ANIMALS FIGHT BACK
Trigger-happy dogs (and a cat) hospitalise hunters, while a kamikaze slug wreaks havoc in Japan...
ANIMAL SABOTEURS
• A power cut on the Japanese island of Kyushu in May 2019 brought 30 trains to a standstill, and the disruption of 12,000 journeys. Investigators blamed a kamikaze slug whose electrocuted remains were found inside a load disconnector beside the tracks. A similarly ill-fated mollusc achieved notoriety in Darlington, north-east England, when a slug crawled inside a traffic-light control box in 2011, short-circuiting the mechanism and causing traffic chaos. Such incidents are reminiscent of the Large Hadron Collider shutdown in 2016 after a weasel entered a high-voltage transformer, ill-advisedly chewing on some wiring. Guardian, 14 Sept 2011; BBC News, 29 April 2016, 22 June 2019, Sunday Express, Sunday Telegraph, 23 June 2019.
• Another power outage in Japan with potentially more serious results took place at the Fukushima nuclear power plant in 2013. A rat appears to have short-circuited a power switchboard, which then triggered the power cut, shutting down cooling systems. The Fukushima plant seems beset by ill luck; in 2011 a massive tsunami caused meltdowns and a major radiation leak. To reassure the public, the Tokyo Electric Power Co (Tepco) issued a photo of a dead rodent inside the switchboard unit. However, this appears to have backfired, and critics argued that the rat incident highlights the fragility of the plant. BBC News, 20 Mar 2013.
• Meanwhile, a major project to bring high-speed Internet access to the state of Kentucky has been delayed yet again, with KentuckyWired company representatives blaming ravenous squirrels for having
chewed through cables. KentuckyWired is now four years behind schedule, and state lawmakers are refusing to grant additional funds, querying the company’s explanation of an “abundance” of rogue squirrels hell-bent on disrupting the project. [AP] 19 June 2019.
• A kitchen fire that broke out in a house in Stanford-Le-Hope, Essex, turned out to be the work of a home-alone husky. The dog inadvertently started the blaze when it reached up to a kitchen counter and turned on a microwave oven
containing a pack of bread rolls. The home owner happened to check a camera feed on his phone, saw smoke coming from the kitchen and dialled 999. Essex Fire Service arrived on the scene to find considerable smoke damage to the kitchen – but the dog was unharmed. Geoff Wheal, Watch Manager at Corringham Fire Station, said: “Clearly this is a very strange incident… it demonstrates that microwaves shouldn’t be used to store food when they aren’t in use... Animals or children can turn them on more easily than you might think.” Independent, 4 Dec 2019; www.essex-fire.gov.uk/
HUNTING ‘ACCIDENTS’
• A hunter in Arkansas was gored to death after a deer he believed he had shot dead got up and attacked him. Thomas Alexander, 66, was hunting near the Ozark mountains when he shot the buck and watched it collapse. Assuming the animal was dead, he went to check on the body, at which point the deer stood back up and attacked him, causing multiple puncture wounds. He managed to call his wife, who rang the emergency services, but he was declared dead later in hospital. The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, which was searching for the wounded animal, advises that hunters wait half an hour before approaching a shot deer, just to be sure it was dead. BBC News, 25 Oct; D.Telegraph, 26 Oct 2019.
• A man from Louisiana has returned to work with a false leg after being shot by a dog. Matt Branch, 30, a former college football star, was hunting ducks last December when a Labrador retriever stood on his shotgun, releasing the safety catch. The dog, Tito, had jumped into the back of the off-road buggy where Branch had placed his gun. It went off as he walked around the car, blasting a hole in the vehicle and striking his left leg. He recalls a numbness in his leg before he passed out from blood loss. His friends managed to get him to paramedics. He twice went into cardiac arrest, but was revived. Surgeons amputated his leg. Times, 20 July 2019.
• Tina Springer, 44, was shot in the thigh after a puppy jumped on a gun inside a pickup truck that had stopped at a railway crossing in Enid, Oklahoma, on 3 October. Molly, the Labrador puppy, was frightened by a passing
train and leapt on a .22-calibre handgun resting on top of the truck’s console. Molly belongs to the driver, Brent Parks, 79, who made a tourniquet for Ms Springer’s leg with his belt. The woman, who is Mr Parks’s carer, was expected to recover. In 2015, a woman in Indiana was shot in the foot by her dog. Allie Carter, 25, was hunting waterfowl when her Labrador, aptly named Trigger, stepped on her 12-gauge shotgun. koco. com, 6 Oct; D.Mail, 7 Oct 2019.
• FT has often reported similar incidents. Here’s another, from 14 years ago.
Ivailo Nedkov’s hunting trip in Drianovets, Bulgaria, took an unexpected course after he found himself struggling with his normally faithful hound. As Nedkov, 35, tried to pick up a dead quail, the dog grabbed it and refused to let go. Nedkov tried to fend off the animal with the butt of his gun, but the hound deftly found the trigger and pulled it with his claws. Nedkov was peppered with buckshot, but survived. News of the World, 18 Sept; Independent on Sunday, 25 Sept 2005.
• It’s not just dogs; cats do it too. After shooting at rats in a barn on 14 April 2003, Josiah V Boughman, 15, of Tuscarawas, Ohio, laid his Powerline
Air Rifle on a picnic table, neglecting to switch on the weapon’s safety feature. One of the family’s cats jumped on the table and somehow pulled the trigger on the weapon, grazing the teenager’s ribcage. He was rushed to hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening. And Joseph Stanton, 29, of Bates Township. Michigan, was cooking in his kitchen on 8 March 2005 when one of his cats knocked his 9mm handgun off the kitchen counter behind him, discharging the weapon and shooting him in his lower torso. He too was not seriously hurt. Canton Repository, 19 April; Metro, 23 April; Guardian, 30 April 2003; [AP] 10 Mar 2005.