The Mammoth Book of Weird News (Mammoth Books)

by Geoff Tibballs

  ORANGUTANS CAUSE A STINK BY EATING SPROUTS

  Keepers at Dudley Zoo, near Birmingham, requested gas masks in 2003 after its orangutans developed a taste for Brussels sprouts. One keeper moaned: “Orangutans are windy animals anyway but because of all the sprouts they are eating, there is quite a pong around here at the moment. Whoever draws the short straw gets to muck them out.”

  MAN DISSECTS GUINEA PIG IN SEARCH FOR SPY CAMERA

  Under the influence of the drug methamphetamine, Benny Zavala, of Oxnard, California, became convinced that US government agencies had planted a camera in the head of his daughter’s pet guinea pig to spy on him. So after he had starved the rodent to death in 2001, he ripped open its head, also checking its teeth, which he thought were bar-coded. Relieved that his paranoia was unfounded, he phoned relatives to report: “The good news is guinea bleeds. The bad news is guinea’s dead.” Zavala was given three years’ probation and ordered to seek psychiatric and drug counselling. Deputy District Attorney Tom Connors said: “It’s not often you have someone this paranoid from using drugs that they think a guinea pig is spying on them for the government.”

  PEACOCK WOOS PETROL PUMP

  For more than three years a lovesick peacock in Gloucestershire made a daily walk from his woodland home to a nearby gas station where he paraded his plumage to a row of diesel and unleaded pumps. Mr P. was so besotted by the pumps that he often spent 18 hours at a time with them in the hope of fuelling romance. His owner, Shirley Horsman, explained: “He gets very amorous and the clicking of the petrol pumps makes the same noise as a peahen crying ‘Come on, I’m ready!’ Every time he hears someone filling up he thinks he’s on to a good thing. He goes all day, every day, in the breeding season. He just minds his own business and looks forlornly at the petrol pumps. It’s quite sad really.”

  POLAR BEAR IS HEALTH FREAK

  A polar bear that was apparently a real health freak stole toothpaste and vitamin pills after breaking into a tourist camp in the Norwegian Arctic in 2001. Tour operator Arne Kristoffersen said: “Maybe he felt he had bad breath after eating seal all summer.”

  DOG DEVOURS DENTURES

  A Jack Russell terrier named Desmond was rushed to hospital in Tyneside in 2007 after swallowing his owner’s false teeth. The dog ate 62-year-old Marjorie Johnson’s dentures while she was in the toilet.

  AUTHORITIES SWOOP TO CAPTURE ORNAMENTAL OWL

  The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources went to a family’s home with a large net in 2003 to snare and capture what they thought was an injured owl. In fact the reason the bird had been motionless for so long was that it was a $15 garden ornament bought from Wal-Mart. Even then the owner had to yank it from the ground and show the agent its metal feet in order to convince him that the owl wasn’t real.

  GOAT WAVES GOODBYE TO TV STARDOM

  Footage of a goat who waves back when visitors wave at him became a huge hit on YouTube where he was seen by tens of thousands of people. The clip of Darren, an eight-year-old Anglo-Nubian goat from White Post Farm, Nottinghamshire, was shown on American and Australian TV and soon came to the attention of the producers of Britain’s Got Talent who wanted the waving goat to appear on TV in 2010 in front of judges Simon Cowell, Amanda Holden and Piers Morgan. They thought Darren could be the next Susan Boyle. However the farm owners politely declined the offer, stating that it was a long way for a goat to travel for a five-minute trick and adding that, anyway, the show was not right for Darren.

  SEX-CRAZED PARROT APPOINTED GOVERNMENT SPOKESBIRD

  A rare flightless parrot, which became an international celebrity after attempting to mate with the head of a TV presenter, was named a conservation ambassador by the New Zealand government in 2010. The YouTube clip of Sirocco, the kakapo, trying to mate with zoologist Mark Carwadine’s head on the BBC show Last Chance To See attracted over 1.6 million viewings and propelled the bird to overnight stardom. As one of just 124 kakapo still alive, Sirocco, who also has his own website and, naturally, a Twitter stream, was seen by New Zealand Prime Minister John Key as the ideal creature to promote the country’s wildlife. Key said of Sirocco: “He’s very media-savvy, he’s got a worldwide fan base, and people hang on every squawk that comes out of his beak.”

