting Craigslist ads to solicit others to join in group sex with the 14-year-old girl, authorities said. There also were allegations of adults showing up to have sex with the teen, as well as police seizing drugs, sex toys and computer images of victims.
Three men and a woman have been accused of abusing the 14-year-old, who is too young under Oregon law to consent to sex with adults.
Three men were accused of responding to the Craigslist ad: Patricio Moreno, 43, of Forest Grove; Robert D. Thompson, 34, of Portland; and David Garcia, 41, of McMinnville. All are charged with sex abuse and rape.
Alisa Nice, 31, of McMinnville, was charged Wednesday with sexual abuse, sodomy and using a child in a display of sexually explicit conduct. Police said she knew Daily.
Lawyers for the suspects had little or no comment. "At this point innocent until proven guilty is all I have," said Thompson's attorney, Janmarie Dielschneider.
A police press release on Tuesday said that a 4-year-old girl whose image was in computer files seized at Daily's house had told of being abused and was in the care of a child abuse assessment center.
Police said a third victim, a 15-year-old girl, came forward in early September and told them that Daily had recently given her alcohol and marijuana before they had sex.
A week later, police said in affidavits, they arrested Daily. Searching his computer equipment, they said, they found images of the 14-year-old.
A few days later, the court documents said, the 14-year-old told police she'd had sex with Daily about every other weekend since February and described encounters involving bondage, multiple adults and a dog
Man and woman found with suspicious injuries after house fire
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:25 PM on 10th October 2009
A man and a woman have been found dead with suspicious injuries after a house fire in Greater Manchester.
The pair, who were both in their 50s, suffered injuries which did not appear to have been caused by the fire.
Officers were called to a house in the Farnworth area of the city Bolton, following reports of a fire shortly after 5.15pm yesterday.
The house on Darley Avenue, Farnworth, Bolton, where a man and a woman died following a fire. The pair who were both in their 50s, suffered injuries "inconsistent with fire-related injuries", Greater Manchester Police said. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Saturday October 10, 2009. Police were today treating as suspicious the deaths of a man and a woman in a house fire. See PA story POLICE Fire. Photo credit should read: Gareth Copley/PA Wire
A man was taken to the Royal Bolton Hospital, where he died. A woman had died at the scene.
A joint investigation has been launched by the Fire Service and Greater Manchester Police.
A police spokesman said: "The deaths are being treated as suspicious at this stage and a team of detectives are currently working to establish the circumstances surrounding the incident."
Police are appealing for information from anyone who might have information about the incident, or the occupants of the house.
Det Ch Supt Darren Shenton said: "A more detailed examination to establish the cause of the injuries will take place over the weekend.
"We are also continuing to seek the extended families of those who we believe to be the occupants of the house."
Two police officers stood guard outside the corner semi-detached house, which had a smoke blackened lintel above a downstairs front window.
One neighbour, 44, who did not wish to be named, said the deceased were a middle aged, unmarried couple.
She said: "The couple were very nice, a very quiet couple, they kept themselves to themselves.
"It's shocking, not something you expect on your own doorstep."
The woman said that the dead man had worked as a driver for a bakery chain but recently suffered from ill health and had epilepsy.
She said: "He used to live there with his mum but she died a couple of years ago."
Neighbour Jason Davis told The Bolton Evening News that he heard the couple's smoke alarm going off and saw the man standing in a doorway.
He told the newspaper: "I said 'come on now', but he wouldn't come out. His T-shirt was absolutely covered in blood."
It is not believed that detectives are looking for anyone else in connection with the deaths.
Police sources indicated that the couple both suffered similar types of injuries, but refused to comment on how they were inflicted until a post-mortem was carried out.
Wisconsin Mom Strips in Front of Kids to Avoid Arrest
Saturday, October 10, 2009
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — Police say a Wisconsin woman stripped in front of her children in an attempt to avoid arrest for shoplifting, then scuffled with officers and exposed herself through a squad car window.
Julia E. Laack, 36, of Sheboygan was charged Friday with felony battery of a peace officer, resisting an officer, shoplifting and two counts of disorderly conduct, the Sheboygan Press reported.
