Karl's Weird News

Danish cops hunt rogue kangaroo

Police in Denmark are looking for help from the public in their attempts to track down an escaped kangaroo.

The kangaroo is on the loose in Copenhagen, the Danish capital, after it and another kangaroo escaped from their owner’s home, in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Amager, on Monday.

Dog shoots Iowa man during hunt

A man out hunting in Iowa was shot in the leg after a hunting dog stepped on his gun, authorities said.

The accident happened after James Harris, 37, put his gun on the ground to retrieve a fallen pheasant.

One of a pack of hunting dogs following behind stepped on the trigger, and up to 120 birdshot pellets hit Mr Harris in the left calf at short range.

“It was life or death” for man attacked by bear on park trail
…”He came up the trail and came right at me,” said Blasioli. “I stepped back … and fell. Then he came up to me and started eating.”

‘Berserk’ llama bites woman

Terrebonne resident Nancy Campbell was out for a neighborhood jog Monday night when her 8-year-old daughter, who was riding a bike ahead of her, warned that a brown llama was approaching from behind.

“(Nancy) had barely turned around to face it before it knocked her down,” said Campbell’s husband, Bill.

The llama stomped its feet, spit, bared its teeth and bit her. It eventually took five people to subdue the animal described by state police as brown, hairy and aggressive.

The llama suffered from a rare behavioral problem called “berserk llama syndrome,” veterinarians treating the animal said Wednesday. An Oregon State Police log said the llama escaped five days earlier from its owner’s fenced yard in north Terrebonne. With the owner’s permission, veterinarians euthanized it Tuesday.

Woman Has Yard Full of Snapping Turtles

Earlier this summer, Betty Kratzke noticed that something was disturbing the ground near the flowers that line her driveway. Solving the mystery this week proved to be a snap _ when baby snapping turtles started crawling around her yard.

“They just keep popping up out of the hole,” said Cliff Hanson, Kratzke’s brother-in-law.

The turtles had recently hatched and were no bigger than a half dollar coin, said Darrell Perry, another brother-in-law.

Family members scooped up 44 turtles in all. They were put in a cardboard box and taken to the nearby James River.

Stingrays injure 14 over weekend in Galveston

The Galveston Beach Patrol reported 14 stingray injuries over the weekend, the largest number of painful wounds reported this summer.

The Beach Patrol reported 10 injuries Sunday and four injuries Saturday, caused by bathers stepping on stingrays and causing them to lash out defensively with their toxic-tipped spiny tails, Beach Patrol Chief Peter Davis said Monday.

Growing ursine invasions becoming unbearable

In the 17 years the Hyde family has lived at the edge of a national forest, bears have broken into their garage three times, but nothing prepared them for what they found in July after returning from five days of wilderness camping.

The front window of their sturdy mountain home had been smashed, and when Danny Hyde, a school principal, opened the front door, he discovered that a bear and two cubs had taken up residence. They were still inside, having ripped out cupboards, emptied the refrigerator and feasted on molasses, Fig Newtons, Thin Mints, Cool Whip, ice cream, honey and chicken chow mein. After Hyde yelled, they bolted out an open window. It took seven people five hours to shovel out the mess.

The Lake Tahoe area is experiencing a rise in home invasions by bears. Years of humans’ feeding bears and available garbage have urbanized black bears, and a drought last winter has aggravated the problem. And some people fear that one of the measures intended to fend off the bears has actually helped increase the break-ins.

Dog Shoots Owner in the Back in Memphis

A Memphis, Tenn., man is in critical condition Wednesday after his dog shot him in the back.

Police say King George, a 150-pound Great Dane, accidentally knocked a .22-caliber pistol off his owner’s end table around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday. The gun went off, hitting his 21-year-old owner in the back, MyFOXMemphis.com reports.

Seagull becomes crisp shoplifter

A seagull has turned shoplifter by wandering into a shop and helping itself to crisps.

The bird walks into the RS McColl newsagents in Aberdeen when the door is open and makes off with cheese Doritos.

The seagull, nicknamed Sam, has now become so popular that locals have started paying for his crisps.

Shop assistant Sriaram Nagarajan said: “Everyone is amazed by the seagull. For some reason he only takes that one particular kind of crisps.”

