Crazy cow season

-In England, a cow took up the valuable time of human rescuers by getting itself into the ridiculous situation pictured above. The Scottish SPCA, which received the call, assumed it was a hoax, but went out to check anyway, said an officer:

"But I arrived at the field to find the cow looking confused but surprisingly calm despite having his head wedged tightly in between the rungs of the ladder."

-Elsewhere in England, a more serious incident: A driver was lucky to escape injury when a cow jumped a three foot fence and landed on the hood of his car. He skidded 80 yards and ended up on the wrong side of the road before managing to stop, but fortunately suffered only cuts and bruises.

The accident was so unusual that officials made sure to rule out another theory, the driver explained:

"The police were very nice about everything, although I don't think they could quite believe it either. They breath-tested me which came back negative."

The cow died at the scene, but the victim wisely doesn't assume that this is the end of it:

"I am now looking out for low-flying cows when I am driving."

-And finally, an update: Yvonne, the famous cow on the lam in Germany, is still eluding capture, despite the efforts of activists with scooters, sniffer dogs, tranq guns, and a helicopter equipped with a thermal imaging camera. But they're not giving up, said one member:

"We have found cowpats, very fresh ones. And we will follow the trail."

Midsummer serpent roundup

Some snake stories we've missed over the past few months:

-From Australia, a cat behaving badly because of a snake obsession: Loti has cost her owners almost $2000 because of her habit of catching venomous snakes. She almost died after being bitten two years ago, but as of February, she hadn't given up the habit, presenting her owners with another brown snake and another hundred dollar vet bill.

-Also in Australia, a canoe club was in danger of a ceiling collapse because of six scrub pythons up in the roof having an orgy. Two were caught, but four were continuing their activities in a low corner where they can't be reached, including a seven meter long female who eluded capture for the same offense a couple of years ago.

-And in England, another sad example of what can happen when people think that animals appreciate what we do for them.

Luke Yeomans founded a research and conservation center for king cobras in India, and kept a breeding colony of 24 at his home in England. But despite his alleged expertise, as you can see from the photo above, apparently he thought it was a good idea to kiss a cobra on the back of its head. And he was quoted as saying:

“These king cobras know I provide them with food and fresh water so they’re not going to go out of their way to do harm to me when I do no harm to them whatsoever."

Um, right. He was planning to open his cobra sanctuary to the public in July - but a few days before the scheduled debut, he died after one of the snakes bit him.

Losing the monkey wars in India

From the beginning this blog has been on top of the worldwide macaque problem. These monkeys make trouble everyplace in the world where they live close to humans - we've read about them in Singapore and Japan, but most of all in India, where the problem is compounded by the fact that they are considered sacred, limiting efforts to control them.

The problems with encouraging these monkeys should be obvious to everyone. As a recent report describes it:

More than 90 per cent carry tuberculosis, they swarm central government offices, prowl the landings, and bite through essential internet cables. Many attack people carrying food and even residents relaxing on their verandahs. Delhi's former deputy mayor was killed when he was attacked by a macaque on his apartment balcony and fell to his death.

How do people react to this unarguably bad behavior? Many continue to feed these creatures as a way to honor the god Hanuman. And as we were reminded recently, even when they're invading a hospital, the only culturally acceptable way they've come up with to control this population of well-nourished hooligans is to to rely on the help of other monkeys.

This approach is working about as well as readers of this blog should expect. Langur monkeys led around on a leash are supposed to frighten away the marauding macaques, but for one thing - and are we surprised? - these primates sometimes turn on humans themselves.

And now, it appears that the technique is losing effectiveness - the macaques are losing their fear of the langurs. Even more worrying, they've realized that they have an advantage over a team of one langur and one human:

Anuradha Sawney, a member of the Animal Welfare Board of India and owner of a monkey sanctuary just outside New Delhi, said the macaque's increasing boldness was down to its growing numbers in Delhi and its capacity to adapt to changing circumstances.

"If there are a lot of macaques the group will be strong and they will not be afraid to fight," she said.

But that's not the worst of it. Also, says one voice from the trenches of the monkey wars, they're starting to think ahead:

Diljan Ali, a langur handler, complained that the government hires monkey men to confront the macaques but refuses to compensate them when their animals are defeated. "(The macaques) are very smart. They know when they have the advantage. They attack in numbers and when they do it's pre-planned."

We'll keep an eye on this developing story... let's hope the world primate uprising stays in the movies where it belongs.


In that photo from The Telegraph, note the monkey sitting on top of the cage. They're not that easy to fool.