The criminal complaint alleges Laack stole a bag of beef jerky and a lighter at a convenience store Thursday afternoon. Police went to her home. The complaint said she refused to come to the door and began screaming and swearing at three children in her house, telling one that the incident was all his fault.
Police entered and tried to calm her down. With her children present, the complaint said, she stripped to her underwear and told the officers they couldn't arrest her because she would be naked.
Laack struggled with the officers as they tried to arrest her, the complaint alleged, kicking one in the groin and spitting in the mouth of another.
While in the squad car on the way to the police station, the complaint said, Laack exposed her buttocks against the rear window
.
The complaint said Laack had a preliminary blood-alcohol level of 0.112 percent. The legal blood-alcohol limit for driving is 0.08 percent.
Laack remained in jail Friday night. A man who answered the phone at her home declined comment
Sickening footage of bully beating up schoolgirl, 14, is captured on mobile phone and posted on Facebook
By Liz Hull
Last updated at 9:32 AM on 10th October 2009
Footage of a schoolgirl being viciously beaten in a ‘happy slap’ attack was posted on a social networking website by her bullies.
Chantelle Smith, 14, can be seen cowering in terror as a teenage girl punches and kicks her in front of a mob of jeering children, who videoed the assault on their mobile phones.
The onlookers can be heard goading the attacker to ‘smack her one’ and ‘kick her’ in the 64-second clip, which was posted on Facebook.
The footage shows Chantelle's attacker putting her in a headlock and kneeing her in the face
After throwing Chantelle to the ground, the bully kicks the 14-year-old while she cowers on the floor
Last night police said they are investigating the incident, which took place on secluded land behind Rivington and Blackrod High School, near Bolton.
Chantelle’s mother, Kate Smith, yesterday spoke of her disgust at the attack.
She said she had withdrawn her daughter from the school and has demanded the bully be expelled.
‘When I found out about it I was disgusted,’ she said. ‘It could have been fatal. We are not talking about slaps. We are talking about punches and knees in the face.
'My priority is my daughter’s safety and I don’t think she will be safe in school while the bully is there.
Chantelle said she was 'shaking and crying' following the attack and is 'always thinking about it'
‘The school has told us they cannot control this girl but she is getting an education while Chantelle is missing out.’
The attack took place at 1.20pm a fortnight ago behind a PE store room.
Chantelle, a year ten pupil, said the fight was sparked because of a row over name calling.
Chantelle Smith's attack, in which she was punched and kneed in the face, was filmed on a mobile phone
The teenager said she was previously friends with her attacker, who is a year older and is referred to as ‘Amy’ in the footage, but the pair fell out and she started to bully her.
The footage shows the attacker gripping Chantelle in a headlock and pulling her hair, before punching and kneeing her in the face.
To cheers of ‘go on Amy’ and ‘go stick her,’ the attacker is encouraged to beat and kick Chantelle. She also punches her hard in the face as she lies on the ground.
Following the attack Chantelle, who suffered cuts and bruises and lost large clumps of her hair, said she reported the incident to teachers who contacted her family.
Yesterday Chantelle said: ‘I just went dizzy and fell to the ground and she punched me in the face. My face went numb. I was shaking and crying. I’m always thinking about it.’
Her mother pulled her out of school the following week after the bully – who was supposed to stay away from Chantelle – threatened her again.
Tony Purcell, headmaster at the school, said: ‘We are happy that appropriate sanctions have been put in place, but it is not our practice to give further details.
‘However, Chantelle’s happiness and welfare remains our utmost priority in this situation.’
Fla. Man Accidentally Shoots, Kills Fiancee Day Before Wedding
Saturday, October 10, 2009
WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. — A man who thought there was an intruder in his house shot and killed his fiancee the day before they were to be married, police said Friday.
"Right now everything points to a tragic accident," Police Chief Kevin Brunelle told The Associated Press, adding investigators were awaiting forensic results.
