Are animals too cocky?, Jack, 2004

 

Unprovoked and often vicious, attacks on people by seagulls, squirrels and macaques are at record levels, and now pigeons are using the motorways. In this special report, we ask…

Are animals too cocky?

[Before I arrived at Jack magazine in 2003, I worked at Front magazine. I looked after the opening section of Front and within it there was a strip titled Cocky Animals, which was a news round-up of creature mischief over the past month. Believe it or not it was fairly popular and once I had my feet under the table at the more high-brow Jack, I thought an article packed with my years of meticulous lads-mag research might make a decent read. To show how eclectic Jack was, my daft cocky animals story was sandwiched between an interview with Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson and a piece about the miner’s strike of 1984. Superb illustrations by Louise Weir really brought it to life; it even features an interview with Shaun Ryder.]

Story by Lee Gale

Illustrations by Louise Weir

Newspapers are full of it – “Badger lays siege to family’s home”, “Seagull attack like Hitchcock film”, “Dog drives milk float into pensioner”. At one time the animal kingdom was subservient to the human race, but the relationship with our furry friends is on the wane, as attacks on people gain increasing column inches. Is this merely an aspect of evolution that we should accept? Are animals going to bite more often and should we simply wear thicker clothes in readiness?

Lovers of the coast will be familiar with the sight of seagulls Stuka dive-bombing day-trippers and stealing childrens’ chips. Nowadays gulls take on adults too, knowing that a surprise Guernica-style raid will result in a beak-full of battered cod.

Are seagulls getting cleverer, thus cheekier, by eating our takeaways? The human species’ intelligence and “recognition of self” is down to our ancestors who, three million years ago, ate a diet rich in meat and fish. This explains why our “encephalisation quotient”, the size of brain to body size, is higher than any other creature on Earth. In 500 years, then, will a gull stare into a puddle and realise, “Eh, that’s me!”?

“My guess as to the intellectual capacities of future seagulls depends how we respond to their kleptoparasitism,” says Sasha Dall at the Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge. “If we make a concerted effort to deter their scavenging we might increase the value to seagulls of ‘solving problems’. This could set up and ‘arms-race’ – each time seagulls figure out how to get round our attempts to prevent them from scavenging junk food, we come up with new deterrents, which will favour ‘smarter’ seagulls.

“It’s plausible that this could ‘select’ [in terms of evolution] for the kind of problem-solving abilities we rate on the intellectual scale. Whether this would lead to ‘self-in-puddle’ awareness is very debatable. I’m of the view that such capabilities are the consequence of solving same-species social problems or having language, which are unlikely to be driven by seagulls getting used to nicking our junk food.

Steve Leonard from the BBC wildlife shows Extreme Animals and Animal Camera believes our creatures are smarter than we think. “We’re beginning to use our own intelligence a little more and our arrogance less to work out that we’re not the only creatures with brains,” he asserts. “Most animals we come into contact with show remarkable mental abilities.”

In Australia, the premier investigator of unusual occurences, Tim The Yowie Man, has followed up many animal cases. “The number of naughty animal accounts has coincided with the increase in information technology,” Yowie reckons. “When a turtle attempts to rape a diver, it’s soon on the web giving the impression that there is more naughtiness. But from personal experience, I’d say that animals are getting more aggro.”

Evolution appears to be playing little part in the animal blitzkrieg. As usual, the fault lies with humans. As we shrink the living space of wild animals, and drunks insist on dumping half-finished fried chicken on folks’ front walls, so we’re coming into contact more often with furry and feathered firebrands, and our perception of the “cockiness” of animals is ballooning. It’s bound to get worse.

 

THE MAIN CULPRITS

Seagulls
Prior to 1985, seagulls steered clear of humans, as well practised, kid-smacking fathers would think nothing of slotting a bird if it flew too near. Now gulls have developed a taste for pies and batter. In some cases they attack for the sheer hell of it. In Folkestone last summer, pensioner Pat Worsley was attacked by a seagull which “beaked” her scalp open. “It hit me on top of my head and when I put my hand up there it was full of blood,” she said.

The future’s grim for the aged. “Evolution may favour more efficient digestive capacities to be able to live off scraps of lower nutritive value,” says Sasha Dall, which suggests gulls will thrive. Entrepreneurs should sink money into the manufacture of steel-topped flat-caps – a boom OAP market in the coming years.

The £86 million Eden Project in Cornwall is also at the mercy of these winged hot-heads. The plastic pillow panels are frequently torn open by the “angry birds” who peck at their own reflections, before flying off with their hard mates.

Monkeys
Rhesus macaques are spearheading the bolshiness on the primate front. Earlier this year, a troupe in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu raided the Indian embassy, destroying files, smashing electrical equipment and leaving “dirty protests”.

Macaques en masse have declared war on the Indian nation. In New Delhi there’s ape anarchy. Government buildings have been ransacked, electricity cables tampered with, while office workers are in a state of permanent fear because monkeys tap on windows, baring their teeth. The macaques are deft pickpockets, can open fridges, and often make-off with workers’ lunches. “Macaques are from forests,” explains Arul Gupta of the Wildlife Institute Of India, “but deforestation means they congregate in cities. Save forests otherwise the problem will get worse.”

