A construction worker alerted the city rescue service with a phone call as he heard an animal's panicky splashing on the Novgorod outskirts, close to 5 River Street-looked in, and saw a stranded beaver.
The rescuers started for the emergency site at once, and promptly got the beaver out of the sewer, several meters deep. The exasperated animal found itself in the nearest lake a quarter of an hour later.
The service often comes to pets' and wild beasts' help. December 25 was memorable with the rescue of a dolphin who leapt on the ground out of a huge aquarium in which it was traveling to the St. Petersburg dolphinarium. Stray horses and moose are no rare presence in urban streets, and none but qualified rescuers can take them out unscathed.