  MOUSE GIFT IN CRACKER

  New Zealand grandmother Betty Lawrence received an unwelcome surprise when she pulled a Christmas cracker and a rotting mouse popped out. She had just sat down to Christmas dinner with 20 relatives but said that the dead mouse “ruined my appetite for the rest of the day”.

  LION’S INGROWING TOENAIL KEEPS TOWN AWAKE

  A lion with an ingrowing toenail kept residents of the Brazilian town of Industrial awake at night in 2004. Maruk was living in the town’s zoo but he roared so loudly from the pain that local people thought he was right outside their homes. A police spokesman said: “We have received a lot of complaints, but what can we do? Arrest the lion?”

  DECAPITATED RATTLESNAKE BITES MAN

  A man in Prosser, Washington State, ended up spending two days in hospital in 2007 after being bitten by a beheaded rattlesnake. Danny Anderson had decapitated the snake with a shovel but when he reached down to pick up the severed head, it bit his finger. He took the head to hospital with him in his pickup truck.

  WOMAN MURDERED BY MOOSE, NOT HUSBAND

  A man arrested in Sweden on suspicion of murdering his wife was cleared after police decided she was probably killed by a moose instead. Ingemar Westlund found the body of his 63-year-old wife Agneta by a lake close to the village of Loftahammer in 2008. He was arrested and held in police custody for ten days but the case against him was dropped nine months later after forensic analysis revealed moose hair and saliva on his wife’s clothes. Experts stated that the moose – or European elk – can become unusually aggressive after eating fermented apples in gardens.

  DACHSHUND DEFIES ODDS TO MATE WITH ROTTWEILLER

  Rusty, a tiny dachshund owned by Dale Adams of Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, proved that size isn’t everything by fathering a puppy by a giant rottweiller bitch named Cassey. The odd couple produced Tinky, which Mr Adams described as looking like a miniature stretched version of her mother. “I have no idea how little Rusty managed to seduce Cassey,” he added. “She’s a big dog, so he either used my stepladder or he did it while she was asleep.”

  RAMPAGING GOAT PUTS THREE IN HOSPITAL

  Three people were hospitalized after an angry goat invaded a Melbourne nursing home in 2010 and went on a rampage that ended only when it was caught by police. The billygoat wandered on to the grounds of the On Luck Chinese nursing home after escaping from a nearby enclosure. When a gardener at the home tried to shoo the animal away, it butted him and then attacked an elderly man who had to come to his aid. A woman who had witnessed the fracas injured her ankle as she ran for help.

  CIRCUS CHIEF GOES ON THE RUN WITH ELEPHANT

  A circus director went on the run with an elephant in 2003. The man and the female elephant named Kenia went missing in Dessau, Germany, shortly after another elephant he owned was put down. As German police launched a nationwide hunt for the pair, they insisted that finding an elephant was “not as simple as it sounds”.

  FAMILY SHOCKED AS GOLDFISH COMES DOWN CHIMNEY

  A family sitting around the fireside at their home in Northampton, just before Christmas 1999, received an unexpected visitor down the chimney – a goldfish. The skydiving fish bounced off the hot coals, landed on the hearth and survived with nothing worse than a few damaged scales. It was thought to have fallen down the chimney after being dropped by a hungry heron that was perching on the roof.

  DEER INVITED TO TAKE PART IN SALT TASTE TEST

  Moose and reindeer at a Stockholm wildlife park were invited in 2007 to form a taste panel to help decide which type of salt should be used to de-ice Sweden’s roads in winter. The National Road Administration planned to introduce a new, sweeter blend of road salt but did not want to attract wildlife to the highways. So they presen
ted 14 hoofed panellists with different flavoured blocks of salt and opted for the one the animals liked the least.

  POODLE SUES RESTAURANT

  A Los Angeles lawyer instigated legal proceedings in 1996 on behalf of his co-plaintiff, his pet poodle, claiming that the dog’s constitutional rights had been violated by a restaurant which had ordered it to leave. The claim was dismissed.

  RARE GOAT ACCIDENTALLY HANGS ITSELF IN ZOO

  An exotic goat at Canada’s Calgary Zoo accidentally hanged itself in 2009 after it became entangled in a rope and then fell off a log. The zoo said that the Turkmenian markhor had been playing with a ball on the end of a rope – a toy designed to stimulate the animal.

