news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4489792.stm
Printable version Russian squirrel pack 'kills dog' Black squirrel (archive) Local people suggest hunger is driving squirrels to extremes Squirrels have bitten to death a stray dog which was barking at them in a Russian park, local media report. Passers-by were reportedly too late to stop the attack by the black squir rels in a village in the far east, which reportedly lasted about a minut e They are said to have scampered off at the sight of humans, some carrying pieces of flesh. A pine cone shortage may have led the squirrels to seek other food source s, although scientists are sceptical. The attack was reported in parkland in the centre of Lazo, a village in t he Maritime Territory, and was witnessed by three local people. A "big" stray dog was nosing about the trees and barking at squirrels hid ing in branches overhead when a number of them suddenly descended and at tacked, reports say. "They literally gutted the dog," local journalist Anastasia Trubitsina to ld Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper. "When they saw the men, they scattered in different directions, taking pi eces of their kill away with them." Mikhail Tiyunov, a scientist in the region, said it was the first he had ever heard of such an attack. While squirrels without sources of protein might attack birds' nests, he said, the idea of them chewing at a dog to death was "absurd". "If it really happened, things must be pretty bad in our forests," he add ed. Komosmolskaya Pravda notes that in a previous incident this autumn chipmu nks terrorised cats in a part of the territory. A Lazo man who called himself only Mikhalich said there had been "no pine cones at all" in the local forests this year.
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