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A tow-fer, today...A drunk squirrel (no pic), and a guy sees a super-rare English pine marten.



Squirrel Has Too Much To Drink, Gets Thrown Out Of Bar

From HuffPo:

We've all gone a little nuts at a bar.

An English squirrel broke into a Worcestershire pub, causing more than $400 in damages after going on a drunken tirade, the Western Daily Press reports.

Sam Boulter, the 62-year-old owner of the Honeybourne Railyway Club, walked in Sunday night to see the rodent ransacking the place. Beer and smashed glass bottles littered the floor, according to the BBC.

"There were bottles scattered around, money scattered around and he had obviously run across the bar's pumps and managed to turn on the Caffrey's tap," Boulter told Western Daily Press. "He must have flung himself on the handle and drank some as he was staggering around all over the place and moving a bit slowly."

The squirrel, who refused to leave the premises or pay for damages, was eventually ejected from the establishment through a window.

"It's safe to say he is now barred from the club for life," Boulter told the paper.

A close friend of the squirrel (and totally real source) told HuffPost Weird that his buddy was on a bender, having recently gone through a divorce and forced to take out a second tree mortgage. His kids never call, but still come by once in a while to take his acorns.

The peanut packing plant he worked at shut down, and the only way for him to cope with his own miserable existence has been to drown his sorrows in booze, according to the source.

From YahooNews:

The First Sighting of This Small Carnivore in a Century Is a Big Deal

For the first time in a century, a pine marten has been spotted in England, roaming the forested hillsides of Shropshire along the country’s border with Wales.

The cat-sized member of the mustelid family (mink, weasels, etc.) was photographed by amateur wildlife enthusiast David Pearce, who sent the photos in to the Shropshire Wildlife Trust last week. There Stuart Edmunds, the Trust’s communications officer and an avid pine marten searcher was able to verify the discovery.

Though native to England, Pine martens have been extinct in the country since 1915, mostly due to forest clearing (they like nice, heavy tree cover), fur trappers, and systematic eradication (farmers and landowners saw them as varmint). Still, pine martens are thriving in Scotland, where 4,000 are estimated to roam, and a smaller population persists in Wales, where the Shropshire marten is thought to have originated.

So, Why Should You Care? While pine martens are still common in much of Europe, the animals’ disappearance from England has left a hole in the country’s ecosystem, and American gray squirrels have filled it. The nonnative rodents have taken over much of the territory of Britain’s native red squirrels. They also destroy young trees, hindering the establishment of new forests.

In Ireland, where some 2,700 pine martens reside under legal protections, gray squirrel populations have crashed wherever pine martens have expanded. At the same time, red squirrel numbers have risen in areas once dominated by the gray squirrels. The reason? Gray squirrels are just a bit slower and heavier than their red counterparts, and that makes them easier meals for pine marten.

Edmunds, who runs the Wildlife Trust’s Shropshire Pine Marten project, has been on the hunt for a true sighting of the animal the past five years. He’s investigated multiple supposed pine marten sightings, but they’ve all turned out be cases of mistaken identities—cats, mink, and even squirrels—or unverifiable until now.

“Many people have questioned my sanity for a while now for dedicating so much of my time investigating sightings,” Edmunds said. “Although two other photos [of pine martens] have been taken in the last decade, those cases were thought to be photos of escaped pine martens that escaped wildlife parks/sanctuaries. It is likely that this marten is completely wild, so this is a very important record.”

Important because it shows that England can once again provide habitat for the pine marten, which is thought to have been once the second most common carnivore in the country.

Edmunds hopes this most recent sighting will rekindle interest among conservationists to restore the species in England. Early plans have looked at capturing martens from Scotland for re-release in potential pine marten habitat sites in England and Wales.