Brilliant bad animal headlines

Brilliant headlines, I meant, but now that I think of it, these are some pretty brilliantly creative and successful bad animals too - not that that's a good thing:

Man’s thumb nearly bitten off after giving escaped monkeys an egg sandwich

Ricky Strong had four monkeys pounce on him, and one of them nearly bit off his thumb.

“I had to hit ‘em and fight them off me and I went to run and get away and I actually face planted into that tree. And then I ran out of here bleeding running all the way down here and two of them come chase me running me all the way to my house.”

The monkeys got loose midday Thursday from a Wedgewood shed.

Strong’s hand is now in a cast, his shirt has claw marks in it, and his jeans are stained with his own blood.

And this all started because he gave one of the escaped monkeys an egg sandwich.

“He actually came to me and walked up my arm,” Strong explained.

Strong walked with the monkey back to the shed where the other three primates were.

Strong was about to leave and then a cat showed up.

“And when it did, the one monkey threw like a toolbox at the cat,” says Strong.
Then a dog got on a deck and started barking and all four of the monkeys jumped on Strong.

License to Quill

With needle-sharp quills, some longer than the average human forearm, porcupines sport one of nature’s most frightening defenses against predators. But a new study shows they can be fearsome killers as well. Researchers in Italy have found that the rodents can slay dogs, foxes, and even badgers. Scientists monitored porcupines in Tuscany for about 18 months... In one such case, two porcupines ran backwards, forcing a dog into their den, where they fatally impaled it with their quills. Other porcupines killed four other predators, two badgers and two foxes, over the study period; such deaths have never been previously recorded in scientific literature.

Mutant Rats Have Invaded British Parliament; Experts Blame Evolution

The British government is reportedly spending the equivalent of more than $11,000 a month fighting mutant rats that have infested Parliament.

According to the Daily Star, pest control experts at the House of Commons spent £7,000 (about $11,216) dealing with poison-resistant -- ergo, "mutant" -- rodents in a single month. That bill represents an increase of 15 percent from two years go.

That's not all. The rats are apparently spreading across the UK. International Business Times reports that the mutants look like normal rats, but eat poison pellets intended to kill them "like feed."

"Normal rats are being killed off by poison, so these resistant species are taking their place. It's only natural that their numbers are expanding," British Pest Control Association spokesman Richard Moseley told the Metro. Ain't evolution a rat bastard?

Different sort of mutant political rat by Flickr user Kenya Allmond.

Disrespecting the Dead

There are a ton of bad animal stories I need to catch up with. But when you get a story about animals desecrating a cemetery, it's just got to stand alone. From The Telegraph:

As a way to save money at a village churchyard, it had seemed like a splendid idea.

But a scheme to let loose a flock of sheep in a graveyard to keep the grass down has backfired, after they grazed on floral tributes and mementoes left for loved ones.

The ten ewes were introduced to Holy Trinity Church in the aptly-named village of Grazeley, Berkshire, because the parochial council said it could no longer afford anyone to mow the lawn.

But Nicola Millard, whose grandparents are buried there, said: “The condition is awful - basically they’ve ruined all the flowers and bent forward one of the headstones, and there is a lot of debris over the graves.”

Vic Jerrom, who has several generations of ancestors buried there, described the damage as 'very disrespectful' to those laid to rest.

"It's a mess, the sheep are grazing on the graves and of course there is sheep droppings everywhere. It's despicable" he said.

And from the local media:

Vic Jerrom, secretary of Grazeley Village Hall committee, said he has had several people complaining about the sheep.

He said: “I have had two people saying they were absolutely in tears and one said she couldn’t get to her father’s grave to put a wreath of poppies on it."

 Don't miss additional photos of the carnage at that link.

Everything old is new again

These are all examples of classic bad behavior we've seen many times before - but isn't tradition grand?

Swedish beaver grinds traffic to a stop

Motorists in central Sweden were left in a jam on Friday apparently due to the work of a busy Swedish beaver.

The traffic jam occurred at lunchtime near Borensberg in Östergötland, where police have blamed a beaver for felling a tree, which resulted in a blocked road and long queues of motorists.

