Weird happenings in Florida during the last year. Tasered emus, frozen iguanas...more.

madfloridian

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Mon Dec-29-08 10:39 PM
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Weird happenings in Florida during the last year. Tasered emus, frozen iguanas...more.

From the Sarasota Herald Tribune.

Tasered emu contributes to weird year in Florida

More on the tasered emu below, but first the weird "people stuff."

In a year full of weird events, Republican U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen thought she was being "punked" when Obama called her a few weeks after the election. She told him he was a better Obama impersonator than the guy on Saturday Night Live and hung up. Obama called back, and she hung up again. She finally took the call after a House colleague called and convinced her it was the real Obama.

...."Another driver arrested in the Florida Keys was going at a much slower speed - while her 3-year-old granddaughter sat on the car's roof. Grandma told deputies that the ride around the supermarket parking lot was just for fun. And besides, she explained, she was holding the girl's leg and driving at a "snail-pace."

..."A Manatee County bank robber couldn't get over his guilty conscience. As a teller began giving him money, he stopped her from getting more, explaining he wasn't greedy. He then apologized to bank employees before leaving. The next day, he called the sheriff's office, apologized again and waited to be picked up.

..."A 69-year-old Oldsmar woman walked into her kitchen and found an 8-foot alligator had let itself in through a screen door. A 10-foot, 7-inch crocodile was captured in Coral Gables and relocated after it ate three dogs.

About that emu that was tasered? It was actually chasing cars at times. I guess they had to do something.

From USA Today:

Florida deputies subdue runaway emu

Fla., turned to high-tech to bring down a runaway pet emu, the Panama City News Herald reports Thursday. They Tasered the bird. Twice.

Deputies and animal control officers had been searching for the bird for several days after getting reports that it was chasing cars. Then they finally cornered the emu, named Plop-Plop, in a goat pen, the newspaper says.

But each time Bay County Sheriff Deputy Randolph Grob moved closer, Plop-Plop became highly agitated. "The thing went crazy," Grob tells the newspaper.

Wary of Plop-Plop's sharp talons and long legs, but unwilling to use a regular gun to subdue her, Grob says the officers zapped Plop-Plop with a Taser. When she still tried to make a run for it, they hit her again, the newspaper says.

And yes, there really were Iguanas falling frozen from trees.

Frozen iguanas

A remarkable cold snap that brought temperatures in the mid-30s to the Miami area Thursday morning also brought lizards falling out of trees at Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park on Key Biscayne, the Miami Herald reported.

"We have found dozens on the bike path after a major cold snap," said park manager Robert Yero. "When they warm up in the sun, they come back to life."

At least three iguanas in suspended animation could be found under trees in the park, which lies on the southern tip of Key Biscayne, a barrier island just south of Miami Beach and across Biscayne Bay from the city of Miami. Yero had little sympathy for the frozen iguanas, explaining that they were an invasive species devastating to native plant life.

"They really are taking over," he lamented.

..."Tim Stallings of Pompano Beach said he felt bad and tried to help keep some iguanas warm in his car.

"They were frozen stiff -- I mean, that's the appearance they have," Stallings said. "I just started picking them up and putting them in the truck, put the heater on. Some of them came back, and some of them didn't make it."

From the Herald Tribune article, there were more animal problems to overcome.

A Tampa mail carrier was bitten by a rattlesnake but kept delivering mail for 30 minutes before seeking help. A Levy County man accidentally shot his wife while trying to hit a fox that attacked her.

A diaper-clad monkey sitting on top of a wall near an Orange County condo threatened passers-by until police lured it into a cage with - what else? - a banana.

The reporter has a good point. He says.."What else would you expect in a state where a longtime congresswoman hung up on President-elect Barack Obama not once, but twice?"