Oz lad 'fell in love with' baby meerkat, nicked it from zoo, took it out for a romantic Big Mac Ever found yourself overcome by cuteness while gawping at sad, caged animals that you just had to take one home with you? Us neither, but that's exactly what 23-year-old Jesse Hooker did on a trip to Perth Zoo in Australia. The tourist attraction reported that a one-month-old meerkitten had gone missing on 19 September, …
https://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/meerkats-eat-squirrel-bristol-zoo-2190676
Turns out that they are nasty little bastards.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/meerkats-revealed-as-the-most-murderous-mammal-known-to-science-a7335741.html
p.s. OK, Tufty was a red squirrel. BTW, it's illegal to release a grey squirrel back into the wild, so, even if the thing had been saved at the zoo, they'd have had to kill it anyway.
The badgers will need a good PR firm to represent them. To most people, they're just giant cretins spreading TB everywhere.
News in the last couple of days: government-commissioned study finds it's mostly cows spreading TB. Not badgers. Which should come as no surprise to anyone given that TB is a disease of poverty and really bad conditions - which cows suffer a lot worse than wild animals.
"Or did I miss yet another meaningless Internet meme?"
Nope, you're suffering from a mild dose of etymological fallacy disease, whereby you hold that a word can only have its historic meaning, rather than a different present day definition. For example, I imagine that you think "since" and "while" can only be used as temporal connectives, not as logical ones (meaning, roughly, 'because' and 'although'), as (since?) that was their original meaning.
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001256.html
I'm fully aware of the more modern uses of the term "cretin", but none of those seem to apply to wildlife doing wildlife things in wildlife time. Thus I assumed TOA meant the archaic usage ... barring some new-fangled usage that I am unaware of. Thus my question.
While you asked about other word usage, I can't be arsed reply since it had naught to do with my question.
>mostly cows spreading TB.<
Which is why it's called Bovine TB, (mycobacterium bovis) and why Britain had such high levels of BTB in humans until the belated acceptance of pasteurization. Like mycobacterium tuberculosis, BVT can cause Turbicles or other symptoms in humans. It's not as contagious in humans: most people only get it from milk.
But there is an eradication campaign, and cows with BVT are culled, so I would think that is would be natural for farmers to be pissed off about even small rates of infection from badgers.
I absolutely support these Meerkats doing their national duty
What do you mean, 'national duty'? Meerkats aren't British, they're Russian!
(At least I'm sure I saw that in a documentary somewhere. Bloody tons of meerkat documentaries on the telly, every 15 minutes at least.)
Did he take it to McDonalds because that was where he was going for a snack on the way home? Or did he sit it at the chair opposite and buy it a burger?
After all, I've seen them eating at restaurants in those bitesize documentaries between the programs. As well as wearing smoking jackets and eating popcorn at the cinema.
Also according to said documentaries if you spray yourself with Lynx - women will want to be near you, rather than recoil in horror. And Ferrero Rocher are apparently nice...
Although on that last one, they are in fact offered at the Ambassador's Reception. The Times did an interview with the Russian ambassador in London, and he had a tray of the vile things in his waiting room.
msknight - thanks for the Short Circuit reference, though I wonder how many here will get it.
By coincidence, I was in Astoria just the other day, and drove over the Megler bridge (the one Johnny 5 parachuted from). “Stephanie’s” house is for sale at the moment, by the way.
Also there - the school and house used in Kindergarten Cop, and the house from the Goonies, although in the latter case the owner has got so tired of trespassers photographing the house he’s shrouded it in tarpaulins and posted threatening “POLICE WILL BE CALLED” signs.
David132 Well, someone either didn't get it, or didn't like it :-)
Re. The Goonies house... sounds like a nerd who doesn't want to share. I mean... why else buy The Goonies house! - *sigh* - those were the days.
And yes, I did watch Short Circuit to the end, from the robot fight scene, shortly after making the post :-)
...to show what animals in a cage really look like.
(Wimpy fan ... Burger King at a push... but there's more nutrition in MaccyD's boxes than in their burgers as far as I'm concerned.)
Old joke... what's the difference between a post and under graduate? The undergrad asks if you'd like fires with your Big Mac... the post grad asks if you want fries with your Whopper.
Ok, so the yoof stole the meerkitten from the zoo. The zoo abducted a whole meerkat group from its natural habitat "underneath the African sky" and stuck them in a cage. Lad gets fine and community service. The zoo is left to perpetuate its cruelty to animals. Pfft!
1 - The Meerkats now live in a safe enclosure, not a cage.
2 - The meerkats have guaranteed food for life - no hunting for it and going hungry when unsuccesful.
3 - Fans - The meerkats will earn fans from people who will never see a real one otherwise - resulting in sponsorships and aid to their natural habitats.
4 - Free medical care. They don't even have to pay National Insurance Contributions!
5 - A guaranteed standard of living and protection from the elements, poachers, and natural predators (except thieves apparently).
You can call that cruel, but it's a decent standard of living by a big stretch.
The Register - Independent news and views for the tech community. Part of Situation Publishing
Join our daily or weekly newsletters, subscribe to a specific section or set News alerts
Subscribe
