New frontiers in bad animal behavior

-Snake pickled in wine for three months wakes up and bites woman

In China, alcohol with a viper in it is used as a medicinal drink. But if you're not careful, it can end you up in the hospital instead of keeping you out of it:

When the bottle ran dry the woman opened the top to pour in more alcohol. As she did so the snake suddenly started breathing and wriggling, and sprung out of the bottle. The viper bit the woman on her finger as she tried to swat it away.

-Elk family trashes Norway school

Our janitor he came to school and he saw a broken door," Solveig Eid, the headmistress of Risil School, told The Local."He thought that some children or teenagers had been having a party or whatever and had broken the glass."

It was only when he went to check the school's security video that he identified the true culprits.

-Police called when ferret goes on hour-long rampage

"I tried to shoo it away but it just kept going for me and going for me. This went on for about an hour or so. It just kept trying to bite me. It was horrible and my ankle is painful to walk on."

The ferret was finally lured into a box with a piece of ham, but also bit the officer who came to take it into custody. It's now at an animal shelter, where they say:

"Owing to his temperament, we'll probably be looking for someone experienced in ferret care."

Pigs running amuck

It's been too long since we caught up on the wild pig problem. Recent stories have people throwing up their hands and saying there's nothing that can be done - but one fellow is setting an example, and we'll be keeping a hopeful eye on his progress.

-Campers told to lock up food and drink after feral pig goes on bender in Western Australia and ends up in altercation with cow

The animal was seen stealing three six-packs of beer from campers before ransacking rubbish bags for food.

One camper reported seeing the pig guzzling the beer before getting involved in an altercation with a cow.

"In the middle of the night these people camping opposite us heard a noise, so they got their torch out and shone it on the pig and there he was, scrunching away at their cans," said the visitor, who estimated that the pig had consumed 18 beers.

"Then he went and raided all the rubbish bags. There were some other people camped right on the river and they saw him being chased around their vehicle by a cow."

The pig was reportedly last seen resting under a tree, possibly nursing a hangover.

-Horde of Pigs Goes Hog Wild in San Ramon

"It looks like a tornado has hopped from yard to yard," Carrie Spurlock said. "We've tried to deter them, but they keep coming back."

A visit to the neighborhood by NBC Bay Area on Wednesday revealed a dozen or so front lawns looking like they had been professionally rototilled by the porcine critters destroying property in a neighborhood where home prices start at more than half-a-million dollars.

Neighbors have been frustrated with trying to get rid of the pigs. They've used pesticides to kill insects, which the pigs like to dine on. They've installed motion-sensor lights hoping that would keep the animals away. They said they've called the Department of Fish and Game but have got the runaround. And they've called a trapper, who set up 10 traps around the neighborhood. All to no avail.

-Kingwood residents might be stuck with wild hogs eating everything

"If you put a sprinkler system in your front yard and run it regularly, you are creating a hog habitat," Crenshaw said. "They want to eat grubs and bugs and all the stuff right below the soil surface.

Hogs on the hunt know what's there because they can smell it, he said.

"They will root it up and eat everything," he said. "They have now demolished what a lot of people spend good money on to have a nice-looking yard."

There's no easy way to get rid of feral hogs in an urban area, since residential hunting is illegal.

The wildlife official in that story says that trapping is the only possibility, but says residents will have to arrange it on their own, and goes on to whine about all the problems it causes once you've got the hog in a trap:

It can't simply be released on someone else's land or public land because it could have a disease that can be transmitted to domestic pigs, he said.

The only meat packer in the area that's certified by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to process feral hogs is in Porter.

"You have to take it to them live and they have to run tests to make sure it doesn't have wildlife diseases," he said. "If they take it, they're agreeing to have an animal on site for a month."

