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The Guardian
06-08-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A personal platypus: the strange tale of Winston Churchill's ‘magnificently idiotic' wartime request
There is a photo – or at least a 'fabled' photo – that would tie up a lot of loose ends in the strange story of Winston Churchill's platypuses. Recent research has revived the tale of how the British prime minister asked Australia to send him a live monotreme at the height of the second world war. Sadly his namesake, Winston, died just two days before landing in England in 1943 in now disputed circumstances. But Associate Prof Nancy Cushing, an environmental history specialist at the University of Newcastle, says Winston's journey would never have happened without the knowledge gained from a second platypus, Splash, that was also sent to Churchill – albeit after it had died and been stuffed. Cushing describes the connection between Churchill and the platypuses as 'weirdly compelling'. Splash sat on Churchill's desk while Operation Platypus – a series of reconnaissance missions in Borneo – was under way, academic research has found. 'I think one thing we would have loved to have found, and is fabled to exist, is a photograph of Splash on Churchill's desk,' Cushing says. 'There hasn't been really any discussion of [Splash's journey to London]. And that was such a breakthrough. Before its death, Splash was the first of the sensitive, duck-billed, beaverish animals to be successfully kept in captivity by Healesville Sanctuary's Robert Eadie. 'Without Splash there wouldn't have been an attempt to send Winston. He defined how you look after a platypus in captivity.' Churchill famously kept a menagerie, which included kangaroos and black swans. In 1943, he asked Australia's external affairs minister, Herbert 'Doc' Evatt, if he could have not just one platypus, but half a dozen, a request described by the zoo owner and author Gerald Durrell as 'magnificently idiotic'. Monotremes, which include echidnas as well as platypuses, are distinct from other mammals because they lay eggs. With their duck-like bill, flat tail and partially webbed feet, they are so strange looking that many early European scientists studying specimens suspected they were a hoax. Cushing and Kevin Markwell, from Southern Cross University, wrote in 2009 in their paper Platypus diplomacy: animals gifts in international relations that efforts to fulfil Churchill's request were motivated by a desire to secure his 'personal affection' towards an Australia 'which felt abandoned by Britain during the war'. 'The feat of transferring the platypus would have brought acclaim to the Australians and viewing the platypus [at London zoo] would have reminded embattled Londoners of their Australian cousins who were also facing the grim realities of war while raising morale by providing an opportunity to see an exotic animal for the first time,' they wrote in the Journal of Australian Studies. Officials charged with satisfying the British PM's request approached Australia's 'father of conservation', David Fleay, for help. Fleay wrote of his surprise in his 1980 book Paradoxical Platypus: hobnobbing with duckbills. 'Winston Churchill had found time suddenly in the middle of the war to attempt to bring to fruition what was, apparently, a long-cherished ambition … he had actually approached our prime minister for no less than six platypuses!' he wrote. He described it as the 'shock of a lifetime' and a 'tremendous problem landed squarely in my lap'. Fleay pushed back against the idea of sending six platypuses on the dangerous mission, but caught several and picked one to go. He named him Winston, built a 'special travelling platypusary' for him (with burrows and a swimming tank) and trained a platypus keeper to look after him on the ship. 'I thought it was a really weird thing to do when you're running a country, running a war,' Fleay's son, Stephen, tells Guardian Australia from Portugal. The platypus mission was secret at the time, but Stephen gradually learned about it and says his father supervised the whole thing. 'They're very, very difficult to keep,' he says. 'But he was completely, completely devoted to the animal.' Fleay built his knowledge on the work of Eadie, his predecessor at Healesville Sanctuary. 'We occupied his original cottage when my father became director in '37, '38,' Stephen says. 'He did a lot of pioneering work with the platypus, then my father took up his work.' Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion It was Eadie who had successfully kept Splash in captivity until its death in 1937. Cushing and Markwell, referring to Eadie's own writings, wrote that the preserved remains of Splash were 'carefully packed and secretly despatched to London'. 'When delivered to 10 Downing Street on 19 June 1943, accompanied by a leather-bound scientific description of the platypus and Eadie's 1935 book The Life and Habits of the Platypus, with Sidelights on 'Splash' the Tame Platypus, Churchill was said to have been delighted and later to have displayed the platypus on his desk.' The University of Cambridge's Natalie Lawrence wrote in the BBC Wildlife Magazine that Splash, who had been a 'minor celebrity' in Australia, was sent as an 'interim gift' while plans were made to keep Winston alive on the long sea journey. '[Splash] became almost entirely tame from his training by Robert Eadie, who had, as it happened, once saved Churchill's life in the Boer war in South Africa,' Lawrence wrote. Brisbane's Courier Mail reported in 1949, in an article about Eadie's death, that he had indeed been part of a team that helped Churchill escape from captivity (though other accounts have him escaping on his own). Winston the platypus set sail on the MV Port Philip, but died just two days before he was due to reach land. The media at the time reported, presumably on advice of the authorities, that the Germans were to blame. On 1 November 1945, Adelaide's the News reported that Churchill, 'in the midst of his war-time worries, wanted an Australian platypus'. 'And he would have got a specimen, a husky young male, but for German submarines,' the paper reported. Depth charges dropped when the Port Philip encountered the submarines caused the platypus to die of shock, the paper said. Fleay wrote that a heavy concussion would have killed the sensitive creatures. 'After all, a small animal equipped with a nerve-packed, super-sensitive bill, able to detect even the delicate movements of a mosquito wriggler on stream bottoms in the dark of night, cannot hope to cope with man-made enormities such as violent explosions,' he wrote. But students from the University of Sydney studying Fleay's collections in the Australian Museum Archives said in June that a shortage of worms to feed Winston, alongside heat stress, could have been factors as well as potential distress from the detonations. The ship's logbook shows air temperatures soared above 30C and water temperatures rose above 27C for about a week as the ship crossed equatorial waters. Platypuses cannot regulate their body temperatures in environments warmer than 25C, the students wrote. 'Heat stress alone would have been enough to kill Winston,' they wrote. 'However, it is important to note that food restrictions and the shock of a depth charge, in combination with heat stress, likely had an additional impact on Winston'e wellbeing and together contributed to his demise.'
