CHIMP MAKES MONKEY OF ZOO BOSS
A zoo director who banned his keepers from feeding the animals by hand following a series of accidents had his finger bitten off by a chimpanzee in 2009. Bernhard Blaszkiewitz forgot his own rule while showing VIPs around Berlin Zoo and offered Pedro the chimp some fruit through the bars. The chimp responded by grabbing the zoo boss’s hand and biting his index finger with such force that it was left hanging by just a flap of skin. The keepers at the zoo appeared less than sympathetic. One said: “He has only himself to blame. We’re all banned from doing that sort of thing and that chimp is known to be very aggressive. He’s lucky Pedro didn’t eat his finger.”
DESIGNER SNAKE IN COLOUR CLASH
A man handed in his pet python to the RSPCA in Godshill, Isle of Wight, in 2006 because it did not match the colour of his newly decorated home.
JOGGER HOSPITALIZED BY KANGAROO
An Australian jogger out running near Melbourne had to be taken to hospital after being attacked by a kangaroo. While on his daily run, the man apparently became trapped between a male and female kangaroo, as a result of which he suffered a gash on his head plus minor scratches to his body. A paramedic reported that following the attack, the victim’s jog turned into a sprint as he fled to a nearby house.
BIRD’S CALLS FOOL POLICE
When neighbours heard a woman’s voice repeatedly crying “Help me! Help me!” from a house in Trenton, New Jersey, they called the police. Officers arrived and when nobody answered the door, they kicked it in – but instead of a damsel in distress, they found a caged cockatoo with a remarkable ability to mimic humans. It wasn’t the first time that ten-year-old Luna had brought the authorities to the home of owner Evelyn DeLeon. Back in 2001, the bird cried like a baby for hours, prompting a visit by concerned state child welfare workers.
CHINESE BURGLAR EATS PET TORTOISE
A hungry Chinese illegal immigrant was jailed for a year in 1999 for breaking into a Hong Kong house and eating an expensive pet tortoise. Having entered the house, Chau Chao-ping, 22, ignored valuable possessions but spotted three tortoises in a hut. Desperate for food, he slaughtered the biggest tortoise, boiled it and ate it before fleeing, leaving the shell in a wash basin.
MOOSE UPSET BY UNRESPONSIVE CAR
A Norwegian moose mistook a Ford Ka for a would-be partner in 2001. He licked and dribbled on the car but when his ardour was not reciprocated, he defecated on it.
SEAGULL TURNS SHOPLIFTER
A seagull turned shoplifter in 2007 by strolling into a shop in Aberdeen, Scotland, and helping itself to packets of potato crisps from the shelves. The bird, nicknamed Sam, always swooped for packets of cheese Doritos, which he then ripped open outside and shared with other seagulls. Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: “He’s got it down to a fine art. He waits until there are no customers around and I’m standing behind the till, then he raids the place.” Sam became such a celebrity that locals even started paying for his crisps.
ARMY DEMOTES GOAT FOR UNRULY BEHAVIOUR
A British army regiment’s ceremonial pet goat was demoted in disgrace after it marched out of line and tried to headbutt musicians at a 2006 parade to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday. Billy, mascot of the 1st Battalion, the Royal Welsh, was downgraded from lance corporal to fusilier after army chiefs decided that his wayward behaviour had ruined the ceremony before visiting dignitaries at the base in Episkopi, Cyprus. In an official statement Captain Crispian Coates said: “The goat, which has been the regiment’s mascot since 2001, was supposed to be leading the march, but would not stay in line. He was reported for insubordination and after consideration, the commanding officer decided he had no option but to demote Billy.” Another soldier present at the parade recounted how the goat “was trying to headbutt the waist and nether regions of the drummers”. Captain Coates added that as a result of his demotion, soldiers were no longer expected to salute Billy as a sign of respect.
