Berry Strange

We think that this is just the oddest story for a number of reasons, but maybe it’s a cultural thing? In the state of Oregon, US, plans to make the Marionberry ’the official state berry’ have recently come unglued. Raspberry, strawberry and blueberry growers had all apparently supported the proposal, but Larry Duyck a blackberry grower raised objections. He claimed that this move would give the marionberry an unfair advantage. “It would be like if the state of Oregon declared the Chevrolet its car” he said. Republican Vicki Berger, who made the initial suggestion has decided not to pursue the issue. “In this climate of serious issues, I am not going to go to bat over internal disputes in the berry community” she said.

Pigeon Fanciers and…. How not to Steal a Car

This is not a pigeon

Maybe it’s a little bit unfair to report on this story, it is after all cruel to mock the afflicted, and there is a serious message involved too. But anyway, here goes! Customs officials in Australia recently arrested a man who had arrived from the Middle East for trying to smuggle two live pigeons which he had stuffed down his trousers. Now Australia has very strict regulations about the import of wildlife and plants etc. for very good reasons, not least because obviously it’s ‘ecologically special’, and the illegal international trade in wildlife smuggling is something that we deplore. But pigeons? Apparently they weren’t endangered or particularly unusual in any way, and now they’re just jail birds. .

We seem to be getting into car theft stories recently — as some of you may recall, last month we had the story about the car thief in Nigeria who was actually a magic goat. This month we have nothing quite so bizarre, but we liked the story all the same, mainly due to the ‘hoist by own petard’ element. This story also comes from Australia, by the way (for no particular reason, it’s just the way things went!). In Adelaide, a car thief was caught after accidently locking himself into the car he was trying to steal. Police who were called to the scene found the shamefaced would be crook trying to hide in the back of the car (guess it was a Volvo not a Mini), unable to break out (so those immobilisers really do work, then!).

Sharks Feel the Credit Crunch and… How to Confuse a Crocodile

As many of you will know by now, the shark is our mascot and we absolutely love bad jokes and dubious puns. No shame! So imagine our delight when we came across the following item in the international media…. Who would have thought it? The global recession has left even sharks feeling the pinch (the real fishy ones, not the loan ones, groan - well, at least we’ve got that one out of the way). According to researchers at the University of Florida shark attacks on humans dropped last year to their lowest level for quite some time (only 59 last year compared to 71 in 2007). The imaginative reason cited for this by some scientists is because the global recession has ‘curtailed seaside vacations’. "I can't help but think that contributing to that reduction may have been the reticence of some people to take holidays and go to the beach for economic reasons," said George Burgess, an ichthyologist who directs the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. Call me a pedant, if you will (not a lot I can do about it in any case) but might there not be some other variables at play, too, which have little to do with those banks that sank? Maybe, as a result of previous shark attacks and decent publicity fewer people are frequenting those beaches which are known for such attacks and going to places where they might be stung by jellyfish instead….

And it’s Florida again! Wildlife managers are currently conducting a study to see if they can stop crocodiles from going back to residential areas by sticking magnets to their heads. In an attempt to reconcile the needs of crocodiles with the needs of humans, biologists have in the past tried to move crocodiles from urban areas and re-home them in the wild. The problem is that crocodiles, like cats, have in-built homing devices and rapidly find their way back to their original home. As a little girl, I was told that the way to stop a cat doing this was to put butter on its paws (urban myth?). Clearly not an option with a croc (though I wouldn’t want to be the one that sticks the magnets on, either). It is thought that crocs make use of Earth’s magnetic fields as navigational devices. By attaching magnets to the crocs whilst they are being relocated it is hoped that this will disorient the croc enough for them not to be able to head back to the city. It’s early days of course, but so far, it has to be said, the experiment has not been an unqualified success. It’s been tried out on two animals to date. One unfortunately got run over by a car and died (the news reports were vague about the circumstances), but the other has yet to try to return to the ‘hood’. In a refreshing display of honesty, Lindsey Hord, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's crocodile response coordinator explained: "This one is by no means a really well-developed scientific study with a control group. It's just something we thought we would try". See you later alligator?