The Guardian
06-08-2025
- General
- The Guardian
A personal platypus: the strange tale of Winston Churchill's ‘magnificently idiotic' wartime request
There is a photo – or at least a 'fabled' photo – that would tie up a lot of loose ends in the strange story of Winston Churchill's platypuses. Recent research has revived the tale of how the British prime minister asked Australia to send him a live monotreme at the height of the second world war. Sadly his namesake, Winston, died just two days before landing in England in 1943 in now disputed circumstances. But Associate Prof Nancy Cushing, an environmental history specialist at the University of Newcastle, says Winston's journey would never have happened without the knowledge gained from a second platypus, Splash, that was also sent to Churchill – albeit after it had died and been stuffed. Cushing describes the connection between Churchill and the platypuses as 'weirdly compelling'. Splash sat on Churchill's desk while Operation Platypus – a series of reconnaissance missions in Borneo – was under way, academic research has found. 'I think one thing we would have loved to have found, and is fabled to exist, is a photograph of Splash on Churchill's desk,' Cushing says. 'There hasn't been really any discussion of [Splash's journey to London]. And that was such a breakthrough. Before its death, Splash was the first of the sensitive, duck-billed, beaverish animals to be successfully kept in captivity by Healesville Sanctuary's Robert Eadie. 'Without Splash there wouldn't have been an attempt to send Winston. He defined how you look after a platypus in captivity.' Churchill famously kept a menagerie, which included kangaroos and black swans. In 1943, he asked Australia's external affairs minister, Herbert 'Doc' Evatt, if he could have not just one platypus, but half a dozen, a request described by the zoo owner and author Gerald Durrell as 'magnificently idiotic'. Monotremes, which include echidnas as well as platypuses, are distinct from other mammals because they lay eggs. With their duck-like bill, flat tail and partially webbed feet, they are so strange looking that many early European scientists studying specimens suspected they were a hoax. Cushing and Kevin Markwell, from Southern Cross University, wrote in 2009 in their paper Platypus diplomacy: animals gifts in international relations that efforts to fulfil Churchill's request were motivated by a desire to secure his 'personal affection' towards an Australia 'which felt abandoned by Britain during the war'. 'The feat of transferring the platypus would have brought acclaim to the Australians and viewing the platypus [at London zoo] would have reminded embattled Londoners of their Australian cousins who were also facing the grim realities of war while raising morale by providing an opportunity to see an exotic animal for the first time,' they wrote in the Journal of Australian Studies. Officials charged with satisfying the British PM's request approached Australia's 'father of conservation', David Fleay, for help. Fleay wrote of his surprise in his 1980 book Paradoxical Platypus: hobnobbing with duckbills. 'Winston Churchill had found time suddenly in the middle of the war to attempt to bring to fruition what was, apparently, a long-cherished ambition … he had actually approached our prime minister for no less than six platypuses!' he wrote. He described it as the 'shock of a lifetime' and a 'tremendous problem landed squarely in my lap'. Fleay pushed back against the idea of sending six platypuses on the dangerous mission, but caught several and picked one to go. He named him Winston, built a 'special travelling platypusary' for him (with burrows and a swimming tank) and trained a platypus keeper to look after him on the ship. 'I thought it was a really weird thing to do when you're running a country, running a war,' Fleay's son, Stephen, tells Guardian Australia from Portugal. The platypus mission was secret at the time, but Stephen gradually learned about it and says his father supervised the whole thing. 'They're very, very difficult to keep,' he says. 'But he was completely, completely devoted to the animal.' Fleay built his knowledge on the work of Eadie, his predecessor at Healesville Sanctuary. 'We occupied his original cottage when my father became director in '37, '38,' Stephen says. 'He did a lot of pioneering work with the platypus, then my father took up his work.' Sign up to Five Great Reads Each week our editors select five of the most interesting, entertaining and thoughtful reads published by Guardian Australia and our international colleagues. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Saturday morning after newsletter promotion It was Eadie who had successfully kept Splash in captivity until its death in 1937. Cushing and Markwell, referring to Eadie's own writings, wrote that the preserved remains of Splash were 'carefully packed and secretly despatched to London'. 