Wallabies are getting “as high as a kite” on opium in Australian poppy fields and flattening crops as they hop round in circles, it was reported.
The marsupials, which look like small kangaroos, have been getting into medical opium crops in the southern island state of Tasmania and chewing on the plant’s intoxicating heads, state officials said.
“We have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,” state attorney-general Lara Giddings told a parliamentary estimates hearing.
“Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high,” local media reported Ms Giddings as saying.
Tasmania is the world’s largest producer of legally-grown opium for the pharmaceutical market, with about 500 farms supplying approximately 50 percent of the raw material for morphine and other opiate drugs.
Livestock and other animals, such as deer and sheep, which eat the plants had also been seen acting “weird,” industry spokesman Rick Rockliff said.
“There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles,” he said.(AFP)
報導指出，澳洲有一群沙袋鼠跑進罌粟田吃了鴉片後「飄飄欲仙」，在田裡繞圈跳躍，踏平了作物。
澳洲南部塔斯馬尼亞省的官員表示，島上這群看似小型袋鼠的有袋動物一直跑進藥用鴉片田，嚼食該植物會引起興奮的花冠部分。
該省檢察長拉蕊．吉丁絲在一場議院聽證會上表示：「有沙袋鼠闖入罌粟田，食用罌粟花後興奮地繞圈跳行。」
「接著牠們接連倒地。我們在罌粟田中看到這群興奮的沙袋鼠造成的麥田圈。」
塔斯馬尼亞是全球最大的合法藥用鴉片生產地，島上約五百座農場供應了全球約半數的嗎啡和其他鎮靜劑原料。
藥用鴉片產業發言人瑞克．羅克里夫說，食用了罌粟的家畜和其他動物（如鹿和綿羊）也都出現過這種「怪異」的情況。
他說：「有關綿羊吃到一些收成的罌粟花後，開始繞圈轉的傳聞一直不少。」
（法新社╱翻譯：袁星塵）
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