Tiger mauls zookeeper

A tiger at the San Antonio Zoo attacked a keeper Saturday, critically injuring him, the zoo said.
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Rescue workers wheel a zookeeper injured by a tiger to a medical helicopter Saturday in San Antonio, Texas.

The zookeeper, a man in his 20s, was attacked about 2:30 p.m. out of view of the public, said zoo spokeswoman Dawn Campos. The man, who specializes in large cats, was flown to a hospital and was in critical condition, a hospital spokeswoman said.

“Two Billion” Rats Invade China Lake Towns

For the past two weeks residents living around China’s second largest lake have been able to smell a rat—make that two billion rats.

When the Yangtze River flooded on June 23, the water level rose in Dongting Lake, which sits along the river south of Wuhan in central China’s Hunan Province

The flooding began flushing out rat holes around the lake, triggering a literal rat race for higher ground.

Since then farming communities in more than 20 counties near Dongting have been overrun, observers say.

“For the past week, the situation has been very serious,” Tan Lulu, who works for the international conservation group WWF, told National Geographic News from WWF’s Hunan office in Changsha.

Elephants on the loose cause a circus in Ontario

In the no-nonsense parlance of York Regional Police, they were described as “elephants outstanding.”

In fact there were elephants out standing in the middle of downtown Newmarket, Ont., just north of Toronto, early Thursday morning – munching on tree leaves, stress-testing the concrete, freaking out the local population, and doing what escaped circus elephants do.

Suzy, Bunny and Minny, weighing in at a combined 11,000 kilograms, managed to escape from the confines of their Garden Brothers Circus pen around 3 a.m. Thursday. An electric fence, the sole guard against such pachydermic freedom, had been accidentally disabled earlier in the evening.

And so Suzy and Bunny made a break for it. Minny, too, got out of the pen, but then promptly fell asleep.

Squirrels torch man’s home — twice

If you think Alan Turcott has bad luck, just think of the squirrels in his neighborhood.

For the second time in eight days, Turcott’s Blue Island home caught fire when squirrels knocked high-voltage wires loose from a utility pole and onto his three-story house, fire officials said.

“This is unbelievable,” Blue Island Fire Chief Robert Copp said. “I’ve seen where squirrels have shorted things out or blown a fuse, but nothing like this before.”

Milan airport shut by hare plague

Officials have been forced to suspend flights into an airport in the Italian city of Milan due to a plague of hares.

The animals invaded the runways at Milan’s Linate Airport – and affected the operation of vital equipment.

Airport bosses are baffled as to why the hare population at Linate has risen so dramatically in the past few months.

Whatever the cause, the result has been chaos – in the past two weeks alone, two hares have ended up beneath the wheels of charter planes.

Squirrel goes on rampage, injures 3

An aggressive squirrel attacked and injured three people in a German town before a 72-year-old pensioner dispatched the rampaging animal with his crutch.

The squirrel first ran into a house in the southern town of Passau, leapt from behind on a 70-year-old woman, and sank its teeth into her hand, a local police spokesman said Thursday.

Lion, tiger kill man at Mexican meat plant

A lion and a tiger kept as exotic pets on the roof of a Mexican meat processing plant killed a man feeding them on Monday, Mexican media said.

Caretaker Angel Aguilar, 56, was taking pieces of chicken to feed the two big cats when the lion swiped at him through the bars of its cage and pulled him inside, Reforma daily said. The tiger then joined in the attack.

Paramedics arrived at the plant in the rough Mexico City neighbourhood of Iztapalapa while the man was still alive but they could not get past the animals to treat him.

Animal Services seizes 120 pet rats

An 81-year-old Wilmington woman was found Monday afternoon by Los Angeles Department of Animal Services officers in her home with more than 100 rats and 35 other animals she kept as pets.

Wanda Langstom was taken to a hospital to be treated for animal bites. Her arms were covered with open wounds that were probably caused by her animals, said Annette Ramirez, an animal control officer.

Animal control officers also seized the animals, which included about 120 rats, most in cages but some running loose, 25 rabbits, a dog, six parakeets, a quail and a cockatiel.

“Langstom basically became overwhelmed at how quickly the rats reproduced. She said it just started with two but it got out of hand,” Ramirez said. “Hoarding pets is something we see in Los Angeles frequently so it’s not actually that rare a case.”

