Teach the children

There's a rule in journalism that three of anything is a trend. It's taken a while, but we can now officially designate the following as a trend in bad animal behavior: Zoo animals eating other zoo animals in front of a crowd of children.

In October 2010 we learned of this incident:

A horrified 8-year-old boy watched as an alligator ate the pet turtle he'd just donated to a Panhandle aquarium.

Brenda Guthrie and her 8-year-old son Colton witnessed Tomalina’s death as the red-eared slider disappeared into the alligator’s jaws at the Gulfarium. When the two looked away from the sight, she said they could hear the crunching of the turtle’s shell.

“He was jumping up and down screaming,” Guthrie said of her son’s reaction. “He was shouting, ‘Oh no alligator, let it go.’”

And this past June:

Kids see a lion eat cuddly zoo animal

The cute binturong - also called a bearcat - was one of a pair to climb a tree before dropping into the big cat den at Chessington World of Adventure.

Jason Harcombe, visiting with his two-year-old son Oscar, said: "The poor animal didn't stand a chance. The lions jumped on it straight away and killed it.

"The lioness brought the body up to the glass and then she and her mate just ripped it apart in front of us."

And now another British lion completes the trio: At the Colchester Zoo, an adorable barn owl was performing in a free-flight display when it collided with a window and, dazed, ended up on a ledge in the lion exhibit.

You can guess what happened next, and the crowd reacted as expected. One observer said that his two year old son "was in tears, along with most of the people who were there. Women and children were screaming but it was all over in seconds."

But that visitor, at least, took the right lesson away from the experience:

"It's in the lion’s nature. I have taught Daniel that lions are not fluffy animals. He was very upset but we will be back in the zoo again."

(That's a photo of the late - and no doubt delicious - barn owl Ash from the Daily Mail.)

Animals and law enforcement, the continuing saga

Last week we saw a major police response to a stuffed tiger in England, and perhaps you thought this was a unique event. Hardly, as any animal control officer will tell you. They are constantly called to respond to "emergencies" involving snakes that turn out to be garden hoses, dying animals that are really plastic bags, and, like the fuzzy feline in the English case, animals that turn out to be stuffed, plastic, or statues.

In fact, this past week it happened again,this time in the US. A resident of a Kansas City suburb called police to report a sighting of an alligator. Lacking a helicopter with heat-sensing equipment, this time responding officers actually shot the critter twice before realizing something was up.

You may think this is all good for a laugh, but don't forget it's your tax dollars at work. And in fact, in Great Britain, one watchdog organization has totalled up the cost of responses to such calls - most of which turn out to involve real animals - and the figure is sobering: 3.5 million pounds in the last three years for rescues involving 2,400 cats, 2,180 dogs, 1,700 horses, 2,090 birds (including 1,244 seagulls, 159 pigeons, 57 swans and 12 parrots), 26 foxes, 19 squirrels, seven ferrets, seven badgers, ten hamsters, 15 snakes, 11 fish and seven dolphins. One fire brigade in Wales even rescued a snail whose plight was distressing an elderly lady.

You may think seagulls and snails should be left to fend for themselves, but because your foolish fellow citizens don't, safety personnel have no choice but to devote their resources to these rescues, as one official explained:

"If we don't rescue that animal somebody else will or will try to. I've seen people have their arms trapped in drains trying to rescue ducklings and we've actually had to dig the road up to get the person out."

Time to panic down South?

There was a moment last week when all of these headlines appeared simultaneously at CNN.com:

* Wild coyotes eat zoo birds (New Orleans)

* Mom stabs dog, saves tot (South Carolina)

* Hawks attack 5 people (Florida)

* Mouse poop found on shelf at local Kroger (Kentucky)

* Pants saved teen from gator ("Florida lawmakers may think twice about banning droopy drawers after a teen claims he was saved from an alligator attack because of his baggy pants.")