GERMAN DOGS ATTACK PARKED CARS
In a well-planned dawn raid, a pack of large boxer-like dogs launched a frenzied attack on six cars parked in a suburb of Munich in 2003. Their orgy of savagery left a trail of damaged vehicles with ripped-off fenders, mud flaps and licence plates. Police found teeth marks on the hubcaps and bodywork, which were covered in blood and saliva from the dogs. Residents said they saw the animals biting and snapping at the cars around 4.30 a.m. One witness said: “It was incredible. One of them leaped again and again with unbelievable force into the side of a car and bit into it like a lunatic.” Police could offer no explanation for the uncharacteristic behaviour but warned: “If we see any dogs sniffing around cars, we’ll be sure to get them.”
WOMAN MISTAKES PLASTIC BAG FOR WILD BEAST
A woman from England’s West Country rang the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in 2002 to report that the infamous “Beast of Bodmin” – a black panther-like big cat said to roam the Cornish moor – was outside her door and laying siege to her house. The “Beast” turned out to be nothing more dangerous than her new telephone books, which had been delivered in a black plastic bag.
FISH SNATCHES CASH
A young girl standing on a riverbank in England’s Lake District was robbed of a £5 ($10) note by a trout leaping from the water.
PET CAMEL TRIES TO MATE WITH OWNER
A woman in Australia was killed by her pet camel after the animal apparently tried to have sex with her. The ten-month-old male camel – a 60th birthday present for the woman – had already come close to suffocating the family’s pet goat on several occasions before, one day in August 2007, he suddenly transferred his lust to his owner. He knocked her to the ground, lay on top of her and displayed what the police delicately described as possible mating behaviour.
LION RECEIVES WAKE-UP CALL
A man trying to retrieve a cell phone which had been dropped in a lion’s cage in Mexico was badly mauled when the phone suddenly rang and woke up the lion. Guillermo Orozco entered the cage at a Pachuca amusement park in 2000 after making a wager with a friend that he could safely collect the phone.
SNAKE SWALLOWS ELECTRIC BLANKET
A pet Burmese python needed surgery in 2006 after swallowing an entire electric blanket, including the electrical cord and control box. Owner Karl Beznoska, of Ketchum, Idaho, believed the blanket, which was in the snake’s cage for warmth, must have become tangled up in the reptile’s rabbit dinner. Veterinary experts said it would have taken the python – named Houdini – six hours to swallow the blanket. “Somehow he was unable to unplug the electric cord,” said Beznoska. “At least he wasn’t hooked up to the power or it could have been pretty warm in his stomach.”
NURSES TOLD TO WALK IN PAIRS TO AVOID SQUIRREL ATTACKS
Nurses in County Durham were told to walk in pairs or carry umbrellas to protect them from attacks by marauding gangs of squirrels. The warning came in 2009 after a district nurse was left shaken and with “reddening of the scalp” when one squirrel jumped on her and another landed on her head while she was walking up to a farm. On her health and safety report form, she rated the “severity of incident” as “insignificant to catastrophic”.
BUSINESSMAN FINDS MISSING PHONE – INSIDE DOG’S STOMACH
When Kamal Shah’s cell phone went missing from the bedside table of his home in Nairobi, the Kenyan businessman thought his young son had taken it. But when he called the number from his land line, he was amazed to hear it ringing inside the stomach of his German Shepherd dog. A bemused Mr Shah said: “When I dialled the number, just about the last place I expected to hear it ringing was inside my dog.” The dog underwent surgery to have the phone removed.
WHEELS IMPROVE TORTOISE’S LOVE LIFE
Arava the tortoise found that a set of wheels did wonders for her love life. The ten-year-old spurred tortoise was fitted with a customized skateboard by staff at Jerusalem’s Biblical Zoo after her rear legs ceased to function, and the improved mobility provided by the strap-on board quickly led
to romance with an amorous male.
POLICE OFFICER HANDCUFFS AGGRESSIVE SHEEP
After an escaped ewe assaulted his colleague, a New Zealand police officer subdued the animal by handcuffing one of its front legs to a back leg . . . but then suffered the additional embarrassment of having to call for backup when he realized that the key to the handcuffs was missing. Summoned to deal with a loose sheep, one of the two police constables pursued it into a garage before emerging a minute or so later with his clothing torn. The ewe then ran straight towards the second officer who managed to wrestle it to the ground before handcuffing it. Describing the first assault, Sergeant Andrew Bardsley of Dunedin police said: “Our officer came out of the garage looking a little the worse for wear. He was limping, with ripped trousers. We’re still not sure exactly what happened in there.”