  NORWEGIAN ARMY BESTOWS KNIGHTHOOD ON PENGUIN

  A penguin at Edinburgh Zoo has been knighted by the Norwegian Army. Nils Olav first become an honorary member of the army in the 1970s after a young lieutenant named Nils Egelien was so taken by the penguins at the zoo that he made one of them a lance corporal. Over the years, the king penguin was promoted through the ranks to colonel-in-chief in the Norwegian King’s Guard, and then in 2008, with the permission of King Harald V, Nils Olav was granted a knighthood. The bird, who regularly inspects the troops, has also received medals for long service and had a four-foot bronze statue built in his honour. Officials pointed out, however, that the knighted penguin is not the original Nils Olav – he died in the 1980s.

  HUMAN MOTHER RAISES LIZARD AS HER SON

  A Thai woman was allowed to keep an endangered monitor lizard as a pet because she believed the reptile was possessed by the spirit of her dead son. Chamlong Taengniem, whose 13-year-old son Charoen died in a motorcycle crash, said that the lizard slept on her son’s mattress and loved his favourite drinks – milk and yoghurt. Convinced by her story, crowds of people flocked to her house on the outskirts of Bangkok to shower the lizard with gifts and hunt for numbers for the state lottery on its skin.

  BEAR STEALS HUBCAP FROM CAR – THEN GIVES IT BACK

  A few weeks after having all four hubcaps stolen from her car, Azra Noonari was offered a new one – by a bear. Mrs Noonari, from Luton, Bedfordshire, was on a family outing to nearby Woburn Safari Park when the car in front stopped in the bear and wolf area. “There was a bear ahead of it,” she said, “so I stopped too and started taking pictures. Then I saw it take a hubcap off the car in front and start walking towards us. It put the hubcap down and then banged on our window, as if it was trying to get my attention. It was almost like it wanted to give me the wheel cap – maybe it thought I needed it.”

  MAN TIES HIMSELF TO SHEEP AFTER BEING REFUSED ACCOMMODATION

  After 20 landlords refused to let him share accommodation with his pet sheep, an Argentinian man registered his protest by tying himself to the ewe. “I don’t see why I shouldn’t be allowed to live with my sheep, as I have done for all my life,’” said the man who had recently moved to Buenos Aires from the country. “She’s very tranquil, the ideal companion to share a flat.” He confirmed that he would remain tethered to the sheep until they found somewhere to live together.

  HUNGRY COWS LICK NEIGHBOUR’S HOUSE

  Cows from an adjacent farm licked a house in Hawkins County, Tennessee, causing $100 of damage. The cows, which lived in a field next to the house, poked their heads through a fence, ripped off a screen window, cracking the glass in the process, and pulled down a gutter. Nobody connected with the case could explain what had suddenly made the house so tasty.

  WOMAN FINDS BAT IN BRA

  A Norwich hotel receptionist walked around for five hours unaware that a baby bat was hiding in her bra. Abbie Hawkins believed the creature hid itself in the padding of her bra while the garment was hanging on the washing line the previous day. “I didn’t notice anything when I put my bra on,” she said, “and although I felt a slight vibration when I was driving to work, I thought it was my phone.”

  GUN-TOTING PARROT FOILS BURGLARY ATTEMPT

  A parrot owned by a retired police officer foiled a break-in after the owner left the bird alone in his Kiev, Ukraine, apartment for a few minutes. When the ex-cop returned, he found three men stretched out on the floor with their hands behind their heads. The would-be burglars admitted sheepishly that when they broke into the flat they heard a voice call out: “Stop! I’ll shoot! On the ground!”

  BULLDOG WRECKS MASERATI

  TV presenter Johnny Vaughan’s $90,000 Maserati sports car careered into a parked van in 2002 – thanks to his three-year-old bulldog Harvey. Vaughan was driving Harvey home from a trip to the veterinarian in southwest London. He said: “I stopped because Harvey, who was in the front and had a sore tummy, looked like he needed the toilet. I got out of the car and went over to the passenger side. But when Harvey saw me, he leapt over to the driver’s seat, pushing the gearstick up to ‘drive’. Then the little critter jumped into the footwell beneath the steering wheel and pressed the accelerator down. The car shot forward with me chasing behind – and went straight into the back of a van with a huge crunch. I couldn’t believe my dog had crashed my car.” The impact caused around $16,000 damage, which Vaughan had to pay for himself since the insurance company did not have Harvey listed as a driver.

