To improve road safety and raise awareness among Russia’s notoriously (臭名昭著地) careless drivers, Russian police have tried to get drivers to slow down at zebra (斑马) crossings by having painted horses as zebras walk across on the busiest streets in some of the big cities.

The light grey horses, painted with black stripes (条纹), carried signs on their backs reading: “Careful, children are on their way to school.” The police sent the “zebras” to several different locations in the Russian capital, where officials in orange vests walked them over zebra crossings and handed out leaflets (传单) to passing drivers.

Some held up rainbow-coloured umbrellas over the painted animals to protect them from the rain. Russian roads are notoriously dangerous and drivers still rarely take steps to avoid pedestrians (行人). Nearly half of all traffic accidents in the country’s big cities are caused by cars hitting pedestrians, and a third of those occur on crossings, according to traffic police figures published last month.

In the first six months of this year, 378 people were killed and more than 6, 600 injured on pedestrian crossings in Russia, according to police. In Moscow alone, 43 people were killed, including two children.

Though police officials said that only safe paint would be used on the animals, animal rights activists still disagreed with the idea, accusing the police of “treating animals like garbage”.

“Children understand that paints are bad for animals,” the Interfax news agency quoted (引用) president of Vita animal rights group Irina Novozhilova as saying.

Let’s hope this part of the campaign is over and animals are left out of future attempts to raise pedestrians’ awareness.

People and animals often enjoy loving relationships with each other. When people adopt domesticated(家养的) animals into their families as pets, animals give humans the blessings of companionship and fun in return. In the wild, animals sometimes carry out dramatic rescues of people in dangerous situations, miraculously(奇迹般地) sensing human needs and jumping in without fear to help.

In 2000, a 6-year-old boy named Elian Conzalez left Cuba on a boat bound for Florida in the United States, but the boat sank and everyone aboard drowned except for Elian and two adults. Elian and the other two survivors held onto inner tuber for 48 hours to try to stay afloat in the sea. After a while, however, Elian began to lose strength, slipping under the water and then grabbing the tube again as he fought to stay alive.

A small group of dolphins noticed Elian struggling and swan over to him to help. The dolphins formed a circle around the inner tube and took turns using their noses to lift Elian until fishermen working in the area discovered and rescued Elian and the two adults who floated nearby. The fishermen reported that, when they discovered Elian, he was repeating a prayer that his mother had taught him before drowning, asking guardian angels to protect him.

Miraculously, the dolphins knew that a child would need more help than adults, so they focused on Elian —and they figured out exactly what needed to be done and cooperated carry out that plan successfully. They made it!

I woke at 4 am to a pitch-black hostel room, my eight roommates all still sound asleep at the early hour. I tiptoed out to change, stuffed a cheese roll in my mouth, and dragged the suitcase holding a year of my life to the Kaikoura dolphin-watching tour office. With just a few hours of sleep and more adrenaline (肾上腺素) than I had jumping out of a plane, I double-checked my diving equipment in a rush.

The moment we dove off the water, I was shocked awake. No amount of coffee, tea, or sugar has ever given me such an intense wake-up. It turns out, the ocean is freezing at 5 am, before the sun has risen and in early-spring. Don’t be scared off by the temperature, though, because 5 am is when the dolphins are most playful! For five seconds, I struggled to breathe through the cold. Then, the wetsuit flooded with water and I was warm.

A moment later, I was face to face with a wild dusky dolphin, one of the smallest species of dolphin in the world! As I swam alongside it awkwardly, the dolphin gracefully spun on the surface while creating elegant spirals beneath me. I made strange Dory-esque whale noises to draw the attention of more members, including a tiny baby dolphin no bigger than my calf. He seemed most interested in the strange-looking thing that kept getting trapped in her own “flippers (鳍) ”.

The sun rose, warming my back as I continued to struggle among the most elegant animals in the ocean. The practice of swimming with wild dolphins is banned in the North Island, where the species of Hector’s dolphins are in decline. But in Kaikoura, the practice is thriving and actually helping to restore the dolphin populations. By supporting this adventurous experience, you’re supporting dolphin conservation.