U.K. Squirrels Are Nuts About Crack
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
It's every city dweller's worst fear: rodents on crack.
Squirrels in Brixton, South London, have been observed behaving bizarrely — and authorities there believe it may be because they're hooked on crack cocaine hidden by addicts, according to the London Sun.
A recent crackdown by cops on dealers and addicts is thought to have inspired users to start hiding their stashes in the ground — which the squirrels are digging up.
"My neighbor said dealers had used my garden to hide crack," one Brixton resident told the Sun.
"Just an hour earlier I'd seen a squirrel digging in the flower-beds," the resident told the paper. "It was ill-looking and its eyes looked bloodshot, but it kept on desperately digging. It seems a strange thing to say, but it seemed to know what it was looking for."
So-called "crack squirrels" are already acknowledged as a problem in American cities such as Washington, D.C., and New York.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172612,00.html
― Crack Squirrles in the Chinese Quarter (nordicskilla), Thursday, 20 October 2005 17:54 (twenty years ago)
http://www.netaxs.com/~mhmyers/cdjpgs/squirrel.jpgHey, buddy? Yeah, you man. Hey, look, my car just ran out of gas over there. I need like, a dollar. How about .50? I'll take anything, man. I swear I won't spend this on alcohol.
― Alan Conceicao (Alan Conceicao), Sunday, 23 October 2005 00:47 (twenty years ago)
one month passes...
The crack may have spread east...Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog'
Local people suggest hunger is driving squirrels to extremes
Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report.
Passers-by were too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.
They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.
A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.
The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in the Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people.
A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.
"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
"When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them."
Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack.
While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds' nests, he said, the idea of them chewing a dog to death was "absurd".
"If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he added.
Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory.
A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year.
"The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he added.
― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 2 December 2005 19:18 (twenty years ago)
two years pass...