Killer chipmunks …. really? I mean … really?
Um … maybe … read on:
The Sun newspaper recently reported on the threat of “killer chipmunks,” saying:
About 30 of the deadly critters went on the run from Wellington Country Park on the Hampshire/Berkshire border in 2005.
Eighteen died and eight more were found or shot – but disturbingly FOUR remained free.
At the time Defra – the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, said they were wanted “dead or alive”, because of the threat they posed to the countryside and native wildlife.
They can also carry Lyme disease, which targets the nervous system and can be fatal to humans, and even rabies.
With chipmunks reproducing at alarming rates there could be hundreds or thousands here now.
In France their numbers have swelled to 100,000 after just 17 were freed from a park in 1980.
Then, the day after this story, the Sun reported on a family in Kent which had an encounter with a critter that appeared to be one of these rodents:
Mum-of-four Susan, 44, from the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, said: “It was terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like it.
“We could hear it banging about in the kitchen and when my husband went in it had its head in the cereal and was munching away.
“He shouted and it ran back out into the garden.
“We think it had a good go at whatever else it found in the cupboards as well.
“My cats are traumatised. We’re too scared to let them out in case it’s still lurking.”
French naturalist Guy Bruel, who issued one of the first Siberian chipmunk alerts, is sure the rodent was one of them.
Hmmm … killer Chipmunks … traumatized cats … it’s just so hard not to laugh. But we’ll contain ourselves.
