"Australian wallabies are eating opium poppies and creating crop circles as they hop around 'as high as a kite', a government official has said.
"Lara Giddings, the attorney general for the island state of Tasmania, said the kangaroo-like marsupials were getting into poppy fields grown for medicine. She was reporting to a parliamentary hearing on security for poppy crops.
"Australia supplies about 50% of the world's legally-grown opium used to make morphine and other painkillers.
"'The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,' Lara Giddings told the hearing. 'Then they crash,' she added. 'We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.'
"Rick Rockliff, a spokesman for poppy producer Tasmanian Alkaloids, said the wallaby incursions were not very common, but other animals had also been spotted in the poppy fields acting unusually. 'There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles,' he added.
"Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping also said he had seen strange behaviour from wallabies in his fields. 'They would just come and eat some poppies and they would go away,' he told ABC News. 'They'd come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock.'
"Some people believe the mysterious circles that appear in fields in a number of countries are created by aliens. Others put them down to a human hoax."
Just when I thought it couldn't get any better (I mean, it isn't every day that you see an article that includes both wallabies and crop circles...), I looked at some of the comments left by readers. Here are a few:
"I have seen a stoned wallaby but I don't know about them making crop circles. The one I saw was slurring his words and asking me for a dollar as he was trying to get the boat to see his brother in New Zealand - he looked in no mood to be formulating a series of complex agricultural design patterns."
Dijon, Hobart, Tasmania
"I resent this report that we are high as a kite and making crop circles! I haven't been stoned since 1971. A few young hoppers eat the wrong plant and you trash our species in the news. What's this world coming to!"
Wally Baby, Australia Bush
"The question should be whether or not those law breaking wallabies should be brought to justice for indulging in illegal substances. The law makes no exceptions for no-one no matter what their excuse is or even what species they may be. They are not setting an example for their joeys nor for any other marsupials and I fear this could become an epidemic of outback size proportions."
Phil, Edinburgh
"I've lived in Tasmania for many years. Not only do wallabies congregate in poppy fields, but also on the local golf courses. They do this mainly at night and I can only assume they're playing several rounds of golf while avoiding greens fees. You only need to be really worried when one of the stoned wallabies gets into a golf buggy."
John Larson, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
2 comments:
Now I can see how some enterprising prankster could have transported a wallaby to England, Canada, and the like, fed him poppies in transport, and even catapulted him into the middle of a wheat field, but that does NOT solve the mystery!!! What remains now is -- how did they get him out undetected?
haha, this is awesome! thanks for sharing it. :)
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