John Tabutt, 62, told investigators he got his gun when he thought he heard an intruder, then fired at a figure in the hallway, according to Brunelle. It was Tabutt's live-in fiancee, 62-year-old Nancy Dinsmore, who family members say he was going to marry Saturday. Tabutt told authorities he thought she was next to him in bed the whole time.
A message left for a phone number listed for the house was not returned.
Brunelle said no charges have been filed against Tabutt, adding the information he provided has been verified and he appeared "very distraught."
Tabutt was "very concerned about her well-being," standing by while she was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics, Brunelle added.
The couple planned to wed in a small ceremony Saturday at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Winter Springs, Dinsmore's son-in-law Scott Sposato, of Vero Beach, told the Orlando Sentinel.
"They loved each other," he said. "It was quite apparent."
Tabutt called 911 shortly after 2:30 a.m. Friday, moaning and sobbing, the newspaper reported.
"I thought I had an intruder in the house," he told the emergency dispatcher. "Honest to God, she looks dead."
He then thought he heard her take a breath.
"Hang in there, Honey. Hang in there," he said.
Winter Springs is about 15 miles north of Orlando.
Pictured: The Independence Day-shaped cloud hovering in the skies over Moscow
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 1:19 PM on 10th October 2009
In what could have been a scene from the film Independence Day, a luminous ring-shaped cloud could be seen hovering over the city of Moscow last week.
The pale gold 'halo' could be seen above the Russian capital city's Western District on Wednesday, and was captured on film by stunned Muscovites.
Meteorologists rejected any theories of the supernatural however, calling it an optical effect.
Luminous: The pale halo-shaped cloud was hovering over Moscow on Wednesday
A spokesman from the city's weather forecast said: 'Several fronts have been passing through Moscow recently, there was an intrusion of the Arctic air too, the sun was shining from the west – this is how the effect was produced.'
He added: 'This is purely an optical effect, although it does look impressive.
'If you look closer, you can see sun rays coming through that cloud. Most likely, the sun was setting when the video was being made.
Supernatural: Scene from the 1996 film Independence Day in which aliens invade Earth
'If you observe clouds regularly, you may see many other astonishing things. Clouds of the same class may look absolutely different in different areas.'
Some environmentalists blamed pollution for the cloud, but weather forecasters were quick to reject the idea: 'The phenomenon has nothing to do with industrial emissions,' said one. 'They could not produce such an effect against the background of the current weather conditions.
'If something happens, there is the smog effect, but it appears only when the weather is quiet for a long time. The wind in Moscow has been quite strong recently.'
California Mom Convicted of Murder in Abandonment of 3 Newborn Babies
Friday, October 09, 2009
VISALIA, Calif. — A central California mother accused of abandoning three newborns could face more than 22 years in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder and child abuse charges.
It took the Tulare County jury less than an hour Thursday to return the verdict against 24-year-old Nancy Ortiz.
Two infants were discovered alive in 2005 and 2006, and are now in foster care. A third child, found in a pickup truck bed in December 2006, died of exposure.
Jurors found her guilty of second-degree murder in the death of the third child and three felony counts of child abuse for abandoning all the babies. She also was convicted of misdemeanor child abuse, after her toddler daughter was found wandering the streets wearing only a diaper.
Ortiz will be sentenced on Dec. 9.
The boy aged two with Einstein's IQ: Why little Oscar is Britain's youngest boy to be accepted into Mensa
By Julie Moult And Tamara Cohen
Last updated at 8:26 AM on 10th October 2009
While other two-year-olds are discovering the joy of playgrounds, Oscar Wrigley would rather be learning about wildlife or the history of Ancient Rome.
He has recently taken to conducting classical music as he listens in the back of the car and identifies the different instruments.
So his parents were not surprised when, at the ripe old age of two years, five months and 11 days, he became the youngest boy in Britain to be accepted by Mensa.
Little smasher: Oscar Wrigley is the youngest ever member of Mensa, aged two years and five months
With an IQ of at least 160, he has the same score as the likes of Einstein and Stephen Hawking.
