The story goes that a Mr Goddard - who says that he and his friends go rat hunting a couple of times a week - decided to see if he could bag one of the bigger ones. They took an air rifle and headed to the edge of the estate.The group had heard rustling and scratching near the wall before he got the shock of his life.
'The first went right past but we got the second one. Then three more got away."
Estate resident Rebecca Holmes, 38, was in no doubt that large rodents are in the area - after having cornered one in her house. The mother-of-five said her cat Marie had cornered one in the lounge, but the rodent stood its ground - because it was around the same size as the domestic cat.
Carol Beardmore, who represents the Eccleshill on Bradford Council, sounding just like your typically pompous local politician, played down suggestions that hundreds of giant rodents were plaguing the estate.
She said: "I live on the estate and while I'm not saying we don't have rats - everywhere has rats - I am not aware of an infestation of giant rats." She added: "I live close to a wood ... and we have not seen anything like that, and if we had I am sure my cat would have caught it."
Just what kind of super-cat does this woman own? As Miss Holmes testimony suggests, your average moggy would have more sense than to tangle with a 30 inch rodent!
Your Pal
SBW
17 comments:
Oh brother, I won’t hunt giant rats for fear of ridicule. If I got my butt beat by a rodent my blog readers would never let me live it down. Hopefully they taste like bacon.
Colorado Casters
I was thinking of heading up there!
SBW
Yet another opportunity for tactical target practice! Is a .22 with laser sights in order? Yea, I think so. ;-)
I suggest approaching this with some skepticism. The photo that you have up here looks like a piglet to me. The picture of the animal that ran in The Sun looks much bigger than it really is due to the forced perspective. The animal is about 3 feet closer to the camera than the human is. Naturally, the viewer instantly uses the known proportions of an adult human to estimate the size of the animal when in fact this instinct is incorrect in this case. Maybe this is a rat or maybe it is some exotic species of rodent. Without a clear image of the head (lacking here) it is hard to say what species we are looking at.
I don't mean to piss in anyone Weetabix here. This is still probably a very big rat and worth looking into some more. Its just not as huge as the over-eager media are making it out to be.
Outdoor blogger
LOL you have no idea how much trouble you'd be in if you did that in the UK! Fun though.
SBW
Jack
I make you right, EVERYTHING in the current bun (as we call The Sun) must be taken with a liberal dose of scepticism - it's a Murdoch/FOX paper after all.
Of the two options i personally would like them to be released pets that have bred as i'm not overly keen on having to deal with giant sewer rats.
The whole ' he threw it under a hedge' thing is also a little too convenient. Still it was fun to think about.
SBW
After reading your post I was curious to find out more about these so called "large rats". After doing a google search, I learned that there are rats in Papua, New Guinea named Bosavi Woolly Rats, which can grow up to 32.2 inches long and weighing around 3.3 pounds.
Excellent post!
30" rats... blimey!
Wonder if Hollands can fit you with a .470NE double for that kind of duty! You might have to stop a charge! LOL.
Trey
Trophy Rat - who knew?
SBW
Sword of odin
That's a lotta rat in anybody's book.
SBW
Hodgeman
I'll pop in and ask next time I'm in town
SBW
Pinch of salt? Would the muzzle velocity limited air rifles of UK be able to knock a three foot, tough as bastard old boots, rodent dead?
And then the shooter was left trembling with fright after pulling off a head shot on something alleged to be only as big as a fluffy pussy cat? Pussy. He ought to see the size of the rodents here and enjoy the sight of my eleven year old, closely followed by my two year old, both armed only with sticks chasing them around the yard and beating them to death.
Anyway, Jack. Sure SBW's photo may have been of a roasted piglet but it was only meant to be illustrative, and typical of SBWs wry sense of humour; if they are that big, then why not eat them?
The largest rodent in the world is the Capybara which can grow to over 50kgs, the largest recorded was, if I recall correctly, over 200. We used to ambush their runs through the bush, jumping them with trip flare stakes and stabbing them to death. They were good eating.
A lot of people assume that the Peccary is a rodent but it is actually related to the pig. It grows to around 30kgs. When the Queen made her first and only visit to the former British Protectorate of Belize, provoking real joy and a genuine sense of renewed patriotism among the local population, they served HM Peccary, both a national and indigenous dish, a real delicacy.
I cannot remember the exact headline in The Sun the next day but it and the tone of the article went something along the lines of 'Nig Nogs Feed Rat to Our Queen'.
Well done The Sun. A hugely expensive diplomatic initiative scuppered by one of your illiterate morons. No wonder the Belizeans subsequently invited the Americans to build hotels in that hitherto unspoilt bit of the Caribbean rather than allow the British to do so in a manner sympathetic to one of the few unspoilt bits of that part of the world.
I felt so ashamed and very, very sorry for the Belizeans. Poor bastards, they were so proud when the Queen arrived and within 24 hours so dismayed and aghast at thought they may have inadvertently insulted the Queen.
I never found out how the British High Commissioner dug himself out of that one afterwards but, faced with the gaze of a justly outraged Belizean Prime Minister, he must have experienced his first touch of frost under a tropical sun.
Hippo
i'm so glad you comment, you bring colour to the game, and those little historical details that give depth to any story. Now readers overseas will have no trouble at all picturing what The Sun is like.
Keep well
SBW
You are grateful that I comment?
How sweetly put after flaying us part time bloggers in your recent post, ‘Blogs of Note and Weekend Reading’. In it, you made it perfectly clear, even to one of such mean intellect as I, that those failing to comment on your blog, or being merely indolent, would be ostracised, excommunicated and possibly, although you weren’t exactly specific on that point but the implication was clear, have their dangly bits cut off. I am not being sexist, by the way. Women have dangly bits too, just a little higher up.
So let’s look at the Stats supporting such draconian contempt, a dictatorial edict threatening the unworthy with literary banishment:
SBW: 112 followers, 72,874 visits, 32,438 in the last year alone, a 116 in the last 24 hours. Blog rankings looking more like Shell heating oil advertisements festooning the left hand side of the page.
And now me:
8 followers (as my dad always said, one volounteer is worth ten pressed men but even then I don’t come close), 1587 visitors in the last year and only 6 in the last 24 hours.
Of course I am going to bloody well comment.
Besides, I am quite fond of the old Tadger. It might not be as good as it was, but then neither is the hammer that drives it but together, we have a lot of fond memories.
By the way, the sun is a bright gawdy object and if you stare at it too long you go blind and remain just as stupid...
Hippo
Hardly 'flayed'! Teased, gently mocked, maybe even provoked? All done with love too.
On the subject of the current bun, this is THE commentary
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stick-Up-Your-Punter-Newspaper/dp/0671017829
SBW
Anon
I refer you to Hippo's comment
But thanks for stopping by and taking the time to comment
SBW
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