10 Strange Animal Incidents

Mice Responsible for a Fire That Killed Over 100 Cats.

 In an ironic event that may be called the mice revenge, mice are being held responsible for a blaze that killed nearly 100 cats at an animal shelter near the Canadian city of Toronto. The fire at the humane society shelter in Oshawa also killed three dogs and some rats that were up for adoption. An initial report from the fire marshal says mice or rats chewing through electrical wires in the ceiling are likely to have sparked the blaze. The $250,000 (£137,000) fire is still under investigation by the Ontario Fire Marshal's office. (Link)

Cat Trapped Inside a Metal Container Survives 34 Days by Licking Walls.

 A black cat named Socks miraculously survived a month trapped in a 20ft industrial storage container - by licking condensation on its walls. The 11-month-old feline reunited with its owners after electrician Murray Ruxton found it inside the container. He survived 35 days without food or water by licking condensation from the sides of the metal unit in Arbroath, Angus. Socks went missing and owner Michelle Maher reported him missing to the charity Cats Protection. Michelle put up posters and searched the streets whilst Cats Protection volunteers kept a lookout for the missing puss. Unbeknown to them, Socks had snuck into a 20ft metal container - similar to shipping containers - which was used by store equipment and supplies for electrical company D Adam & C.

Although desperately thin - half his ideal bodyweight - and dehydrated, the mischievous moggy was reunited with its owner and is expected to make a full recovery from its ordeal. (Link)

Bird With Cigarette Caused a £250,000 Fire.

A cigarette loving sparrow is being blamed for a fire that caused £250,000 of damage to a shop in Lincolnshire. Paul Sheriff, 48, who runs Crescent Stores in Leasingham, was initially at a loss as to what had caused the blaze. Six weeks later, insurance investigators told him that they discovered 35 cigarette ends in the roof.

Their conclusion was a sparrow must have picked up a smoldering butt to feather its nest in the roof's eaves, causing the blaze. Mr Sheriff, a non-smoker, said: "The shop was a total mess. All the suspended ceilings came down, all the electrics were down, all the fridges were broken, it was horrendous. A spokesman for his insurance company said: "We believe it's the first case of its kind we've ever had to deal with. I've certainly never come across this sort of thing before. It's strange to think how such a little bird armed with such a small object could cause such chaos." (Link) 

Puppy Survives Miraculously After Swallowing a 10 Inch Toy Arrow.

 Puppies are known for chewing and eating everything and anything. But Betty the bull terrier must have regretted her greed and curiosity after she swallowed a 10-inch plastic arrow that was almost as long as herself. Thankfully, the Staffordshire bull terrier survived after undergoing emergency surgery to remove the item after it became lodged halfway through her body from the aesophagus to her small intestine. Her owner, Emma Watson, 38, believes her pet gobbled up the arrow after disappearing into her seven-year-old daughter Lilly-Jay's playhouse when a gust of wind opened the door.
The dog is now recovering, but she doesn't seem to have learned her lesson; as soon as she got home she tried to eat the TV remote control. 

Tiny Chihuahua Blown Away by Strong Wind.

 The Utleys of Waterford Township, MI, had set up a booth at a flea market when Tinker Bell, a 6-pound Chihuahua who had been standing on top of it, just flew away like a flimsy piece of paper dragged by 70-mile-an-hour winds. The good news is that, with the aid of a pet psychic, Dorothy and Lavern found a dirty and hungry Tinker Bell in a wooded area about a mile away. (Link)

Sheep Abseiled Down Electricity Cable After Snagging Its Horn.

This hapless sheep has become a real life 'ram-bo' after inadvertently abseiling down a hill when its horn became snagged on an electricity wire.The unfortunate sheep was spotted bleating for help more than 15 feet above the ground next to a telegraph pole. Luckily it did not catch the current from the wire.

The drama unraveled at the small town of Helgoysund on the Norwegian coast. Tourists at the scene mounted a rescue attempt and eventually roped it to pull it back to ground level. After nearly an hour, and some ingenious rope work, the German tourists managed to bring the sheep down unharmed. Spectators suggested the sheep may have been grazing on the hill, and while trying to reach a field of ewes, it got its horn stuck on the zip wire. As it got more agitated, it was pulled down the hill on the wire it was attached to and ended up more than five meters above the ground. (Link)

Skunk Gets Stuck in a Peanut Butter Jar.