Bears don't wait for an invitation

A bit belated, but it's important to draw attention to this story from back in June of a presumptuous bear. A woman in Seminole County, Florida, had seen black bears in her yard before, but none had taken advanatge like this:

He headed toward her pool and pressed his nose against the screen. Then he just walked through the screen "like it was made of butter."

First he put his mouth in her spa, then a paw and finally he just jumped in.

"I think he was hot and thirsty," Rhoades said. "It looked like he knew what he was doing.

"He had been in a pool or spa before, there's no doubt in my mind," she said.

She went outside and banged on a table and he got out of the spa and left through the hole he had made in the screen.

She wasted no time scaring the bear away because she didn't want him to get used to using her spa and she didn't want him to leave "a package" behind.

I would especially draw your attention to this line:

"He had been in a pool or spa before, there's no doubt in my mind."

Once animals get a taste of these luxuries, there's no turning back. Fortify those backyard enclosures, Floridians, or look forward to a world where we are nothing but the pool boys for bears.

To impress this more throughly on your mind, see more of her photos here.

Don't count your cows before they are captured

It's been a summer of vastly different fates for animals on the run. Elephants that ran away from the circus went peacefully with police who nabbed them before they could catch a bus out of town. The majority of monkeys have eluded the authorities, with the minority being captured without harm.

But not all have gotten off so easily. An emu that was on the loose for two weeks in Maryland was shot by state troopers:

"We did it because residents had expressed concerns about their safety and the safety of their children... There also had been complaints that the emu was getting on roads, blocking traffic and causing hazards."

The same fate befell an escaped macaque in Tennessee who attacked a woman while she was washing her car:

"I had no idea he was even there. Then I could feel his teeth in the calf of my leg, and I really didn't know at that point what it was, I just knew I had to get it off me."

The monkey also injured a responding officer, at which point another shot and killed it.

For one animal in Germany, it could still go either way. Yvonne the cow escaped from a farm in Bavaria in May. She's been on the lam ever since, and become a sort of celebrity - but like with many reality stars, people are divided strongly for and against.

The police, who've failed to catch Yvonne all these months, have decided to authorize officers to shoot her. Apparently the last straw was when she jumped out in front of a police car, startling the officers and then despite being so close, getting away. (Authorities claim that such behavior proves she's a danger to traffic, but one has to wonder whether embarrassment is also a factor.)

On the other side, an animal sanctuary has actually purchased the cow, and is searching for her with all-terrain vehicles and infrared camera.

These people are such bunny-huggers that they would prefer not to use even tranquilizer darts - and instead, actually think it might work to appeal to sentiment. They've also purchased a former stall-mate of Yvonne's as well as that cow's calf and hope this will lure her in."After all, she has had a calf herself," says a representative with a bad case of maudlin anthropomorphism.

Yvonne might want to be aware of yet another recent escaped animal story as she considers her options: Back in July, a rhea escaped from an estate in Suffolk, England. The RSPCA was called in to expertly and humanely recapture it - after which the bird died while recovering from the tranquiliser.

So, even those well-meaning bunnyhuggers might end up not doing you any favors, Yvonne: maybe it would be best to give yourself up.

Self-Defense against Bad Animals

A few recent stories with some important information on how to - or how not to - defend yourself against animal attack:

-If you don't want to be attacked by lions, note the following:

A recent study conducted in Tanzania, where over a thousand people were attacked by lions between 1988 and 2009 (two/thirds of whom were eaten), found that these attacks are most common in the days after a full moon. In addition, the most dangerous time of day is between 6pm and 10pm, and the most dangerous time of year is between November and May.

Read more details at Not Exactly Rocket Science, or else just stay the heck indoors.

-If you want to defend yourself against bears, don't believe what you read in the paper:

A recent attack by a grizzly on a group of teens in Alaska was reported by reputable news outlets under headlines like "Teen Survives Bear Attack by Kicking." Um, not so much. Read a useful analysis of the media misconceptions at the Alaska Dispatch, and also this piece on how a gun won't help you either. Or just stay indoors.

-If you want to defend yourself against wild pigs, don't bother trying to shoot them:

Rural New York state is fighting a losing battle against wild boars. Suspected of escaping from game farms, they've established wild populations, and have been reported chasing people, attacking livestock and killing at least one dog.

Wild pigs can be devastating to the environment (check out the story we linked to in February from Smithsonian Magazine about the havoc being wrought by feral pigs in Texas). They're also a danger to people, a fact well known in Germany, as we've mentioned before (and which we go report in more detail in the book coming out in the fall. Hey, did you see that pre-order link over there on the right?).

