Editor's Note: The following piece comes from Global Post, which provides excellent coverage of world news - important, moving and odd.
Australian farmers say wallabies are getting stoned on poppy plants and making crop circles as they hop around in an opium-fueled stupor.
The bizarre behavior was reported to a state parliamentary hearing on the security of poppy crops in the southern island state of Tasmania, the BBC reported.
State Attorney General Lara Giddings said the furry marsupials were getting "as high as a kite" and running, or hopping to be more accurate, amok in the state's opium fields.
"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles. Then they crash," she told the hearing.
"We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."
She said the phenomenon was "one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry."
About 50 percent of the world's legally-harvested opium, used to make morphine and other painkillers, is grown in Australia, the BBC reported.
Opium is derived from the black resin of the poppy flower. In a more refined form it becomes heroin.
Tasmanian poppy farmer Rick Rockliff said the wallabies were not the only party animals making headaches for producers.
"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," he said.
Retired Tasmanian poppy farmer Lyndley Chopping described watching wallabies, smaller versions of kangaroos, grazing in his field and then hopping away.
"They'd come back again and they would do their circle work in the paddock," he said, according to the Australian Broadcasting Network.
Rockliff said poppy seeds, commonly used on bread, were nutritious and harmless. It's the seed pods that contain alkaloids which might be intoxicating the wallabies, he said.
"They are, after all, a narcotic and ingested in big amounts it can have an effect," he said.
University of Tasmania animal welfare officer Barry Wells told the ABC said the phenomenon needed to be examined more closely.
But he agreed that if the wallabies are becoming addicted to poppies there would be changes to their behavior. "They might stagger about, they might walk in circles," he said.
But he also cautioned: "They might just be acting in what would appear to be a lethargic way and certainly out of character from what you would expect with wild wallabies."
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Incredible! And only two years old!
http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/06/25/stoned-wallabies-making-crop-circles/
steller reporting again from e-diot reporters...thx for the pictures...let see...i have NO experience in reporter...hey bet i could get a job with cnn
I knew I had read this before.
I thought that it sounded a bit odd with Lara Giddings said to be state Attorney General........she is in fact the current state Premier....... a little late with the reporting guys.
Animals getting stoned & seeking out areas that contain the "high" inducing plants is not a usual phenomenon, but also not un- heard of. They get high from plants, fermented fruits & intoxicating berries. They often return year after year to indulge, & often animals who are natural enemies partake of the intoxicants side by side! What to do with the wallabies? I'm sure Australia will think of something!!
wow!!! think of what legalizing pot would due to the races in the usa
Deer do this every fall in upstate NY. They eat the rotting/fermenting apples that fall to the ground from orchards and get drunk on cheap apple wine. They end up getting hit by cars while "WUI". (Walking Under the Influence.)
Lets hope the Aussies don't introduce another animal to the scene, every time they have it has been a disaster. Animal management is not one of their fortes.
blame the land, not the people
And in other news.........Stoned republicans actualy listen to Sarah Palin and Michelle Backmann.
No, Republicans smoke meth. (I live in Oklahoma, they really do.)
The real story is 'undrugged' democrats listen to ob ama...you gotta ask why in the heck anyone would listen to him
I agree 100%
It's the Democrats who want to legalize DOPE so there pass time will mach there intelligence.
I usually don't comment on these, but the irony in your comment was just too much for me to handle. If you're going to attack someone's intelligence, at least formulate your comment ahead of time, spell things correctly, and use proper grammar.
1) It's "their," and you did it twice. You're speaking of the possession of something, not a location.
2) The word is "pastime."
3) I think the word you were looking for is "match," unless you think Democrats are jets and you are trying to describe their speed in relation to sound.
In sum, I think the sentence you were trying to convey is:
"It's the Democrats who want to legalize dope so THEIR PASTIME will MATCH THEIR intelligence."
Don't feel bad...you got like 73% right on that sentence about how stupid Democrats are. That's good enough for a C, which is undoubtedly better than all those stupid Democrats. Seriously, I would have never considered being a grammar Nazi if it hadn't been for your attack on intelligence. Perhaps I should just attribute that to you having a "pass time" of recreational meth use...
By the way it's "their" and I'm a dem.
DAMN! You beat me to it!
Leaf Dan aloan. U fridging onedgercatered democrate.
