ATM Gives Out Dead Mouse

You know the economy is really going to bloody hell when ATMs start to pay bank customers with dead rodents, which is exactly what happened to this guy on the right. He got his cash and the dead Mickey on the left.

His name is Gholam Hafezi and he was visiting his daughter in Ersboda, Umeå, in the north of Sweden. He wanted to take out 700 Swedish Kronor from this ATM located inside a Coop Forum, one of the shops of a famous Swedish supermarket chain: "I got my 700 kronor but I never got the receipt. At the same time, I saw a cord that was jamming the ATM slot."

Yes, you know where this is going. But Hafezi didn't at the time. He thought somebody may be trying to do something illegal, so he tried to pull the cord. He then realized it was a mouse tail.

He ran to the supermarket's customer service people and asked for help. They told him that the ATM was not their responsibility but the guys in charge of the shopping carts offered their help. One of them was finally able to take out the whole mouse: "he took out the mouse. His head was intact although a little bit bloody. Then I got my receipt."

http://gizmodo.com/5880209/this-atm-gave-out-this-dead-mouse-after-delivering-cash?tag=wtf

Dead blackbirds fall again in Arkansas town

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Thousands of dead blackbirds rained down on a town in central Arkansas last New Year's Eve after revelers set off fireworks that spooked them from their roost, and officials were reporting a similar occurrence Saturday as 2012 approached.


Police in Beebe said dozens of blackbirds had fallen dead, prompting officers to ban residents from shooting fireworks Saturday night. It wasn't immediately clear if fireworks were again to blame, but authorities weren't taking a chance.

Officer John Weeks said the first reports of "birds on the streets" came around 7 p.m. as residents celebrated the year's end with fireworks in their neighborhoods.

"We started shutting down fireworks," he said. "We're working on cleaning up the birds now."

He said police were working with animal control workers and others to remove the birds and determine a death count.

"We're not sure if they're going to continue to fall throughout the night. I can't tell you," Weeks said.

Scientists say the loud cracks and booms from celebratory fireworks likely sent the birds into such a tizzy that they crashed into homes, cars and each other before plummeting to their deaths last New Year's Eve. The birds landed on roofs, sidewalks, streets and fields. One struck a woman walking her dog. Another hit a police cruiser.

The blackbird die-off, coupled with tens of thousands of dead drum fish that washed up on the shores of the Arkansas River, flung the state into the national headlines and drew conspiracy theorists and filmmakers to the town about 30 miles northeast of Little Rock that shares Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe's last name.

Some people speculated that the birds had been poisoned; others said their deaths marked the beginning of the apocalypse.

"It's just got to be a pain in my career," Beebe Police Chief Wayne Ballew said.

Prior to this New Year's Eve, Ballew said he wouldn't be surprised if people sit out on their front porches in case the winged creatures fall from the sky again.

"I guess we could have an annual blackbird watch," he said with a laugh. "People can just bring their umbrellas, open them up and walk through the neighborhood and hope they don't get hit."

Charles Moore didn't plan to have an umbrella at the ready, but said he would have his camera out on New Year's Eve. Last year, he drifted off to sleep before the ball — and birds — dropped.

"When we got up on New Year's Day and walked out to get the paper, we saw all the carnage out there," he said. "So we thought we would be on the watch for it this time."

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20111231/39122abf-b7f4-4f2c-a053-77d63d97828c

Beached whale found 800 metres ashore in Yorkshire (courtesy Simon Reames)

Marine experts have been left baffled after a rare whale was found over 800 metres from the shore in the Humber Estuary, Skeffling, East Yorkshire.

The 33ft mammal is thought to have died after getting caught in shallow waters – rolling onto its own blowhole before getting swept inland by the tide. Experts are “95 percent sure” the whale is a female from the rare Sei species – only three of which have been found stranded on the British coast in the last twenty years.

