Stoat attacks man hoeing turnips

The Hooker Glacier, Mt Cook region. - Otago Witness, 27.1.1909
The Hooker Glacier, Mt Cook region. - Otago Witness, 27.1.1909
Will stoats tackle human beings without provocation? asks the Bruce Herald.

Mr A. Annicich, of Akatore, says decidedly yes, and this is his experience:

With his son he was hoeing turnips, and had laid down his hoe when he saw a stoat hopping over the drills towards him.

He made no move, and waited, when the stoat sprang at him, but he kicked it off.

It then made up the ridge, with the lad armed with the hoe in pursuit.

It turned on him, and he aimed a blow at it and broke his hoe handle.

It then got into a hole, but before doing so turned round and threatened its pursuers.

It was dug out and despatched. It was a large male one.

Mr Annicich thinks his experience should be a warning that stoats are not the harmless animals people are often led to imagine.

•Christchurch: The Oxford correspondent of the Press reports that on Sunday evening an electric phenomenon was observed on a farm occupied by Charles Brown.

At the time the settlement was overshadowed by a black mass of clouds, so dense that the place was enveloped in semi-darkness.

Suddenly what appeared like a ball of fire shot down from the dark mass illuminating the whole settlement with an intense white, vivid light, and bringing into view every object, such as houses, fences, water-races, etc., for miles around.

Mr Brown described the scene as awe-inspiring, and states that animals shared the fear that was felt by human beings at the sight.

A clergyman who visited the scene on Wednesday says that a post in a fence which was struck by the fireball was bronzed, having a bright yellow colour from top to bottom.

The wires on each side of the post for several feet are broken, fused, and distorted into all sorts of shapes.

•Mr J. J. Kinsey, official representative in Christchurch for the Nimrod expedition, informed a Press reporter that the ship was expected back from the Antarctic regions at the end of March or the beginning of April.

She will touch at some port in the extreme south of the island, probably at Half-moon Bay (Stewart Island) or the Bluff for the purpose of cabling to the Daily Mail, London, the official and exclusive account of the adventures and work of the expedition in the Far South. - ODT, 22.1.1909

 

 

 

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