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A young moose found itself in an unusual predicament on Thursday morning, stranded at the bottom of a skate bowl in Breckenridge, Colorado. The unexpected visitor at the town’s skatepark drew the attention of locals and officials alike.

According to the Breckenridge Police Department, the moose calf somehow made its way into the concrete bowl located next to the Breckenridge Recreation Center on Airport Road. Photos shared by police show the calf sitting quietly among a pile of dead leaves, while its mother stood nearby looking anxious.

The incident prompted a swift response from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Breckenridge Police, who teamed up to rescue the calf. They tranquilized the young moose to ensure its safety during the extraction process. Using a winch, they carefully lifted the calf out of the skate bowl while its mother watched attentively from a short distance away.

Once out of the bowl, responders carried the calf to a nearby grassy area close to a playground. It didn’t take long before the young moose was happily reunited with its mother. Fortunately, no injuries were reported for either the moose or the humans involved in the rescue effort.

The Breckenridge Police Department expressed gratitude on social media after the successful rescue. “Thank you to everyone who helped out and to our skating community for being patient,” they said in their post.

This unusual incident serves as a reminder of how wildlife can sometimes wander into unexpected places in search of food or shelter. In this case, a quick response and teamwork ensured a safe outcome for all involved.

A moose calf found itself in an unusual spot Thursday morning — stranded at the bottom of a skate bowl in Breckenridge, Colorado.According to the Breckenridge Police Department, the young moose had somehow ended up in the bowl of the town’s skatepark, located next to the Breckenridge Recreation Center on Airport Road. Photos shared by police show the calf sitting quietly in a pile of dead leaves at the bottom of the concrete pit, while its mother stood nearby, visibly distressed.Responders from Colorado Parks and Wildlife and the Breckenridge Police teamed up to help. They tranquilized the calf and used a winch to lift it safely out of the bowl, with the mother watching closely from a short distance away.The rescue team then carried the calf to a nearby grassy area near a playground, where it quickly reunited with its mother.Fortunately, no one — moose or human — was injured in the incident.




“Thank you to everyone who helped out and to our skating community for being patient,” the Breckenridge Police Department said in a post on social media.

Rescue Team Saves Moose Calf Stranded in a Colorado Skate Bowl

BBC News

Henry, a high-energy Springer Spaniel once passed over by five different homes, has just been named Animal of the Year for doing what few humans can: sniffing out crimes against wildlife.

The 10-year-old dog was rescued as a pup by Louise Wilson, founder of Conservation K9 Consultancy in Wrexham. At just eight months old, Henry was considered a “lost soul,” unwanted and unmanageable due to his relentless energy.

Today, that same energy has made him a critical partner in solving wildlife crime across the UK. Henry can detect seven different scents—from birds of prey to tiny hedgehogs—and his nose has helped police uncover evidence that would otherwise be impossible to find.

He was honoured at the International Fund for Animal Welfare’s (IFAW) 25th Animal Action Awards in London this week, where wildlife presenter Michaela Strachan called him a “superdog.”

“To be able to train a dog like Henry to do the work that he does needs an enormous amount of time, patience, dedication and commitment,” Strachan said. “The two of them together are a formidable team for wildlife protection.”

Henry may not be a police dog by title, but he has worked closely with the UK’s National Wildlife Crime Unit (NWCU), helping gather evidence to prosecute offenders who harm or steal birds of prey. According to Detective Inspector Mark Harrison, his work has had a tangible impact on investigations—and on suspects.

“If we don’t recover anything, the investigation grinds to a halt,” Harrison said. “We had a search recently and underneath a load of heather where you couldn’t see a thing from the surface, Henry recovered a tiny bird’s skull.”

He added that intelligence suggests some offenders are now actively worried about being tracked by animals like Henry.

Beyond crime scenes, Henry’s skills are also used for ecological monitoring. He’s helped conservationists locate pine martens, water voles, otters, and hedgehogs—often spotting traces humans would miss.

