Brewster: Camels Provide Therapy
Green Chimneys, a school and residential treatment center founded in 1947 that serves children with special needs, hosted workshops on Aug. 17-19 on human-camel therapeutic interactions.
According to Green Chimneys, camels are not trained in the same manner as horses or dogs for interaction with humans. “There is no moving a 1,500-pound animal with a halter,” it notes on its site. “There’s a higher level of social connection that camels seek and respond to.”
Green Chimneys has three camels at its Farm & Wildlife Center; they were joined by others from the Texas Camel Corps. Its founder, Doug Baum, noted to Mid Hudson News that “camels can be taught basic manners for safety around folks such as standing quietly and patiently and how to behave while being touched. They are a prey animal, like a horse or a goat, so they need to be acclimated to touch because a safe camel is a mentally and emotionally more healthy animal.”
Newburgh: Horse Dies of Encephalitis
The Orange County Department of Health said on Aug. 16 that a horse in the Town of Newburgh had died of Eastern Equine Encephalitis, a rare but often fatal infection spread by mosquitos that causes inflammation of the brain and can affect humans.
The horse had not been vaccinated and had not traveled outside the county, the agency said in a statement. The virus that causes EEE is not spread among people or from animals to people.
People older than 50 and younger than age 15 are at greatest risk, it said. About a third of patients die, and many who survive suffer brain damage.
The Orange County health commissioner told the Times Herald-Record that, until the hard frost, people need to protect themselves from mosquito bites. “A positive test in a horse lets us know that EEE is circulating in mosquitos that bite mammals, including humans,” said Dr. Alicia Pointer.
A horse also died in Shawangunk, in Ulster County, the Times-Herald Record reported on Aug. 23. The state health department said on Aug. 21 that, along with Orange and Ulster, EEE has been identified in horses in Saint Lawrence, Madison, Oneida, Cayuga, Wayne and Washington counties.
Mahopac: YouTube Celeb Visits Island
Jake Paul, a YouTube star and professional boxer, spent four days beginning Aug. 15 at the Massaro House on Petra Island in Lake Mahopac, causing a stir when he arrived by helicopter.
Paul posted videos on Instagram of the ride, a police boat escort by Carmel police on Lake Mahopac and his posse in the house.
Police Chief Anthony Hoffmann said in a statement that his department provided the escort as part of its Special Duty Assignment Program, in which officers are contracted out for private events.
The Massaro House was designed in 1949 by Frank Lloyd Wright but left incomplete until Joseph Massaro finished it in 1996.
Paul is scheduled to fight Mike Tyson on Nov. 15 in Texas. He rented the house to create content for his online channels.
