Atomic goat escapes
A radioactive goat that escaped during an experiment
might infect rare bighorn sheep with a sexually
transmitted disease unless researchers could kill him
first, authorities in Albuqueque, New Mexico, said
yesterday. The searchers were using planes with
special tracking equipment. -- Reuter
On arf, arf rations
German shepherd dogs serving in the Indonesian police
force have been getting thinner and their handlers
fatter, says a police chief. The dogs, imported from
Australia, have a food allowance double that of their
handlers but some dogs appeared undernourished and
their handlers overweight.
Mouse 'hijacks' jet
CAIRO -- A mouse which boarded an EgyptAir aircraft
heading ot London caused panic among passengers and
delayed the flight for about three hours, Egyptian
newspapers said. The mouse ran along the aisles of
the Airbus minutes before takeoff. Frightened
passengers jumped out of their seats and ran to one
end of the aircraft to escape it. Airport workers
and cleaners failed to catch the mouse and passengers
were transferred to another aircraft.
Pet dog runs down musician
A Dutch musician suffered a broken leg after his pet
dog ran him over with his own car. John Wallen, 47,
had left his car running while he closed his garage
door. The dog jumped in, nudged the gear stick, and
set the automatic car rolling. Mr Wallen was pinned
to the garage door till neighbours heard his howls of
pain. -- Reuter
A beastly feast
A feast for 500 monkeys was held in the Cambodian
city of Lopburi yesterday. Despite shunning the
fried rice, the monkeys enjoyed salads, nuts, eggs,
and fruit all laid out on 50 tables. The idea was to
attract tourists.
A job for monkeys
JERUSALEM -- Israel's former chief rabbi Ovadia Yosef
has ruled that trained monkeys may turn off lights or
do other domestic chores forbidden to jews on the
sabbath. But only a borrowed monkey - or a dog or
other animal capable of performing such tasks - could
be used by observant Jews between sunset on Friday
and sunset on Saturday. Their own beasts must be
allowed to rest.
Roar deal
A New Delhi court has ordered a travelling circus to
give maternity leave to a pregnant lion and a hippo
and sick leave to a pelican with a broken beak. The
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals says
the hippo had less then 1.2 metres of water to move
in and the lioness's cage was too small in her
pregnant condition.
Warbler's last gasp
A rare yellow browed warbler that showed up, to
birdwatchers delight, in northeast England instead of
being in northern Europe, has succumbed to nature -
a sparrowhawk swooped down, captured and ate it. The
birdwatchers were unable to intervene in time to save
it.
Cat keeps pensioner
An 80 year old man in the southern Russian town of
Labinsk is so poor he has to live off pigeons caught
by his cat, Nega news agency said yesterday. Nega,
run by the respected liberal newspaper Nezavisimaya
Gazeta, said the unnamed pensioner, who survived on
pigeon soup, was so worried about what might happen
to his cat Muska that he tried to insure it.
A Dutch woman's snakes have forced her husband to
flee with their two daughters. he told police he
left with his daughters out of fear for their safety.
Police found 16 caged snakes, including two
rattlesnakes, two pythons and two boa constrictors, a
scorpion, three iguanas, two dogs, a cockatoo, a
parrot, a mynah bird, three parakeets, 20 rats and 20
hamsters (food for the snakes). The husband and the
girls have still not returned.
In Baltimore, Maryland, Chuck Ochtech knew
exactly where he wanted to cast his hook. But
Mr Ochtech wasn't talking about a fly on to a
trout stream. He was one of 40 contestants, his
hook baited with bacon smeared with peanut
butter, after the Yellow Rose Sallon's second
annual rat fishing trophy. "You catch it honey,
and I'll club it", said his wife, Shirley,
baseball bat at the ready.
Tipsy the black mongrel survived a tumble on to
an electrified railway line and then dodged 80
trains in a tunnel before emerging unscathed.
"I think she believes she is a cat with nine
lives - but now she has used up most of them",
owner Caroline Cash said after being reunited
with the errant pet. The six-year-old slipped
her lead and fell on to the line at a railway
station in Kent. She spent 10 hours trapped in
a tunnel as trains thundered by on rails through
which electric power is supplied.
A blue and gold parrot was sacked from his job at a
British zoo yesterday after embarrassing parents and
children with his foul language. Bluey, a
long-tailed macaw named for his brilliant colour and
not his explicit language, was part of a parrot show
at the Isle of Wight zoo until he told visitors
exactly what to do. "It was no good. We even got in
a local elocution teacher, but Bluey told him to go
on a sexual excursion too", said manager Jack Corney.
A mysterious kangaroo-headed creature is reported to
be prowling the streets of a London suburb, killing
small birds and animals. The animal, dubbed the
Beast of Chiswick, is said to have left a trail of
decapitated pigeons and squirrels in its wake. The
strange creature is described as having the head of a
kangaroo, the body of a dog and the colouring of a
grey squirrel. Resident Angela Vallis said it was
about 60cm long with white spots. "It skulks around
at night and just stands and stares at you".
