Raccoon Raids Federal Courthouse

August 25, 2008. Atlanta, Georgia

What's impressive is that the coon made it up to the 14th floor (or possibly the 23rd, if you believe that story about the dried soup packet).

Swooping Magpies

Adelaide, Australia

Mike also sends in this link with a picture of a sign in an Adelaide Park warning of swooping magpies.

This page from the New South Wales government has a few tips on dealing with magpie swoops.

The most useful hostile magpie site I've been able to find has a detailed breakdown of magpie injuries. There were 59 reported attacks causing injuries requiring medical treatment, including two concussions.

That site helpfully links to a cautionary children's cartoon on magpie attacks.

I did investigate that statistics site to see if they had other interesting reports, like injuries from kangaroos, or koalas, or gliding possums. No dice; maybe I'll try again some other day.

Cows Developing Sixth-Sense Navigation System

My friend Mike pointed me to this story, where a pair of scientists from Universität Duisburg-Essen found that in general, when cattle stood in a field, "60 percent to 70 percent of cattle were oriented north-south". This is corroborated by a random Wisconsin farmer.

Interesting, although it's not clear what's going on.

I see a couple of possibilities here.

1. This is a form of cow psyops, and they're faking it. Think about it: you're a cow; how do you fight the humans? You could bull-rush and gore a farmer somewhere -- great, but the rest of your herd gets mown down by bullets within the hour. Maybe your best chance is to try to give mankind mad cow disease, but for that you have to eat other cows; not a pretty sight. Maybe your best bet is to affect some odd behavioral patterns and distract the human scientists.

2. This is real; cows really can detect and act on magnetic fields, for some unknown but presumably nefarious purpose. That figure of 60-70% is interesting; high enough to prove non-random behavior, but low enough not to be suspicious to casual observers.

By the way, check out the zoology department at the Universität Duisburg-Essen. Looks like everyone there is into studying Zambian mole-rats (which apparently have their own subterranean magnetic-field homing capability). Not sure why they are such a popular research topic ... hopefully we won't have an onslaught of Zambian mole-rat posts in the future.

Rabid Bats

Looks like I will have to add rabid bat attacks to the list of incidents too frequent to mention.

The past two weeks alone, there have been rabid bat attacks in Illinois, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah, and rabid bats found in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Missouri, Ohio, and Virginia. All according to a quick Google search; there may have been more.

Here's a chilling story about vampire bats taking it to a tribe of Indians in Venezuela on the Orinoco Delta.

On a side note, my search for rabid+bat turned up a surprising number of baseball stories.

Chickens Storm Town

August 16, 2008. Weirton, West Virginia

The human side took casualties: "an animal control officer was pecked".

"Harris said there were only about 10 to 15 wild chickens a couple of decades ago. Now, he says there are as many as 100 chickens roaming the neighborhood."

That's a shocking increase in only twenty years; exponential growth at work. Now if only mankind had more experience in killing and disposing of chickens. Hopefully they can figure this one out.

Cougars and Numbnuts

We might as well round up the dregs of the recent mountain lion news stories.

August 7, 2008. Orange County, California Man walks into a convenience store, streaming blood down his arm. His story: he saw a mountain lion and three cubs, and tried to pet one of the cubs.

August 6, 2008. Medina, Ohio (no, really). Man claims to have been bitten by a "30 to 40 pound" mountain lion. Ok.

July 18, 2008. Palo Alto, California. Man claims to have been attacked by a mountain lion, but police think it was a dog.

Cougar!

Quite a few mountain lion encounters recently. Fortunately, humans have generally had the upper hand.

August 9, 2008. Townsend Montana. Mountain lion crashes through a window into a house. End result: man shoots lion.

August 7, 2008. New Castle, Colorado. Couple sees a mountain lion while walking. End result: man shoots lion.

August 7, 2008. Casper, Wyoming. Mountain lion seen in a family's back yard. End result: man shoots lion with tranquilizer darts; lion escapes.

August 5, 2008. Hot Springs, South Dakota. Man sees a mountain lion while getting into his pickup truck. End result: man shoots lion.

Mountain Lion Demonstration Killings

August 6, 2008. Jefferson County, Colorado.
August 5, 2008. Boulder, Colorado


In the first case, a mountain lion entered a house, killed a 72-pound sleeping dog, and dragged it outside. In the second, a mountain lion killed a deer in a man's driveway.

I can only surmise that the beasts are trying to make some sort of statement with these very public killings.