Teresa Vick saw something very strange - a skunk with its head stuck in a peanut butter jar in downtown Bixby. "I deliver the Tulsa World in this area and I was throwing a newspaper here at the Community Centre and I just happened to come upon a skunk with the jar already on its head at about 5:30 this morning," Teresa Vick said. The hungry skunk was just looking for a meal when it got its head caught in a discarded jar. Teresa called several places before she found Ned Bruha, The Skunk Whisperer. She kept the skunk corralled as she waited.

According to Ned Bruha, all wildlife wants is food, water and shelter. Peanut butter is irresistible to skunks. They are opportunistic and they are going to take advantage of any bit of food they can get. This guy found peanut butter and got itself into a little bit of trouble. Ned used a rag soaked in chloroform to mildly sedate the skunk before pulling the jar off its head, and wasn't even sprayed by the appreciative skunk. The skunk just seemed happy to be free once more, and ran off unharmed. (Link)

Pig Swallows Diamond From £1,500 Wedding Ring.

A pig has swallowed the diamond from a woman's £1,500 ring. Ginger, a Kune Kune pig, clamped his jaws around the jewel after Anne Moon put her hand into its pen at Easingwold Maize Maze in North Yorkshire. When Mrs Moon pulled away, the diamond had gone. Now farmer Paul Caygill, who owns the attraction, has been given the task of sifting through Ginger's sty to find the gem. Mr Caygill said the pigs do not bite and he was surprised Ginger had grabbed the ring. (Link)

Orangutan Deactivates Electric Fence to Escape from Zoo.

An Australian zoo was evacuated after an "ingenious" orang-utan escaped from her enclosure by short-circuiting an electric fence today. Staff at Adelaide zoo said 137lb (62kg) Karta used a stick to short-circuit the electric wires around her enclosure before piling up some more sticks to climb out. But the 27-year-old ape only ventured as far as a surrounding fence, still metres from members of the public, during her 30 minutes of freedom. The zoo's curator, Peter Whitehead, said she seemed to realize she was somewhere she was not supposed to be and returned to her enclosure.

Karta was spotted by a member of the public and, although she returned to her enclosure, the zoo was evacuated as a safety precaution. Whitehead said the orang-utan was not aggressive and had not been close to members of the public. However, vets stood by with tranquilizer guns in case of trouble.

Zookeepers believe that Karta was driven to make an incredible escape attempt by grief at the loss of her longtime mate. (Link)

Missing Cat Turns Up on TV Show.

A cat which disappeared from its home in Cornwall turned up safe and well - on the set of Question Time. Tango, a tom, had crept into Treviglas Community College's hall in Newquay, where BBC1's political discussion programme was being filmed last week. He padded out from under a table where David Dimbleby was chairing political discussions with a panel of guests. The first owner Jackie Ellery knew of his surprise appearance was when a friend rang to say she had spotted him.

But she was not the only person to notice the furtive feline - panel guest Julia Goldsworthy, Lib Dem MP for Falmouth and Camborne, had also clocked him, as had many of the studio audience who erupted into laughter at his nonchalant air.

However, although his owner had been watching the programme in her living room, she missed his TV debut. Although his TV debut may have been fleeting, it seems that Tango's screen appearance will go down as one of the more memorable events to happen on the show. (Link)

8 Most Insane Weapons of War.

1. Gay bombs: Strong aphrodisiacs to cause "homosexual behavior."

"Gay bomb" is an informal name for a theoretical non-lethal chemical weapon, which a United States Air Force research laboratory speculated about producing.

In 1994 the Wright Laboratory in Ohio produced a three-page proposal of a variety of possible nonlethal chemical weapons, which was later obtained—complete with marginal jottings and typos—by the Sunshine Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. In one sentence of the document it was suggested that a strong aphrodisiac could be dropped on enemy troops, ideally one which would also cause "homosexual behavior". The aphrodisiac weapon was described as "distasteful but completely non-lethal". In its "New Discoveries Needed" section, the document implicitly acknowledges that no such chemicals are actually known.