The most frightening part of the news out of New York state, though, is the difficulty of defending ourselves against these super-swine:

We've shot them right square in the head and the bullet will glance off and they'll get up and go. Their skulls are so thick in the front, if you don't happen to hit it at a perfect 90 degrees, with the way their heads have that kind of curved shape, the bullet will glance right off.

Yeah... just stay indoors.

You're never too old to stand up to bad animals

Phyllis Johnson had not only lived peaceably with kangaroos for all of her 94 years, she'd even occasionally done them a favor.

"I used to feed them next door, give them some bread," the Australian woman told the Courier-Mail, "and they've always been so gentle."

But when a male red kangaroo came looking for trouble when she was hanging out the laundry in her backyard, neither her age nor her history of consideration toward his species meant anything to him.

"It was taller than me and it just ploughed through the clothes on the washing line straight for me," she said.

The animal knocked her over and kicked her, but the young hooligan had picked the wrong old lady to mess with. She fought back.

"I happened to have a broom nearby and I just started swinging at it. I bashed it on the head but it kept going for me, not even the dog would help, it was too frightened."

Johnson succeeded in crawling away and escaping into her home, where she waited while the animal continued to rage outside. Her son arrived, and, unable to drive the beast away with a stick, called police.

The roo was unimpressed by their authority and went for the two officers as well. Thinking quickly, one of them tried an unconventional counterattack: he sprayed the creature with his pepper spray.

Using pepper spray on wildlife isn't a standard part of police training, even in Australia where it seems like nearly all the animals can kill you and they probably need all the help they can get. But the unconventional approach was effective - in the sense that the beast's attack was diverted towards the other officer. Fortunately, he was armed with the spray as well.

Wildlife officers finally captured the attacker, who was reportedly being examined by a vet before a decision was made about his fate. We can only hope, after reading of this animal's merciless victimization of the elderly, that psychological exams are included.

Although it has to be said that Johnson hardly sounds helpless and frail. Despite being bruised and bleeding, she had to be persuaded to go to the hospital.

"My son made me," she said. "I'm okay, although the roo took a chunk of flesh out of my leg and there's a chance they'll have to operate."

Photo of sign that has got the problem exactly backwards by Flickr user The Rohit.

Check your stereotypes at the kennel door

No doubt you've already seen the video that's gone viral that shows 15-pound Paco the chihuahua chasing two armed robbers out of a shop in Los Angeles.

This news has elicited the usual surprise and astonishment from people who don't read this blog, and so are unaware of the real nature of cute small dogs. As I have reported before, one study found that the dog breeds mostly likely to show aggression towards people are dachshunds, Jack Russell terriers, and yes, chihuahuas.

And unfortunately, not all chihuahuas use their powers for good. Elsewhere in California, a neighborhood had its mail delivery suspended because of a chihuahua that was frightening the mailman.

By the way, one report revealed that the same home owned another dog who had taken no part in interfering with the postal service. And the breed of that other, well-behaved canine? Pit bull.


(Oh, and that apparently unrelated photo? That's Vegas the German shepherd, who flunked out of police dog training in England because she wouldn't bite and is afraid of children.)

Bad Bird Roundup

-Vacation dangers: In the seaside town of Bridlington, England, seagulls that hang out at fish and chip shops aren't just waiting for partrons to drop a chip on the sidewalk anymore. They're actually attacking and stealing their food. One shop fears being driven out of business due to the cost of replacing the meals of complaning customers.

-Memorable final performance: At the Taronga Zoo in Australia, an eagle at a free-flight performance took a detour and landed on an toddler in the audience, leaving a gash on the boy's head. Understandly unhappy with this bit of improvisation, the zoo has retired the eagle from show business.

-Useless public servants: Some more birds are bad at their jobs in Germany as well, where a program to train vultures to replace dogs for sniffing out dead bodies has been declared a "disaster." Critics of the scheme had earlier pointed out the possibility that the evidence would disappear down the birds' gullets, but it turned out there was no risk of that: The three vultures failed to find any of the test cadavers. One refused to fly at all, waddling like a duck instead, and the other two did nothing but fight. A trainer admitted:

'They don't seem to be able to do anything other than attack each other.... It seems they are rather cowardly birds - they would rather hide in the woods than be out and about in the open.'

Photo of ambitiously-named failed vulture detective Miss Marple from Der Spiegel.

