Varmint Watch

Boy oh boy. I take a few weeks off and they get totally out of control. They're even dredgin' up allies from the prehistoric era.

"The first pictures showing a live specimen of a rodent species once thought to have been extinct for 11 million years have been taken by a retired Florida State University professor and a Thai wildlife biologist. The pictures show a docile, squirrel-sized animal with dark dense fur and a long tail but not as bushy as a squirrel. It also shows that the creature waddles like a duck with its hind feet splayed out at an angle, ideal for climbing rocks."

Ewwwww. The world really needs another squirrel/rat/rodent like that runnin' loose. Like the ones already loose aren't causin' enough problems.

"Residents say…rodents are swarming through the 75-unit development of manufactured homes near the airport of this Eastern Washington town, burrowing under homes, fouling front porches with their droppings and—according to some unconfirmed accounts—attacking people. Many species of marmots, including some known as woodchucks and groundhogs, are found across North America. They are closely related to ground squirrels and are among the largest of rodents, some reaching 30 pounds."

Groundhogs gone wild—again.

"Can you imagine what they'd do to cats?" asked Dick Bain, 78, a Wine Country resident who dispatched two of the animals with a shovel Friday."

We can always dream…

'Course, if the groundhogs fail, the raccoons are ready to pick up the slack.

"Barbara Higgins, 68, now sleeps on her sparse sun porch in Sagamore Beach [MA] after [a] massive [raccoon] nested in a small space between the ceiling and the roof to give birth three months ago. “My bedroom smells awful, like raccoon urine” Higgins said. “There are raccoon paw prints everywhere. She went berserk trying to get into the house every which way.”… For now, Higgins is spritzing the raccoons with ammonia and hoping to scare them away by blasting the radio. “I have nothing against wildlife,” Higgins said. “But when they get into your house people do anything to protect animals instead of people.”

'Specially in Massachusetts…

"A Boston window-washer and self-described animal lover charged with killing a seagull while working at a downtown Boston building pleads not guilty to animal cruelty charges. Christopher Guay says it was a case of self-defense as he batted away several gulls with a broomstick that were repeatedly swooping down on him on Friday. Guay was arrested by an MSPCA officer after witnesses reported that he repeatdedly struck the seagull."

…where they've been protectin' Ted Kennedy for years.

And speakin' of fe-lyings, here's proof that whole reality TV thing has finally jumped the shark.

"Ten cats in search of owners will spend the next 10 days in a New York store window, their every move caught on camera for a reality TV show on which they will compete for best sleeper and mouse-catcher. …[V]iewers will be asked to vote off one feline contestant each day. The cats…will compete for loudest purr, most prolific sleeper and who can catch the most toy mice."

Now where did AHM hide the remote…

posted by Harrison at 12:05 AM