The document also included many other off-beat ideas, such as spraying enemy troops with bee pheromones and then hiding numerous beehives in the combat area, and a chemical weapon that would give the enemy bad breath.

2. Bat bombs: Incendiary bombs attached to bats.

 Bat bombs were tiny incendiary bombs attached to bats, that were developed by the United States during World War II with the hope of attacking mainland Japan. Four biological factors gave promise to this plan. First, bats occur in large numbers (four caves in Texas are each occupied by several million bats). Second, bats can carry more than their own weight in flight (females carry their young — sometimes twins). Third, bats hibernate, and while dormant they do not require food or complicated maintenance. Fourth, bats fly in darkness, then find secretive places (such as flammable buildings) to hide during daylight.

The plan was to release bomb-laden bats at night over Japanese industrial targets. The flying bats would disperse widely, then at dawn they would hide in buildings and shortly thereafter built-in timers would ignite the bombs, causing widespread fires and chaos. The bat bomb idea was conceived by dental surgeon Lytle S. Adams, who submitted it to the White House in January, 1942, where it was subsequently approved by President Roosevelt. Adams was recruited to research and obtain a suitable supply of bats.

 3. Who, Me?: A bad odor weapon to humiliate the enemy.

 Who Me? was a top secret sulfurous stench weapon developed by the American Office of Strategic Services during World War II to be used by the French Resistance against German officers. Who Me? smelled strongly of fecal matter, and was issued in pocket atomizers intended to be unobtrusively sprayed on a German officer, humiliating him and, by extension, demoralizing the occupying German forces.

The experiment was very short-lived, however. Who Me? had a high concentration of extremely volatile sulfur compounds that were very difficult to control: more often than not the person who did the spraying ended up smelling as bad as the sprayed. After only two weeks it was concluded that Who Me? was a dismal failure. It remains unclear whether there was a successful Who Me? attack.

Pam Dalton, a cognitive psychologist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, describes the smell of Who Me? as resembling "the worst garbage dumpster left in the street for a long time in the middle of the hottest summer ever". A recipe for a kilogram (2.2 lb) of the same or equivalent substance in circulation on the Internet specifies 919 g (32.4 oz) of white mineral oil as an inert carrier, and 20 g (0.7 oz) of skatole, 20 g (0.7 oz) of n-butanoic acid, 20 g (0.7 oz) of n-pentanoic acid, 20 g (0.7 oz) of n-hexanoic acid and 1 g (0.04 oz) of pentanethiol as the active ingredients.

4. Anti-tank dogs: Hungry dogs with explosives.

 Anti-tank dogs, also known as dog bombs or dog mines, were hungry dogs with explosives harnessed to their backs and trained to seek food under tanks and armoured vehicles. By doing so, a detonator (usually a small wooden lever) would go off, triggering the explosives and damaging or destroying the military vehicle.

The dogs were employed by the Soviet Union during World War II for use against German tanks. The dogs were kept without food for a few days, then trained to find food under a tank. The dogs quickly learned that once released from their pens, food could be found under tracked vehicles. Once trained, the dogs were fitted with an explosive charge and set loose into a field of oncoming German tanks and other tracked vehicles. When the dog went underneath the tank—where there was less armour—the charge would detonate and damage the enemy vehicle.

According to Soviet sources, the anti-tank dogs were successful at disabling a reported three hundred German tanks. They were enough of a problem to the Nazi advance that the Germans were compelled to take measures against them. An armoured vehicle's top-mounted machine gun proved ineffective due to the relatively small size of the dogs and the fact that they were low to the ground, fast, and hard to spot. Orders were dispatched that commanded every German soldier to shoot any dogs on sight. Eventually the Germans began using tank-mounted flame-throwers to ward off the dogs. They were much more successful at dissuading the attacks, but some dogs would not stop.

In 1942, one use of the anti-tank dogs went seriously awry when a large contingent ran amok, endangering everyone in the battle and forcing the retreat of an entire Soviet division. Soon afterward the anti-tank dogs were withdrawn from service. Training of anti-tank dogs continued until at least June 1996.

