Karl's Weird News

Turtle Brigade Delays Flights at J.F.K.

Dozens of turtles, presumably on a mating spree, shut down a runway at John F. Kennedy International Airport Wednesday morning for 35 minutes, causing flight delays of an hour and a half.

The 78 diamondback terrapins were picked up, put into a pickup truck and removed from the runway, said John Kelly, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

They were originally spotted around 8:30 a.m. by a pilot, who radioed the tower. “It’s not unprecedented, but it’s not at all common,” he said.

 Lion Mauls Kansas Man Found in Animal Refuge Cage

Lion owner Jeffrey Harsh tells authorities that a man staying at the Free Breakfast Inn motel next to the refuge near the town of Oakley apparently made his way Saturday into an outer perimeter lion cage.

 Thomas County Sheriff Rod Taylor says that when Harsh showed up to feed the animals that evening he found the man with his arm over the top of a gate on the inner cage. A Barbary lion had grabbed his right arm.

WANTED: Black Bear Steals Minivan

You might say he’s smarter than the average bear.

A black bear is on one New Jersey police department’s most wanted list.

He or she apparently broke into a minivan looking for chocolate and then took a little joyride.

CBS 2 HD tracked down all the bear facts.

The minivan in question was damaged, specifically a window where the bear apparently forced his way in. Vernon police officers have since made a “Wanted” poster, featuring a picture of “Yogi Bear.”

Panda attacks zookeeper in Chinaa

A zookeeper needed more than 100 stitches after a 3-year-old panda viciously bit and scratched him during feeding time at a zoo in northwestern China, a newspaper reported Monday.

The zookeeper, surnamed Zhang, was hospitalized after the attack Saturday at a zoo in Lanzhou, Gansu province, but his life was not in danger, the Lanzhou Morning Post reported.

Zhang was feeding the panda from outside the enclosure, sticking his arms through the wire, when the panda, Lan Zai, grabbed his arms and began biting them and then scratched his legs, the newspaper reported.

Hat tip to Kara!

Enraged Circus Elephant Stomps Man To Death

Police in Thailand said a circus elephant stomped a man to death after the man apparently angered him.

Police say the 6-year-old elephant was resting in an open field when the man struck him. The elephant picked up the man with his trunk and hurled him on to the ground before stomping on him.

Police say the elephant kept rescuers back, running toward them in a threatening manner. The man was eventually taken to a hospital but died there from a cracked skull.

Hat tip to Kara!

Florida Boater Knocked Unconscious by Leaping Sturgeon

A woman was injured over the weekend by a leaping sturgeon, the latest incident involving the flying fish on Florida’s Suwannee River, officials said.

Tara Spears, 32, was knocked unconscious by the animal on Sunday while boating on the river north of Rock Bluff, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission reported.

She was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries and was expected to recover, the agency reported.

Hat tip to Kara!

Man survives grizzly attack at Yellowstone

A park visitor was attacked by a grizzly bear Wednesday and hiked miles to safety with severe facial injuries, park officials said.

The man, in his late 50s, was taking photographs of bears when he was attacked, according to a statement from the park. He told rangers he had been attacked by a sow with a cub.

After the attack, he hiked two to three miles and was discovered by other park visitors around 1 p.m., the statement said. He was hospitalized, but officials declined to release his condition Wednesday evening.

Hat tip to Kara!

Gorilla escapes zoo, bites woman

A 400-pound gorilla escaped from his enclosure and ran amok in a Rotterdam zoo Friday, biting one woman, dragging her around, and causing panic among dozens of visitors before he was finally subdued, officials and a witness said.

The Diergaarde Blijdorp zoo was evacuated and the 11-year-old gorilla, named Bokito, was eventually contained in a restaurant within the park, police spokeswoman Yvette de Rave said.

Four people were injured, including the woman who was bitten, zoo director Ton Dorrestijn said.

Hat tip to Kara!