Louise, who has trained dogs for detecting firearms, explosives, and tobacco around the world, says Henry’s transformation into a top-tier detection dog came down to one thing: focus.

“He’s got so much energy and drive and as soon as we trained him for conservation detection, we were able to give him focus,” she said.

What once made Henry unadoptable, his intensity and independence, now makes him one of the most effective detection dogs in the UK.

His story is a reminder that with the right guidance and second chances, even the most overlooked animals can become heroes.

Rescue Superdog Henry Wins International Award for Solving Wildlife Crimes

When the Harlem Globetrotters were founded in 1926, Black players weren’t even allowed in professional basketball leagues. Yet the all-Black team quickly built a following with their athleticism and signature showmanship, becoming pioneers in their own right.

But by the mid-1980s, the Globetrotters’ fame had started to fade. Their founder, Abe Saperstein, had died in 1966, and the team changed ownership twice over the next 20 years. In an effort to revive interest, the Globetrotters did something unprecedented: they held open tryouts for women.

It was 1985. Of the 60 women who responded to the newspaper ad, just 20 made it to the second round. One name stood out from the start—Lynette Woodard.

At the time, Woodard was already a basketball legend. She’d captained Team USA to Olympic gold in Los Angeles in 1984 and set an NCAA career scoring record at the University of Kansas that would stand for decades, until Caitlin Clark surpassed it in 2024.

The Wichita native said her inspiration came from close to home. Her cousin, Hubert “Geese” Ausbie, had played for the Globetrotters, and Woodard still remembers the first time he came to visit.

“I can remember when I was very young,” she told NPR, “him coming to our house and showing our family a lot of ball-handling tricks, and I was just so amazed… it's been a dream to, you know, possibly play for the Harlem Globetrotters one day.”

At six feet tall with quick hands and a softer style of play, Woodard didn’t see her game as identical to her male counterparts—but she knew it had its own strengths.

“My game is softer,” she said at the time. “I don’t have the explosiveness that a male athlete may have, but I think that the qualities that I do have, well, you know, make me stand out when I play.”

On October 7, 1985, Woodard’s dream became reality. After a tense practice session, the team’s coach lined the finalists up to announce the new roster. In a Globetrotters press video, Woodard remembered the moment clearly.

“I [was] standing there, I was nervous,” she said. “And he said, ‘And now, the first lady, from the University of Kansas,’ and he called my name out. And it hit me, you know, I’m the one.”

She wasn’t just the first pick—she was the first woman ever to play for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Woodard wore the team’s iconic red, white, and blue jersey for two years, dazzling crowds across the country before continuing her career overseas, playing professional basketball in Italy and Japan.

In 1997, when the WNBA launched its inaugural season, Woodard joined the Cleveland Rockers and later the Detroit Shock. She played one season with each before retiring.

After stepping off the court for good, Woodard returned to Kansas and served as director of athletics for the Kansas City public school system. But her contributions to basketball didn’t go unnoticed. Over the years, she was inducted into the Kansas Sports Hall of Fame, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame—twice—and the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame.

Today, 40 years after she broke the Globetrotters’ gender barrier, her legacy is visible on the court: five women now play for the team.

Lynette Woodard didn’t just make history. She opened the door for others to follow.

How Lynette Woodard Broke Barriers as the First Woman to Join the Harlem Globetrotters

Poland is set to phase out fur farming by the end of 2033, after lawmakers in the country’s lower house voted overwhelmingly to approve a new ban.

The measure passed with 339 votes, ordering fur-farm operators to shut down operations by December 31, 2033. Those who close earlier—by the end of 2031—will qualify for financial compensation under new amendments to the country’s animal protection law.

Support came from across the political spectrum. The centrist Civic Coalition (KO) contributed 150 votes, joined by 100 from the conservative Law and Justice party (PiS), 30 from the Polish People’s Party (PSL), and full backing from the Left and Poland 2050. Only the far-right Confederation party voted unanimously against the bill, while a few lawmakers from PiS and one from PSL either voted no or abstained.