Cat dials the police

MOST people who dial 999 when there’s not an emergency risk being charged with wasting precious police time. But Bruce Lee, a caller from Kilburn, is expected to escape prosecution: he’s a pedigree Singapura kitten.

Officers broke down the door of his owner’s flat on Thursday morning after the home-alone cat accidentally stepped on the house phone, dialling 999.

Not taking any chances, police rushed to the scene, only to find Bruce Lee hiding under a mountain of clothes in a wardrobe.

Fox gets into bed with human

A DARING fox decided to seek out a midnight snack before snuggling up on Jessica Lambert’s bed.

Jessica, 11, woke up to find the animal in her downstairs bedroom at home in West Mersea. She gave it a stroke and excitedly popped upstairs to tell her parents about their house guest.

Mum Charlotte said: “It had gone through two large cat flaps. We have a cat and dog which use them, and the fox was the size of a labrador.

“Luckily, Jessica loves animals so she wasn’t scared, and just stroked it before coming upstairs to tell us. I thought she was dreaming, but when we came down it was back in the pantry.”

Finally, another traditional tale, but with a twist - look who the owners are:

Meet Bluebell, Wokingham's kleptomaniac cat burglar

The mischievous moggie has nabbed socks, a rugby ball, clothes and even Sellotape, and her owners are both police officers. While most moggies proudly present birds and mice to their humans, the two-and-a-half-year-old has also been hunting everything from pants to house keys.

Miss Thornton-Randall, 35, a Detective Constable with CID, joked: “We have tried giving her a curfew and have put a bell on her collar. She’s a little monkey."

Miss Thornton-Randall said: “Not long after she was with us, things kept going missing and then appearing in the house. Like the plug from the sink is loose, it doesn’t have a chain, and it went missing, we looked everywhere. Three days later there it was on the carpet outside the bedroom door. The same with Andy’s razor from the bathroom.”

Bluebell then ventured further afield and as her home backs on to Fishponds industrial estate, a collection of workmen’s items found their way into the couple’s home including insulating tape and heavy duty gloves Miss Thornton-Randall said: “Last year we went away and someone looked after the cat and they sent us pictures of things she brought back including a long, chiffon scarf. “

She must go into people’s houses because she brought back a rubber duck like you would have in the bath. She once brought back a Radley purse with someone’s door keys in it – we had to take it to the police station.”

Catching up with bad animals

A few of the things bad animals have been up to while I was too busy on the other side of the planet to keep an eye on them:

Fire officials say hungry pup started Wash. apartment fire

Fire officials say a dog reaching for treats turned on a stove and started a fire causing smoke damage to an apartment in the central Washington city of Wenatchee.

Wenatchee Fire Marshal Mark Yaple tells KPQ radio that it appears the black Labrador was reaching for a bag of dog food left on a stove top when it turned on the stove with its paw.

Meerkats 'pay rent' to dominant female to stay in group

Some subordinate female meerkats wet-nurse a dominant female's offspring in exchange for not being evicted from the group, a study suggests.

Man attacked in Moyock by escaped monkey

Rick Story was bitten as he helped owner Richard Shiflett get some of the monkeys back to the garage where they're kept.
"It really did a number on my thumb. It ripped it right here, and right here .. Tried to rip it right off I think," he said.

Finally, I have to give credit to one part of the mainstream media that was on the case while I was gone- on Slate:

Sea Otters Are Jerks. So Are Dolphins, Penguins, and Other Adorable Animals

Dolphins kill other marine mammals and fish just for fun and commit infanticide. This only gets creepier given the recent suggestion that dolphins actually have names that they call one another. I can’t say I look forward to the day when scientists discover dolphin slurs. Seeing a dolphin at sea should be just as chilling as how many people feel when they see the sinuous silhouette of a shark.

That photo is not the dog in question, but another dog that has been known to do the same thing, so it's an isolated incident.

Souvenir

Due to my being too jetlagged to form coherent sentences, in lieu of an actual post, I ask that you please accept this photo of the candy they sell at the goat cafe in Tokyo.