Komodo dragon mauls boy to death

A RARE Komodo dragon has mauled a boy to death on an island that is part of the Komodo national park in eastern Indonesia.

Mansur, nine, was having a toilet stop in a bush area on Komodo island on Saturday when he was attacked by a Komodo dragon, Manggarai barat district police chief Buce Hello said.

“The Komodo attacked him, bit him and tossed him around, and only released him after villagers came and threw stones at it,” Mr Hello said.

Deer makes inroads in Canada politics

Seemingly interested in Canadian politics, a deer wandered through an open door of the New Brunswick legislature on Thursday but then smashed through a window to escape some beastly debates, said staff.

Under the gaze of a stunned security guard, the fawn roamed through the building in the eastern Canadian province, traipsing into the lobby, in and out of elevators and the press gallery — all captured on security footage.

Man Clad in Underwear Wrestles Wild Leopard

A man clad only in underwear and a T-shirt wrestled a wild leopard to the floor and pinned it for 20 minutes after the cat leapt through a window of his home and hopped into bed with his sleeping family.

“This kind of thing doesn’t happen every day,” said 49-year-old Arthur Du Mosch, a nature guide. “I don’t know why I did it. I wasn’t thinking, I just acted.”

Raviv Shapira, who heads the southern district of the Israel Nature and Parks Protection Authority, said a half dozen leopards have been spotted recently near Du Mosch’s small community of Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev desert in southern Israel, although they rarely threaten humans.

Elephant robs motorists in India

An elephant in eastern India has sparked complaints from motorists who accuse it of blocking traffic and refusing to allow vehicles to pass unless drivers give it food, a newspaper has reported.

The Hindustan Times said Monday the elephant was scouting for food on a highway in the eastern state of Orissa, forcing motorists to roll down their windows and get out of the car.

“The tusker then inserts its trunk inside the vehicle and sniffs for food,” local resident Prabodh Mohanty, who has come across the elephant twice, was quoted as saying.

“If you are carrying vegetables and banana inside your vehicle, then it will gulp them and allow you to go.”

If a commuter does not wind down his window or resists opening the vehicle door, the elephant stands in front of the car until the driver allows him to carry out his routine inspection.

Mystery emu escapes from police

A mystery emu sparked an international incident after it went on the run from police.

The emu was first spotted in Germany, but after several hours of failing to catch the bird with officers in patrol cars, vets and local zoo staff, the police called in Swiss reinforcements.

But even with the combined efforts of both German and Swiss police, the emu which was clocked running at 30mph through some areas still managed to avoid capture, and in the end had to be shot by German hunters.

Swarm of Bees Turns Back British Plane

A thick cloud of bees was sucked into the engine of a passenger plane en route to Portugal, forcing the airline to abandon the trip and grounding passengers for 11 hours, a company executive said Saturday.

David Skillicorn, managing director of Palmair, said the swarm was spotted off Britain’s Bournemouth coast shortly before the Boeing 737 left on Thursday. “Some witnesses claimed there were around 20,000 bees,” he said.

Ape escapes, goes on 3-hour rampage

An orangutan chewed through her cage and went on a three-hour rampage at a Taiwan entertainment park until authorities subdued it with a stun gun, a park employee said Thursday.

The 19-year-old primate, named “Little Blackie,” turned over iceboxes, garbage cans and motor scooters near the ticketing gates of Santao Mountain Entertainment Area in Kaohsiung County after her escape Wednesday, said a park worker surnamed Hsu.

Cover your ears: U.S. Midwest readies for emergence of 17-year-old cicadas

Coming soon: Brood XIII.

It sounds like a bad horror movie. But it’s actually the name of the billions of cicadas expected to emerge this month in parts of the Midwest after spending 17 years underground.

The red-eyed, shrimp-sized, flying insects don’t bite or sting. But they are known for mating calls that produce a din that can overpower ringing telephones, lawn mowers and power tools.

Brood XIII is expected across northern Illinois, and in parts of Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan and Indiana. Cicadas live only about 30 days as adults, and their main goal is mating.

Starving vultures prey on living animals

Huge flocks of starving vultures have started attacking live animals in northern Spain, officials in the city of Burgos said on Thursday.

In one incident, about 100 vultures killed a cow and her newborn calf, a rancher from the Mena Valley said, according to the Spanish government’s office in Burgos, quoted by state news agency EFE.