A Scottish couple's plans for a church or an outdoor
ceremony went to the dogs today because of all the
fuss about the bridesmaids - four Great Danes and a
chihuahua. Lisa Brady, of Tayside, Scotland always
wanted the dogs to march down the aisle with her but
she had no idea it would be so difficult. "There's
been so much media interest it's becoming a thre-ring
circus so they've decided to have the ceremony in
private at a hotel", said a friend. It was not known
whether the couple's five cats and goldfish would
also attend.
"Walkies" are out; British bird owner Paul Jones
takes his pet macaw for fly drives. His colourful
South African parrot Nina loves to exercise daily,
but he finds it impossible to keep up with her on
foot. So he drives around Bristol in his car with
Nina flying alongside. "I used to take her for walks
across the countryside and she would fly at will.
But she always wanted me to participate - you try
running at 20 miles an hour!" Nina starts out
perched on the bonnet then takes off and flies
alongside, close to the wing mirror, for up to 10
minutes.
Fifth-time lucky
The four previous owners of Lucky, a German
seeing-eye dog, weren't so lucky, but he is to be
given a fifth chance. He will be retrained and
given to a new blind owner, after losing the first
four. Lucky led his first owner in front of a
moving bus, and the second off the end of a pier.
he pushed his third owner off a railway platform
just as the Cologne-to-Frankfurt express was
approaching, and he walked his fourth owner into
heavy traffic before running away to safety.
Bardot cleared
Former sex symbol Brigitte Bardot has been cleared of
charges of having a neighbour's pet donkey castrated
without his knowledge. A French court upheld a
decision that Bardot's 1989 action was justified
because the donkey's advances could have threatened
the life of her 32 year old pet mare.
In Rice, Minnesota, golfer Greg Fleck was preparing
to putt on hole No 5 at the Oak Hill Golf Club when a
two-headed turtle appeared on the green. He took it
home to his wife and two children, who nicknamed
their new pet Tom and Jerry. Tom and Jerry have two
back legs, two front legs and one tail. Both heads
won't fit in the shell. "It likes flies", said
Fleck's wife, Karel. "Both heads eat. Sometimes,
they even fight for food".
An aggressive meat-eating turtle tried to attack a
British RSPCA worker after its owner abandoned it in
a supermarket carpark. "It was like something out of
a horror film. It was completely horrible and
vicious", RSPCA Bournemouth manager Bev Keeping
said. "A woman brought it into our office because
she had found it. She had it in a box and left it
on the desk while I was still on the phone. Before I
could even finish, it charged the side of the box and
come at me with its snapping jaws and frightened me
to death.
The passionate scrabblings of a trio of pet rabbits
have landed the parents of an 11 year old British
girl in court yesterday. York's Ernest Haskins filed
a private prosecution over the "persistent
scratching, thumping and bangin noises" made by
Smudge, bobby and Liquorice. "You would never
imagine three rabbits could make so much noise", he
said. "It could go on from 1.30am to dawn. You can
even hear them when the windows are closed". Joyce
Hartley has denied daughter Amy's rabbits make too
much noise and will appear in court next month.
British scientists who photographed two previously
unknown species of octopus say their first and only
observation of the rare creatrues could explain their
scarcity - the two males were trying to mate with
each other. They said the two octopi, photographed by
a submarine 2500m beneath the Pacific, might have
been reacting to a scarcity of females.
Fake deer loses its head to randy moose
A fake "deer" used for target practice became the
target of affection for a lonesome moose in
Waterboro, Maine.
The courtship from the 318-kilogram bull moose was so
steamy that the plastic-foam deer had to be rebuilt
after the moose lumbered into Nancy Morrill's yard
last week.
It made repeated passionate passes at the arrow
punctured deer, which is used for bow-hunting
practice. The deer lost its antlers during the
episode, but it was not till its head fell off that
the moose was put off his stroke and headed back to
the woods. -- AP
The cat won't come down
How long can a cat stay up a tree without coming down
for food or water? More than a month it seems, much
to the annoyance of the owners of a Hastings home.
For at least a month now, the meowing moggy has been
stuck up their Phoenix palm, refusing all efforts by
firefighters, power workers, and the SPCA to get it
down. SPCA president Mona Fulton says the cat may be
wild and mistrustful of its would-be rescuers. The
cat has been living off birds that perch in the tree
and drops of water caught in its fronds.
Man bites snake
An African cattleherder bit a huge python to death in
a 30 minute battle after the snake dropped on him
from a tree and tried to crush him, a newspaper said
today.
Atomic Goat Escapes
A radioactive goat that escaped during an experiment
might infect rare bighorn sheep with a sexually
transmitted disease unless researchers could kill him
first, authorities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said
yesterday. The searchers were using planes with
special tracking equipment.
When the family cat goes wild
Naples police had to rescue two women yesterday --
from their cat. Prince, a large and normally placid
three year old, suddenly attacked Iolanda
Catarinella, 60, and her daughter Raffaella, spitting
furiously and trying to scratch their faces. The
women barricaded themselves into a room and called
police who snared him with a blanket. he is in a
police cell awaiting a veterinary examination. --
Reuter