Temporary suspension of service

I am headed to Japan to investigate the rumor that people there have gone so mad for animals that there's a cafe in Tokyo where you can eat a meal with goats. In the meantime I recommend these essays elsewhere for your reading pleasure:

The Bunny Manifesto

Zombies vs Animals

Animals where they shouldn't be, automotive edition

From near Lake Tahoe comes this excellent headline:

Truckee Police See Rise in Bears Getting Stuck in Cars

In the last two weeks, police say three bears have become trapped in cars in Truckee.

What is excellent is the clear implication that bears get stuck in cars there regularly enough that you have to have three in quick succession for it to be remarkable. This of course should be no surprise to readers of this blog, who've seen this sort of thing before.  As the article warns, "Experts say bears know how to open unlocked car doors," but don't be impressed by how smart they are, because the also regularly manage to lock themselves in and can't figure out how to get out -  and they tend to react by trashing the vehicle in frustration.

Still, that is an easy problem to solve compared to the next one. All you have to do is lock your car door, and at least if a bear does get into your car, it will be obvious. Not like this:

Toyotas recalled for spider-related problem

Toyota is recalling 870,000 vehicles because a problem with an air conditioner part could cause airbags to deploy unnecessarily .

In some cases, the problem was caused by spiders.

Sometimes, their webs can create a blockage in a drainage tube coming from the air conditioning condenser. That can cause water to drip down onto an airbag control module, causing a short circuit. That, in turn, could cause the airbag warning light to light up on the dashboard and it could even cause the driver's side airbag to deploy, something that happens with explosive force.

 And before you comfort yourself with how rare this sort of problem must be, let me remind you that in 2011, Mazda recalled 65,000 cars because of spiders nesting in the fuel system.

You know what? Maybe you should just take the bus.

Animals where they shouldn't be

-The end of the government shutdown is good news for the fight against bad animals, which have been running amuck in the most high-profile place possible. The White House garden is being devastated by squirrels feasting on the produce, and a fox has taken up living in the grounds.

The photo above is from a blog about the garden that first reported the situation. The story was picked up by international media, but because the employees that could evict the critters were furloughed, the world could do nothing but look on helplessly. We hope the relevant staff are on the case promptly this morning.

 -And on the other side of the world, this one calls for another photograph:

A kangaroo shut down part of Melbourne Airport on Wednesday when it hopped through a terminal and into a pharmacy, airport officials said.

Customers inside the drug store alerted Australian police, who were forced to lock down part of the Qantas terminal so wildlife workers could tranquilize the wayward kangaroo.

A quote from another article gave me pause:

Neil Mitchell said the kangaroo should get used to attention.
"That kangaroo will be world famous soon - the English, Chinese, they'll be fascinated!"

I have to wonder: does giving these animals publicity just encourage them - am I part of the problem?

A symbol of the nation

Columbus Day has become a national holiday of ambivalence: a celebration of the 'discovery' of our country, which is understandably a bit annoying to the people who were already here. So it's an appropriate day for a story that shows that our national animal symbol is not all it's cracked up to be either:

He's a symbol of everything our great country stands for. The majestic bald eagle. It doesn't get more patriotic than our nation's bird. Most people are glad to see a slice of Americana in their own backyard. But in Sebewaing...

"He's a nuisance bird," resident Tami Bieri said. Tami Bieri is fed up. Ever since the young animal made his presence known just off Beck Street. Bieri says the bird that her daughter named "Derrick" has been terrorizing her pets.

"I left my two dogs outside and my smaller dog was attacked by an eagle. And then as the eagle was taking off with the dog, my Jack Russell attacked the eagle and both dogs got away," Bieri said.

As usual, the authorities are no help:

Now Bieri wants something done to evict the newest feathered resident. But so far, she says she's not getting much help. "He's federally protected. I've called the DNR, the Sebewaing police, and they pretty much say there's nothing they can do because the eagle's not injured," Bieri said.