“Most voters of every party wanted a ban,” said Anna Iżyńska-Tymoniuk from Otwarte Klatki, an animal-rights group that has pushed for the measure for years. She pointed to consistent polling showing about 70 percent of Poles in favor of ending the industry.

She called the vote “a breakthrough for millions of animals” and said it will also improve life in rural communities, many of which have long complained about the smell and swarms of flies surrounding fur farms.

Poland currently ranks as the world’s second-largest fur producer after China, killing around 3 million animals each year, according to Iżyńska-Tymoniuk. She said the move puts Poland in line with more than 20 other European countries that have already banned fur farming, and could give momentum to the EU-wide “Fur Free Europe” initiative, which aims to end fur production across the bloc and bar such imports from global markets.

The design of the new law may also prompt farms to shut down even before the 2033 deadline. Those that exit the industry by 2031 will receive government compensation, while falling demand for fur has already made the business less profitable.

Lawmakers also amended the bill to boost severance for fur-farm workers, increasing it from three months’ salary to a full year’s pay. Employers will be able to apply for reimbursement through Poland’s national social insurance authority (ZUS).

Data from Statistics Poland (GUS) suggests the industry has already been shrinking. In 2015, there were 810 fur farms in the country—mostly raising mink. That number has dropped to 209 in 2024. Exports have fallen as well, from more than 10 million pelts in 2015 to around 1.8 million this year.

The new legislation marks one of the most significant animal welfare reforms in Poland in years, and a major shift for an industry that once made the country a global player in fur exports.

Poland Votes To Ban Fur Farming By 2033, Offers Payouts For Early Closures

After years of heartbreak and research, scientists at Chester Zoo have made a major breakthrough in the battle against a virus that has killed young elephants around the world.

A new trial vaccine for Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) has shown promising results, safely triggering a strong immune response in adult elephants. EEHV is the leading cause of death for young Asian elephants, both in captivity and in the wild, and until now, there has been no effective treatment or cure.

The trial, a collaboration between Chester Zoo, the University of Surrey, and the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency, marks the first time researchers have demonstrated that a vaccine can stimulate the specific immune response needed to fight the virus in elephants.

“This is a landmark moment in our work to develop safe and efficacious vaccines,” said Professor Falko Steinbach, senior author of the study and a veterinary immunology expert at the University of Surrey. “For the first time, we have shown in elephants that a vaccine can trigger the type of immune response needed to protect them against EEHV.”

The study, published Friday in Nature Communications, involved a two-dose vaccine strategy: the first shot carried a harmless version of the virus, followed by a booster to strengthen the immune system’s response. Blood tests confirmed that the elephants developed a robust reaction to the vaccine, with no side effects.

This breakthrough comes after a string of devastating losses at Chester Zoo, where five young elephants died from EEHV in 2015, including calves Bala and Hari. In 2018, three-year-old Nandita Hi Way and her 18-month-old half-brother Aayu Hi Way also died from the virus, despite attempts to save them using what the zoo at the time described as “groundbreaking” blood transfusion treatments.

The researchers say the new vaccine could be a turning point, particularly for young elephants, who are most at risk. The goal now is to move forward with trials in calves and eventually deploy the vaccine in wild elephant populations across Asia.

“Our findings give real hope that vaccination can become a practical tool for preventing severe disease and death due to EEHV,” said Dr Tanja Maehr, lead author of the study. “The next step could be to trial the vaccine in calves and in range countries, so we can begin to protect those most at risk.”

The research also marks the first time a technique called systemic immune profiling has been used on elephants, helping scientists understand exactly which parts of the immune system are activated by the vaccine.

The team administered the first vaccine dose to an elephant at Chester Zoo back in 2021, after years of development. The results from that early dose, and subsequent boosters, laid the groundwork for the broader trial and the current findings.

