A message in a bottle, sent from Florida in the US, arrived on a sandy west Cork beach last week, almost exactly one year after it left the Sunshine State’s shores.

Bino’s back was killing him. He was suffering from scoliosis. He couldn’t move his legs — two of them anyway — and his tail just wouldn’t swish. So what’s an ailing albino alligator to do? Acupuncture, naturally.