But elsewhere in Texas that's not stopping them:

-Hired Hog Trapper Has Three Years To Clean Out Dallas 

Trapper Osvaldo Rojas isn't a whiner, and he isn't deterred by what these animals can do to him personally:

"I've had quite a bit of injuries: stitches, a couple of broken bones," he says. "About eight pairs of boots, you name it, jeans. I just stopped buying jeans. I just wear them ripped now. There's no reason to keep buying them if they're gonna continue to get ripped, so might as well keep wearing 'em."

And he says he's got what it takes to do the job:

His plan involves placing large traps with video cameras all around the city, luring the hogs with feeding stations. Once the entire pack is in the trap, he closes the gates from his smartphone. Constant video surveillance allows him to study their behavior for days.

Rojas estimates it will take about two years to trap most of the hogs, and then the last year to capture the stragglers. He says has a strategy that sets him apart.

"It doesn't take much, but it has to do with patience," he explains. "I can sit out there for eight hours and not see anything, and I'm totally fine. It takes somebody to have patience. And a little bit of know-how."

Out of Place Animals News Briefs

A roundup of headlines and photos from the excellent Nothing to Do with Arbroath:

Wounded fox waited on sofa for ambulance to arrive 

 

Rampaging kangaroo crashed through window of home after having swim in pool 

And my favorite:

Man on horse with pug arrested for drunk riding

The original local story reports that the pug "intently watched the arrest."

 

Bad animals old and new

-Another squirrel in toilet. In this case the victim called 911:

Woman: "I have some kind of animal in the toilet in my bathroom."
Dispatcher: "Like, what's it look like?"
Woman: "Well, it's gray. That's all I can tell you. I didn't look real good because it scared me to death. I'm sorry."
Dispatcher: "But it's not like one of your animals, like a cat or something?"
Woman: "No. My cat is in my office behaving herself."

-Drunken elk threatens homeowner:

Get ready for the season of drunken elks. As ripe fruit falls from the trees and ferments on the ground, it is time for some of Sweden’s most majestic wild animals to act in a most un-regal manner.

One home owner east of the capital has already been confronted by a mob of boozed-up elks. The five animals, feasting on rotten windfalls, “were threatening” and refused to let him into his garden.

“Sensibly enough the elks left the scene when police arrived,” writes Albin Näverberg on Stockholm police’s website.

To prevent further elk booze-binges the home owner, who lives in Värmdö, east of Stockholm, was advised to remove the apples from his yard. “The elks will have to get drunk somewhere else,” writes Näverberg.

-Those are classics, but here's a new one by me: Millipede probe after train crash

An investigation is underway to see if a Portuguese millipede infestation contributed to a train crash on the Joondalup line this morning.

Public Transport Authority spokesman David Hynes said millipedes had created similar problems at Wellard railway station in the past and could be seen on the tracks at Clarkson this morning.

“When the train squashes them they tend to make the tracks slimy,” he said. “That’s a phenomenon we’re aware of and we will investigate whether it was a factor at Clarkson.”

Photo of Swedish elk from Radio Sweden, who helpfully remind that Americans call it a moose.

Animals where they shouldn't be

-There are some things I post on this blog that you probably think, "that's one in a million. I don't have to worry about that." You probably thought that, for example, about the woman who woke up to find a fox in her bed with her. But you'd be wrong:

Man discovers a FOX in his bed after rolling over to give his girlfriend a cuddle 

Leon Smith was dozing in bed when he thought his girlfriend Sophie Merrell had lovingly nuzzled the back of his neck.

But she had already gone to work, and when Leon reached out for a cuddle he felt fur - and found himself in bed with a fox who had sneaked in through the cat flap.

Leon, 30, from Hampton Hill in London, told The Sun : "I just couldn't believe it. It was so calm, just staring at me."

The IT worker grabbed his phone and took a quick snap of the cheeky fox before it turned tail and went back through the bedroom door.

 -But don't think animals are running out of ideas for getting into places they shouldn't be. Here's one we haven't seen before:

Beaver breaks into Oregon Zoo's otter exhibit

PORTLAND, Ore., Aug. 29 (UPI) -- Officials at the Oregon Zoo said a mountain beaver was returned to the woods after trespassing in the facility's otter exhibit.

