In what has to be today's strangest news, Reuters reports that forest guards in western India are using cell phones to entrap stray leopards.
Rather than using the time-honored method of lashing a goat to a tree, today’s Indian leopard hunters rely on a sophisticated trap equipped with speakers and a cell phone playing ringtones of various helpless animals begging for their lives.
The top ringtone downloads for hungry leopards include: the mooing cow, the crowing rooster, and—the chart-topping favorite among these big cats—the bleating goat. Unlike that dork next to you in the grocery store who mercifully answers his “Gilligan’s Island” ringtone after the “three-hour tour” portion, the Indian prey-tones play for upward of two hours before an angry leopard stomps over to the trap to silence the digital lamb.
Two hours! Makes you wonder if the local human residents would rather take their chances with the man-killing leopard than a two-hour-long bleating goat ringtone. —Dave Prochnow
I can sympathize with the leopards. Two hours of listening to the same ringtone would make me wanna kill...
Posted by: ElMondo | June 07, 2007 at 10:47 AM
Why do the leopards need to be trapped? WE are the ones encroaching on THEIR territory, which has been theirs as long as they've been evolved. If a leopard wants to snack on some tree-chopping murderers, i'll loan them some mustard and a little ketchup.
Posted by: Red October | June 12, 2007 at 11:43 PM