Indian farmers braced for rat plague

Nearly 500,000 Indian farmers are facing the prospect of famine as a plague of rats that strikes once every 50 years threatens to destroy their crops, rice paddies and village granaries.

The Mautam bamboo; Indian farmers braced for rat plague The flowering of a rare species of bamboo causes the rat plague Efforts to control the rodent plague in the north east Indian state of Mizoram have led the local government to offer a reward of one rupee (1.2 pence) for every rat tail delivered to the authorities.

More than 400,000 rats have already been killed, creating piles of tails, which have to be counted by officials before reward money can be disbursed to the catchers.

Gator parks on freeway, snarls traffic

All it takes is one illegally parked troublemaker to tie up freeway traffic — especially if it’s an 8-foot alligator sprawled across the pavement.

“I don’t remember any of this in the academy,” police Officer Albert Silva said of the traffic jam early Sunday. “As far as I know, there’s no procedure on this other than: ‘Don’t get bit.’”
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The gator even assaulted a police car, biting a chunk out of its bumper.

Bee Swarm Shuts Ark. Hospital’s ER:

A swarm of bees clustered outside the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences Medical Center shut down the emergency room Monday, as officials waited for a beekeeper to come vacuum up the 7,000 insects. Although no one was stung, the Little Rock emergency room still decided to be closed for ambulance traffic.

Bull Wanders Into Garage, Attacks Car

A woman pulled into her driveway and spotted something big inside her garage. That something turned out to be a bull. And an angry bull at that.

Mabel Washburn says she drove to a nearby relative’s home in rural Washington County to call police after coming face to face with the bull on Wednesday afternoon. When she returned to her home near the Vermont border a few minutes later, the bull was still there.

The 81-year-old woman says the animal then rammed its horns into her Ford Escort a couple of times. She blew her horn at it, but the bull chased the vehicle as she drove away.

Pregnant cow runs riot across German city

A pregnant cow being chased by police and firefighters caused 25,000 euros (US$33,900) of damage on a three-hour rampage through the German city of Hanover. Uschi escaped from a farm late Monday and became increasingly violent as she encountered shocked drivers and pedestrians in the city.

Robo-falcons used against pigeons

A flock of robotic falcons has been dispatched to tackle an influx of obese pigeons that are increasing in number and size thanks to an unnatural diet of fast-food.

The mechanical birds — called “Robops” — have been placed on rooftop locations around the British city of Liverpool and will flap their wings and squawk loudly to scare the problem pigeons away.

Hungary: 5,000 rabbits block traffic on major highway:

Five thousand rabbits blocked a Hungarian highway Monday after the truck that was carrying them crashed. The animals came free after the truck collided with another vehicle and overturned, police officials said.

Dozens of animal carcasses dumped

It was a surprising discovery in South King County when dozens of animal carcasses were found along the side of the road near Black Diamond.

Now the Department of Fish and Wildlife, which spent a good part of the day removing them, is trying to determine how exactly they got there.

Cindy Sizemore made the startling discovery on her morning walk Wednesday. Dozens of animal, frozen dead, were placed along rural 257th Avenue SE in Black Diamond.

“I’ve been on for 20 years and this is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this,” said Officer Shane Brazier.

Crocodile Bites Off Zoo Worker’s Arm

A zoo worker had his forearm reattached Thursday after his colleagues recovered the severed limb from the mouth of a 440-pound Nile crocodile, an official said.

The crocodile severed Chang Po-yu’s forearm on Wednesday at the Shaoshan Zoo in the southern city of Kaohsiung when the veterinarian tried to retrieve a tranquilizer dart from the reptile’s hide, zoo officials said. The Liberty Times newspaper said Chang failed to notice the crocodile was not fully anesthetized when he stuck his arm through an iron rail to medicate it.

Zookeeper dies after anteater attack

A YOUNG Argentine zookeeper who worked on a giant anteater conservation project died today after she was attacked by an anteater who mauled her abdomen and legs with its sharp front claws.

“Her injuries were very serious and when she was admitted she was already in critical condition,” Jose Potito, director of the hospital, said.

Mr Potito said Melisa Casco, 19, died after an operation to amputate one of her legs.

Casco worked at the Florencio Varela zoo outside Buenos Aires as part of a conservation and reproduction project involving endangered giant anteaters.