Zoo officials said the rodent, also known as a boomer, was discovered swimming Tuesday in the moat for the river otter exhibit at the Portland facility, KGW-TV, Portland, reported Thursday

The zoo's Twitter page said the animal was returned to the wild.

As someone who's provided daily room service to zoo animals, I don't blame this beaver for being jealous.

Animals vs Technology Roundup

Bird poop disables 25,000 traffic signals in Nagano

According to the Nagano branch of the Chubu Electric Power Company, a large number of birds had been defecating on an insulator in the Idegawa Substation in Matsumoto. The pile of crap got so huge that it dripped down a meter length of the insulator and caused a short triggering an automatic shutdown. 

Snakes Blamed for Power Outages

Snakes are not the only suspects in this case; their accomplices appear to be birds.

“We believe the snakes are being brought in by owls or by feeding hawks, searching for relatively open spaces to consume their prey,” said Austin Partida, the co-op’s member relations/public relations manager. “The snakes are making contact with the ground wire and the oil circuit reclosers. That causes arcing, and the flashing apparently scares the hungry birds away.”

How One Nuclear Missile Base Is Battling Ground Squirrels

The squirrels, each about a foot long and 1-2 pounds, dig extensive underground tunnel networks (they’ve been known to excavate tunnel systems more than 30 feet in length). At Malmstrom, they’ve developed an annoying habit of tunneling underneath the fences that protect each nuclear missile’s silo.

For an underground barrier, they initially tested steel fabric (similar to steel wool) and a metal chain-link mesh, but they were no match for the squirrels. “They just tore through steel fabric, with their claws and ever-growing incisors, and squeezed right through the chain-link mesh,” Witmer says.

Kittens Shut Down Subway in Brooklyn

Two kittens ran onto subway tracks in Brooklyn Thursday, and the MTA halted trains on two lines for about an hour as workers in reflective vests tried to corral the felines, witnesses and officials said. 

But as it turns out, NBC 4 New York can confirm that herding cats is a difficult feat.

 The MTA shut off power to the area so workers could go down and try to coax the kittens into carrying cases. The frisky kitties were later rescued and were in the custody of Animal Care & Control.

A bad animal classic

Some things never get old, and a Cat Burglar is one of them.

Naughty Norris first started pilfering from local residents around a year ago – dragging food taken from bins through his cat flap.

But his crime spree soon escalated and he started stealing bras, knickers, pants, T-shirts, dusters, gloves, dish cloths and boxer shorts.

He has also come back with unopened tube of gravy paste, a German sausage, baby clothes and someone’s running kit – and even a bath mat and towel set.

Two-year-old Norris has amassed such a huge pile of knickers his owners have red-facedly delivered letters to residents admitting they may have of some of their property.

Norris brings most of his hoard through the cat flap – but if it can’t fit through he leaves it on the mat outside.

Owners Richard and Sophie Windsor, of Bedminster, Bristol, reckon Norris is trawling washing lines for his ill-gotten gains.

Richard, 26, a graphic designer, said: “He was perfectly well behaved up until the age of one, then he started to turn to a life of petty crime.

“He first started bringing things in from the recycling bins when he was about one. At first it was just the odd thing – but over the last four months, he has really started to up his game.

“Initially it was dusters and dish cloths but this has now intensified to clothes, including bras, pants, T-shirts and jumpers.

“We have even had a pair of washing-up gloves – each brought in on a separate night. He goes out in the evening and then returns quite late on or in the early hours.

“He brings his stolen items in and then meows and meows to announce he is back so we will go and see what he has brought in. Sometimes he will go out multiple times during one night."

The couple are now trying to reunite the items with their owners after collecting a huge stash of Norris’ stolen goodies in a special cat swag bag.

They delivered letters explaining Norris’ naughty habit, appealing to anyone who was missing items from their washing line to get in touch.