Dog and Tiger Alliance

It’s a dog’s life for three newborn tiger triplets in eastern China. The cubs, whom officials at the Jinan Paomaling Wild Animal World in Shandong province are so far just calling “One,” “Two” and “Three,” have been nursed by a dog since they were rejected by their tiger mother shortly after birth, said Paomaling manager Chen Yucai.

Bear Kills Moose in Alaska Driveway as Residents Watch

Odd sounds outside their home woke Gary and Terri Lyon early Sunday morning, so Gary got up to check it out. He looked outside and saw a 500-pound grizzly bear killing an adult moose in their driveway.”I saw this wildlife spectacle of a full-grown brown bear on a moose and the moose fighting for its life,” Gary said.

The couple put their dog inside, grabbed their cameras and started filming the attack as the grizzly battled the moose down the driveway, finally killing it. They posted the video on YouTube.

Hat tip to Kara!

Rogue Seal Bullies Surfer, Pit Bull

Nibbles the elephant seal is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern California coast.The 2,000-pound lone male is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal’s aggression.

Hat tip to Kara!

THE KILLER FROGS OF LILY POND

It’s like something out of an animal horror movie — killer frogs take over peaceful pond, then after terrorizing and eating everything alive, start eating each other.Only it’s no movie. It’s really happening in Golden Gate Park’s Lily Pond, near the California Academy of Sciences. And after watching the frogs chew through everything in sight over the past several years, the city finally wants to do something about it.

No one knows for sure when the African clawed frogs got into the pond or who put them there. But there they are, and the Toad Warriors have pretty much taken care of the native turtles, frogs and fish.

Hat tip to Kara!

Tiger Bites Off Woman’s Arm at Zoo in Montenegro

A Siberian tiger at a private zoo in Montenegro bit off an arm of a woman who tried to feed the animal. Slavka Sekulovic, 58, had put her arm into the cage with two Siberian tigers when one of them grabbed it and bit it off, said doctor Zoran Srzentic who admitted the woman at a nearby hospital.

Hat tip to Kara!

Alaska Moose Brings Down Helicopter:

A helicopter is not necessarily a match for an angry moose. Instead of lying down after being shot with a tranquilizer dart, a moose charged a hovering helicopter used by a wildlife biologist, damaging the aircraft’s tail rotor and forcing it to the ground. Neither the pilot nor the biologist was injured, but the moose was maimed by the spinning rotor and had to be euthanized, wildlife officials said.

Hat tip to Kara!

Rat disfigures Mo. baby sleeping in crib

Exterminators began sweeping a Kansas City neighborhood infested with rats after one of the rodents crawled into a baby’s crib and severely disfigured the girl’s face.Authorities said the girl’s parents put her in a crib next to their bed early Sunday and awoke a few hours later, when a heart and breathing monitor alarm went off. The 4-week-old baby, which had been born prematurely, was lying in a pool of blood with her nose and part of her upper lip chewed off.

Hat tip to Kara!

Stowaway squirrel grounds jet

An American Airlines flight made an unscheduled landing after pilots heard something skittering about in the wire-laden space over the cockpit.The airline blamed the emergency landing of the Tokyo-Dallas flight with 202 passengers on a stowaway squirrel.

“You do not want a varmint up in the wiring areas and what-have-you on an airplane. You don’t want anything up there,” said John Hotard, spokesman for the Fort Worth, Texas-based airline.

Hat tip to Kara!

Britain’s Top Woman Paraglider Attacked by Eagles Mid-Flight

Britain’s top woman paraglider told today how she cheated death after two huge Australian eagles attacked her 8,200 feet above the Outback. Nicky Moss, 38, said she thought “Why me?” when the eagles came screeching out of the sky and began shredding the wing of her paraglider over New South Wales this week. She spun out of control and into a terrifying freefall for 1500 when one of the eagles became entangled in the lines suspending her beneath the glider’s wing, causing it to collapse and sending them diving toward earth before it managed to free it itself.

Hat tip to Kara!