Kittens and penguins stop traffic on Auckland motorways

Okay - a kitten and a penguin, but you get the general idea...

This is just too cute for words:


This is Lucky, a kitten rescued from the centre of a six-lane motorway in Auckland yesterday. Somehow, the poor pootie had managed to dodge the traffic and get to the centre median strip of the motorway - where he was spotted by many drivers, some of whom called police and the SPCA.

Two motorcycle cops were sent to rescue him - and they actually stopped the traffic in order to get to him. The poor wee kitty had been stuck out on the road for more than an hour by the time he was rescued. He's got a few cuts on his face from where stones flew up, grazed paws and he lost a few claws trying to cling to the road, but apart from that he's doing fine.

AWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

Here's the full story - Police close motorway to rescue kitten - there's a video there too.

Every time I think about it my stomach gets all clenched up in knots thinking how lucky he is to have survived, and how close he came to using up all nine lives in one go, and how incredible it is that he didn't rush out into the traffic again - and how wonderful it is that the police actually stopped the traffic on the whole motorway, just to rescue him. Wow. I love New Zealand!

And then today - it was a penguin's turn to stop traffic!

All day today motorists on the Auckland Harbour Bridge have been calling the motorway monitoring company to tell them that there was a penguin waddling across the bridge - and there was!

It took them all day to find it, but finally this afternoon as they were doing another check of the barrier, it popped its head up and they were able to rescue it. Apparently it walked from the Auckland side, almost to the top of the bridge. Wow. It's not a small bridge, either!

Here's the story - Penguin waddles up motorway and onto Auckland Harbour Bridge. I suspect it was actually a Little Blue Penuin, like the one in the picture above - rather than the slightly less common Emperor Penguin they've used to illustrate the story on the NZ Herald site. Snigger.

Technorati tags: kitten, penguin, Auckland, motorway, police, stop traffic, harbour bridge.