“So far we have been able to reunite a number of items – including a towel set, some oven gloves, a bath mat, some baby clothes and some running gear – with their owners.

“Fortunately all our neighbours have been very good natured about it and think it is funny. At least now they know where to come if something disappears mysteriously.”

Bad Animal Longreads

Today I'm sending you elsewhere because, as these brief excerpts suggest, there is nothing I could write that would be better than these two articles:

Bruce the Food-addicted Pug

At a recent family party, I was carrying Bruce around in my arms, like a baby. He appeared to be sleeping, complete with Pug snores and all, but he was really assessing the situation. I walked past my grandmother, who had a hot dog in her hand, and Bruce instantly went from asleep to attack. He took the hot dog right out of her hand and ate it in two quick bites. Bruce smacked his lips a couple of times, and then immediately returned to snooze mode as if nothing had happened.

The Soulless, Flesh-Eating Kea

 Most people who are worried about keas I imagine have never met one. Endangered or threatened animals should fall into one of two categories. One, they are sad and pleading, like baby harp seals, baby polar bears, or panda bears (baby and otherwise). Or they should be majestic, like bald eagles, adult polar bears, or mountain lions. But the kea is neither of these. They are self-righteous, disrespectful ingrates whose daily behavior can only be described as dickish.

Bad rodent neighbors

There is nothing I can add to this story from The Local.

Group guinea pig sex 'too loud' say neighbours

Frantically mating guinea pigs living in a free-love rodent commune at a German university are making so much noise that neighbours have complained to the city's administrative court.

Münster University's biology department keeps 13 very vocal male and female guinea pigs together in one big cage outdoors. On it, a sign states “These animals live in non-committal, mixed-gender groups and mate with every possible partner.”

The Bild newspaper reported on Friday that the guinea pigs are so noisy – particularly at night – that the institute for neuro- and behavioural biology's next-door neighbours have filed a complaint at Münster's administrative court.

“The Guinea pigs are unbelievably loud and stink to high heaven. It's unbearable,” said 69-year-old Pavo R..

On Thursday, a judge confirmed to the paper that the cage was too close to the couple's house. It is just two metres from where their garden begins. Legally, it should be three metres away.

But the institute says the cage can not be moved, and a spokesman from the North Rhine-Westphalian university told Bild that they hoped that “the ruling doesn't mean the end of their renowned behavioural research.”

Probably better not to look too closely at what's going on in that photo by Flickr user yasa.

 

Bear news updates

We haven't covered bears breaking into houses and restaurants and stealing people's food in a while, but it definitely hasn't stopped happening:

-Black bear breaks into Idaho kitchen

A black bear in search of a late-night snack broke into an Idaho house and licked leftover Chinese food from a cast iron pan on the stove.

    David Edwards of Ketchum told the Idaho Mountain Express that his dog’s barking awakened him around 3 a.m. Monday.

    When he went to investigate what had his Irish setter-Lab mix so upset, he saw the bear on its hind legs, paws on the stove, licking a pan.

-Boy Texts Mom: ‘There’s a Bear Sleeping on the Porch!’ 

The MacDonough children were at their Naples home with the babysitter while mom Alice had just gone out for lunch, when the furry creature lumbered up to the enclosed patio, and settled in for some shuteye.

Ordering the children to get down on hands and knees, the babysitter had them crawl to a back bedroom and hide out, with 7-year-old Mason MacDonough furiously texting his mom about the unbearable situation.

"Mom!! there’s a bear in the lana not outside inside our porch help” “!!!!”
“not jokin”
“Next too couch outside help!!!”
“He’s sleeping”
“Sleeping that’s right”
“The bear sleeping in the Lana”
“Inside the Lana”
“Omg”
“!”
“Sleeping omg”
“What do we do”

Eventually, the bear answered the question, rousing itself and lumbering off while children and babysitter waited.