Elephants make half-hearted bid for freedom

I'm having one of those months where it seems like it might be a good idea to run away and join the circus. Some elephants in Germany had the opposite idea, though, when they strolled away from their enclosure at a travelling circus and tried to catch a bus. According to Reuters:

Dunia, a 40-year-old Indian elephant, and her counterpart Daela, a 25-year-old African elephant, were apprehended by police near the western city of Hanover over the weekend nonchalantly munching on tree leaves and looking for all the world as if they were waiting for the bus.

A police spokesman downplayed the seriousness of the situation:

"The two elephants were quite cooperative and peaceful. Everyone was amused."

He sounds unaware of what a close call he had, given how frequently elephants commit violence against humans, both in the wild and in captivity. (Check out Elephant News, where they collect these stories.)

But fortunately, these elephants did not resist the authorities - and their much-vaunted intelligence failed them as far as their escape plan. It must have seemed easy - the bus stop was only a couple hundred feet away from their circus enclosure. But aside from the consideration of whether they'd have actually fit on the bus, the pachyderms made a couple of serious miscalculations. Not only was the police station practically right next door, but also, the bus stop was out of service for the summer.

So they were both badly-behaved and not that bright - or maybe they just didn't try that hard. Why give up the adoration of the crowds - and guaranteed meals and a place to sleep - for the uncertainties of life on the lam? So if you're still in that same dead-end job instead of chasing your dreams, maybe you shouldn't throw stones, huh?


Elephants leading the glamourous life from Circus No Spin Zone.

Summer of Monkey Madness

The last month or so has been prime season for primates running amok. In early June, a pet monkey in Ohio unclipped itself from its leash and ran wild for a couple of hours, attacking and scratching two children before being recaptured. Just a few days later, a rhesus macaque was found to be missing from the Yerkes primate research center in Georgia, and at last report, neighbors are still cowering in their homes in fear of encountering it.

Later in the month, a repeat offender was found to be still on the run: the near-legendary Tampa Bay monkey was caught on video, proving a local's claim that the monkey is still out there and regularly visits his yard.

Monkey trouble has not been confined to North America. Also in June, Cambodian officials finally had to draw the line at a temple where the hooliganish behavior of a couple of hundred monkeys is usually tolerated. After a series of visitors were bitten, the worst of the "gangster" monkeys are being tranquilized and rounded up - this is after attempts to trap them using eggs laced with sleeping pills failed to fool the canny primates.

The most disturbing story of the pack, though, comes from India. In New Delhi, monkeys have learned how to work the new automatic doors at a hospital, and can now stroll in at will. If you think a monkey would be a nice diversion at visiting hours, think again:

They have terrorised patients, stealing food, playing with medical equipment, and attacking staff.

Worse, due to local cultural sensitivities, measures to deal with the problem are severely restricted:

Killing or trapping the monkeys was not an option, due to their association with the Hindu deity Hanuman... Authorities have taken steps to scare off the monkeys. They have hired two larger monkeys to chase them away.

That's right: their only recourse is to rely on other monkeys. Wish them luck.


Cartoon look inside the primate mind from Bizarro Comics thanks to Genius Chimp.

Ominous trends in bad animal behavior

-Last week we learned of some unexpected animals interfering with air travel when turtles blocked a runway at Kennedy airport in New York. At least those animals were in their native country.

Imagine the surprise of having your flight delayed in Manchester, England by a pink flamingo. It took five hours to capture the culprit, and the most disturbing aspect of this case is that the origin of the bird is a mystery: all the local wildlife sanctuaries denied having lost a flamingo.

-Remember the scientists who discovered that crows can remember the faces of individual people that have done unpleasant things to them? Maybe you reassured yourself that crows aren't that common in your neighborhood.

Well, other scientists now report that the same is true of pigeons tested in a city park in Paris. The pigeons in this study learned to stay away from people who had chased them. But can we be sure that staying away will be their only strategy?

-Recently this blog reported on some British cows who had learned to let themselves out of their barn. At least they stayed on the property. In Wales, a herd escaped into a residential neighborhood and reportedly trampled gardens, ate flowers, and, most disturbingly, peered into people's windows.

You can see from the photo above that this was not the sort of rural lane where people expect to share their space with livestock. As one resident said, "We are used to having pints of milk delivered to our doorstep but not the whole cow."

Read it for the sake of the children

The newspaper of our nation's capitol, the Washington Post, has a lot to answer for. They never pass up an opportunity to give cute animals more good publicity, in the particular form of the pandas at the National Zoo. They waste valuable space on these inert fluffy bamboo-eaters even when there is no news at all. It boggles the mind that in a city crowded with the powerful and with world-changing events, the headline "Panda pregnancy? No one knows" passes muster.

