Pensioners in drunken elk terror ordeal

Armed police defend old people's home

By Lester Haines • Get more from this author

Posted in Bootnotes, 11th November 2005 12:47 GMT

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Armed Swedish police were this week obliged to confront a herd of drunken elk which had surrounded an old people's home in Östra Göinge, near Malmö, the Guardian reports.

The elk, however, were unimpressed by the Boys in Blue and their dogs, and dispersed only when gun-toting hunters attended the scene, according to Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter.

Apparently, the elk got plastered after eating fermented apples. Forester Fredrik Jönsson explained to Dagens Nyheter: "It's not unusual for elks to get drunk. They don't recognise the difference between fermented and not fermented and stuff themselves down to the last apple."

The battle of Östra Göinge is just the latest evidence of the burgeoning elk attack menace, the Guardian adds. A female elk recently assaulted three joggers in Norway, while last year another four-legged reprobate made off with a bicycle from an old couple's garden in Sweden. The bike was later recovered "bent and damaged beyond repair". ®

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