That moron drug addict Rush Limbaugh is a retard Republican. I'm sure he would support any bill to legalize. All Republicans drink the Koolaid from Sarah Palin's breasts and hallucinate about rich people taking over the world.
What to do? What to do? CNN is recycling stories? LOL Must be desperate. Can't publish anything about the market falling again? HMMM..Don't want to start another panic on top of the one Obama already started with his wonderful speeches on the US being broke. LOL Got to love this Gov. Do they not read History or Economics? Maybe they toured the fields? You know they had to go check out if there was any Security Issues involved with the Wallabies. It wasn't really Wallabies going around in circles it was the US Lawmakers dressed as Wallabies stealing Australia's stash. Mexico cut them off since the Cartel can't have any more of Holder's Guns! LOLOL
eYE gotze too agreee wif u dan,,,,,; thoze Demmocratz r so freekin Dum.
Thanks for the laugh h311r47!
I thought they all got high on Oxycontin. My bad.
A story about animals and leave it to a demonazi to bring up politics. You dems are the ones who need medicating, oops, I forgot, you drink the party kool aid daily....
Who's the real idiot? You have a net worth less than $100,000. Make less than $100/hr. And you still think the GOP represents you? Retard.
Sorry. WRONG. Dems are into reality, not the fantasy world where the rich create lots more jobs when they get tax breaks and an invisible supernatural being in the sky from ancient mythology is real. Republicans have to be the dumbest people on the planet.
So, the mystory of the crop circles is fianally solved then?
But the mystery of how to use a dictionary is still very unsolved.
At least they're creative while loaded.
A very interesting preliminary study to the effects of opium/heroin on wildlife, am sure that if studied on human beings; can answer why, "repeated habitual behavior (descreet circles) among wealthy drug addition"?
Reporter may want to rethink his wording with slang. I thought the story had something to do with people stoning the wallabies the same way they stone people in the middle east.
So did I and that's the main reason why I clicked on the link. Oh well, got a good laugh out of it.
GOOD TIMES!
WHY IS A POPPY FIELD LEGAL IN AUSTRALIA , HOWEVER ILLEGAL IN AFGHANISTAN ? IT WOULD SEEM TO ME WHEN APPLYING THE CURRENT LAWS OF OUTSOURCING , THE PHARMACEUTICS COMPANIES WOULD GO FOR THE IMPOVERISHED NATION FOR A CHEAPER PRODUCT . HMMMM
Possibly because the corrupt Afghani growers get more money from the black market? By the way, your caps lock is on.
You do know they make tons of medical grade medicines with them right? Its not like you can ONLY get heroin. Think...Think dear boy...
Why are you yelling?
because the real dope is in washington
Stoned wallabies huh? I wanna be a stoned wallaby.
That would be a good band name. The Stoned Wallabies.
Plenty of wallabies. Tastes like kangaroo not chicken.
That's what happens when you introduce foreign plants to a mostly isolated eco-system. Now they're scapegoating wallabies for their own stupidity. Using the phrase crop circles is probably a huge overstatement, I doubt the wallabies have developed the mathematical skills required for such an undertaking.
I don't know about you, but I want some video and pictures of this.
I think the writer, editor and publisher were the ones who were stoned. Two year old article being rehashed? Where are the pictures that would show the extreme detail of something that looked even remotely like a crop circle? Could this low intelligence article be more stupid?
I love it! Way better then reading about the Anthony chick and other non-worthy stories.
THANKS!!
another non story from CNN.
I notice the article was already published back in 28 march 2007. So, are they still out there making crop circles? I want to see some photos though.
Whats the big deal? I get stoned and run through fields...
omg this is too funny!
Wonders how realistic – let alone geometric – a stoned wallaby's crop circle could be? I mean the sparrows here get drunk on over ripe berries, but when they ram themselves into my front window like kamikaze divers I don't confuse them with pixie graffiti artists leaving masterpieces stenciled to the windows. That's blood and sparrow grease.
This concept was hijacked. It was the basis for the final epsidoe of Rocko's Modern Life.
The next logical step is to unleash the wallaby horde upon the Afghani crops to decimate them!
Decimation – the Roman practice of killing every tenth person in a town for rebelling against Roman authority. I think the word you're looking for is "devastation".
uos_spo6 is using the term correctly. The use of decimation is proper. Not sure why such a silly thing it bothers you so much. Might be time to get yourself laid son!
