Weekly Weird News for 22 July 2022

Our uneasy truce with animals and nature

Hot enough for ya? Many cities around the world are experiencing dangerous heat this summer. It’s not the only sign of a changing world. A theme has bubbled to the surface in my news roundup for this week - we humans have an uneasy truce with nature these days. And it’s becoming more unstable every day. This week, I found a series of stories about animal intrusions and attacks as well as natural hazards and anomalies that are standard fare here at WWN. There are lessons that no one is heeding.

Death from sinkhole in Tel Aviv

This is one of the worst sinkhole incidents I've ever heard about. And there is visual proof that it was truly awful. A man at a pool party in Tel Aviv, was sucked into an opening in the bottom of a pool when a sinkhole collapse and drained all the water. His body was later found 15 meters into the hole. The pool reportedly drained very fast. Pool leaks have been the cause of sinkhole collapse before. The slow trickle of water erodes the soft material in the hole, creating a dip in the liner, which causes more water to push through, which eventually causes enough water to start rapidly washing away more support. It's a self-feeding mechanism. When the liner breaks, the sudden release of the water into the hole acts like drain cleaner, flushing the material into the subsurface voids. This is very rare. There must be a significant karst feature under the pool for the water to have some place to go. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-712728

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Sewer lizards

A Florida man found an iguana in his toilet for the second time in a week. Another resident in the same town also had the same experience. It’s a mystery how the animals ended up in the toilet. But it seems to be rather common. According to humorist Dave Barry, the iguana removal business is really hopping in Florida now. One of the iguanas was identified as a Mexican spiny tail iguana. It looks like the others could be green iguanas that are invasive in Florida. According to some anecdotal comments on Facebook, the lizards are abundant in canals. They may enter the outlet pipes and crawl into houses. Highly unpleasant.  https://wsvn.com/news/local/broward/man-finds-iguana-in-toilet-for-3rd-time-in-hollywood/ and https://www.foxnews.com/lifestyle/florida-woman-finds-iguana-toilet-report

Snake suspected in attack in PA

This story currently has limited information and I have lots of unanswered questions. Police in eastern Pennsylvania west of Allentown responded to a call for a man in cardiac arrest. They reported that when they arrived, a 28 year old man was unresponsive with a large snake wrapped around his neck. They reported the snake was 15 feet long. They shot the snake and the man is hospitalized. The headlines report he was strangled but it’s not at all clear if that was the case. It is possible, though, but this was the police making the circumstantial conclusion that the snake turned on its owner. There are no details about who called the police. If the man recovers, then we’ll have more certainty about what happened. https://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2022/07/20/upper-macungie-township-police-snake-shot-strangling-man/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/21/police-fatally-shoot-snake/

Monkey attacks

A four-month-old baby is dead in India after reportedly being stolen from his father and thrown off a roof by monkeys. The group of monkeys attacked the man who was walking on the roof of the house. The monkeys took the baby and threw it. They also attacked other people who tried to help. While there are still questions about this story, again, it’s not impossible and has been reported before. https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/monkeys-snatch-newborn-from-man-throw-off-the-rooftop-in-bareilly-574988.html

Meanwhile, in Japan, another infant was grabbed and people were attacked by a monkey who boldly enters homes. The baby in this incident was dragged but suffered only minor injuries. The monkey has also entered a children’s classroom. Residents are warned to keep their windows shut until the animals can be captured. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/19/hunt-for-wild-monkey-in-japan-after-10-attacks-in-a-fortnight

North Carolina mystery carcasses

Two mysterious creatures washed up at Cape Lookout National Seashore in North Carolina and caused a social media buzz. As these things always go, everyone has to put in their opinion on the identification. In this case, the dark-colored, bumpy, 6-in long animals with white bristly “legs” were not readily identifiable to the park officials. Of course, they didn’t ask marine zoologists. It took me about 3 minutes to find that a Twitter account from an actual marine animal expert, identified them as bristle worms (polychaetes) dried and distorted from the sun and sand. So, those are not animals that people commonly know but most people commonly know very few animals well enough to ID them post-mortem. The lesson is to ask before posting. No one does this because clicks on a mystery is a gold mine for gaining attention. https://www.newsobserver.com/news/state/north-carolina/article263642023.html

Roiling river

A wildlife photographer captured an anomaly along the shores of the Hudson River in Haverstraw, NY. He noticed and filmed the vigorous bubbling of the sediment near a natural gas power plant. The experts who monitor the health of the river were baffled. They’d never seen anything like it. Environmental officials are investigating and there is no word yet on what the gas is. No odor was reported so it seems unlikely to be methane. It’s unclear if the gas is emitting naturally, or if it’s a leaky gas line or old tank. But it’s a mystery why it’s emitting now.  https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/hudson-river-mysterious-bubbles-rockland-county/

Pink sky at night, smokers delight

There have been several news stories over the past few years about glowing hot pink lights in the sky. It’s confusing to locals who think the glow is a fire or catastrophe. But they are growing lights. Greenhouses sometimes use red-blue lights to promote foliage growth. On cloudy nights, the lights reflect off the bottom of the clouds and produce a weird effect. The town of Mildura, in northern Victoria, Australia had this happen this past week. Blackout blinds weren’t pulled on a cannabis-growing facility. Residents were spooked by the pink glow that could be seen from a great distance. Now you know. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-62261094

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