Animals
Turkey Black Magic
A driver in Massachusetts was left dumbfounded when he spotted a flock of wild turkeys eerily circling the body of a dead cat!
Jonathan Davis filmed the bizarre scene in the town of Randolph on Thursday and posted it to his Twitter feed joking that the turkeys were trying to give the cat its 10th life.
As one might expect, the creepy video of the ‘turkey witchcraft’ subsequently went viral with amazed viewers offering various suggestions for what the creatures were doing.
Fortunately for anyone who enjoys Thanksgiving, the turkeys were probably not practicing a bird-based form of black magic.
A wildlife official in Massachusetts named David Scarpitti explained that cats are natural enemies of turkeys and, therefore, the curious creatures were likely trying to figure out what the feline was doing in the road.
The spooky circular motion around the downed cat, he said, could have been caused by one turkey performing the motion and then all of the others falling into line behind it, which is the typical way that the birds travel.
Nonetheless, Scarpitti marveled neither he nor any of his colleagues had ever seen such a thing in all their years on the job.
Big Time Monkey Business
A Thai city was plunged into chaos this weekend as hundreds of monkeys escaped from their enclosure and took to the streets in search of food, causing concerned police to lock themselves inside their station. The wild incident reportedly occurred in the community of Lopburi, which has long struggled to contain its growing population of increasingly aggressive macaques. One solution to the problem has been to round up the particularly pugnacious primates and keep them in sizeable compounds where they could no longer menace the public. However, the plan backfired spectacularly on Saturday when around 200 of the captured creatures staged a successful jailbreak.
The city was soon flooded with the newly freed macaques, much to the chagrin of one police department that found itself targeted by the troublesome monkeys. Out of fear that the animals would lay waste to the inside of their station while looking for food, cops sealed the building off while calling for all officers on duty to return to headquarters in order to help fend off the creatures. Fortunately, the veritable simian invasion did not last very long as the monkeys were coaxed back to their enclosure with the one thing they had sought: snacks. By Monday, only a few of the macaques remained on the loose with authorities in hot pursuit of the pesky primates that had caused a ruckus in the city over the weekend.
Joshua the Goat crashes half marathon in Newfoundland
Joshua, a goat who lives at Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch in Conception Bay South, N.L., in a Sept. 29 handout photo.
He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event’s undisputed champion.
Partway through Sunday’s T’Railway Trek half marathon in Conception Bay South, N.L., an eager 68-kilogram (150 pound) goat named Joshua broke free from his collar and joined the runners on the route.
He kept pace for nearly a quarter of the race before being rounded up by his owners and now even has a medal to show for his efforts.
Joshua’s half-marathon debut surprised no one more than Heidi Taylor, who woke up Sunday morning to find social media awash in photos of her goat mingling with fellow runners.
“We take Joshua for walks, he listens very well and will follow you,” she said in an interview Sunday.
“So when he’s seeing all the people running, he must have thought: ’I’m going to go too.’ ”
Joshua lives at Taylor’s Pumpkin Patch, the business Ms. Taylor co-owns. Ms. Taylor doesn’t know what time he managed to ditch his collar but estimates he ran about five kilometres of the 21-kilometre race.
She got wind of his unexpected participation at around 9:30 p.m. when she opened her Facebook and recognized him from the photos filling her feed.
Ms. Taylor and her fiancé used the Facebook posts to figure out Joshua’s whereabouts along the race route, and they “took another collar and leash along with a bag of cheezies” – his favourite snack – and went off to find him.
The Lighter Side of Bigfoot
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Last of eight escaped bulls captured in Massachusetts
They have rodeos in Massachusetts!!??
Sept. 24 (UPI) — The last of eight bulls that escaped Sunday from a rodeo in Massachusetts was recaptured near the place where the saga began, firefighters said.
The North Attleboro Fire Department said on social media that the bull, one of eight to escape a rodeo at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro, was captured late Monday night.
The bull had been located near the town’s Walmart in the evening Monday, sparking a chase involving the fire department, North Attleboro Police, Attleboro Police, Massachusetts State Police Air Wing, Mass Environmental Police, the New England Rodeo, animal rescue groups and volunteers.
“I have to say I’ve never went out looking for a lost bull. This is one for the books,” Samantha Beckman with Wandering Paws K9 told WBZ-TV.
The bovine took off running from Walmart, leading pursuers on a chase that came to an end on Route 1, near the Emerald Square Mall, where the bull was lassoed and loaded onto a trailer.
The circumstances of the eight bulls’ escape remain under investigation.
The MarkoZen Blog 