'Oscar was recently telling my wife about the reproductive cycle of penguins,' said his father Joe, 29, an IT specialist from Reading in Berkshire.
'He is always asking questions. Every parent likes to think their child was special but we knew there was something particularly remarkable about Oscar.
'I'm fully expecting the day to come when he turns around and tells me I'm an idiot.'
Assessors at the Gifted Children's Information Centre in Solihull said Oscar, an only child, is one of the brightest youngsters they have ever come across.
His intelligence is literally off the scale with the 45-minute Stanford-Binet test being unable to measure higher than 160.
Dr Peter Congdon ranked the toddler in the 99.99th percentile, meaning he is one in 100,000 in terms of his intelligence.
He will need to be tested further in the years to come to establish his exact score.
'Oscar is a child of very superior intelligence,' said Dr Congdon.
'His abilities fall well within the range sometimes referred to as intellectually gifted. He demonstrated outstanding ability.'
Oscar's parents say he started talking at nine months and by 18 months he was reciting the alphabet in the bath.
By the time he turned two he had a vocabulary stretching to thousands of words while most children his age would have mastered only 50 or so.
Mr and Mrs Wrigley say they encourage him to follow any activity in which he shows interest.
He is already showing a gift for music and has asked for a saxophone for Christmas despite the fact he is far too small to be able to play.
'He will sit in the back of the car listening to the Indiana Jones soundtrack and he'll be conducting with his fingers,' said Mr Wrigley.
'Then he'll say, "Here comes the brass with the French horn" and then "Here come the strings".'
Proud Oscar shows off his Mensa card and relaxes with his parents Joe and Hannah at home in Reading, Berkshire
Both Oscar's parents have normal IQs although his maternal uncle, Jonathan Masters, was a child prodigy who began a university degree in computing aged just 13 in 1995.
His mother Hannah, 26, a housewife, said: 'He amazes everyone. We knew at 12 weeks he was extremely bright. He was unusually alert.
At four months I would hold up two items of clothing and he would pick out which he wanted to wear.
'Recently a friend was sitting in our garden and saw a bird and said to Oscar, "Is that a tweet-tweet?" and he replied, "No, it's a blue tit."
'His vocabulary is amazing. He's able to construct complex sentences.
'The other day he said to me, "Mummy, sausages are like a party in my mouth".'
But being gifted also brings its difficulties with how best to educate Oscar being a major concern to his parents.
His mother is battling with Reading Borough Council to give him a school place two years early.
A spokesman for Mensa confirmed he was the youngest boy to join the society, which requires a minimum IQ of 148.
Chief executive John Stevenage said: 'Oscar shows great potential. Converting that potential to achievement is the challenge for his parents and we are delighted that they have chosen to join the Mensa network for support.'
The previous youngest boy to join Mensa was Ben Woods, who was two years and ten months in 1995.
The youngest child is Elise Tan Roberts, from Edmonton, North London, at two years four months and 14 days. She joined with an IQ of 154 earlier this year.
Golfer Loses Arm in Alligator Attack in South Carolina
Friday, October 09, 2009
BEAUFORT, S.C. — A 77-year-old man has lost his lower arm after he was bitten by an alligator on a coastal South Carolina golf course.
Multiple media outlets reported that the Fripp Island man was playing the Ocean Creek Golf Course about 3 p.m. Thursday when he was attacked. His name was not released.
Kate Hines with the Fripp Island Property Owners Association says the man was picking up his ball when a 10-foot alligator pulled him into a nearby pond.
The man's golf partners were able to free him. Workers from Tracks Wildlife Control in Beaufort killed the alligator and removed the man's arm.
He was taken to the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston in hopes of reattaching his arm. His condition was unclear early Friday.
Boy, 16, arrested for two murders and rape faces life in jail
A boy who was arrested for two murders and a rape before reaching his 16th birthday is facing life in jail.
Published: 6:08PM BST 09 Oct 2009
Nathan Harris Photo: ENTERPRISE NEWS
Nathan Harris was convicted of ordering the execution of young father Craig Brown as he unloaded Christmas shopping.