Sharks Bite Surfer, Boy in Separate Events

A 9-year-old boy and a 30-year-old surfer were apparently bitten by sharks in separate attacks on nearby barrier island beaches, authorities said. Their injuries were not considered life-threatening. The attacks happened within an hour of each other Saturday on Hutchinson Island in St. Lucie County on Florida’s east coast. Authorities did not release the names of either victim.

Polar rival finds fame too much to bear

Just days after Knut the polar bear cub warmed even the most satirical of hearts, tragedy has struck Berlin zoo with the death of the panda Yan Yan. A dead panda is a bad thing. But that’s not all. There are accusations in the German press that Knut was in part responsible, with the disruption from the visitors who crowded the zoo at the weekend leading to the 22-year-old’s untimely demise.

Highway shut for butterfly travel:

Taiwan is to close one lane of a major highway to protect more than a million butterflies, which cross the road on their seasonal migration. The purple milkweed butterfly, which winters in the south of the island, passes over some 600m of motorway to reach its breeding ground in the north. Many of the 11,500 butterflies that attempt the journey each hour do not reach safety, experts say.

Yellowstone Grizzly No Longer Endangered

Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park no longer need Endangered Species Act protection, the federal government said Thursday.

The area had an estimated 136 to 312 grizzlies when the species was listed as threatened in 1975, but has more than 500 of the bears today, the government said.

“The grizzly is a large predator that requires a great deal of space, and conserving such animals is a challenge in today’s world,” Deputy Interior Secretary Lynn Scarlett said in announcing the decision. “I believe all Americans should be proud that, as a nation, we had the will and the ability to protect and restore this symbol of the wild.”

Dog robs gas station

A hungry bull terrier with a sweet tooth left his home to make a night raid on a gas station. The Statoil outlet’s security cameras recorded the dog’s stealthy hunt for his favorite type of chocolate, and a security guard busted the pooch without incident, newspaper Adressavisen reports.

Terrier Conan, aged 7, ended up behind bars and according to his owner the dog is a repeat offender.

“He is incredibly fond of food in general and sweets in particular. He has run off a few times before, and he always heads for food stores,” owner Liss-Hege Jeremiassen told Adresseavisen.

YNP Wolves in Mortal Combat

Fighting among wolves over food and habitat in Yellowstone National Park caused increased “social strife” and was the leading cause of death for the animals in 2006, according to a report released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Wolves killing other wolves accounted for 44 percent of adult mortality for radio- collared animals in Yellowstone last year. Nine collared wolves died in 2006. Further, competition between packs likely accounted for the majority of pup deaths in Slough Creek and Hellroaring Creek packs, two of three wolf packs that failed to reproduce successfully.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released the information in the Rocky Mountain Wolf Recovery 2006 Interagency Annual Report, a document detailing wolf packs in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.

Whale kills would-be rescuer in Japan

A Japanese fisherman drowned Tuesday after a whale he was trying to rescue capsized his small fishing boat, a coast guard official said.

Three fishermen tried to rescue the sperm whale, about 30 feet long, after it strayed into a bay off the southwestern island of Shikoku, about 500 miles southwest of Tokyo.

Diver Says Whale’s Tail Broke His Leg

A 50-year-old man said his femur broke “like a twig” when a humpback whale whipped her tail during an excursion in the Dominican Republic. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Randy Thornton said at HealthSouth Rehabilitation Hospital in Sandy.
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But there was nothing playful about a mother who had a calf on her back.

“The calf woke up and got spooked and that startled the mother, who swished her big tail twice,” Thornton said.

Man Tells Police Unicorn Caused Crash

A man told police not to blame him for crashing his truck into a light post – it was that unicorn behind the wheel. Prosecutor Ingrid Rosenquist said Phillip C. Holliday Jr. initially denied driving the truck involved in the March 7 crash in Billings. He told officers at the scene that a unicorn was driving, she said.

Berserk house cat sends Idaho woman to hospital with more than 20 bite wounds:

A house cat attacked its owner, sending her to the hospital with more than 20 bite wounds. The cat, a black and white domestic male, went on the rampage Wednesday when a neighbour showed up at the door with a different cat, mistakenly thinking it belonged to the woman.