“It is sad. It was in shallow water of about 4ft to 5.25ft, making contact with the bottom,” said Andy Gibson, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. “This was about 800m offshore. When it gets in that situation it rolls onto its side and it can cover its blowhole.”

“Sometimes whales come into shallow water looking for food and get stuck,” added Kirsten Smith, North Seas manager at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. “With the high tide the whale probably got carried up on to the salt marsh, got pushed back further in shore and then got stuck when the tide went out.”

Earlier this month a fin whale washed up dead near Spurn Point, North East Lincolnshire after getting stranded at Immingham. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust has seen a rise in whale sightings over the last year but are unable to explain the increase in the North Sea. 

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/beached-whale-found-in-yorkshire-field.html

Female seals drawn to deadly ship propellers because they sound like male mating call

Female seals who suffered mysterious "corkscrew" injuries were drawn into ship propellers because the blades produce the same acoustics as a male seal's mating call, scientists believe.

Experts at the Sea Mammal Research Unit at St Andrews University had previously suspected that ships were responsible for killing the seals in such a horrific way - but did not know why this was happening.

Of seven harbour seals found along the Fife coast with the horrific trademark injuries this summer, five turned out to be females.

But the scientists from the unit have now traced twice as many seals killed by the corkscrew injuries - first reported last year - and over a wider area and period.

They have found that virtually all the deaths in the summer are adult females and in the winter juveniles.

At first the phenomenon baffled scientists until they struck on the theory that the sound of certain ship's propellers may be attracting the female seals.

They have now carried out acoustic tests on both captive and wild seals - playing recordings of propellers - which seems to back-up the theory.

The experts admit that while it explains the death of the females, it is still a mystery so far why the juveniles are being attracted.

The SMRU's preliminary report will be presented to Marine Scotland by the end of the year.
The scientists are now convinced that the corkscrew wounds are caused by ducted propellers from coastal inshore boats - and not sharks.

The corpses of at least 50 seals bamboozled experts at first because they had all suffered a single smooth-edged cut spiralling the length of their body.

Since last year the total of "corkscrew" deaths has now risen to 90.

Dr David Thompson, the researcher leading the investigation, said: "Investigations have revealed a number of features that show the injuries are entirely consistent with the animals being sucked through large ducted propellers.

"The number and range of deaths is more extensive than we first thought. They are more extensive in the UK - we now have confirmed cases in the Firth of Forth, Aberdeenshire, Ardrossan in Ayrshire, Orkney, Northumberland, Strangford Lough in Ireland, as well as the previous ones in Fife and Norfolk.

"Seals with similar characteristic spiral or corkscrew injuries have been reported from Atlantic Canada for at least the last 15 years at Sable Island off Nova Scotia and the Gulf of St Lawrence.

"What we have found is that in the summer the deaths are almost exclusively adult female harbour seals and in the winter mostly juvenile grey seals.

"The possibility is that the females are being attracted by the sound of the motors. Seals communicate at a similar low frequency roar during the breeding season.

"It is clear that the seals are responding inappropriately to some aspect of the operation of these devices. The localisation in space and time of these events makes it unlikely that the seals are being hit as a result of random coming together of swimming animals and fast moving vessels. The concentration of carcasses in each locality suggests that the vessels must be either stationary or slow moving but operating their propellers, such as when using motors for dynamic positioning. This suggests that some aspect of the operation of these devices is attracting the seals to within a danger zone from which they do not appear to be able to escape. Developing any mitigation measure will require that we identify and understand the attractive mechanism.

"An acoustic cue is suggested by the fact that all seals killed during summer month have been female harbour seals which are thought to be attracted by underwater calls of breeding males. Juvenile grey seals which are the main victims during winter months in Norfolk and Scotland have also been shown to be attracted by conspecific calls with a pulsing rhythmic pattern."

Trials have been taking place looking at matching the sounds of boats and the mating calls of seals.
"We have not identified the propeller types yet, but if we do we have the potential to change the sound and possibly avoid these types of deaths," said Dr Thompson.