For conservationists, the potential impact of the vaccine goes beyond individual zoos. With EEHV affecting elephants in the wild as well, the vaccine could eventually help support conservation breeding programmes across Asia and other regions.

Dr Katie Edwards, lead conservation scientist at Chester Zoo, described the findings as a “watershed moment.”

“EEHV has taken the lives of so many elephants, both in human care and in the wild, but this vaccine offers hope,” she said. “We can’t yet say this will be the end of EEHV deaths, but we have taken a massive step towards that goal.”

With Asian elephants listed as endangered and their global population already under pressure from habitat loss and poaching, a vaccine against one of their most lethal diseases could prove to be a critical tool in their survival.

Experts Celebrate Landmark Moment For Elephants After Vaccine Breakthrough

euronews

At dawn on San Juan Island, a group of scientists stood on the deck of a barge and carefully lowered more than a mile of fiber-optic cable into the icy waters of the Salish Sea. Their goal wasn’t to connect more homes to high-speed internet — it was to eavesdrop on whales.

The team, led by researchers from the University of Washington, is testing whether the same cables that carry the internet across oceans can double as giant underwater microphones. If it works, the experiment could turn the world’s vast network of undersea cables into a continuous listening system for marine life — one that could transform how scientists track and protect endangered species.

The technology, known as Distributed Acoustic Sensing, or DAS, was originally designed to monitor pipelines and detect infrastructure problems. But oceanographers quickly realized it could do much more. Unlike traditional hydrophones that listen from a single location, DAS effectively turns an entire fiber-optic cable into a chain of thousands of tiny sensors.

“We can imagine that we have thousands of hydrophones along the cable recording data continuously,” said Shima Abadi, a professor at the University of Washington Bothell School of STEM and the University of Washington School of Oceanography. “We can know where the animals are and learn about their migration patterns much better than hydrophones.”

The system works by detecting minute vibrations along the cable — changes in light patterns caused by sound waves in the surrounding water. Researchers have already used the technique off the Oregon coast to pick up the deep, low-frequency songs of blue and fin whales. Now, they’re testing whether it can capture the sharper clicks and whistles of orcas, which vocalize at much higher frequencies.

A new tool for a species in trouble

The stakes are particularly high in the Salish Sea, where the Southern Resident orcas are teetering on the edge of extinction. Only about 75 remain, facing what scientists describe as a “triple threat” of noise pollution, toxic contamination, and dwindling food sources.

“We have an endangered killer whale trying to eat an endangered salmon species,” said Scott Veirs, president of Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability, a nonprofit that develops open-source acoustic systems for whale conservation.

The orcas’ main food source, Chinook salmon, has declined by about 60 percent since the 1980s because of overfishing, dams, and habitat loss. That scarcity forces the whales to travel farther and rely heavily on echolocation — rapid bursts of clicks that bounce off fish and obstacles. But as ship noise increases, those sounds are harder to hear.

If DAS proves sensitive enough to detect orcas, it could help solve that problem. By tracking the whales’ movements in real time, scientists could alert ship operators or ferry systems when whales are nearby, reducing the risk of interference or collisions. “It will for sure help with dynamic management and long-term policy that will have real benefits for the whales,” Veirs said.

The data could also answer deeper scientific questions: How do orcas change their calls in different social or hunting situations? Do family pods coordinate attacks with specific signals? Could scientists one day identify individual whales by their voices?

A global network waiting to listen

Globally, there are about 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometres) of undersea fiber-optic cables already in place — enough to circle the planet more than 35 times. That infrastructure could, in theory, become a planetary-scale listening system for the ocean.

“One of the most important challenges for managing wildlife, conserving biodiversity and combating climate change is that there’s just a lack of data overall,” said Yuta Masuda, director of science at Allen Family Philanthropies, which helped fund the project. “We think this has a lot of promise to fill in those key data gaps.”

