A sixty-year-old pensioner is in hot water after some left-over bird-seed he reportedly threw out in his back-yard sprouted producing a number of fine marihuana plants. A Macaque monkey is safely back in its enclosure at Olomouc zoo after repeatedly slipping out on his own private outings and, what’s to be done about a couple of gay vultures? Find out more in Magazine with Daniela Lazarová.
A sixty-year-old pensioner is in hot water after some left-over bird-seed he reportedly threw out in his back-yard sprouted producing a number of fine marihuana plants. The pensioner who keeps a number of budgerigars says he has no idea what the marihuana seeds were doing in the bird-feed. Police are investigating the matter and have reportedly ascertained that the pet-shop where the old man regularly bought the bird feed sells imported bird feed from the Netherlands and China. The budgies reportedly thrived on it – thought the old man claims he had no idea what the packages contained and failed to notice the marihuana among the other weeds.
Photo: www.trener-fitness.cz
Miss Czech Republic 2010 caused a stir at a Prague fitness centre last week when she went through her exercise routine in a wedding dress. The photo session was a publicity stunt for a competition called Fit Bride 2011, in which an unnamed magazine and fitness centre promise four brides they will help them slim down to their ideal weight for the big day.
Photo: Vladimír Štross
Another former beauty queen – one of the country’s top models angered animal rights activists by posing in a sexy mini-dress at what appears to be a traditional pig slaughtering feast. While the model tried to defend herself by saying that the picture was for a charity calendar and the money would be used to help train dogs for handicapped people, her critics argued that pulling a dead pigs head out of a tub of boiling hot water was no excuse for the best intentions. Although EU regulations ban the home slaughter of pigs –this old custom is still observed in many villages around the country.
Illustrative photo
A Macaque monkey is safely back in its enclosure at Olomouc zoo after repeatedly slipping out on his own private outings. The monkey had made a hole in his fence which he sneakily covered up with a board so that he could come and go as he pleased without the keepers noticing. Clearly the food at the zoo left a lot to be desired since the monkey made raids on nearby gardens feasting on the last fruits and vegetables of the season. A gardener who happened to look out of the window one morning was amazed to see a monkey munching on his turnips and lost no time in contacting the zoo. The hole has now been sealed and the poor old Macaque will have to make do with whatever’s on the menu.
While thousands of Czech mushroom pickers have put away their pocket knives and baskets –the mushroom season is in full swing for a very different clientele. The time is ripe for magic mushrooms and the forests are said to be full of them. According to Czech law a person is allowed to have 40 magic mushrooms in their possession-for their own use. However the youngsters combing the country’s forests are as enthusiastic as their parents are about button and parasol mushroom in the summer months and collect everything they come across. Police officers recently stopped a couple of youths who were dragging home a successful haul of several thousand magic mushrooms.
Some Czech drivers are playing a cat and mouse game with traffic police. Although roads around the country are still dry drivers are obliged to use winter tires not only in mountainous regions but along some stretches of the country’s highways. Areas where winter tires are obligatory are marked by road signs showing a picture of a car above a snowflake. When several drivers claimed they had seen no such road sign along the way officers did a check and found that most of them had indeed been stolen –clearly with one object in mind. The signs are now being replaced and police are looking for the pranksters.
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It is not often that vultures make headline news in the Czech Republic –but this story is worth reporting. A female vulture from Ostrava has been given a challenging task – to break up a happily settled homosexual couple of vultures at Munster Zoo in Germany. The zoos management recently noticed that two of its male vultures Guido and Detlef were a cozy couple, happily sharing and defending their nest and showing no interest whatsoever in their female counterparts. Worried about its breeding programme, the zoo’s management is hoping that a lass from further afield will do the trick and have invited one over from Ostrava in exchange for poor Guido who will, in turn, be banished to Ostrava Zoo to look for a female mate. Munster zoo says the female who was handpicked for Detlef would be free to choose from three other males if Detlef is not to her liking– we will be happy to have her mate with whoever she fancies, the zoo said. Few people know this but a homosexual orientation is not at all unusual in nature and has already been documented in 450 breeds. It is said to be more common in animals living in the wild than those in captivity. But then it seems to me that the latter don’t get much choice do they?
