Posted on 07/11/2007 11:29:16 AM PDT by Cecily
British forces operating around the southern Iraqi city of Basra are being blamed for the arrival of a plague of vicious badgers that stalk the streets at night, attacking livestock and even humans.
Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was, according to the local rumour mill, released into the area by UK forces to spread panic.
Major David Gell, a British Army spokesman, said the animals were thought to be a kind of honey badger or ratel - melivora capensis - which can be fierce but are not usually dangerous to humans unless provoked.
The animals are indigenous to Africa and large parts of the Middle East and are about the same size as European European badgers but much more aggressive, with long claws and strong jaws. They have been described in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most fearless animal.
“They are native to the region but rare in Iraq. They’re nocturnal carnivores with a fearsome reputation, but they don’t stalk humans and carry them back to their lair,” Major Gell said.
Iraqi scientists have attempted to calm the public but the story of the British badgers has spread like wildfire through Basra and the surrounding villages.
Mushtaq Abdul-Mahdi, director of Basra’s veterinary hospital, has inspected the corpses of several dead badgers and sought to reassure his fellow citizens that they are not new to the region but had been seen well before Saddam's ouster in 2003.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
Crypto ping? Chupacabra helping Brits in Iraq?
Would make an interesting unit patch for some unit in the British armed forces:
A rabid, knife-wielding badger rampant upon a field of sand, a burning Islamic cresent over it’s right shoulder.
“Badgers, we don’t need no stinking Badgers!”
And all this time I thought that’s what Castro said to Khruschev in the summer of ‘62...
Thank you for doing what the rest of us just won’t.
"GET IN MA' BELLY!" - Fat Badger
Blimey!
Just when ya think you’ve heard it all!
It’s not a badger...it’s MANBEARPIG!
You know damned well I ordered sharks...with frickin lasers on their heads!
I’ve got a feisty little Dachshund that will be glad to take care of that badger problem....
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