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Hello there.
My name's Emily and you're listening to Newstime.
Hi, Emily.
And hello to Newstime listener legend, Georgia.
Hi, my name is Georgia and I'm eight years old.
I live in Mianjin, home of the Turrbal and Yagara people.
Hi, Emily.
Welcome to Newstime.
Be sure to keep the good news coming.
If you'd like to be a listener legend like Georgia, find out how to apply at the end of the podcast.
But before we get there, we have five fantastic stories to explore.
We'll hear about people working to protect animals deep under the sea, and we'll meet a super wind surfer shredding the waves above them.
Plus, hear our wow of the week, a story guaranteed to make you say moo.
Oops, I mean wow.
It'll all make sense soon.
Are you ready?
Let's go.
Story number five.
It's time to say see you later to a special alligator.
An alligator who is white and he looks like he lives in a sanctuary.
Green crocodile lying in the sun.
A sand-coloured crocodile.
Claude the alligator lived at San Francisco for most of his life.
He was more than three metres long.
And unlike most alligators, Claude was white all over.
That's because Claude has something called albinism.
That's a condition where animals don't have their regular skin, fur or scale colour.
Instead, they're a very light white colour.
Humans can have albinism too.
It's really rare and it can affect someone's eyesight as well as their hair and skin colour.
Claude's eyesight wasn't great.
In fact, one time he ate a ballet shoe by mistake.
Maybe in his mind he said, maybe I shouldn't have done that because that was painful.
Why does this taste different to normal food?
You should have told me it went on my foot instead of going in my tummy.
Claude died recently and everyone came together to celebrate and know about.
It was when white people came to the land of the Indigenous people and ripped their kids from their homes, and they weren't allowed to speak their language.
While young Claude was living at Carrolup, he created some artworks.
One of these artworks is a painting showing dark figures and a tree on a sandy coloured land.
It looks like an Aboriginal person is trying to hunt kangaroos.
Oh, there's trees.
Some kangaroos are running away.
Claude's artwork was missing for 70 years, but recently it was rediscovered about 200 kilometres away from where it was first created.
I think it's been locked up in a chest.
Underground?
Underground in a treasure chest.
How did you guess that?
Yep, the artwork was locked up in a trunk.
Now that it's been found again, the plan is to put it on display at a gallery for people to see and think about.
Patricia Ryder works at the John Curtin Gallery and she says it's important to look at the artwork through what those children would have experienced at the time, not from where we are now.
We can learn many things we don't know in the past.
We can learn about life back then.
More about the Stolen Generation and more about the people who were here before us.
Claude wasn't the only artist at Carrolup.
Curators have found over 100 artworks from other young Aboriginal artists, and people are still working to solve the mystery of who these artists were, so they can share the art with their families.
Story number three.
We love the ocean on Newstime and I've got some great news for the deep blue sea.
My favourite fact? is when you go deeper in the ocean, it holds much more pressure on you.
It has been ratified as in given the official go-ahead.
Countries need to work together on ocean science and technology and let each other know if they're planning to do any research or extra fishing in the ocean.
I think ratified means you're ready to protect the ocean if something happens, so animals can stay alive.
So we don't make the animals extinct.
Because if there's no marine life, then there's no ocean and we can't have Earth without our oceans.
Within the next year, they'll hold the first conference of parties.
Not that kind of party.
It'll be a whole group of representatives getting together to chat about big plans for protecting the big blue ocean.
How exciting.
Story number two.
17-year-old Sarah Kenyon lives in Geraldton in Western Australia.
And she's a superb windsurfer.
I think it's just normal surfing, but instead of catching waves, you catch the wind like sailboats and there's a giant sail on your surfboard.
There's sort of like this boat thing with a mast sort of thing and the wind pushes it along.
It's like a surfboard thing with a sail.
Yep.
A wind surfer stands on the board and holds on tight to the sail, turning it this way and that to skilfully surf rushing waves.
Sarah is a particularly impressive surfer.
In fact, she recently won the Junior World Championships.
Wow, you're so great, Sarah.
Well done.
Magnificent.
This is the first time the championships have been held at a spot outside of Europe.
And, lucky for Sarah, the comp took place on the waves that she's grown up surfing at The Spot in Geraldton.
The way each beach around the world is shaped means that the waves are different.
So having a home ground, or should I say home ocean advantage, really helped Sarah perform her best.
That it wasn't that far so she could easily go there and sometimes maybe practice.
She was more confident in the place where she grew up.
I think she just felt proud to win surf on her home ground.
Yeah, Sarah said the conditions were just perfect and it felt great to have all her friends and her family there to watch.
Sarah isn't the only talented surfer coming out of her local area.
It seems more and more young people are trying the sport out, and the Windy Waves of Geraldton are the perfect place to start.
I think young people like about sports the way you can play.
It's like one of their hobbies that they could do to clear their mind if they have a really busy mind.
Sounds like there's been a wave of interest.
And now it's time for Wow of the Week.
This story made me go wow because a cow could scratch herself and not many cows can do that.
Move over monkeys and birds.
It seems there's a new animal in town who can use tools.
Scientists have spotted an Austrian cow named Veronica using a brush to scratch her own back.
Veronica holds the brush using her tongue like a hand and can move it all around her body to wherever she feels an itch that needs scratching.
Can you believe it?
Now that itchy spot isn't itchy anymore thanks to that broom.
This is a nice sort of brush, but...
I don't know if cows are really smart.
It might not sound like much, but being able to use tools is a really big deal for animals.
It shows that they have a special sort of intelligence and might be able to think complex thoughts.
And maybe it's in more animals like dogs.
Maybe.
Anthea Harrison is a farmer at Mount Gambier in South Australia and she says she's not very surprised by the scientist's discovery.
She already knew her cows were clever.
But thanks to the discovery, scientists might look more closely at animals they haven't paid much attention to when it comes to testing intelligence, including other farm animals.
They're often studied to see how they can best help farmers, but we really just don't know how intelligent they are.
Put lots of different tools out to see if they can use other ones for different things.
After we've seen a cow with a brush, what's next?
A pig using a hairdryer?
I suppose we'll have to wait and see.
And that's it.
Five stories counted down.
Time for the Newstime Quiz.
I'll ask you five questions, one for each story.
Good luck!
Question one, what's the name of the condition that made the alligator a light white colour?
Hmm... It's albinism.
Question two, what's the name of the young artist?
Hint, it's the same as the name of the alligator.
Hmm... It's Claude.
Question three, how many countries have ratified the Treaty for the Ocean?
Hmm...
It's 83 countries.
Question four.
What town is windsurfer Sarah Kenyon from?
She's from Geraldton.
Question five.
What did Veronica the cow use to scratch herself?
It was a brush.
How'd you go?
Well, that's us done and dusted news sleuths.
If you'd like to be a Newstime listener legend, ask your grown-ups to head to the Newstime page on the ABC Kids Listen website and we'd love to put your voice on the podcast.
Bye, Emily.
Thanks, Emily.
You're very welcome.
Catch you next time.
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