5. Fire balloons: Incendiary hydrogen balloons.

 Fire balloons or balloon bombs where hydrogen balloons with a load varying from a 12 kg (26 lb) incendiary to one 15 kg (33 lb) antipersonnel bomb and four 5 kg (11 lb) incendiaries attached. They were launched by Japan during World War II, designed to wreak havoc on Canadian and American cities, forests, and farmlands. Launch sites were located on the east coast of the main Japanese island of Honshu.

From the late 1944 until early 1945, the Japanese launched over 9,000 of these fire balloons, of which 300 were found or observed in the U.S. Some guesswork gives the total number that made the trip at about 1,000. Despite the high hopes of their designers, the balloons were relatively ineffective as weapons, causing only six deaths and a small amount of damage, and they survive in memory mostly as an ingenious and dangerous curiosity. The bombs caused little damage, but their potential for destruction and fires was large. The bombs also had a potential psychological effect on the American people. The U.S. strategy was not to let Japan know of the balloon bombs' effectiveness. Cooperating with the desires of the government, the press did not publish any balloon bomb incidents. As a result, the Japanese only learned of one bomb reaching Wyoming, landing and failing to explode, so they stopped the launches after less than six months.

6. Exploding rats: Rat carcasses filled with plastic explosives.

 Exploding rats were a weapon developed by the British army in World War II for use against Germany. Rat carcasses were filled with plastic explosives, with the idea that when the rats were shovelled along with coal into boilers, they would explode, causing significant damage. However, the first shipment of carcasses was intercepted by the Germans, and the plan was dropped. The Germans exhibited the rats at top military schools, and conducted searches for further exploding rats.

7. Killer Dolphins: To seek and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods.

 A military dolphin is a cetacean trained for military uses. The United States and Russian militaries have trained and employed oceanic dolphins for several reasons. Such military dolphins have been trained to rescue lost divers or to locate underwater mines.

The U.S. Navy openly trains dolphins and sea lions under the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, which is based in San Diego, California. Military dolphins were used by the U.S. Navy during the First and Second Gulf War. About 75 dolphins are in the Navy's marine mammal program.

The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill by the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.

Due to the secrecy of such practice, rumors of military dolphins include training them to lay underwater mines, to kill enemy combatants, or to seek and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods. There has even been speculation about the potential development of sophisticated equipment, such as poison darts, sonar jamming devices, and so on for dolphins, and about combat between cetaceans of both superpowers. The U.S. Navy denies ever having trained its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships.

8. Cat Bombs: To sink German ships.

 The earliest examples of cats being used in warfare dates back to the Ancient Egypt during a war against Persia. The Persians, fully aware of the reverance that Egyptians paid to their felines, rounded up as many cats as they could find and set them loose on the battlefield. When the Egyptians were faced with either harming the cats or surrendering, they chose the latter.

During World War I, cats were used in the trenches as an attempt to keep the rat population down and some cats were used as poison gas “detectors”.

The most creative way to use a cat as a weapon happened in World War II. The United States' OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the precursor of the CIA) needed a way to guide bombs to sink German ships. Somebody hit upon the inspiration that since cats have such a strong disdain of getting wet and always land on their feet that if you attached a cat to a bomb and drop it in the vicinity of a ship, the cat's instinct to avoid the water would force it to guide the bomb to the enemy's deck. It is unclear how the cat was supposed to actually guide a bomb attached to it as it fell from the sky but the plan never got past the testing stages since the cats had a bad habit of becoming unconscious mid-drop.

Not to be outdone by its predecessor, the CIA also attempted to use cats but this time as a bugging device during the Cold War. Although a disaster as a guided bomb, the CIA thought that a cat would make the perfect covert listening device in a project known as Operation Acoustic Kitty. They attempted to surgically alter the cat by placing a bugging device inside him and running an antenna through its tail. The project took five years and $15 million dollars before the first field test hit a slight snag when the bugged kitty was released near a Russian compound in Washington and was immediately hit by a car while crossing the street. The project was ended soon after.