CUSTOMS OFFICERS FIND REPTILES INSIDE GNOMES
In 2007, customs officers in Sydney, Australia, found seven snakes and eight lizards stuffed inside hollowed-out garden gnomes and other ceramic figures in packages that had been sent from England. Due to quarantine regulations, all the reptiles were put down. The gnomes were released without charge.
DOG PERFORMS HEIMLICH MANOEUVRE
A golden labrador saved his owner’s life by giving her the Heimlich manoeuvre when she was choking on a piece of apple. Debbie Parkhurst, from Cecil County, Maryland, was struggling for breath until two-year-old Toby pushed her to the ground by putting his front paws on her shoulders and then jumped up and down on her chest, eventually dislodging the apple from her windpipe. “As soon as I started breathing,” she said, “he stopped and began licking my face, as if to keep me from passing out. He was amazing even though I now have pawprint-shaped bruises on my chest.”
ELITE SWAT TEAM STALKS SOFT TOY
Called to deal with a report of a panther prowling in a back garden in Wielkopolska, a crack Polish police SWAT team spent nearly an hour watching and stalking the deadly beast – only to discover that it was a life-sized soft toy. When the armed officers arrived at the scene, they immediately identified the creature as a black panther and prepared a stakeout. It was only after more than 45 minutes of playing cat and mouse that they became suspicious when the panther didn’t even twitch a whisker as they started to approach it. A police spokesman insisted afterwards: “From a distance it really looked like a live animal.”
RARE ROBIN EATEN BY BIRDWATCHER’S CAT
A rare American robin – one of just eight seen in Britain over the previous five years – flew 400 miles from Norway to Manchester in 2004, only to perish when it was caught and eaten by a birdwatcher’s cat.
HORSE FOUND ON TWELFTH FLOOR
Police who were called to investigate a strange smell in an apartment block in Prokuplje, Serbia, soon discovered the cause – a dead horse that had been jammed into a ventilation shaft 12 storeys up. The stench from the putrefying remains was so noxious that officers ordered the building to be evacuated in case the overpowering fumes proved lethal. The police admitted they were at a loss to explain how someone managed to get a horse’s body 12 storeys up and why the animal was then dumped in the shaft.
“GHOST” TURNS OUT TO BE CAT UP CHIMNEY
After hearing a repeated moaning sound, John Bambrick, from Cradley Heath, West Midlands, called a priest to exorcise his house before moving his family out to a relative’s home. Later it was discovered that their “moaning ghost” was nothing spookier than a cat stuck up their chimney.
CAT CHASES BEAR UP TREE
A black bear that strayed into a garden in West Milford, New Jersey, in 2006 was twice chased up a tree by the family cat. The petrified bear was able to make its escape only when the cat’s owner, Donna Dickey, called the hissing feline into the house. She described the pet – a tabby named Jack – as “territorial”.
PARROT SPREADS THE F-WORD
A foul-mouthed parrot, who once told a vicar to “fuck off ”, has been teaching other birds at a Warwickshire wildlife centre how to swear. Barney the macaw told the vicar, a mayoress and two police officers to “fuck off ” and called them “wankers” when they visited the centre. Now he has been teaching two other parrots – Sam and Charlie – his full repertoire of abuse, which includes such terms as “tits” and “bollocks”.
MATING GOATS UPSET TOWN
Convenience store manager Carol Mendenhall was charged with allowing her four goats to have sex in her front yard in public view – a contravention of a town law in Dibble, Oklahoma. While freely admitting that her billy goat, Adam, had been servicing three females who were on heat at the time, Mendenhall launched a vigorous campaign that led to her name being cleared and the law repealed.