Given the range of creatures and offenses involved here, I think I am staying up North for the foreseeable future despite our lingering winter weather.


Photo of sign that needs to be updated with some fashion advice by Flickr user alicetiara.

This is your mind on bad animals

Dearest readers, perhaps writing this blog, being constantly steeped in the lowest lows of animal behavior, has made me into a bad person. But all I can add to the following story from Florida is: LOL.

A horrified 8-year-old boy watched as an alligator ate the pet turtle he'd just donated to a Panhandle aquarium.

Brenda Guthrie and her 8-year-old son Colton witnessed Tomalina’s death as the red-eared slider disappeared into the alligator’s jaws at the Gulfarium. When the two looked away from the sight, she said they could hear the crunching of the turtle’s shell.

“He was jumping up and down screaming,” Guthrie said of her son’s reaction. “He was shouting, ‘Oh no alligator, let it go.’”

Guthrie said that they decided to donate Tomalina after the turtle outgrew its aquarium. They chose the Gulfarium so that Colton could come back and visit the turtle.

They brought it there Thursday afternoon and watched as workers put the slider into the alligator exhibit, where two other red-eared sliders already live.

Gulfarium officials said that the alligator, Gracie, had just been hand-fed and that the gators normally don’t express interest in the turtles.

“It’s horrible for a little kid to have to see that,” said General Manager Don Abrams. “That’s not unusual to put sliders in the same exhibit. (The alligators) have never eaten a turtle in the exhibit before.

“It’s just Murphy’s law that nature would take over right then,” he added.

Photo of alligator behaving naturally by Flickr user otzberg.

Alligator Roundup

It seems like we need an alligator roundup literally, not just metaphorically. We're seeing a rash of alligators wandering around the United States where they shouldn't be:

An alligator is found wandering down the street in Brockton, outside Boston, dragging a broken leash;

A man in Michigan finds an alligator in his corn field;

TWO alligators have been captured recently out of the Chicago river;

And finally, maybe there are alligators in the sewers of New York City after all, although typically, the reporter feels sympathy rather than some more appropriate emotion:

It seemed less like a menacing predator, more like an abandoned pet cowering under a car, forlornly hoping for tips on how to play its role. In fact, it reminded me of me, at every publishing party I'd attended during my first years in New York.

I am not sure what to make of all this, but it can't be good. Watch your backs.



Photo of Chicago capture by "Alligator Bob" from the Chicago Tribune.

Happy (?) National Pet Fire Safety Day

Despite feeling that animals should take responsibility for their bad behavior, I'm all for keeping my pets out of harm's way. But that's not our assignment here, so the press release for National Pet Fire Safety Day wasn't something I expected to be relevant to this blog.

Boy, was I wrong:

“National Pet Fire Safety Day”

Prevention Tips to Keep Pets from Starting Home Fires

- New Data Says Pets Start Nearly 1,000 Fires Each Year-

Of course, this isn't a complete surprise. Despite reports of dogs saving their owners from fires, we've also reported on dogs that start them. Cats are certainly not innocent of the same, and the fact that at least some of them then raise the alarm doesn't lessen the blame.

The AKC gives some advice on how to keep your pets from starting fires, but they seem to vastly underestimate the possibilities. Sure, it's a great idea not to have open flames around the house whether you have a pet or not. But removing or covering stove knobs wouldn't have helped the people whose goat knocked over a space heater or the ones whose alligator was suspected of doing the same

And don't think that just adding advice to be careful with those space heaters will eliminate the problem - ask the people whose fan outlet was blocked by a bird's nest. Nor will it do anything to prevent what can happen to people who are stupid about animals, like the man who set his house on fire while trying to kill a spider with a lighter.

So go ahead and cover those knobs, buy fake electric candles, and even be careful about giving your pets water in a glass bowl on a wooden deck.

But don't let those precautions give you a false sense of security, because - like the people whose dog started a fire by peeing on the vacuum cleaner - you never know what animals are going to come up with next.