The timing is significant. The United Nations’ High Seas Treaty, which takes effect in January, will allow for new marine protected areas in international waters. But scientists still have limited information about how marine species move or where protection would do the most good. A global DAS network could help fill in those blind spots.

Waiting for the whales

On the barge, the researchers worked by headlamp as they fused the delicate fiber ends together using a fusion splicer — a tool that melts the strands with a precise electric spark. Each time the boat rocked, they had to steady their hands and start again. After several attempts, the weld held.

Data began streaming to a computer on shore, appearing as colourful waterfall plots that translate sound into a visual cascade of frequencies. Cameras were aimed at the water’s surface, ready to match each detected call with a specific behavior.

Then came the hard part: waiting.

Somewhere in the dark, the Salish Sea’s orcas swam and hunted, unaware that a silent cable now lay beneath them — a thread that might soon allow scientists to hear, in real time, the voices of a vanishing species.

Scientists Turn Undersea Cables Into Whale Listening Devices For Orca Conservation

In a world hooked on next-day deliveries and disposable goods, a small but growing movement is quietly fighting back — one mended toaster, clock, and lamp at a time.

Across the UK, repair cafés are giving broken items a second life and their owners a reason to smile. Run entirely by volunteers, these community events invite people to bring in everything from frayed clothes to faulty gadgets, where skilled fixers roll up their sleeves and try to bring them back to life.

In Shropshire, the Shrewsbury Repair Café has become a local institution since it began in 2017. What started with half a dozen volunteers helping a few visitors has grown into a monthly gathering of more than 45 repairers handling 50 to 60 items each time. The café meets on the third Saturday of every month at the United Reformed Church, where people line up outside well before opening time.

Pete Martin, one of the café’s coordinators, specialises in clocks — though he insists he’s not an expert. His love of repair began with a personal story.

“When my father died, the family passed on his wall clock to me,” he said. “I saw a local course about repairing your clock so I went and managed to get it repaired, and it still ticks in my house. Ever since then, I've enjoyed trying to get clocks to work again.”

Martin and his fellow volunteers will take a look at almost anything that can be carried through the door. “We see if it can be repaired, whether we have the skill and the expertise in the room,” he said. “We try and make the repair as fun as possible. The idea is to help people to repair the item themselves if they can, but the vast majority of the time, we sit there and repair the item for them.”

The idea of a “repair café” began in Amsterdam in 2009, when Dutch journalist Martine Postma launched the first one as a way to keep fixable items out of landfills. The concept quickly spread across Europe and beyond, catching on in the UK as environmental awareness — and cost-of-living concerns — grew.

In Shrewsbury, the range of repairs has widened from everyday items like vacuum cleaners and clothes to more sentimental pieces. “I think that's partly because people have nowhere else to take them or they're being priced way out of the market,” Martin said. “I had a lady come in with a 1920s gramophone player. You can't take that down to Currys.”

One of his most memorable repairs involved a wooden Lazy Susan engraved with a wedding design. “She’d had it engraved in pyrography for her wedding day, so it had her and her husband's name and the date of the wedding burnt into the surface of it,” he said.

Over time, the lettering had begun to fade. “Sadly, her husband died fairly soon after they got married,” Martin recalled. “She said, ‘I don’t know if anybody can fix that.’ We deep-engraved everything into the Lazy Susan so that it was going to be as permanent as could possibly be.” The woman now volunteers at the café herself.

Moments like these, Martin said, show that repair cafés are about far more than fixing objects. “Sometimes I have people bring me a clock that’s not been going for a long, long time, and just to hear it striking and ticking away brings back a lot of memories,” he said. “As well as the laughter, we do have tears, but they're mostly tears of joy.”

For many, those tears — and the ticking of a once-silent clock — are proof that repair isn’t just practical. It’s personal.

Repair Cafes Gain Popularity, Bringing New Life To Cherished Items

If you live in a major U.S. city, you’ve probably seen them by now — parents pedaling their kids to school on long, bulky bicycles that look like mini minivans on two wheels. They’re called cargo bikes, and they’re quietly reshaping how families get around.

