View from the North 40: A world of strange correlations for man and beasts

Because I think being up-to-date in the news also means reading the “Odd News” articles, I occasionally get a sense that human and animals lead parallel lives, or maybe we are influenced by the same forces in the universe. I don’t know, but the correlations seem uncanny sometimes.

Humans have been increasingly aggressive and recently erupted into serious attacks, with bloodshed, at the Capitol building, the political home of our national lawmakers.

Well, get this, people in a neighborhood in Queens, New York, have been attacked outside their homes by a very aggressive squirrel. I know, it sounds funny, cute even, that a nutty little squirrel has an itty-bitty, fluffy-tailed snit on with it’s human neighbors. What’s it going to do? Chatter loudly at inconvenient times and chuck acorns at the people?

It’s easy to blow off. I went so far as to roll my eyes and scoff, “City folks,” before watching the news report.

The squirrel has made physical contact with people in three households, WCBS-TV reported, leaping onto and biting people. One woman, Micheline Frederick, ended up in the hospital to treat multiple wounds she received in an attack that was particularly vicious. The surprise and voracity of the attack caused Frederick to slip and fall on ice, leaving her an easy target. For a squirrel attack.

I know, right?

But a home surveillance photo provided to the news organization shows Frederick — bloody from several bite wounds — on the ground with the squirrel firmly attached by its teeth and claws to her left index finger. A later photo of the carnage shows a gruesome blood-splattered snow scene.

It’s crazy out there, folks, just ask a pigeon named Joe in Australia, who was almost put to death on illegal immigration charges.

BBC News reported that someone noticed that a pigeon, later named Joe, had a leg band with American origins and, fearing the spread of disease, Australia’s Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment took the pigeon into custody and investigated its documentation.

Joe received a stay of execution when officials discovered that the numbers on the leg band matched those of a missing U.S. racing pigeon, but Joe didn’t match the description of the missing pigeon. And just like that the story switched from being another sad illegal immigration/modern biosecurity tragedy, to stupid-criminal comedy.

Officials announced last Friday they are satisfied that their investigation has determined that the leg band is fraudulent and that the pigeon is not from the U.S. but rather is likely a native of Australia.

The authentic numbers belonged to a pigeon from Alabama that went missing at a race in Oregon. The American Racing Pigeon Union sport development manager Deone Roberts said that, after a racing pigeon sold in November for $1.9 million, fraud has been occurring more frequently.

Someone in Australia was trying to break into the pigeon fraud black market, however, an Australian pigeon expert said that whoever put the fake leg band on the pigeon picked a Turkish Tumbler, a pigeon breed which is common to Australia but not the U.S. and which is known for its aerial acrobatics not for its speed.

Unfortunately, the Australian government and the pigeon racing organizations have no intention to hunt down these wannabe perpetrators. Still, things turned out OK for Joe the pigeon.

At this point, I was going to segue into a story about how the U.K.’s split from the European Union has made it difficult for Britons to export their livestock, including pigs, to anywhere in the EU. In contrast to that difficulty, it is literally impossible through legal means to transport a pig in the form of a homemade ham sandwich across the border. For real.

I decided, instead, that I want to end on a positive note, so I give you an unnamed Angus cow on the lam in Massachusetts.

UPI reported this week that the cow, which had escaped its Westport, Massachusetts, farm in June, had been living the life of a runaway in the Dartmouth area while evading authorities and any attempts to bring the cow into custody for six months.

The cow’s owner relinquished his rights to the cow and moved away. This week, though, Dartmouth Animal Control, finally set up cameras, trap doors and a trailer with bait in it, and the cow was captured.

The cow is currently in the foster care system under the county’s custody but will soon go to its forever home at an animal sanctuary, where it will not have to worry about trying to smuggle itself anywhere hidden in a roast beef sandwich.

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What? The sandwich comment? This is an ag community, you know the normal fate of a beef cow at http://www.facebook.com/viewfromthenorth40.com .