Friday, December 02, 2005

They're Going to Get Us!


Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report.
Passers-by were reportedly too late to stop the attack by the black squirrels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minute.
They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh.
A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food sources, although scientists are sceptical.
The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in the Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people.
A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hiding in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and attacked, reports say.
"They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper.
"When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pieces of their kill away with them."
Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack.
While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds' nests, he said, the idea of them chewing at a dog to death was "absurd".
"If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he added.
Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmunks terrorised cats in a part of the territory.
A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year.
"The little beasts are agitated because they have nothing to eat," he said.


The tattooed squirrel seen in the picture is particularly scary....

San Nakji for President!

4 comments:

Friar Tuck said...

I think of it like mice.

When you have a mouse visible to you, it generally means that you have a whole colony of them and their colony has become overpopulated.

I think the same thing with the squirells. Overpopulation leads to food shortage.

San Nakji said...

Yeah, but they are soooo cute!

Anonymous said...

I don't know if that squirrel is tattooed...

Anonymous said...

i love that picture. i ESPECIALLY love that it has "air supply" tattooed on its tail. that's a SURE indicator of evil.

as awesome as that picture is, though - i think i like this one even better. :)