The officer leading the investigation said Harris had a “violent tendency” and it was “exceptional” for such a young person to be involved in such a serious crime.
Video footage posted on YouTube and handwritten rap lyrics found in his bedroom showed the teenager’s obsession with guns and violence.
Text messages on his mobile phone appeared to show other youths asking him to procure firearms for them.
Harris had first come to the attention of police when he was just 13 years old following the murder of 16-year-old Kodjo Yenga in March 2007.
He was one of a number of teenagers rounded up by detectives for questioning, although he was never charged with the crime.
In December 2007 when he was 14, Harris was alleged to have taken part, with another youth, in the rape of a teenage girl, but was formally cleared following a trial at Inner London Crown Court.
Mr Brown, 20, was shot five times outside the home of his girlfriend Denica Date in Shepherd’s Bush, west London, on Christmas Eve last year, following a series of mobile phone calls started by the youth.
Miss Date would later identify him as being at the scene of the shooting after seeing his picture on social networking site Facebook, the Old Bailey heard.
Harris had set in place the “lethal train of events” that led to the murder after seeing Mr Brown - who he believed to have “dissed” a friend - in the area.
Detective Inspector Kenny McDonald said: “He has got a violent tendency.”
He said of Harris’s involvement in crime at such a young age: “It is surprising, it is quite shocking really.
“It is still rare but we are mindful that people of Harris’s age do seem to be finding an attraction with gangs and guns and knives.
“It is worrying and we as a society need to try and address this because we shouldn’t be having people of his age having access to firearms.
“There are lots of terrific young people in London not involved in this, doing the right things, staying out of trouble. He is an exception.”
Harris received his first conviction at the age of 13, for attempted robbery, and four months later was in court again for obstructing a drugs search. He was given referral orders for both matters.
In November last year, at the age of 15, he was given a conditional discharge for cannabis possession.
The boy, who went by the street name “Money” was just 15 at the time of his arrest for Mr Brown’s murder, yet when police investigated his mobile phone they found text messages suggesting an involvement with firearms.
There were references to “45” and “star nine” handguns as well as requests for “no bodies” weapons - meaning those not linked to previous crimes.
Pages of handwritten rap lyrics contained references to stabbing and shooting, as well as a gang called IOC - “Instruments of Cruelty” or “Intelligence over Cops”.
One document entitled “I.O.C. Christmas” had lyrics about using guns such as “we will cock it bk den squeeze”.
Lyrics transcribed from his YouTube appearance read: “Mumsy kinda grumpy yeah she caught me in my room, me Shack and Dirty loading the pumpy.”
He was convicted of Mr Brown’s murder while Adil Saed, 21, of Shepherd’s Bush, Khalid Elsheikh, 22, of Hammersmith, west London, and a 17-year-old youth, who cannot be named, were cleared of the charge.
Elsheikh was, however, found guilty of a separate charge of possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life.
Judge Richard Hawkins lifted reporting restrictions preventing the naming of Harris and remanded both he and Elsheikh in custody for sentence next week.
The court heard that Mr Brown was gunned down by two men as he took wrapping paper out of his car boot following a day out with his girlfriend and their four-year-old son.
Mr Brown, a drug dealer from Battersea, south London, had been involved in a fight with Elsheikh during the summer.
In the months following the confrontation, his visits to the area to see his girlfriend became less frequent, jurors were told.
But when Harris spotted Mr Brown in the area last December he alerted other youths in a series of mobile phone calls, said Aftab Jafferjee QC, prosecuting.
“What Harris did was effectively to set off a lethal train of events quite deliberately,” said Mr Jafferjee.
“Revenge was going to be as swift as it was brutal. In less than 35 minutes Craig Brown was shot dead outside Denica’s house. Those responsible had swift access to firearms and could move with chilling speed.”
Mr Jafferjee added: “This was a killing of a man who was in the process of removing his Christmas gift wrapping from the boot of the car and was thus entirely defenceless as he was shot.”
He said the “terrifying incident” was witnessed by innocent members of the public who had been Christmas shopping.
