Stoned Wallabies Blamed For Australian Crop Circles

SYDNEY — Wallabies snacking in Tasmania's legally grown opium poppy fields are getting "high as a kite" and hopping around in circles, trampling the crops, a state official said.

Tasmania Attorney-General Lara Giddings told a budget hearing Wednesday that she had recently read about the kangaroo-like marsupials' antics in a brief on the state's large poppy industry. Tasmania is the world's largest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.

"We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," The Mercury newspaper quoted Giddings as telling the hearing. "Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Calls to Giddings' office were not immediately returned Thursday, and The Associated Press was unable to obtain a copy of the brief she cited.

A manager for one of two Tasmanian companies licensed to take medicinal products from poppy straw told the newspaper that wildlife and livestock _ including deer and sheep _ that eat the poppies are known to "act weird."

"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," Tasmanian Alkaloids field operations manager Rick Rockliff said.

Others in the local poppy industry could not be reached for comment.

Tasmania supplies about 50 percent of the world's raw material for morphine and related opiates. About 500 farmers grow the crop on 49,420 acres (20,000 hectares) of land.

Comments

[SherryIndianapolis]

09:25 PM on 06/30/2009

"Try to make me go to rehab......"

[TigersEye]

03:36 PM on 06/26/2009

And here I thought all along that it was aliens making those dang crop circles.

[curocat]

11:44 PM on 06/25/2009

Now we know how the Corn Circles was formed in the mid west...LOL

[MiddleRoadLiberal]

07:26 PM on 06/25/2009

Once again, the simplest explanation proves best.

[Joethepauper]

06:25 PM on 06/25/2009

Humans are the only species with drug problems. That's because they can handle theirs without harming each other. In the African savannah, there is a tree that drops fruit on the ground, and the elephants guard that fruit until it ferments. They eat it until they are stumbling drunk, knocking down small trees. Then, the antelopes, monkeys and some other species join-in (since the elephants are too drunk to guard the fruit anymore). The monkeys are hilarious drunks! There is a video of it somewhere on the interwebs. The only drug that other species probably didn't lead us to was cannabis. Cocoa was found by llamas in the andes, magic mushrooms were found by reindeer, poppies have several suspected user species, and alcohol is the same (several species). They have no problems. If some animal eats something that makes it feel different, the animal rolls with it until the effects wear off, and go about their day. We humans just can't handle drugs because we are the weakest species on this planet. Lame and weak.

[cali yooper]

03:21 PM on 06/25/2009

Great.

Now those Wallabies are going to need to go to rehab.

WTF!

[EmeraldWorld]

03:19 PM on 06/25/2009

Well, that's....interesting, to say the least.

[Fez]

02:55 PM on 06/25/2009

Hogwash! Everyone knows that when wallabies get stoned, they walk around in irregular trapezoids, not circles.

[Isis N]

03:32 PM on 06/25/2009

Thanks for the spit-take laughter!

[Lakeview Greg]

01:46 PM on 06/25/2009

What's next? Killer koalas?

[notAMoron]

02:23 PM on 06/25/2009

Coke head koalas.

[robiform]

04:40 PM on 06/25/2009

Actually, koalas are stoned most of the time! Koalas eat nothing but eucalyptus leaves, which contain a narcotic (think "doggie downers"!). That's why they sleep 22 hours a day, so they really wouldn't be "coke heads".

As for the wallabies, maybe they need some type of drug therapy!

[Ray46]

01:43 PM on 06/25/2009

Maybe we could send some Wallabies to Afganistan and Pakistan.

[jules23]

07:14 PM on 06/25/2009

Good idea!

[bragladish]

12:43 PM on 06/25/2009

Thats the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life!

[LeftVetPatriot]

02:54 PM on 06/25/2009

As stupid as we who comment?

[Skye13]

12:39 PM on 06/25/2009

They are just high on life..

[zizyphus]

11:22 AM on 06/25/2009

The wallabies are creating art.