animals

Talk about stupid people. On the heels of the pet bear here we go with another animal story. A bad case of stupid is still going around.

(CNN) — A Siberian Tiger mauled a man Monday morning after he and a friend scaled the fence of the Calgary Zoo and pressed up against the tiger cage, zoo officials said.The information we have is that while his injuries appear not to be life-threatening. They are, however, quite serious,” Graham Netwon, the zoo’s director and chief financial officer, said at a news conference Monday. 

Officials said two men scaled the zoo’s 8-foot perimeter fence, which also is covered in barbed wire, about 1 a.m. Monday morning.

The two 27-year-old men, who were not identified, then headed toward the tiger cage, where they scaled a safety fence meant to keep the public away.

The two men never entered the cage, but stood in between the safety fence and another fence meant to “keep the tigers in” when they startled a 2-year-old Siberan tiger named Vitali.
Vitali “has a fairly significant armament at his disposal: very sharp claws,” said Dr. Sandie Black, the zoo’s head veterinarian.

Once the tiger was startled, he probably clawed one of the men, officials said.

“My guess would be that the gentleman was hooked by a claw and the arm dragged in and then continued to be attacked from that point,” Black said during the news conference.

The second man then struggled to help his friend escape the tiger’s grasp, officials said.

Every time I read one of these stories I shake my head. What are you doing keeping a bear, lion or tiger at home.

(CNN) — A 37-year-old Pennsylvania woman died Sunday after being mauled by her pet black bear, authorities said.

Kelly Ann Walz was attacked when she entered the bear’s cage to feed the 350-pound animal and clean its cage, according to Pennsylvania State Police. The bear lived in a 15-by-15-foot steel and concrete enclosure on Walz’s property in Ross Township.

Other animal stories:

Warning- The Polar Bear Will Eat You
How To Fight A Polar Bear
Komodo dragon attacks terrorize Indonesia villages
Reasons To Be Careful In The Bathroom
Snake Tries to Eat Man, Man Bites Back
Crocodiles Eat People Too
Attacked By A Dragon- He Lives to Fight Another Day
Woman Stuffs Snake Down Pants

Spend any time around the Shack and you’ll see that we love these animal stories. This is the kind of lizard whose tale is worth telling.

The attacks on humans appear to be increasing in frequency. If you read the whole story you’ll see that an eight-year-old boy was mauled to death while trying to relieve himself. Talk about inopportune times to be attacked, sheesh.

Believe me, I am not being facetious about this, one of my fears is being eaten alive.

KOMODO ISLAND, Indonesia – Komodo dragons have shark-like teeth and poisonous venom that can kill a person within hours of a bite. Yet villagers who have lived for generations alongside the world’s largest lizard were not afraid — until the dragons started to attack.

The stories spread quickly across this smattering of tropical islands in southeastern Indonesia, the only place the endangered reptiles can still be found in the wild: Two people were killed since 2007 — a young boy and a fisherman — and others were badly wounded after being charged unprovoked.

Komodo dragon attacks are still rare, experts note. But fear is swirling through the fishing villages, along with questions on how best to live with the dragons in the future.

Main, a 46-year-old park ranger, who like many Indonesians goes by a single name, was doing paperwork when a dragon slithered up the stairs of his wooden hut in Komodo National Park and went for his ankles dangling beneath the desk. When the ranger tried to pry open the beast’s powerful jaws, it locked its teeth into his hand.

“I thought I wouldn’t survive… I’ve spent half my life working with Komodos and have never seen anything like it,” said Main, pointing to his jagged gashes, sewn up with 55 stitches and still swollen three months later. “Luckily, my friends heard my screams and got me to hospital in time.”

Komodos, which are popular at zoos in the United States to Europe, grow to be 10 feet (3 meters) long and 150 pounds (70 kilograms). All of the estimated 2,500 left in the wild can be found within the 700-square-mile (1,810-square-kilometer) Komodo National Park, mostly on its two largest islands, Komodo and Rinca. The lizards on neighboring Padar were wiped out in the 1980s when hunters killed their main prey, deer.

Though poaching is illegal, the sheer size of the park — and a shortage of rangers — makes it almost impossible to patrol, said Heru Rudiharto, a biologist and reptile expert. Villagers say the dragons are hungry and more aggressive toward humans because their food is being poached, though park officials are quick to disagree.

The giant lizards have always been dangerous, said Rudiharto. However tame they may appear, lounging beneath trees and gazing at the sea from white-sand beaches, they are fast, strong and deadly.

The animals are believed to have descended from a larger lizard on Indonesia’s main island Java or Australia around 30,000 years ago. They can reach speeds of up to 18 miles (nearly 30 kilometers) per hour, their legs winding around their low, square shoulders like egg beaters.

When they catch their prey, they carry out a frenzied biting spree that releases venom, according to a new study this month in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The authors, who used surgically excised glands from a terminally ill dragon at the Singapore Zoo, dismissed the theory that prey die from blood poisoning caused by toxic bacteria in the lizard’s mouth.

The long, jagged teeth are the lizard’s primary weapons, said Bryan Fry of the University of Melbourne.

“They deliver these deep, deep wounds,” he said. “But the venom keeps it bleeding and further lowers the blood pressure, thus bringing the animal closer to unconsciousness.”

Four people have been killed in the last 35 years (2009, 2007, 2000 and 1974) and at least eight injured in just over a decade. But park officials say these numbers aren’t overly alarming given the steady stream of tourists and the 4,000 people who live in their midst.

These two stories should serve as a reminder to look before you begin your business in the bathroom.

“A 2cm long fish apparently found it’s way into the penis of a 14-year-old boy from India in a bizarre medical case.

The patient was admitted to hospital with complaints of pain, dribbling urine and acute urinary retention spanning a 24-hour period. According to the boy, the fish slipped into his penis while he was cleaning his aquarium at home. Professor Vezhaventhan and Professor Jeyaraman, who treated the boy and later wrote a paper on the case, explained: “While he was cleaning the fish tank in his house, he was holding a fish in his hand and went to the toilet for passing urine. When he was passing urine, the fish slipped from his hand and entered his urethra and then he developed all these symptoms.”

and

“A MAN became a sitting target for a snake, which bit his penis as sat on the toilet.

“As soon as he sat down, he suddenly felt a knife-like pain and reacted instinctively by standing up,” the China Times said. “When he looked down, he saw the big snake.” (Editor’s note: We all say this. 😉 ) The 51-year-old Taiwanese man, from Nantou County, Tapei, was under medical care with minor injuries, a director at Puli Christian Hospital said.

“As soon as he has passed the risk of infection, he can go,” the director, who declined to be named, said.

“A snake’s mouth isn’t always clean.”

Want to know what snake tastes like? Ask this fellow. Better yet ask the keystone cops how they let the snake escape.

A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.

The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.

Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.
Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.

The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening. Mr Nyaumbe used his shirt to smother the snake’s head and prevent it from swallowing him.

His employer arrived with police and villagers, who tied the python with a rope and pulled them both down from the tree with a thud.

Peter Katam, superintendent of police in Malindi district, told the BBC News website: “Two officers on patrol were called and they found this man was struggling with a snake on a tree.

“The snake had coiled his hands and was trying to swallow him but he struggled very hard. The officers and villagers managed to rescue him and he was freed.

“He himself was injured on the lower lip of the mouth – it was bleeding a little bit – as the tip of the snake’s tail was sharp when he said he bit it.” Mr Nyaumbe told the Daily Nation newspaper how he resorted to desperate measures after the python, which had apparently been hunting livestock, encircled his upper body in its coils.

“I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python,” he said.

“I had to bite it.”