Are you in Berlin? If so, it might be a good idea to keep yourself and your pets inside — a lioness is on the loose! From the BBC:
Police are searching for a wild animal in the south-western outskirts of Berlin after a big cat, which they say could be a lioness, was spotted in the area.
Police were first alerted to the animal’s presence after it was seen by two residents chasing a boar.
On Wednesday, an unverified video posted on Twitter appeared to show a lioness in a forest in Kleinmachnow.
Residents are being told to stay indoors until police find the animal.
A Berlin resident tweeted a brief clip of the lion last night, filmed from inside a vehicle. The cops don’t know where she came from — local zoos and animal sanctuaries say none of their lions are missing.
In other animal news, Badger has a vet appointment today for his annual checkup. I was told to bring a poop sample, so when I let him out earlier, I followed him around with a baggie at a discreet distance.
Despite my attempt at discretion, he kept looking back at me as he made his way through the vegetation, as if I were a weirdo stalker. I’d feel the same way if I were him.
I’m never sure how to transport the poop. It seems strange to just throw the baggie in my purse, so I enclosed it in an envelope. But it’s still vaguely gross to be hauling dogshit around.
Open thread.
Baud
I usually have an old plastic food container for poop.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: That’s a good idea since it would theoretically be sturdier than a baggie in an envelope, which could easily be pierced by one of the half dozen or so pens I carry around with me. Our cabinet space is very limited, so I am ruthless about recycling plastic containers immediately, but next time maybe I’ll set one aside.
raven
Put it under your windshield wiper. If you are driving a van the rear wiper is great!
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
rikyrah
The zoos saying none of THEIR lions are missing.🦁🦁
😂😂😂😂
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
catclub
@raven:
front wiper if it is raining. lol
WereBear
Forget the lioness. We can get along. Did those people catch the boar? I’m more scared of them.
eclare
@raven:
Great idea!
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: I put them with the pet supplies. Just so they don’t get mixed up :)
Stevo
I guess people don’t clean up after their dogs in the free state of Florida. I spend a lot of time walking around with a bag of poop.
Van Buren
@WereBear: This was my thought as well…a very overshadowed part of the story!
Baud
Today show gave a tongue bath to Republicans about the Hunter Biden hearings without once mentioning MTG’s porn demonstration.
oldster
Exotic cat not from a zoo = rich moron. In Berlin, that’s very likely to mean Ruzzian oligarch.
So, this could mean that one of the oligarchs has had to abandon their exurban estate, and the animals are jail-breaking themselves. Or perhaps said oligarch fell out of a window.
eclare
@oldster:
That was my thought too, some asshole with an exotic “pet.”
NotMax
The perfect baggie?
;)
eclare
@NotMax:
I can’t imagine sitting in a theater for that long.
NotMax
Wrong linky above! Fix!
The perfect baggie?
;)
eclare
@NotMax:
I wondered about that!
mrmoshpotato
@WereBear:
Just listen for the singing – of Hakuna Matata.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Sound trucks trundling through the platzes of Berlin, all playing Bent Fabric?
Betty Cracker
@Stevo: So many unfounded assumptions in just two sentences. Whatever, man!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Oh, so that’s the name of that song.
Steak and Eggs
WereBear
@NotMax: The other night I discovered the song I’ve been singing to Bud Abbott since he was a kitten is the 1963 hit, Surfin’ Bird.
The lyrics are near perfect with his nickname, Bud-Bud the Spud. Somehow it earwormed into my head because I had no idea of the origin.
grubert
@Stevo: same here. City dweller.
Betty’s desc of feeling like a stalker is alien to me.. we watch our dogs like hawks
prostratedragon
So I’m not the only one wondering why the boar wasn’t considered newsworthy. And thinking the zoos saying it’s not them is pretty funny. Buried treasure.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@prostratedragon: Right. Where is this neighborhood that it has boars wandering around?
HeleninEire
Oy vey. I’ve got freind visiting Berlin right now!
OzarkHillbilly
Just remember the last of the 3 rules of plumbing:
#1 Shit flows down hill.
#2 Payday is on Friday.
#3 Always wash your hands before lunch.
Yarrow
My neighbor’s vet gave them a little vial with a scooper attached to the lid to collect their dog’s poop.
OzarkHillbilly
Wild boar are quite common in many parts of Europe. Seeing one would be as newsworthy as seeing a deer here in the US.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Chuck Schumer is such a grandpa.
mrmoshpotato
@WereBear:
Ah. So you know about the bird.
