Admittedly, this has been our first year chronicling the weird in Connecticut, but it seems as though it’s been a banner year for animal oddness. Among the stories was the horrific tale of Travis the chimp, an angry bull attacked workers at Stew Leonard’s, a rabbit with two noses was born, Daisy the reading pig died, mountain lions were alleged to be roaming the state and cats were beheaded in Bridgeport. And yes, I still have white squirrels in my back yard.
If that’s not enough, it’s been an exceptionally odd two weeks on the Connecticut animal front, has it not? Among the stories, in case you missed them:
- In mid-July, 357 chickens and roosters were seized in Harwinton in what was most likely a cockfighting operation. Unfortunately, the birds were deemed aggressive and eventually destroyed, although no news outlet mentioned if grills and barbecue sauce were involved in the euthanization process.
- Over the weekend, more than 150 canaries and saffron finches were liberated by authorities in my hometown of Shelton, apparently unwitting participants in another bird-fighting ring. Maybe the police read a random tweet somewhere? One of the birds sang?
- At the Department of Environmental Protection’s first Exotic Animal Amnesty Day, over 130 creatures were turned in to Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, including numerous alligators, caimans and tortoises as well as an 8-foot albino python, a red-tailed boa constrictor and a Capuchin monkey. An acquaintance of mine who is a vet was at the event, and he reports the number one most turned-in animal were turtles. Apparently, there’s more upkeep on them than people realize.
And these two stories from the last 24 hours:
- Trumbull authorities seized 17 (now already 20!) rabbits from a local home after neighbors complained of unsanitary conditions.
- A Hartford man was involved in an auto crash after he claimed that a 12-inch snakes slithered out of his pocket, causing him to lose control of the vehicle.
What the heck?! I’d say the state has gone to the dogs, but that appears (so far) to be one of the only species not running amok at the moment. Is the arrival of warmer weather? Cycles of the moon? Bigfoot working in conjunction with the Bilderburg organization to plot a global animal uprising?
All right, there may be no official global animal uprising on the horizon, but we’ll be vigilant nonetheless.
1 comment
I like all the puns.
Comments are closed.