This Week in Stupid: Animal Edition

By Joanna Miller in Miscellaneous on Nov 10, 2006 7:18PM

Chicagoist is always going on and on about stupid people, and sometimes we forget how stupid animals can be. Like deer, for instance. Some of them don’t even know the difference between a feed bag and a jack-o-lantern. Seriously, they’re that dumb. And that’s not even the worst of it.

• One Michigan deer is apparently new to the whole concept of Halloween. The young buck has had his snout stuck in a plastic jack-o-lantern for several days. A little too greedy with the candy, were we? The jack-o-lantern appears to be snagged on the buck’s ears or horn buds and is preventing it from drinking. Local animal experts and zoo personnel plan to shoot the deer with a tranquilizer to remove the jack-o-lantern.
• Another deer got himself stuck in a Des Moines, Iowa, Target on Tuesday. The buck figured out how to use the automatic door and found his way back to the Christmas section, but then he got a little lost. It took 10 minutes and a dozen Target employees to help the deer find its way out of the store.
• Whiskers, a West Virginia cat, found himself in a bit of a pickle last week when he couldn’t find a way out of the tree he’d climbed. Whiskers spent four days and five nights 40 feet up in the tree, which is surrounded by jagged rocks, overlooking a steep embankment. Refusing his owners food and firefighters efforts with a ladder, Whiskers just sat up there and cried. That is until third-generation tree climber Jim Cosner, 41, came to his rescue on Monday. Whiskers is now recovering at home.
• A snake reportedly used by a Kentucky church for “serpent handling” purposes, bit a woman earlier this week. Police couldn’t confirm snake handling at the church, but the practice is based on a passage in the Bible that says the sign of a true believer is the power to “take up serpents” without being harmed. Linda Long, 48, died four hours after being bitten. Stupid snake.

Fallow Deer via alastairduncan