WereBear
@mrmoshpotato: The bird is the word.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
How could that not be the lede of any story about yesterday’s hearing??
Not that it’ll make a dent with the media, but Dems ought to be going on about how the House Republicans are pushing gay* porn right there in Congress itself.
*My general understanding is that gay men are more turned on seeing dick pics of some stranger than straight women are. So call it gay porn, and make them try to explain it away. When you’re explaining, you’re losing.
OzarkHillbilly
Today in Florida news: Judge orders Florida to stop putting children in nursing homes
I would say I can’t believe Florida would do this, but of course I can. It’s Florida.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
A Dem didn’t do it.
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Is your friend a lioness?
Chris
Oof. Must be terrifying going about your day knowing that a predator could be lion in wait around any corner.
My mane concern is that nobody get hurt, of course. Whether the lion or the humans. Either would be cat-astrophic.
SFAW
“As if I were”?
Sorry, but use of the subjunctive is not really appropriate.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
Are you sure it was Surfing Bird, and not Papa Oom Mow-Mow?
WereBear
So it’s okay if your stalker carries a poop bag? No. That is definitely more disturbing. Bring back the lioness!
SFAW
@Baud:
But they might have done it, so both sides!
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: I am certain now. Thank you! I also love the Wooly Bully song, for which I never remember the real name. Great refrain though.
Gvg
Europe is where boars are from. I suppose Germans think its normal to have them about just as Floridians are vaguely amused by how afraid non locals are of alligators. They are dangerous. Don’t bother them. Don’t walk your dog near water. Go on with your life.
prostratedragon
@OzarkHillbilly: In Chicago? (Actually there have been some in outlying neighborhoods early in my lifetime, along with the mastodons, but even then one never saw them, just the effects on one’s garden foliage.)
prostratedragon
It actually is “Woolly Bully” — off only by an ‘l.’ Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs.
CaseyL
I’ve never seen deer in Seattle city proper. Raccoons by the carload, yes. Coyotes for sure. But no deer.
karensky
@Baud: I wish for the day that Today becomes Yesterday
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
The long and the short of it.
;)
Another Scott
I saw a bit of some PBS show (Human Footprint) on the TV last night talking about the evolution of dogs, and street dogs in particular. An expert said that dog poop was collected by tanners in cities and used to tan leather. And that after the PTB decided that street dogs were a menace that had to be eradicated (RABIES!!1) that source of raw materials dried up. So to speak.
The guy didn’t have an answer to the obvious question about whether animal poop is still used for tanning.
[/the-more-you-know]
Cheers,
Scott.
Ken
@Another Scott: Album graecum. Latin makes everything sound better. I would doubt it’s still used in mass-produced leather, just on the grounds of sourcing the material.
Perhaps by specialty tanners, who could even use it in their advertising to justify their price. People pay premium prices for coffee made from beans that have passed through a weasel, after all.
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: Boars are native to Germany. That’s just what the poor creature happened to be chasing (IMO).
NotMax
@Ken
The wonderful world of urine.
;)
Wapiti
@CaseyL: I almost hit a deer last summer on a residential street near the Roosevelt reservoir. They were browsing in the gardens and one came across the road.
Yutsano
@CaseyL: I want urban foxen*. Is that too much to ask?
*If the plural of ox is oxen then the plural of fox should be foxen.
Also: FYWP.
Cheryl from Maryland
@NotMax: Yes! My spouse threw away a shirt that had the dye fixed with urine because when he sweated, he smelled of pee.
Taken4Granite
@Yutsano: Just make sure the foxen aren’t watching the henhice.
Paul in KY
@Yutsano: ‘Foxen’ is inspired!
Doug
@WereBear: There are lots and lots of boar in and around Grunewald, on the city’s southwestern side. In preschool and elementary school, they give boar safety instruction. (Avoid as much as possible, be still and let them go by, don’t come between mom and baby boar.)
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: And yet Europeans don’t need seni-automatic weapons to protect their children.
Chris T.
@rikyrah:
One of Our Lions is Missing seems like a great title for a novel…
ETA: apparently someone else thought so too! https://www.amazon.co.uk/One-Lions-Missing-Simon-Baynes/dp/1844017273 (I know nothing about the book, I was just curious if there was one)
PaulWartenberg
The lioness is in Berlin to record a cover album of Bowie hits.