And here's an expert's suggestion for how to defend your poor innocent pets from a large bird of prey:

"Clap your hands and yell at the bird when you see the bird around, bang on a pot when you see the bird around, go out there with an umbrella, flap the umbrella opened and closed to try and spook the bird off just so it doesn't feel settled around people," bird expert Karen Cleveland said.

Good luck with that.... on yet another day where animals have the freedom to get away with whatever they want in this great country of ours.




Eagle by Flickr user Jason Mrachina. Majestic, sure, except maybe to the fish...

Fair warning

In Sweden, a woman was sent to the hospital when a gorilla with very good aim threw a rock at her:

The woman, 38, was hit in the forehead by the stone, which was thrown by one of the five gorillas at the Kolmården National Park in central Sweden. The stone measured roughly five centimetres in diameter, said Marjorie Castro, head of the zoo.

"At first everything seemed fine. She was bleeding a little from her forehead, but seemed to be in good health," Castro told the Aftonbladet paper. "But she was hit in the head and gorillas have enormous strength, so we called an ambulance. After a while, she felt weak and we had to lie her down."

The zoo made rather lame excuses for not forseeing the problem (my italics):

Castro added that the gorillas have never thrown things at visitors before, with the exception of lighter objects like grass.

 Right, so what were the odds these powerful and intelligent apes were going to eventually try something else? And in fact, other visitors said it had happened before:

However, following the news of the stone-throwing gorilla, other Swedes shared similar stories about their experiences with the Kolmården primates. The mother of a 7-year-old boy told Aftonbladet that Enzo the gorilla had thrown a stone at her son in July last year.

"I got so scared and was thinking 'Please, don't throw rocks," the boy told the paper. "They are scary."

Sensible child!


I mean seriously, look at the arm muscles on that gorilla from Wikipedia, what were they thinking?

Rowdy Raccoon Roundup

From all across the continent, raccoons acting like hooligans:

-In the Bronx,  a pack of raccoons are terrorizing people at a train station, from jumping out of trees unexpectedly to ominously pacing the station platform, resulting in the most bemusing sentence of news reporting in today's batch of stories:

The mammal is very intelligent and will eat garbage.

Right, because that's an intelligent thing to do.

Elsewhere in the city a while ago, a woman was mugged by raccoons in Central Park :

Takara Larson, 26, of Bedford-Stuyvesant says she was scratched and bitten by a pair of raccoons that “appeared to be on drugs.”

“They were both on me. One was licking my leg and the other one sank his teeth in my other leg,” Larson told the Daily News Thursday. “It just seemed like they were hungry or deranged.”

 -In a Virginia suburb of Washington DC, raccoons are attacking people on their own property:

"Out of the corner of my eye I saw a raccoon. He walked up to me quickly and as I’m stepping away from it … he starts mauling my ankle.”

Alboum had been playing on her porch with her 4-year-old daughter at the time of the attack. After she was bitten she was taken to the hospital and received nine shots for rabies.

Another woman, who was pregnant, was also attacked in a separate incident. She was also treated for rabies.

And of course we've got our usual alleged animals experts who don't know whose side they are on:

However since the raccoons were not found and tested, animal control experts could not say if they had contracted rabies or another potentially dangerous disease.

“Innocent until proven guilty, we say,” Deputy Animal Control Officer Kimberly Corcoran told WJLA-TV of the possible rabid raccoons.

-Finally, in one neighborhood terrorized by raccoons in British Columbia, one man has been attacked four times, and now carries bear spray when he walks his dog. But again, a local government official shifts the blame:

"I understand people's concerns, but it's also a people-driven problem."

This official claims the problem should be blamed on people who are feeding them. But as far as this blog is concerned, this often-heard reasoning is faulty. If people are feeding you, animals, shouldn't that make you be nice to them?

Frankenstein's Bovine

In Korea, this is how a cow thanks the person who gave it life:

A cloned cow attacked its “creator” last week just ahead of the Chuseok holiday, inflicting injuries on the world-renowned embryologist, who will need eight weeks of medical treatment.

Prof. Park Se-pill at Jeju National University had five of his ribs broken and injured his spine in the Sept. 15 attack, the university on the scenic resort island said Sunday.

