God fails to save idiot in lion enclosure

Dutch heron drowns bunny - World Cup omen?

By Christopher Williams, 11th June 2006

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RZSL It's bad news this week for those who were hoping some divine intervention would help humanity overcome its power-thirsty animal attackers.

A man in Ukraine set out to prove that the Lord would protect him when he clambered into the lion enclosure at a Kiev zoo Sunday, The St Petersburg Times reports.

An official at the zoo said: "The man shouted 'God will save me, if he exists', lowered himself by a rope into the enclosure, took his shoes off and went up to the lions."

The man got his answer when an affronted lioness grabbed him by the throat and killed him in front of horrified visitors. The official helpfully explained: "A lioness went straight for him, knocked him down and severed his carotid artery."

A deer in Wisconsin meanwhile staged a daring solo raid on an apartment in Racine. The Journal Times reports the assassin crashed in through the window.

Victim Jerry Falkner said: "I heard glass breaking and I thought someone was breaking in. The next thing I know, a deer is running toward my room." A frightened Falkner retreated to the bedroom, leaving his pit bull Shadow to face the wrath of the murderous Bambi. Unable to reach its intended human target, the one-year-old doe settled for knocking out the pooch, and flooding the apartment by kicking in pipes, before being tranquilised by wildlife officers.

A bad week for canines all round in fact, after a dead chihuahua was used as a makeshift kosh in a woman's dispute with a dog breeder.

It seems much of humanity has simply given up though, and instead of repelling the animals, decided to find a way join them. The Times of India reports an Orissa woman married a cobra this week in a ceremony watched by 2,000 people. Blushing bride Bimbala Das said: "Though snakes cannot speak nor understand, we communicate in a peculiar way."

We're sure you do, and this is in no way along the same lines as a case going through Alabama courts where Henry Lewis, of Sweetwater, is accused of getting so friendly with his pony he killed it.

The Sun reports a similar case in England's very own Dixie, Somerset, where a 67-year-old was given a caution for attempting sex with a cow from a stepladder.

To end on a distessing note, our low country bunny drownings correspondent Robin Pollard provides this translation of a story appearing on dutch site NieuwNieuws:

The bird grabbed the cute bunny by its ear, with it squirming and screaming it flew to a ditch and drowned it, after which without care for proportion it swallowed it with little difficulty.

Frankly upsetting images of the attack are available here.

Can't we all just get along?