So it's with particular pleasure that I direct you to a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism in the pages of the Post this past weekend. This is not only a case of exposing bad animal behavior, but of tearing down one of those dangerous illusions propagated by children's literature.

If you remember the book Misty of Chincoteague with nostalgia, if like many you've dreamed of someday visiting the wild ponies of Assateague Island, you'll want to read this article, which begins:

ASSATEAGUE ISLAND NATIONAL SEASHORE, Md. — They scarf potato chips and whole bags of marshmallows late in the night, leaving behind trashed campsites and ruined tents. They break into stranger’s coolers and make off with watermelons. They carelessly turn on water spigots and leave them running.

Rangers are dealing with a problem that has all the hallmarks of a classic beach-week bender, but the culprits aren’t rowdy teens. They’re Assateague Island’s famous wild horses.

Apparently the ponies have been pestering visitors for years, requiring a volunteer patrol to shoo them off the roads. But lately the situation has crossed the line. One stallion even had to be removed from the park after injuring a visitor.

Of course, foolish humans who don't read this blog are a big part of the problem. New signs have been posted - “Horses, Bite, Kick & Charge/KEEP AT LEAST 10 FEET AWAY” - and a fine of one hundred dollars instituted for violators. But many visitors don't get it - park officials have seen parents putting their children on the back of a pony for a snapshot.

Humans don't bear all the blame, though. These creatures are so bold that you could easily find yourself within ten feet of a pony through no fault of your own - and end up like the woman in the photo above who was knocked to the ground despite attempting to make a quick retreat. And these icons of children's literature have started stooping to the lowest of tricks:

The horses beg. They pester. They even run a hustle that wouldn’t be out of place on a D.C. street corner.

“I didn’t believe it until I saw it,” Kicklighter said. “Two horses put their youngest, cutest pony in front of a car, and then the older horses went around to the windows to panhandle for food.”

Baboon on the Loose

I apologize profusely to my readers in New Jersey that I missed this story when you needed to be warned about it: A baboon was on the loose in southern New Jersey for a few days last week.

Officials downplayed the risk to citizens, one being quoted as saying that baboons are 'typically not aggressive toward people.'

Obviously that's yet another uninformed source who doesn't read this blog and has missed the ongoing saga of south African baboons that break into houses and cars to threaten humans and steal whatever they want, including at least one who went far enough to warrant the death penalty.

Fortunately, some who encountered the animal were more sensible about the danger, including one eyewitness who said: "I saw the red hiney and I knew it was a baboon - instant panic!"

And the fugitive was eventually captured on a horse farm, whose employees did their civic duty, but without any risky heroics. They called the cops, and as one said, "I just took a bale of hay and kept it between the baboon and me," keeping himself safe till someone arrived with a tranquilizer gun.

It's assumed that the animal came from a group at the nearby Six Flags theme park. But he was too young to have been microchipped to verify his identity. And the park is adding security, but say they can't figure out how the animal escaped. So perhaps the locals better continue to watch their backs.

Another installment of Animals vs Infrastructure

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But I'm disturbed by the new ways animals are coming up with to interfere with the technological underpinnings of human society. Climbing animals like raccoons causing power failures is nothing new, but in mid-June in Montana, an eagle caused an electrical outage by dropping a dead fawn on a power line. And other animals are going right to the source, like the jellyfish that caused a nuclear power plant to be shut down in Scotland by clogging up the pipes drawing water into the facility.

Similarly, it's well known that birds can be a danger to airplanes by getting sucked into engines and striking aircraft. Since they basically share the same habitat, this isn't surprising. But you probably had no idea that if you've got a flight at Kennedy airport in New York right about now, you might be delayed because of turtles.

Last week it happened again as it does every year, when diamondback terrapins migrate to their breeding grounds, and don't care that the direct route goes right over a runway.The airport had no choice but to close the runway. "Running over turtles is not healthy for them nor is it good for our tires," said one spokesperson.

Rather than fighting this yearly incursion, airport officials seems resigned to their fate. Workers from the Port Authority and the U.S. Department of Agriculture gathered up the turtles and gave them free transportation to their destination in order to speed the migration along. And everyone seems to have a light-hearted attitude about the situation. JetBlue, one of the affected carriers, said in a statement, "We hope for faster animals next time."

Very funny. But if turtles can interfere with airplanes, is anything safe?