“Park was video-recording a black cow, which he cloned from species indigenous to Jeju four years ago, and all of a sudden, it charged and attacked him for 15 minutes,” a school official said.

“The 800-kilogram black cow is very strong because its cell donor was the best available. Park could not escape easily because he wore a special suit and long boots. He is now being treated at the university hospital.”

“We didn’t have the cow neutered because we have to check its virility. Hence, it often gets very restless,” Park said.

The 54-year-old said that the cow is now in a barn and no special measure will be taken despite the incident.

Belated bad animal headlines

My Internet was out for two days, and I couldn't even blame it on animals. Here's some of what they were trying to get away with while I was off the grid:

Wild Hogs Roam Streets, Scare People Near Atlanta

Some parents fear sending their children to a school bus stop in the Lithonia area, where up to four of the hogs are roaming the streets and eating trash in front yards.

“My children are petrified,” Taneisha Danner told WSB-TV.

Danner and her family just moved into their home from New Jersey.

“I have little ones that get on the bus at 6:40 in the morning,” she added. “So, I’m sorry. I’m not built to fight off wildlife.”

Crafty fox steals balls at Swiss golf club

“He comes every day, steals the balls and plays with them,” Murielle Guex, manager of the Moulins snack bar, located across from the course, told the 20 Minutes newspaper.

“He picks up the balls, then immediately runs away,” Guex said.

“He is fantastic and very couragous,” she said.

“He dares to come very close to people.”

The fox first appeared on September 6th and has since absconded with more than 100 balls, according to reports.

Check out video here.


And finally, just so you don't think this has stopped happening: Dog shoots man.



Unrelated but oddly appropriate photo by Flickr user Dan Perry

Score one - or two? - for the humans

It's a recurring theme of this blog: it's not just that animals are bad, it's that people keep letting them get away with it.  But this week we saw one human demonstrate how to stand up to bad animals when a bear walked into a bar in Alaska:

Around 9:15 p.m., C. Scott Fry, the hotel and bar manager, watched the black bear walk down the sidewalk past the hotel  lobby.

“And as soon as he got to the bar door, it made a left and walked in like he wanted to have a beer,” Fry said.

Ariel Svetlik-McCarthy was tending bar last night. She says it had been quiet up to that point. She realized the bear was inside and freaked out.

She yelled, “No bear! Get out! No! You can’t be in here!’”

Within seconds, the black bear obliged.

And in Connecticut, there was a case where the law took the human's side - but now the decision is hanging in the balance:

After a horse named Scuppy bit a boy in the face, a Connecticut court came to a conclusion that threw animal lovers: Horses are a naturally vicious species.

In February 2012, the mid-level Appellate Court overturned a lower court ruling and said that testimony by Timothy Astriab, whose family owns the farm, demonstrated that Scuppy belongs to ‘‘a species naturally inclined to do mischief or be vicious.’’

If you read this blog, you know that that description is true of every species. But horse lovers are appealing this decision, and we'll be keeping an eye out for the result.


Horse teeth coming at you by Flickr user jafro77

Livestock Overhead

'Bored' horse climbs on top of New Brunswick family's roof

A New Brunswick couple was baffled after a family member sent them a photo of their horse perched on the roof of a garage.

Stephen Downey and his wife Pat raise racing horses in Hampton N.B. But despite their experience with the four-legged beasts, they say they were baffled after seeing a photo, taken by Stephen's brother Archie, of a young colt on the garage roof.

"It looked like Archie had done a joke on Stephen and Photoshopped the horse on the roof because that just doesn't happen" Pat Downey told CTV Atlantic. "You would never get a horse to do something like that."

There was a hole in the roof where were the colt had put a hoof through. Pat Downey says it would have been a drop of more than 3.5 metres if the colt had plunged through.

"I think he was just bored," Downey said. "He's like a two or three-year-old kid and he was just looking for some excitement and he got into trouble like a regular kid would do."

This blog is very slowly amassing a collection of large farm animals on the roofs of buildings. In 2009 we had a cow on a roof, in 2011 a sheep, and now, it's a horse. I'm looking forward to pigs on a roof in 2015.