"But we believe that workboats are highly likely to be involved - and in recent years there are more and more of these type of boats working in coastal waters. That is why the problem appears to be increasing.

"We think these corkscrew deaths have now been around in the UK since the 1980s. We do not know the extent of the problem. We know that only a tiny proportion of the 30,000 plus seals that die each year in UK waters are washed ashore.

"Our methods included scaled simulations using models that show how the spiral injuries can be created, as well as fine-scale observation of the injuries themselves that show the lacerations were made by the seals rotating against a smooth edged blade while at the same time being dragged past the blade by a powerful force.

"Most diagnostic of all has been the imprint on some animals of the serrated 'rope cutter' that is present on most of these types of ducted propellers to stop ropes getting entangled in the propellers."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/8722274/Female-seals-drawn-to-deadly-ship-propellers-because-they-sound-like-male-mating-call.html

'Vampire' stalks Siberian livestock

A blood-sucking creature is preying upon goats near Novosibirsk. As rational explanations run thin on the ground, the specter of the so-called chupacabra raises its demon head.


Horrified farmers and smallholders are confronted by the drained corpses of their livestock in the morning, bloodless and bearing puncture marks to the neck but otherwise largely in tact.

But local cops are reluctant to record apparent vampire attacks, as they await official recertification, leaving the locals up in arms.

Blood-suckers
“If this creature is not stopped it could make its way to Novosibirsk! Only our police force are doing jack-diddly about it,” complaining locals told Komsomolskaya Pravda. “They say that there is no Chupacabra. Come if you will journalists, have a look at what is happening to us.”

Death in the night
Local animal keeper Natalya told of her experiences.

“It all happened on the night of June 10,” she told KP. “I was sleeping, my daughter was sitting at the computer looking at the internet. She says that about 2.00 am she heard a sound in the yard. Some whining.

“The dog which guards the farm screamed for 15 minutes and then quietened down. The dog’s behavior drew the attention of my daughter Natalie, but she didn’t think it was important. She thought that if a stranger had come to the house then the dog would bark. And here it was more like whining, you think of howling at the moon.

“In the morning it became clear why the dog had been howling. I got up and went to the barn to milk the goats. I looked and saw right on the doorstep a goat with its neck thrown back unnaturally. On the neck there was something like a bite mark, the belly was torn, and there were huge claw marks. I came over bad and started screaming, I ran to the house to see the children were alright,” she said.

Whatever killed the goats never tried to eat the flesh, it just drank its victim’s blood.

From the devil
Natalya’s news of a near-mythical chupacabra spread like wildfire among residents of Krasnoginnoe village, then it became clear that nearby Tolmachevskoye and Chick villages had also been afflicted.

The blood-suckers had targeted cattle in Tolmochevskoye. “It’s come from the devil. I’ve seen it. My brother, even when he lived near St Petersburg seven years ago accidently photographed a chupacabra. He took the usual family picture and then saw the demonic face through the kitchen window. Grey-red it was, such an unpleasant face, like a bat with fangs,” Natalie’s uncle Viktor Shushpanov told KP.

“My brother showed me this photograph and upon the advice of his family he burned it,” he said.

Ring the church bells
“All the people are scared, they fear that the creature will move onto children,” the head of the village said. “We have organized night patrols of six people. We walk through the village, on the look out for this wickedness. But so far we have had no results.”

While hopes for speedy retribution are fast diminishing the beast has turned out to be a boon to troubled parents, presenting a very useful threat for naughty children.

The chupacabra is a recent legend, originating from mid 1990s North America. It is supposedly a heavy creature, the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail.

But there seems to be a more prosaic explanation: Discovery News reported in 2010 that what were believed to be chupacabra in the Americas turned out to be wild dogs infected with a deadly form of mange. The University of Michigan put forward a similar theory.

http://themoscownews.com/russia/20110726/188875163.html