Once a rare sight in North America, cargo bikes are now rolling through urban neighborhoods from Washington, D.C. to Minneapolis, and even car-dependent Houston. Families are using them for everything from daycare drop-offs to grocery runs, and some are ditching their second car — or going fully car-free.

“I’m a very lazy person,” laughs Lelac Almagor, who lives in Washington, D.C. “I thought I’d give the bike a try and probably return it. But by the third day I was like, ‘Oh, this is actually going to change my life.’”

Six years later, Almagor rides her three kids to school every morning, rain or shine. “It’s such a better start to my day, that now there’s truly not weather that I would rather drive in,” she says. Back when she started, she’d see one other cargo bike at the school racks. Now, she says, there are dozens. She got so into it she even left her teaching job to work for a bike company.

Bikes built for families
Modern cargo bikes are a far cry from the clunky haulers of the past. Today’s models are built with kid-carrying in mind — think padded seats, seatbelts, and clear rain canopies — and, most importantly, they come with electric motors that make pedaling heavy loads effortless.

“Most people don’t want to be sweaty when they get to work,” says Philip Koopman, who owns a bike shop in D.C. “So having these different options, it just makes cycling so much more attainable for so many more people.”

At a recent DC Family Bike Fest, Koopman helped parents test ride models that can carry multiple kids and bags of groceries. Hundreds showed up, including Patricia Stamper, who was eyeing a $2,500 e-cargo bike.

“I’m 39, I’m losing weight, I need some help,” Stamper said. “And this is cheaper than bariatric surgery, it’s cheaper than Wegovy.”

Expensive? Sure. But many riders say the math still works out. Between gas, parking, insurance, and maintenance, a cargo bike is far cheaper than a car. And with electric assist, it turns errands and commutes into easy exercise.

Safer streets, more riders
Better infrastructure has helped, too. The first protected bike lane in the U.S. was built in 1967 in Davis, California, but only in the last two decades have major cities started catching up. Minneapolis, for example, now boasts more than 200 miles of bike lanes and trails.

“If it’s not safe to ride a bike, it’s going to be hard to get people on bikes,” says Laura Mitchell, who lives in the city. For her, buying a cargo bike was a “game changer.”

Earlier this year, Mitchell launched the Minneapolis Cargo Bike Library — a community program where residents can borrow bikes for free to try them out or make big shopping trips. “It’s been so popular I had to cap the number of users,” she says.

Even in places without great cycling networks, families are adapting. In Houston, Brian Jackson regularly drops off his two kids by cargo bike, often drawing double-takes. “A lot of people are like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’” he says. But he also notices a quiet shift: “Houston has a secret strong bike culture. Drivers usually give me plenty of space, especially when they see the kids on board.”

A new kind of bicycle boom
Cargo bikes aren’t new. Around the early 1900s, cities teemed with tradesmen on two wheels. “There’d be knife sharpeners with a little studio set up on the back of their bikes. There were glaziers — people who fixed broken windows,” says Jody Rosen, author of Two Wheels Good: The History and Mystery of the Bicycle.

That era faded as cars took over, but Rosen says we’re now in the middle of a new bicycle boom — one driven by electric motors, safer infrastructure, and climate-conscious families.

Almagor agrees, but she thinks the biggest reason for the surge isn’t technology or policy. It’s visibility. Seeing other parents doing it makes the idea feel normal — and doable.

“The very best advertisement for cargo biking,” she says, “is the carpool line at school. When the car line is wrapping around the block, just gliding past in our little flotilla of cargo bikes — there’s no way, as a parent, not to be like, ‘maybe we should do that.’”

Parents Across U.S. Embrace Cargo Bikes, Ditching Cars for Kid-Friendly Commutes

Talker News

Having people you can count on — even if you don’t always ask for help — can make a measurable difference to your health, happiness, and success, according to new research.