No, it isn't proper. Decimation means to destroy one tenth. Look it up.
Has Congress been eating these poppys. they seem to be going around in cirlces, too!
Those d@mn wallabies! Laying around, getting high all of the time. No doubt they'll try to collect welfare next!
is this an april fool's day story?
Since when do they say "getting stoned" instead of some big fancy term?
All these comments, not one person thinkgs of the obvious solution – a FENCE!!
Bob, there may already be a fence – a wallaby can jump 2.5 times its own height. And obviously they could, in effect, go higher than that if there was something else around the fence line, such as rocks, for them to jump off.
Quick someone stage a Wallaby intervention and save the Wallabies
Quick, say Wallaby five times fast.
Sharing is good. Please pass the seed pod...................and I'm the first to volunteer for any study they might do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So it really wasn't stoned aliens then?
So now we need wallaby interventions and methadone programs? Hey CBS, there's your next reality show premise!
Mix it up with some "real" housewives and I'll watch.
"That bleeping wallaby is in my valium again!"
Heroin isn't made by just refining opium; that would be morphine. Heroin is made from morphine by chemical synthesis.
What is CNN's deal with Global Post, anyway? And, for that matter, Rolling Stone and Mashable. I mean, I get Sports Illustrated since they're both owned by Time Warner (I don't like it, but I get it). When I come to CNN, it's because I want CNN's news. Oh! Since I'm ranting; stop included iReport crap within the main sections on the front page. If the story wasn't worthy of a real report, then it really wasn't news and I don't need to know about it.
Ok... sorry guys... didn't mean to blather on.
When the article states that "In a more refined form [opium] becomes heroin," this is actually incorrect. There is no heroin in opium. Refining is a process of purification, and since there is no heroin in opium, you cannot get heroin from refining opium. The opium must be converted into heroin through a chemical reaction process. Let's just hope the wallabies don't figure that process out or else we are all doomed!
Here is one better. Congressmen make crap circles.
How come when animals do it it is cute or funny. But when I do it it is illegal. Same goes for going to the bathroom in public.
Well to be fair, in Australia, they say "Aw how cute" and then turn their teste sacks into lighters.
I am seriously not making that up. You're safer with an arrest record.
arrest those wallabies. nobody escapes the war on drugs!
Extradite the wallabes to another Australia for their crimes.
They should all be arrested immediately, tried and incarcerated.
Unless they are Republican.
Yes. That would be normal for a republican. Carry on.
So why don't the people of Afghanistan run around in circles?......oh wait they do. never mind.
No it was not the Wallabees, it was my buddies uncle who has raised from the dead to make them, I am sure of it. What a bunch of BS, stories must be hard to come by.
Before you know it the wallabies will be sitting in circles getting high and yelling "peace". Probably start a revolution..
That's what I thought, Earl – This old chestnut?
What's next on the news? Neuticles?
Yeah...wallabies...creating crop circles.. um... right, wink wink. In their stupor they "accidentally" make complex mathematical designs. Of course... makes sense to me.
What to do? What to do? CNN is recycling stories? LOL Must be desperate. Can't publish anything about the market falling again? HMMM..Don't want to start another panic on top of the one Obama already started with his wonderful speeches on the US being broke. LOL Got to love this Gov. Do they not read History or Economics? Maybe they toured the fields? You know they had to go check out if there was any Security Issues involved with the Wallabies. It wasn't really Wallabies going around in circles it was the US Lawmakers stoned dressed as Wallabies stealing Australia's stash. Mexico cut them off since the Cartel can't have any more of Holder's Guns! LOLOL
Stay tuned. Fox news identifies drugged wallabies as Democrats who follow Obama. More circles seen on satellite. Possibly all marsupials are Democrats.
What all those who commented above who directly benefit from the Bush tax cuts please raise your hand?.................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................That's what I thought. Take your blinders off and think for yourself.
Before someone gives me a "C"...I meant Would..not What.
Either that, or an army of hedgehogs running round and round in circles.
Its like you read my mind! You seem to understand a lot approximately this, such as you wrote the e book in it or something. I feel that you just can do with a few % to force the message home a bit, but other than that, that is fantastic blog. A great read. I'll certainly be back.