A jaguar so mean, they named him Osama

The jaguar that killed a Denver zookeeper Saturday had a twin — and it was so mean that handlers named him Osama. That’s according to an official at the Bolivian zoo that sent the jaguar named Jorge to the Denver Zoo.

Honeybees Vanish, Leaving Keepers in Peril

David Bradshaw has endured countless stings during his life as a beekeeper, but he got the shock of his career when he opened his boxes last month and found half of his 100 million bees missing.

In 24 states throughout the country, beekeepers have gone through similar shocks as their bees have been disappearing inexplicably at an alarming rate, threatening not only their livelihoods but also the production of numerous crops, including California almonds, one of the nation’s most profitable.

 “I have never seen anything like it,” Mr. Bradshaw, 50, said from an almond orchard here beginning to bloom. “Box after box after box are just empty. There’s nobody home.”

Stalin’s last army – hordes of gigantic crabs on their way to invade Europe

Millions of giant Pacific crabs, whose ancestors were brought to Europe by Joseph Stalin in the 1930s, are marching south along Norway’s coast, devouring everything in their path.

The monster crabs, which can weigh up to 25lb and have a claw-span of more than three feet, are proving so resilient that scientists fear they could end up as far south as Gibraltar.

Energised by a mysterious population explosion a decade ago, whole armies of the crustaceans – known as the Kamchatka or Red King Crabs – have already advanced about 400 miles along the roof of Europe, overwhelming the ports of northern Norway.

Swarms of Locusts Terrorize Mexican Farmers:

Thousand of crops in the southeastern Mexican state of Yucatan have been destroyed by a severe locust plague, that has invaded the region since early this year. In Merida, officials believe nearly 5,000 acres of corn and other goods have been affected by the insects.

Denver Zookeeper Dies From Jaguar Attack:

A zookeeper died Saturday after a 140-pound jaguar mauled her in its enclosure, and the big cat was fatally shot when it approached emergency workers treating the injured woman, the zoo said.

The zookeeper, whose name was not immediately released, was taken to Denver General Hospital, where she died, police spokesman Sonny Jackson said.

The park closed after the shooting and it wasn’t immediately known whether it would reopen Sunday, spokeswoman Amy Sarno said. “Obviously, everyone is very upset,” she said.

Rats run wild in KFC-Taco Bell in NYC

New Yorkers are used to seeing rats where they catch their trains – not where they buy their burritos. About a dozen rats were having a grand party Friday in a locked KFC/Taco Bell restaurant, scampering around the floor, playing with each other and sniffing for food as they dashed around tables and children’s high chairs.

Onlookers could not keep their eyes away from the jaw-dropping sight – a gang of urban vermin invading a restaurant that had been taking people’s chicken and taco orders just a day earlier. Video of the rats was seen around the world, disseminated on TV stations and the Internet.

Tiger Kills 6-Year-Old at Chinese Zoo

A six-year-old girl was bitten to death by a tiger at a south China zoo while posing for a picture with the animal, state media reported Friday.

The girl, identified only as Ruixin, was standing behind the tiger with her mother and four other relatives when it attacked at a zoo in Yunnan province on Thursday, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The local Chuncheng Evening News reported on its Web site that the tiger attacked the girl shortly after the flash went off on her uncle’s camera. The tiger’s paw shot out and grabbed Ruixin, pulling her head into its mouth, it said.

Hornets hit France and could reach Britain

Swarms of giant hornets renowned for their vicious stings and skill at massacring honeybees have settled in France.

And there are now so many of the insects that entomologists fear it will just be a matter of time before they cross to Britain.

Global warming has largely been blamed for the survival and spread of the Asian Hornet, Vespa velutina, which is thought to have arrived in France from the Far East in a consignment of Chinese pottery in late 2004.

Thousands of football-shaped hornet nests are now dotted all over the forests of Aquitaine, the south-western region of France hugely popular with British tourists.

“Their spread across French territory has been like lightning,” said Jean Haxaire, the entomologist who originally identified the new arrival.

Eek!: Men Flee After Seeing ‘Giant Rat’

A furry, uninvited guest had manly men at an Iron Range tire shop shrieking and hopping on desks. “It was pretty humorous,” said conservation officer Dan Starr, who filed a report on the critter’s break-in. “Here were these big, burly outdoors guys running around screaming.” Taconite Tire employees arrived at work on Monday to find what they thought was a giant rat inside the store.