A sweeping new analysis led by Dr. GeckHong Yeo of the National University of Singapore found that people who feel supported by friends, family, or colleagues tend to have better mental and physical health, perform more effectively at work, and experience stronger educational outcomes.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Bulletin, analyzed data from 604 previous studies involving nearly 900,000 participants in more than 30 countries.

Researchers focused on perceived social support — the belief that help would be available if needed — rather than on received support, or help that’s already been given. Prior evidence suggests that perceived support plays a more powerful role in overall well-being.

“This study underscores the importance of considering the associations between multiple types and sources of perceived social support and multiple domains of human thriving,” Dr. Yeo said. “Our findings also suggest that adolescents, in particular, can benefit from perceived social support — especially from parents — for improving physical health and reducing risk-taking behavior.”

Across all data, people who felt supported showed the strongest improvements in mental health and work performance, followed by gains in physical health, reduced risk-taking, and better academic achievement.

The impact also varied across cultures and age groups. In non-Western societies, support was linked more closely with doing well in school, while in Western countries it was more connected to workplace performance. And for children and teens, the sense of having reliable support mattered most for physical health and avoiding risky behaviors.

Dr. Yeo said the results show how critical social bonds are for a thriving society. “By identifying the types and sources of support that matter most, we can design targeted interventions to improve mental health, physical health, and overall quality of life,” she explained.

She added that the findings could help policymakers, educators, and health professionals “build stronger support networks that promote thriving across different areas of life and contribute to overall well-being.”

In short, it’s not just about having people around — it’s about believing they’d be there when you need them.

Study Links Social Support To Better Mental And Physical Health

For three decades, one Denver Broncos legend has charged down the field after every touchdown — and he’s not wearing a helmet.

Thunder, the team’s iconic white Arabian horse, got some national attention this week in a CBS Mornings feature by Kris Van Cleave. For 33 seasons, a Thunder horse has led the Broncos onto the field at Empower Field at Mile High, symbolizing the heart and spirit of Broncos Country.

Today’s Thunder — officially Thunder IV — carries on the proud tradition started in 1993. With his rider and trainer Ann Judge, he sprints across the field before kickoff and after every Broncos touchdown, to the roar of thousands of fans.

“Sometimes, the players go in and out of favor,” Judge said. “Thunder never goes out of favor.”

Judge has worked alongside Thunder for decades, caring for him and sharing the pregame spotlight before each home game. “Every time they see Thunder, something good has happened,” she told CBS News.

The tradition began when the Broncos wanted a live mascot that could truly represent the team. The call went to Sharon Magness Blake, who owned a white Arabian stallion that fit the bill perfectly.

“They said, ‘We need a white horse to be the mascot,’” Magness Blake recalled. “They had one, but he got fired. And, ‘Would you like to do it?’ I said, ‘I’d love to do it.’”

Thunder has had a front-row view of Broncos history ever since — galloping through all three Super Bowl victories, countless touchdowns, and generations of fans. He even has his own stall at the stadium and a stallion-sized Super Bowl ring to match.

Before each game, Magness Blake spends time with Thunder in his private stable beneath the stands. “You be a good boy,” she told him before a recent game. “It’s stressful because you want to keep the horse safe, and you want to keep everybody around him safe. But it’s so cool.”

During the CBS interview, Magness Blake joked that Thunder “spoke” to her before the game. “He said, ‘I think I’m going to have to work hard today. I think we’re gonna win.’”

That day, Thunder streaked down the field four times — a good omen for any Broncos fan.

When he’s not at Mile High, Thunder lives on the Colorado Eastern Plains in Bennett, surrounded by open pastures and loyal fans who know exactly what he means to their team.

“I think it’s kind of one of those critical things, especially with Thunder,” said longtime fan Russ Barnum. “You know, the ride that he does.”

After 33 seasons and four Thunders, one thing is clear: players may come and go, but the Broncos’ most faithful champion will always be the one who leads the charge.

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