MOOSE STEALS BICYCLE
A hungry moose stole a bicycle that a Swedish couple had placed in their garden to stop the animal eating their rose bushes. The moose, dubbed Droopy Ear, had frequently visited the Vuoggatjalme garden of Bjorn and Monica Helamb to munch their roses, so eventually they decided to put the bicycle in front of the flowers as a barrier. Instead of being deterred, the moose leaned through the bicycle frame to get at the flowers and then sauntered off, with the bike hanging around its neck. The couple found the bicycle 500 metres from their house, mangled beyond repair.
MAN RESCUED AFTER PELTING BEARS WITH SNOWBALLS
A 35-year-old man had to be rescued by firefighters in 1998 after climbing into the historic bear pit in Berne, Switzerland, and pelting two bears with snowballs. He was taken to hospital with “considerable flesh wounds” to his legs and shoulder, sustained when the female bear expressed displeasure at the intrusion.
SEAL BREAKS INTO TROUT HATCHERY
A clever seal somehow broke into a fish hatchery in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 2009 and turned the place into an all-you-can-eat buffet, devouring untold numbers of trout before being discovered. The three-foot-long seal, which was later released on a beach, was described as looking “pretty full”.
PYTHON MISTAKES GOLF BALLS FOR EGGS
An X-ray of a python in Australia showed that it had swallowed four golf balls after mistaking them for eggs. A veterinary at a wildlife sanctuary on the Queensland–New South Wales border explained: “People in the area have been putting golf balls under their brooding hens, pretending that they are eggs, to make the chickens happy. We think that the snake slithered into the back yard, thought the golf balls were real eggs and tucked in.”
ZOOKEEPERS SUSPENDED FOR EATING THEIR ANIMALS
Two keepers at a children’s zoo at Recklinghausen, near Cologne, Germany, were suspended in 2002 on suspicion of having eaten some of the animals in their care. Police believed the pair had slaughtered and barbecued five Tibetan mountain chickens and two Cameroonian sheep.
SHEPHERD ALLOWED SHEEP TO INTIMIDATE NEIGHBOURS
A 58-year-old Gloucestershire shepherd was given an Anti-social Behaviour Order in 2008 following accusations from his neighbours that he couldn’t control his sheep. For more than 500 years commoners born in the Forest of Dean have been able to let their livestock graze freely, but Jeremy Awdry was banned from taking his animals into the village of Bream after his 500-strong flock were found straying into gardens and damaging fences. His woolly bullies were described as part of the “intimidation of people living in the area.”
WOMAN PUTS EARRINGS ON BABY DEER
Bettie Phillips, of Hiddenite, North Carolina, was ordered to pay $250 to a wildlife centre in 1997 after police officers found a two-month-old deer in the back of her car with zircon-studded earrings in its pierced ears. Phillips said she had rescued the fawn from a busy road and had pierced its ears by hand, pushing the posts of the two earrings through the flesh. “I thought it would be pretty,” she told reporters. “You can get a little kid’s ears pierced. What’s the difference between a person’s and a baby deer’s?” Ned Gentz, chief veterinarian at the local wildlife centre to where the deer was taken to be treated for mildly infected ears, remarked: “We’re pretty used to the concept of people who think fawns are cute a
nd want to adopt them. However, earrings are a totally new one on us. Just when you think you’ve been dealing with the issues of human interaction with wildlife for long enough that you’ve seen it all, somebody surprises you.”
POLICE DOG SACKED FOR BEING TOO FRIENDLY
Buster, a two-year-old German Shepherd, was sacked in 2005 after failing to make a single arrest in his six months with South Yorkshire Police. His problem was that he was simply too nice. He ignored fleeing villains, let drunken yobs stroke him, disappeared at crucial moments to cock his leg, and even lay down for a rest while supposedly in hot pursuit of a suspect. His former handler, David Stephenson, admitted: “He just showed no interest in doing the job. He had no fire in his belly. It’s not his fault. He’s just a dog who wants to be friendly with everyone.” The final straw came when Buster twice failed to locate criminals hiding in gardens – even walking straight past one of them.
The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books) Page 4