Mr Brown’s girlfriend told the court how she found his body lying by the car after he was shot.
She said: “I grabbed his face to see what was wrong with him and his eyes started rolling and blood started running out. That’s when I realised something happened.”
In a victim impact statement she said the killing was a “mindless, malicious and selfish act” that had been like a “horrible nightmare”.
Pigs Use Mirrors to Find Hidden Food
By Hadley Leggett
In just five hours, an average farm pig can learn how to interpret an image in the mirror and use it to find hidden food.
Scientists consider the ability to use a mirror a sign of complex cognitive processing and an indication of a certain level of awareness. In addition to humans and some primates, dolphins, elephants, magpies and a famous African grey parrot named Alex have all been known to retrieve objects or remove marks on their body using a mirror. Now it looks like pigs should be added to the list of clever critters that can master a mirror: After spending five hours with a mirror in their pen, seven out of eight pigs could use the reflection to find a hidden bowl of grub.
“This is the first demonstration of the ability of pigs to use mirrors,” animal behavior expert Donald Broom of the University of Cambridge wrote in an e-mail. “Finding sophisticated learning and awareness in animals can alter the way that people think about the species and may result in better welfare in the long run.” Broom co-authored the paper published this month in Animal Behaviour.
Like most animals, the pigs were immediately curious when researchers placed the shiny, reflective object in their pen. They approached the mirror until they bumped into it with their snout, and then checked to see what was behind the mirror. The pigs spent an average of 20 minutes gazing at their reflection, often turning in different directions to inspect themselves from several angles.
“These kind of movements suggest that the pigs were correlating the movements of their body with the visual stimulus they were receiving from the mirror, and so learning the contingency between the two,” biologist Louise Barrett of the University of Liverpool wrote in a commentary about the paper, also published this month in Animal Behaviour.
After five hours with a mirror, the pigs were placed in a new test area that contained a food bowl hidden behind a barrier. Although the pigs could see the reflection of the bowl in the mirror, they couldn’t see the food directly. A fan above the bowl circulated the scent of food around the room, prohibiting the pigs from smelling their way to the treat.
Seven out of eight of the pigs with previous mirror experience spotted the reflection of the food bowl and correctly interpreted its location: Instead of searching for the food in its apparent position behind the mirror, the pigs headed around the barrier and straight for the true location of the bowl. When the researchers tested pigs with no prior mirror exposure, however, nine out of 11 of them became confused, searching behind the mirror for the food.
“These results suggest not only that pigs learn the contingency between their own movements and their image in the mirror,” Barrett wrote, “but that their knowledge incorporates the layout of the environment as well, so that they can locate objects in space.”
The researchers say their experiment is more than a nifty trick: The fact that pigs can learn to use a mirror means they are capable of a type of awareness called assessment awareness, which means they can understand the significance of a situation in relation to themselves, over a short period of time. In this case, the pigs remembered how their own movements appeared in the mirror, and were able to apply that knowledge to a separate situation involving a hidden food bowl.
“Having a sense of self and using it is a form of assessment awareness,” Broom wrote. Although the mirror experiment doesn’t directly prove that pigs have a sense of self, the researchers suggest that given how quickly the pigs learn to recognize their own movements in a mirror, they may have some degree of self-awareness. “We have no conclusive evidence of a sense of self,” Broom wrote, “but you might well conclude that it is likely from our results.”
Other mirror tests have been used to more directly examine an animal’s sense of self — if researchers apply a yellow mark to the black feathers of a magpie, for instance, the bird will use a mirror to clean itself off. Unfortunately, Broom says the mark experiments just don’t work on pigs: Pigs are so accustomed to being streaked with mud, they don’t much care if researchers apply extra marks on their bodies. “We have put marks on pigs,” Broom wrote. “They take little notice of them.”
Combined with a host of other research studies demonstrating the keen intelligence of pigs, the researchers hope their study will lead to better treatment of the farm animals. “If an animal is clever,” Broom wrote, “it is less likely to be treated as if it is an object or a machine to produce food, and more likely to be considered as an individual of value in itself.”