Animal Terror for Kids

” In 1889 a horde of locusts flying over the Red Sea stretched for two thousand miles. Another locust plague, sighted in East Africa, was one mile wide and more than a hundred feet deep. It took nine hours to pass overhead, travelling at a rate of six miles an hour! Today, hordes of locusts still swarm periodically over vast areas of Africa and Asia, and wherever they land, they eat every ‘herb of the land’ leaving a plague of starvation in their wake.”

- Young People’s Animal Encyclopedia (13)

Kids, if you listen closely to adults talk , and the topic of Australia comes up, at least one very stupid and unfunny person will flail their arms and yell in a bad Australian accent  “a dingo ate my baby!” That’s when you can step in and look like a hero with this information:

                      That terror actually happens

The most famous incident was in 1980 when a nine week old baby Azaria Chamberlain was snatched from her family’s camping site near Ayers Rock. Her mother Lindy was sentenced to life in prison, for allegedly murdering her child, and would have stayed there. However after serving four years in prison, the baby’s missing jacket was found near a dingo’s den,  Lindy was released.

Also in 1998, in Waddy point camping area, a girl about a year old was grabbed by a dingo and would have suffered the same fate, but her Dad saved her. Oh, and  there have been over 400 dingo attacks on children, just the documented ones, so that means there has to have been lots more that just were not reported.

Lets start this off right.

Animal danger can come from the skies! This lovely illustration shows 4 year old Svenhild Hansen of Norway being carried off by a Golden Eagle. But contrary to the the text ‘instance of a golden eagle “kidnapping” … No, the eagle was going to freakin’ feed this girl to the eagle chicks waiting in the nest.

In 1932, little Svenhild was playing in her backyard  when the sky darkened, before she had time to look up, she was plowed over by talons and a huge bird with a eight foot wingspan. It tangled it’s claws in  her dress missing her skin. Flying up to its mountain nest, the eagle grew tired and dropped her. It then flew around angrily circling the terrified preschooler, screeching. A search party found her 800 feet up the mountain cliff.

Here is a link to a picture of her all grown up holding her torn dress. Smiling like a bad-ass looking with a justified expression of mistrust at stuffed juvenile golden eagle.

The Evening Independent - Yes, this is a REAL STORY