More Full Moon Animal Attacks
Posted by: Loren Coleman on October 7th, 2009
Vitali, a Siberian tiger, is shown in his cage in the Calgary Zoo in Calgary, Alberta, October 5, 2009. Photograph by Todd Korol.
Perhaps you have noticed some clumping of certain news that seems to stir up non-human animals and people.
At the end of September, a 7.6 magnitude earthquake hit Sumatra killing hundreds, while the day before an 8.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of Samoa, triggering a tsunami that flattened whole towns and killed hundreds of people. Tidal forces were showing themselves to be powerful leading into October.
If you have been watching the skies, you may have noticed the Harvest Moon in the North; 2009’s Full Moon occurred on the 4th, Sunday, worldwide, at 06:10 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
Did you hear what else happened recently?
1. In the first incident since the fatal tiger attack at the San Francisco Zoo on Christmas Day 2007 (Full Moon was on December 24, 2007), a man got into the grizzly bear exhibit at the same zoo on September 26th. He was found “conscious but unresponsive” and taken into custody by paramedics.
2. Five raccoons “gang attacked” up on a woman on Saturday, October 3rd, and left her with serious injuries from bites. Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said 74-year-old Gretchen Whitted in Lakeland, Florida, was suddenly attacked when she tried to shoo the animals away from her front door. “When she fell down, they enveloped her,” said Judd, who warned the public to be alert to the aggressive raccoons. “She’s literally bitten and scratched from face and the chest all the way down through the legs.”
3. Sunday afternoon, October 4th, a Mossy Head, Florida woman was airlifted to a hospital with injuries sustained from an emu’s claw while trying to corral the large flightless bird. The woman was injured while attempting to corral a group of emus for transport to an animal shelter.
4. Thirty-seven year old Kelly Ann Walz of Ross Township, Pennsylvania was killed by her pet bear. It happened her home Sunday night, October 4th. Officers say she was cleaning the bear’s cage when the three-hundred fifty pound bear mauled her. State officials say Walz threw a shovel full of dog food to one side of the cage to distract the bear while she cleaned the other side of the cage, but the bear still attacked. Others saw the attack and called for help, at which point a neighbor shot and killed the bear.
5. At 1:00 am, October 5th, a man suffered “significant” arm injuries after allegedly sneaking into the tiger enclosure of the Calgary Zoo, Alberta, Canada. The Siberian tiger, named Vitali, attacked one of the pair of 27-year-old men who scaled the zoo’s 2.4-meter-high fence near the west public gate early on Monday morning. Rosemarie Siever of Edmonton, was visiting the zoo with her husband, Charles Macdonald, the day after, and hearing about the attack, said not breaching safety enclosures is common sense. “He’s a moron, that’s all I have to say,” she said.
Humans seem to be out of whack too.
Or maybe it all is just a bunch of coincidences. Or not? Do you recall the recent wave of other cat attacks?
Like I’ve asked before during times like these, were any cryptid encounters recorded anywhere too?
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Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct).
Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015.
Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.
I was curious when I saw this post, because a lot of people, including me, complained that they could not sleep. I couldn’t sleep for three days. Then a co-worker of mine said that her professor told her that the moon was to blame for this weird phenomena, though I’m not sure if it could be connected to the moon.
First of all, don’t shoo raccoons without some sort of weapons. My wife had raccoons try to intimidate her, like something out of West Side Story. Fortunately my wife is bigger than life and was able to punt (literally) the leader off the porch (the rest got the message). Remember, raccoons are just a couple steps below humans on intelligence and abilities. They almost have opposable thumbs.
For all the zoo incidents…stupid is stupid does. It’s too bad the critters didn’t just kill those morons. We don’t need them in the gene pool.
If you have to distract your bear while cleaning its cage, you might not want to have the bear. Most of the successful bear handlers treat it like a human that one would give great respect. If you don’t have a secondary spot for the creature while cleaning its main cage, ya might want to rethink the whole having a bear as a pet.
Finally…EMUS?! One must be ready for emus and ostriches to attack at any time.
My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those attacked and living and of those killed.
That Raccoon attack in Florida was particulalry mystifying. Poor lady. Hope she recovers fairly quickly. That’s all a neighborhood needs. Killer Racoons. It’s like something out of a SyFY movie. 🙂
Strange sequence of events for sure, but let me put a few things out there. If you own a bear, rethink it, they are not pets, they are wild animals. If you think that a shovel load of dogfood competes with a large human steak, then you are braver than me. I would have at least threw in some meat.
Racoons are dangerous. They are like the mobsters of the animal world. If you walk outside to shew these critters you better be armed, because they are packing some serious heat.
To the gentlemen climbing in the cage with zoo animals, you are idiots. I actually believe the racoons may have you beat on intelligence, even without opposable thumbs. Shumway10973 was being nice to include you guys in the gene pool. I feel that your actually may be from the dried up end. To the tiger and the bear who did not finish these morons off, shame on you. You could have at least done us this small service, since we are providing you food and shelter.
My condolences to the lady herding emus. These are very unpredictable animals, and you never know when some tragedy like this might happen.
As to the recent weird events, it does seem like there is some sort of cosmic connection that is linking this all together. Too bad Nostradamus is not here to tell all of us what it means.
You know, my dog has been acting up the last few days, more aggressive than normal. We had assumed it was just because she’s teething, but maybe not. Also my in-laws’ dog has been more aggressive than normal, too. Also, I don’t know if this has anything to do with it, but we’re having really severe winds here in Pa. too.
Andrew, severe is a kind term for it. I’m waiting for the roof to blow off and I had to rescue one of my Campbells who apparently tried to fly to the coup and got blown WAY off course.
Maybe its just me being paranoid, but of my three border collies the male is acting up (mostly growling and snapping at the little one) and my 2 females are awfully barky right now. NOTHING short of peanut butter stuck in their mouths (yes, shame on me, I do this) will keep them quiet over the past few days. The Maine Coon is being a pest but the other cats and ducks seem fine.
I believe the lady with the bear was running some sort of wild life refuge as she also had a mountain lion at her home. But still it does seem very dangerous, I’m just glad she wasn’t there alone or who knows, the bear may well have wandered out into the world and with no fear of humans you know how badly that would have turned out.
So, what says the readers? Just a bunch of odd coincidences, or we humans stringing together things to make them seem like they’re connected. Or is that 2012 prophecy working its way towards us?
Yes,
I did hear about this.
Now after each full moon I check the world news for aggression in animals and other strange behavior.