  LEOPARD BREAKS INTO HOUSE TO WATCH TV

  When her four-year-old son came into the kitchen to tell her there was a “tiger” in his room, a woman from Chandigarh, India, thought he was referring to a wildlife documentary on TV. However her amusement turned to horror when she peeked into the bedroom and saw a real leopard sprawled out on the bed. After the animal had been tranquilized with a dart, a forest department official revealed: “From what we understand, the leopard sneaked into the house and watched TV for over an hour. Then it apparently got bored, so it rolled over and went to sleep on the bed.”

  ZOO CREATES ZEBRAS BY PAINTING STRIPES ON DONKEYS

  Unable to afford the cost of importing real zebras, a zoo in Gaza solved the problem by painting stripes on donkeys. Mohammed Bargouthi, owner of the Marah Land Zoo, stuck strips of masking tape to the donkeys and then painted over them with black hair dye. He said: “The first time we used paint and it didn’t look good, but the hair dye worked much better. The children don’t know, so they call them zebras and they are happy to see something new.”

  POLICEMAN ACCIDENTALLY KILLS RESCUED CAT

  After rescuing an injured cat in 1998, a Gloucestershire policeman then contrived to kill it. Phil Groom spotted the cat at the side of the road near Moreton-in-the-Marsh and put it in a box on top of his car. But he then forgot all about it and drove off with the box still on his car roof. After only a few yards, the box fell off and went under the wheels of a car following behind. The distraught officer admitted: “I must have had my mind on something else.”

  COW KILLS MAN FOR SEX

  A Chinese farmer was trampled to death under the hoofs of his cow in 2007 as she rushed to mate with an ox from a neighbouring village. The cow, who was on heat, took one look at her bovine suitor and dashed towards him, in her haste knocking over and stamping on the hapless farmer who died on the spot with hoof prints on his body.

  RUNAWAY BULL ENDS UP IN SWIMMING POOL

  A family in St Andrews, Scotland, were looking forward to enjoying their newly built swimming pool in the summer of 2008 – only for a runaway bull to get there first. Having broken free from its farm paddock, the bull ran three miles before plunging into the private pool. The pool’s owner said of the bull’s unexpected entry: “It was an 8.5 out of 10 dive.”

  IRATE GORILLA HELPS CAPTURE FLEEING ROBBER

  Pursued by Johannesburg police investigating a robbery in 1999, Isaac Mofokeng jumped over a wall – and landed in the gorilla enclosure at the city zoo. There, Max the gorilla demonstrated his anger towards the uninvited guest by ripping Mofokeng’s jeans and biting him on the buttocks. A shaken Mofokeng reacted by shooting Max in the jaw and shoulder before being detained by police. Max recovered after surgery; Mofokeng was sentenced to 40 years in jail.

  PIGEON ARR
ESTED FOR DRUG SMUGGLING

  A pigeon was arrested in 2008 for smuggling drugs into a high security jail in Bosnia. Guards at Zenica prison became suspicious when they saw four prisoners “visibly intoxicated” shortly after the pigeon landed on one of the windows. The pigeon was a pet of one of the inmates, and when he and three other prisoners tested positive for heroin, the pigeon was taken into custody. Police believe the drugs were sent from the town of Tuzla – 40 miles away – by being stuffed into tiny bags and attached to the pigeon’s legs.

  PUGS MARRY IN MICHIGAN

  When Bobby met Gracie it was love at first sight and everyone said it would end in marriage – despite the fact that both partners had four legs, a sunken black nose and a wrinkled face. Sure enough in 2005 Bobby, a two-year-old pug, married his puppy sweetheart Gracie, a three-year-old pug, at Clinton Township, Michigan. Bobby waddled down the aisle, tail wagging, in top hat, black tuxedo and red bow tie. As he took his place at the altar, his tongue flopped out. Gracie, her nails painted pink, wore a puffy white gown. The groomsmen and maids of honour were chihuahuas in a ceremony that cost respective owners Susan Laurer and Cyndi Parise $1,200. “We are gathered here today,” announced Pastor Joseph DeRose, “to celebrate the joining of the paws of Bobby and Gracie.” The happy couple were wed to the tune of “Who Let the Dogs Out” and at the ensuing reception they tucked into a two-tiered, bone-shaped cake with a pink heart in the middle.