MacDonough told CNN she thinks she knows what the bear is coming for, and it’s not honey. Pizza and Chinese takeout were snatched from her neighbor’s home just the other day, leaving the fruits and veggies behind.

And finally, as illustrated above: Bear Steals Dumpster From Restaurant Twice In 24 Hours

Ungrateful gulls

The scourge of seagulls continues in the UK, now with the story of a woman who was targeted after she actually tried to help them.

The gulls were first attracted to Penny Freeman's yard by her bird feeder. Soon this wasn't enough for them:

The torment began around six to eight months ago when Penny began feeding birds visiting her garden, only for the gulls to become interested in what was on offer.
“When it was deprived of that it would start pecking at the kitchen window - we could hear it night and day,” said Penny, who believes she has been targeted by the same bird, but cannot be certain.

When they built a nest, despite their behavior, Ms. Freeman was concerned for their well-being:

A couple of weeks ago, Mrs Freeman and her brother noticed one of the gull's chicks had become stuck in some guttering, so tried to rescue it.
The pair took the bird, which had been ignored by the adult seagulls, to the vets, but it died.

When the second chick of these neglectful parents fell into the garden,  here's how they reacted:

“For four days I was held hostage in this house by two seagulls looking after a baby. It was terrifying for me, absolutely terrifying. I felt like a prisoner. The washing stayed on the line for four days.”

She's not the only one in her neighborhood to have problems:

 The gentleman next door couldn't let his children play out in the back garden because of them.

"He tried to shoo them away with a broom, but they are very evil things.
"It comes to something when even children cannot play in their own garden."

 Apparently Ms. Freeman has learned her lesson and won't be trying to help birds anymore. She's demanding the local government take action, and says:

"They are like lizards, they are raptors and they have nasty scaly feet. I find them very threatening. Why should we be dictated to by a bird?”

Seagulls attacking ducks by Flick user grussell. No one is safe!

Continuing the crusade against otters

The most-trafficked post on this blog is this one.  It lays bare the fact that the apparently adorable otter is a creature that rapes and murders baby seals, which is basically the animal pictured next to the definition of "cute" in the dictionary.
 
Thousands of people have read that post, so one can hope that it's had some impact on this allegedly charming animal's reputation. Unfortunately, it's not one of the posts about otters attacking people, a far more important danger. So, typically, the people in the following story were surprised, but let their experience be another lesson: being attacked by a cute animal is not "one in a million."

Kierra Clark, 13, may have accidentally gotten between a mother otter and her babies while playing in the Kalama River on Wednesday. The river otter attacked and began biting her leg.

“At first it felt like somebody was just, like, grabbing onto my leg with their nails, and then it felt like somebody was like stabbing me kind of,” said Clark. “It was probably one of the scariest things ever."

She caught a glimpse of the otter’s eyes popping out of the water. She says she can’t forget those teeth. “They were, like, sharp and long,” she said.

Clark’s grandfather and a neighbor pulled her out of the water while her grandmother watched in horror. “I could see she had blood streaming down her leg,” said Clark’s grandmother, Arlita Schlecht. “(It was like) a scene out of ‘Jaws.’”

Neighbors who’ve lived along the river for six decades said they’ve never seen anything like it. “Then all of the sudden I see it coming right after her, and thought ‘Oh she’s not playing,’” said Fred Palmer, who witnessed the attack.

Craig Bartlett of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says many animals have newborn babies this time of year and can be protective and aggressive. He says river otter attacks are unusual but not unheard of, especially this time of year.

“I think the mother was just protecting what she thought was a threat to her babies,” said Clark’s grandfather, Bob Schlecht. “I’ve never heard of it before. It’s probably one in a million.”

Clark’s grandmother wrote a reminder on her kitchen chalkboard that said “You otter be careful when swimming.”

Remember that the message is more important than the grammar in that sign photographed by Flickr user vandys.

Bad behavior old and new

A couple of animals forging new frontiers, and a new case of something we've seen many times before.

