Lemurs on the Lam

Two lemurs caused a commotion in Salzburg, Austria after escaping from a zoo and roaming the city for a week.

Reports had them attacking laundry, turning over backyard furniture, raiding orchards and harrassing pets. But every time zookeepers were dispatched to capture them, they had moved on.

They did seem to have a civilized side to their behavior, though, as one report described:

The saucy animals walked through several neighborhoods, climbed over roofs and trees, yet they also used the sidewalks in a most exemplary manner.

It was these tendencies that were their downfall. No doubt tired of the unaccustomed effort of scaring up their own meals, the pair eventually tried to get served in a hotel bar.

Grunauerhof hotel manager Andreas Hasenohrl said: "I couldn't believe it when I came in for work in the morning. It looked like they were looking for something to drink - they were playing with the bottles. But I gave them a real banana instead and quickly shut all the doors and windows."

Keepers were then able to escort them back to the good life at the zoo where their meals are delivered by trained staff. Let's hope they've learned their lesson.


(Thanks for the translation to the blog's official German-language correspondent; note that the photo is from the zoo's website but is not identified as the culprits and may be two totally innocent lemurs, if there is such a thing.)

Lessons for the New Year

To start the new year off right, a collection of stories demonstrating how to - and how not to - treat animals that are behaving badly.

YES:
- Man bites snake in India:

A gardener who was bitten by a snake gave as good as he got, or better. He bit the snake back, and kept chewing until he felt rather ill, vomited, and fainted, but came out on top in the end:

"I was angry when the snake bit me on my finger. I bit it back because that was my way of taking revenge," Ramesh told doctors after regaining consciousness.

His condition is stable. The snake is dead.

- A goat in Germany was jailed for disrupting traffic, and insulted as well:

The only remarks on the arrest papers were "smells very bad."

The goat is being fed bread and water and as is clear from the photo above, his accomodations are suitably spartan.

Traffic enforcement on animal violators seems to be taken more seriously in some places than others. We've seen a dog get away with crashing a car into a store in Australia and everybody making excuses for a crocodile in Turkey.

Let's resolve in the new year not to take those two cases as precedent and work harder to lock up goats and handcuff bulls and big birds who disrupt travel.

NO:
-On the other end of the spectrum from the police department's goat diet of bread and water, we have a report of a zoo hiring a children's chef to make a special Christmas meal for a fussy baby lemur:

Zoo keepers have tried to tempt the animal with a variety of treats, but so far the youngster has turned his nose up at almost everything on offer.

So Mrs Karmel was drafted in to ensure he eats his Christmas dinner.

"He's quite fussy, like most kids are," she said. "He doesn't like vegetables but he likes fruit. The trouble with him is that he is fickle - one day he likes something and the next day he won't eat it."

-Even worse, on the other end of spectrum from the snake-biting gardener, the past year saw victims of shark attacks, including a man who had his arm bitten off by a shark, lobbying for shark conservation.

Enough said. You know what to do.