Goat hangs self in Canadian zoo

Calgary Zoo is one exotic goat short of an Arkful after a Turkmenian markhor "accidentally hanged itself" over the weekend. According to Reuters, local television carried a shock report into the incident, featuring amateur video showing the caprine corpse "hanging lifeless from a rope in its enclosure". The zoo claims (pdf) …

[M]

I have been to Calgary Zoo...

And I too, felt like the poor goat it was that bad.

RIP Goaty.

[Tony]

Elementary my dear Watson

The goat must have been a big Steve Irwin fan and killed the stingrays in a revenge attack, then was unable to live with the guilt.

[Anonymous Coward]

IT?

I don't mind the odd story about random stuff to give us all a change of scene. But two of the top six front page articles are about random stuff. Goats commiting suicide and Katie Price.

If I was a member of the Office of Government Statistics I'd be declaring that The Register is 33% non-IT.

[lansalot]

hey !

I was there and saw the footage. As soon as staff arrived, they quickly removed the orange from its mouth and stuffed the gimp mask in a black plastic bag.

Cover up !!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Goat hangs elf in Canadian zoo

I miss-read the title thus and was rather confused.

[Stephen Sherry]

It was the dispair squid!!

The goat should have used the blasters on The Esperanto, I mean, it was a blatant clue!

[Eddie Edwards]

Anything can happen in the next half hour

"the zoo has rather suspiciously still not explained (pdf) the mysterious death of 41 stingrays in May last year."

It was Titan and the aquaphibians!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds plausible

I have a neighbour that owned a fairly large dog, that was chained up out the back. A few months ago it tried to jump into our garden over 6'6" fence, anyway you can guess the outcome.

BTW, are goats eligible for Darwin Awards? Or would the zoo keepers get an award in its place?

[Christian Cook]

Here's the only link everyone was actually looking for in the article...

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aBc0HgW2zHw

Though only a two-second near-subliminal glimpse of idiotic Darwin goat dangle right in the middle of the report.

[Jerome]

Enrichment toy?

The phrase "enrichment toy" sounds vaguely sinister to me. Now if you'll excuse me, there's research to be done, on the goats who are still alive.

[Bumhug]

Sex games gone wrong

Obviously

[David Rollinson]

Who's their vet?

Dr Chinnery?

"I'm afraid I've got some rather upsetting news..."

[Anonymous Coward]

Hiring policy?

Are they employing "retired" prison officers and police custody sergeants ?

[steward]

Good thing this didn't happen in the UK

A coroner's inquest would be convened, and testimony would be offered that the goat was a regular internet user, and got the information to hang itself from the Web. Several MP's would then call for laws regulating suicide information sites to thwart the possible copygoat suicides.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Sounds plausible

That's fucking horrible.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Bumhug

I think you're right. What this means, of course, is that the video is illegal in the UK. Call the bobbies, or whatever the hell you have over there now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the ecomomy stupid

With the price of oil dropping below $40 a barrel and Oboma's hate for "Dirty Oil" the poor goats investment must of tanked. And when all the other animals at the zoo ask where their money when? Well, goats can't fly airplanes and fake their own death, hence the tragedy in the petting zoo....

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel sick, sick and wrong...

for laughing so long and so hard over this. Particularly after watching the video!

Was the goat involved in goat porn, since one of the youtube linked videos (other than some weirdo emo child telling us how this news has affected them and caused them to cut an extra 3 slashes into their arm) was 'goat vulva'. Hmm... I think we need to get Jessica Fletcher involved.

[Anonymous Coward]

Alrrrrrrrrrrrrrrighty then....

should we call Ace Ventura, Pet Detective?

[Mart]

better amateur footage

here

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu_moia-oVI

[Richard]

Please stop ....

... bleating on about this.

[Doug Southworth]

The goat was forced to live in Canada

Is anyone really surprised?

[Alan]

@IT?

There's two PDFs in the article, there's your IT link...

[Ricky H]

stingray! stingray! buh ber buh buh ber!

I have that theme tune in my head now,

[raving angry loony]

obvious

He was the scapegoat for the stingray deaths.

Um, yeah, the cashmere one. ta.

[David]

Re: Re: Sounds plausible

No it isn't. Good Riddance. Who wants a fucking stupid dog anyway?

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel so baaaaaad about this

I know it was the welsh sheep put 'im up to it.

[Graham Marsden]

So, let me see...

... if I had a picture of this on my computer along with some other images (ahem!) would this count as "extreme pornography"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The zookeepers

must have been creating XTREME porn.

[Inachu]

I am sure

I am sure anytime you get weird unexplianed deaths.

It is either from managers who hire people who know nothing about pest control device and how not to use them around certain animals.

Or the managers who hurry the employees through the work day so they forget about the vermin poison. Sounds like to me they need to hire a specaist who only deals with vermin poison and nothing else.

As for the dead stingrays. FOUL WATER/BAD FOOD quality or lack of enough food or wrong food. Or wrong species mxing together stinign each other to death.

Or in one case a person was hired to investigate at all hours and they found out they had a hidden intruder octopus eating their livestock.

[Steve Lubman]

Not the real story

The goat succumbed to 'waterboarding' and it is all a coverup.

Same with the Stingrays, except that was 'airboarding'.

The USA has changed regimes now, not sure there is much hope for our friends to the North. A pity that.

[Jon Minhinnick]

@ Mart

Oh, you bastard.

[Doug Glass]

Clearly

A case of suicide from being rejected by his human handler.

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Sounds plausible

so the dog was just hanging around after that?

[Phillip Legard]

Re: the mystery of the dead rays

What the !$&* is a 'cownose ray'?

I know what the obvious answer is… If some sirry irriot has been grafting cow's noses onto stingrays, it's no wonder the poor things died. They need gills, not bovine breathing equipment.

As for the goat - love the term 'enrichment toy'.

The only enrichment device I know is the type that produces plutonium as a by-product. Being from the 'stans, possibly it was an Al-Qaeda goat that got the wrong of the, er… rope?!? Which would make it a WMD goat. Alternatively, if it got wind of the bovine surgery programme detailed above, perhaps it took it's own life rather than face the ridicule from it's ibex pal, of waking up one day with udders for ears...

[Sam]

Sussed it

It found a picture of its girlfriend on goatse.com.

[Dr Patrick J R Harkin]

My heart goes out to the goat, but...

it's the kids I feel sorry for!

Thank you, I'm here all week, try the fish - I'm told the poached stingray is to die for...

[Peter Lawrence]

Stingray Deaths

Being a resident of Calgary, I've heard a lot on the death of the stingrays here at the Calgary Zoo. No one has been able to determine the precise cause of death, but most people tend to think that it had something to do with the fact that Zoo patrons were permitted to physically touch the stingrays in the tank. Lord only knows what kind of contaminants were introduced to the tank that way.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Stingray Deaths

You can fondle stingrays to your heart's content at the London Aquarium too, I think it's fairly common practice because they're quite friendly curious animals. So if that's the issue in Calgary then there must be some Calgary-specific contaminant, I'd say.

[Gianni Straniero]

No option

The poor creature had no other way out of its loveless marriage to a Sudanese husband.

Mine's the sheepskin one, obviously.

[Don S.]

It's Simons's fault

The goat got severly depressed having to wait over a month for a BOFH episode.

It has happened before. Take note of this statement from Simon's Wikipedia entry:

"His goat died 2-Nov-08."

[twat]

sorry misread it

I thought it was coat hangs itself, that would be useful

Mines the self-hanging coat