You’ve Been Framed is a timely reminder that God’s creatures are running us ragged. One show in 1998 featured an overweight German woman on holiday in India. A macaque, transfixed by a large gold pendant twinkling in the sunlight, leapt at the lady’s throat, tore the chain free and darted off to show pals. Canned laughter followed, but the reality isn’t funny anymore.

Pigeons
For many, pigeons are airborne Freddie Boswells, although there’s little evidence to suggest they pass on disease. Even so, there is a worrying arrogance among today’s urban pigeons, who look perturbed when we refuse to move out of their way. In the past, it was believed that homing pigeons found their way back to the coop by using a solar or magnetic compass, but researchers at Oxford University in February found that pigeons have learned to navigate using our roads, turning at junctions. Says Professor Tim Guilford, “It’s striking to see pigeons fly down the A14 Oxford bypass, and curve off at the traffic lights.”

“It’s something we’re aware of,” remarks Peter Bryant at the Royal Pigeon Racing Association. “We’re based near Cheltenham and often notice racing pigeons belting down the M5. Pigeon fanciers will tell you there’s a cleverness to pigeons. In the war both sides used pigeons to ferry information, often at night, so some even think that pigeons have a lunar compass.”

Squirrels
There are countless reports of grey squirrels attacking, but none have been more demonic than the Knutsford “terror squirrel”. On the rampage for months in 2002, it began by assaulting a man who was mowing his lawn. Later, it a leapt at a two-year-old girl called Kelsi Morley, sinking its teeth into her forehead, pinning her to the ground. Kelsi’s grandfather, Geoff Horth, after being told the news, took matters into his own hands. Two days later, newspaper headlines blared “Grandad guns down terror squirrel”. He’d popped a cap in its furry ass.

As any militant organisation will tell you, if you want results, upset the infrastructure, and that’s what a squirrel managed in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, also in 2002. In a raid that would have earned the respect of the Navy Seals, a grey squirrel “wreaked havoc” in a power substation, cutting the power to a university to the extent that the centre of learning had to close for a full day.

“You only have to watch squirrels working out how to raid ‘squirrel proof’ bird tables to know that animals are great at adapting to new and novel situations to gain an advantage,” says BBC wildlife expert Steve Leonard. “They also teach each other new tricks and pass on the information to other individuals.”

Elephants
Big boozers, elephants. In South Africa, their pastime is munching fermenting marula fruit, then charging into houses. In India, you’ll find alcohol-bingeing elephants with a taste for the hard stuff. In Jharkland, waste water from illegal liquor-making attracts trunks. The animals go crazy, killing and wrecking.

The Assam district has problems too, being home to half of India’s 20,000 elephant population. In two years, 150 people have been killed by pissed-up pachyderms. “They’ve developed a taste for rice beer and liquor and they always look for it when they invade villages,” an elephant expert in Guwahati explains.

More worrying, a sober elephant gored its owner to death in Kochi, India in early 2003, then lifted up the body and slammed it into a wall. A “trail or terror” commenced as the elephant ran into a city centre, smashing cars and hoardings. Not good.

 

Shaun Ryder on animals
“When I grew up the cockiest animals were dogs. They were really cheeky where I lived and would run around in packs. When I got a nice house, squirrels were a bit of a problem. We had a tree right in front of the house, and the squirrels would come off the tree and onto the window ledge, looking in at us. When we were kids, we’d go to stop at our cousins in the countryside in Ireland. Our 17-year-old cousin used to get pissed, and he’d go out with a lump hammer and hit cows on the side of the head. I was only 11 and thought it was dead funny. But I’m an animal lover. I don’t advocate any cruelty to animals, but pigeons are f***ing rats-with-wings b*****ds.”

 

THE KENNEL OF SHAME
Animals do the evilest things…

• Last October, inhabitants of a house in Bewdley, Worcs were trapped indoors for three hours by a badger. “It kept trundling around the house, watching us through the patio window and trying to get in,” said the tormented Rosalind Youngs.
• An African grey parrot called N’kisi in New York has a 950-word vocabulary and is reported to have a dry sense of humour, easily outclassing the average British parrot, whose phrases rarely venture past “Show us your knickers” and “Say bugger”.
• In Tufnell Park, London, last summer, a fox crept through a door, ran upstairs and bit a sleeping girl. “My wife dashed up and shouted that there was a cat in the room,” dad Richard Brown explained. “And then she said, ‘No, it’s a fox!’”
• In February at Caves Beach, Australia, Luke Tresoglavic drove for help – a 60cm shark clamped by its jaws to his leg. “We had to hose it with cold water,” said Luke.
• In the Wirral, a milk float driven by a black Labrador hit a 75-year-old man, who had to go to hospital with a grazed knee. “The dog is something of a celebrity,” said Norman Harrison of Morton Dairies.
• In LA last December, seven cats tried to eat their 86-year-old owner, Mae Lowrie, after she’d suffered a stroke and was unable to move. “They did what they had to do to survive,” cried a cat sympathiser.
• A pig in Hungary murdered his 64-year-old owner in 2001, a farmer called Laszlo Ferenczi. The farmer was trying to weigh the pig when it attacked, tearing open the man’s neck and face, then sticking its snout in the blood and squealing in delight.

 

Are animals too cocky?
The big verdict: Not really.