'When delivered to 10 Downing Street on 19 June 1943, accompanied by a leather-bound scientific description of the platypus and Eadie's 1935 book The Life and Habits of the Platypus, with Sidelights on 'Splash' the Tame Platypus, Churchill was said to have been delighted and later to have displayed the platypus on his desk.' The University of Cambridge's Natalie Lawrence wrote in the BBC Wildlife Magazine that Splash, who had been a 'minor celebrity' in Australia, was sent as an 'interim gift' while plans were made to keep Winston alive on the long sea journey. '[Splash] became almost entirely tame from his training by Robert Eadie, who had, as it happened, once saved Churchill's life in the Boer war in South Africa,' Lawrence wrote. Brisbane's Courier Mail reported in 1949, in an article about Eadie's death, that he had indeed been part of a team that helped Churchill escape from captivity (though other accounts have him escaping on his own). Winston the platypus set sail on the MV Port Philip, but died just two days before he was due to reach land. The media at the time reported, presumably on advice of the authorities, that the Germans were to blame. On 1 November 1945, Adelaide's the News reported that Churchill, 'in the midst of his war-time worries, wanted an Australian platypus'. 'And he would have got a specimen, a husky young male, but for German submarines,' the paper reported. Depth charges dropped when the Port Philip encountered the submarines caused the platypus to die of shock, the paper said. Fleay wrote that a heavy concussion would have killed the sensitive creatures. 'After all, a small animal equipped with a nerve-packed, super-sensitive bill, able to detect even the delicate movements of a mosquito wriggler on stream bottoms in the dark of night, cannot hope to cope with man-made enormities such as violent explosions,' he wrote. But students from the University of Sydney studying Fleay's collections in the Australian Museum Archives said in June that a shortage of worms to feed Winston, alongside heat stress, could have been factors as well as potential distress from the detonations. The ship's logbook shows air temperatures soared above 30C and water temperatures rose above 27C for about a week as the ship crossed equatorial waters. Platypuses cannot regulate their body temperatures in environments warmer than 25C, the students wrote. 'Heat stress alone would have been enough to kill Winston,' they wrote. 'However, it is important to note that food restrictions and the shock of a depth charge, in combination with heat stress, likely had an additional impact on Winston'e wellbeing and together contributed to his demise.'
Yahoo
29-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Starcore Reports Year End 2025 Results
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - July 29, 2025) - Starcore International Mines Ltd. (TSX: SAM) ("Starcore" or the "Company") has filed the results for the year end dated April 30, 2025 for the Company and its mining operations in Queretaro, Mexico. The full version of the Company's Financial Statements and Management's Discussion and Analysis can be viewed on the Company's website at or SEDAR+ at All financial information is prepared in accordance with IFRS and all dollar amounts are expressed in thousands of Canadian dollars unless otherwise indicated. "The Company reported income of $2.5 million from mining operations in the fourth quarter, finishing strong at $6.3 million for the year," reported Robert Eadie, Chief Executive Officer. "With the carbon circuit testing being completed and recently announced acquisitions, we are looking forward to the coming fiscal year." Financial Highlights for the year ending April 30, 2025 (audited) and quarter ended April 30, 2025 (unaudited): Cash on hand is $3.1 million and working capital of $2.5 million at April 30, 2025; Gold and silver sales of $32.2 million; Income from mining operations of $6.3 million for the year and $2.5 million in the 4th quarter ended April 30, 2025; Income for the year of $0.2 million, or $0.00 per share and $1.6 million, or $0.02 per share, for the quarter ended April 30, 2025; EBITDA(1) of $2.8 million. The following table contains selected highlights from the Company's audited Consolidated Statements of Profit for the three months and years ended April 30, 2025 and April 30, 2024: Three Months Ended Twelve Months EndedApril 30, 2025April 30, 2024April 30, 2025 April 30, 2024Revenues $ 9,368$ 9,335$ 32,159$ 28,327Cost of Sales(6,914) (7,173) (25,827) (25,922) Income from mining operations2,454 2,162 6,332 2,405Administrative Expenses(2,707) (1,295) (7,505) (4,100)Gain (loss) on investment97 19 97 (310)Gain (loss) on sale of assets(40) - (40) 37Income tax (expense)/ recovery1,808 3,637 1,331 3,601Total income / (loss) (i) Total income/ (loss) $ 1,612$ 4,523$ 215$ 1,633(ii) Income/(loss) per share - basic & diluted $ 0.02$ 0.06$ 0.00$ 0.03Total assets $ 55,998$ 51,973$ 55,998$ 51,973Total long-term liabilities $ 8,041$ 7,186$ 8,041$ 7,186 Reconciliation of Net Income to EBITDA(1) For the year ended April 30,2025 2024Net income $ 215$ 1,633Depreciation and depletion3,453 2,828Rehabilitation and closure cost accretion331 235Interest expense6 2Accretion on share buyback27 -Lease accretion52 56Income tax expense (recovery)(1,331) (3,601)Depreciation and depletion $ 2,753$ 1,153EBITDA MARGIN(2)8.6% 4.1% (1) EBITDA ("Earnings before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization") is a non-GAAP financial performance measure with no standard definition under IFRS. It is therefore possible that this measure could not be comparable with a similar measure of another Corporation. The Corporation uses this non-GAAP measure which can also be helpful to investors as it provides a result which can be compared with the Corporation's market share price.(2) EBITDA MARGIN is a measurement of a company's operating profitability calculated as EBITDA divided by total revenue. EBITDA MARGIN is a non-GAAP financial performance measure with no standard definition under IFRS. It is therefore possible that this measure could not be comparable with a similar measure of another Corporation. The Corporation uses this non-GAAP measure which can also be helpful to investors as it provides a result which can be compared with the Corporation's market share price. Production Highlights for the year and quarter ended April 30, 2025: Equivalent gold production of 8,916 ounces for the year and 2,342 ounces for the 4th quarter; Mine operating cash cost of US$1,936/EqOz for the year and US$1,888/EqOz for the 4th quarter; All-in sustaining costs of US$2,662/EqOz for the year. The following table is a summary of mine production statistics for the San Martin mine for the three and twelve months ended April 30, 2025 and April 30, 2024: (Unaudited) Unit of measure Actual results 3 months ended30-Apr-25 Actual results 3 months ended30-Apr-24 Actual results 12 months ended30-Apr-25 Actual results 12 months ended30-Apr-24 Mine production of Gold in Dore thousand ounces 2.2 3.0 8.3 9.4 Mine production of Silver in Dore thousand ounces 15.2 19.7 49.3 58.0 Total mine production - equivalent ounces thousand ounces 2.3 3.2 8.9 10.1 Silver to Gold equivalency ratio93.0 87.1 82.6 84.9 Mine Gold grade grams/tonne 1.57 1.91 1.58 1.50 Mine Silver grade grams/tonne 15.77 19.59 14.27 15.82 Mine Gold recovery percent 81.7% 88.6% 83.1% 87.0% Mine Silver recovery percent 56.7% 56.9% 53.0% 50.9% Milled thousands of tonnes 53.4 55.9 197.9 224.3 Mine operating cash cost per tonne milled US dollars/tonne 83 82 87 76 Mine operating cash cost per equivalent ounce US dollars/ounces 1,888 1,411 1,936 1,686 Salvador Garcia, B. Eng., a director of the Company and Chief Operating Officer, is the Company's qualified person on the project as required under NI 43-101 and has prepared the technical information contained in this press release. About Starcore Starcore International Mines is engaged in precious metals production with focus and experience in Mexico. While this base of producing assets is complemented by exploration and development projects throughout North America, Starcore has expanded its reach internationally with the project in Côte d'Ivoire. The Company is a leader in Corporate Social Responsibility and advocates value driven decisions that will increase long term shareholder value. You can find more information on the investor friendly website here: ON BEHALF OF STARCORE INTERNATIONAL MINES LTD. Signed "Gary Arca" Gary Arca, Chief Financial Officer and Director FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT: GARY ARCA Telephone: (604) 602-4935 LinkedInX Facebook The Toronto Stock Exchange has not reviewed nor does it accept responsibilityfor the adequacy or accuracy of this press release. This news release contains "forward-looking" statements and information ("forward-looking statements"). All statements, other than statements of historical facts included herein, including, without limitation, management's expectations and the potential of the Company's projects, are forward looking statements. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs of Company management, as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to Company's management and reflect the beliefs, opinions, and projections on the date the statements are made. Forward-looking statements involve various risks and uncertainties and accordingly, readers are advised not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward‐looking statements or beliefs, opinions, projections or other factors, except as required by law. NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN THE UNITED STATES To view the source version of this press release, please visit Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data Error while retrieving data