-In a town in Britain, residents are demanding that huge old trees be cut down because they've become nothing but access roads for burglars - of a rodent kind:

TREES are growing so close to homes in Kentish Town that squirrels are stealing soap and shower gel from bathrooms.

Johnny Murphy, 75, who has lived at a flat in Heybridge block in Castle Road, for more than 40 years said the soap-stealing squirrels “must be the cleanest in Kentish Town”.

He added: “Nobody knows where the stuff goes or what on earth they want to do with it, but we know it’s them because they’ve been caught red-handed in the past. No one can leave their windows open because you open one window and they spot it. They leap straight in from the branches.”

Mr Murphy added: “Even if they don’t steal anything, who wants squirrels bouncing around in their bedroom?"

-In Florida: Raccoon steals woman's purse as she watches turtle release

A sea turtle was set free after being nursed back to health in Fort Myers.

But a raccoon spoiled the turtle's moment when it stole Danielle Araica's pink clutch purse.

"He stole my wallet and went into the bushes," said Araica."He dropped it, and then I had that little boy go in there and fetch it for me."

-But in Ireland, same old same old:

Marine conservationists have warned of the dangers of swimming with dolphins after two women were badly hurt by the same dolphin within a 10-day period.

One woman sustained a broken rib, compressed vertebrae and lung damage when she was rammed by Dusty the dolphin off the Irish coast on Sunday.

Ten days earlier, another woman was rammed in the abdomen by Dusty while swimming in the same County Clare area

While some people attacked by dolphins were asking for it by deliberately interacting with them, the second woman was trying to climb out of the water. And yet a conservation group which erected signs and issued a statement saying that "a fatal attack could easily happen," was reportedly "reluctant to describe it as "aggressive" behaviour." Sigh. Will these people never learn?

Bad animal trend updates

Today we've got updates for two recent trends to wary of, one for everyone, and one especially for the guys.

If you still don't believe that seagulls are a pressing danger, here's some additional evidence:

- An English grandmother who's constantly being attacked by a gull has to wear a colander on her head to go in her own backyard.
-Elsewhere in the country, a 92-year-old resident of an old age home was sitting outside feeding the birds and a gull stole her dentures
-And a young man thought it would be a funny prank to make dinner for his housemate, spike it with loads of pepper, and film his reaction with a hidden camera. Instead, he got video of a gull flying into the kitchen and chowing down.  Now they can't keep their windows open or else the bird is back looking for more.

And remarkably, right after last week's story of the dog eating his owner's testicles, comes this headline:

Man, 64, wakes up without a penis after night of drinking... and the neighbours tell him a dog ate it

OK, it is the Daily Mail... still, this is the sort of thing where you can't be too careful, so I have the duty to inform my readers so they can make their own decisions.

But I feel I also have the duty to get that picture out of your head, so I leave you with a grandmother brandishing a seagull-repelling colander:

What it takes for a cute fluffy dog to go too far

This blog is constantly bemoaning the fact that bad animals never get what's coming to them, that people make excuses and even enable them. But once in a while that's not the case - and once in a great while, people even deem a crime worthy of the death penalty. But this is what it takes:

RUMANN, Ark. (CBS Atlanta) – A paralyzed Arkansas man awoke to find blood on the muzzle of his dog and a “burning pain” in his mid-section, and according to the police report: “the dog had eaten one of his testicles.”

The 39-year-old Trumann, Ark. man, who is paralyzed from the waist down, had recently adopted the “small, white, fluffy” stray dog in hopes of having a loving companion, reports KAIT8.com. The man said the newly-adopted animal bit off one of his testicles while he was sleeping naked around 7:45 a.m. on Monday.

The man, who has not been identified, was taken to St. Bernard’s Regional Hospital for treatment to his injuries.

The dog, however, was euthanized and had the remains tested for rabies by a local veterinarian.

That small white fluffy dog with sharp teeth photographed by Flickr user riebschlager is not the dog in question. That dog could be perfectly harmless. But don't count on it.