Police in New Hampshire say a macabre mammal spotted in a town cemetery is likely a mangy fox — not a “zombie dog” or mythical beast as some have speculated.
A photograph taken this week by Merrimack Police Chief Mark Doyle and posted on Facebook attracted much speculation about the nearly hairless brown animal with a long tail and square jaw.
Many guessed it was a rabid coyote, or perhaps a chupacabra, a purported gargoyle-like creature that drains the blood of goats. Others suspected a hoax.
“I believe the correct name for this critter is Photoshopicus compositus,” one person joked.
Lieutenant Matthew Tarleton acknowledged the animal looks “like something out of a horror movie,” but said a game officer believes it is a fox afflicted with mange.
“It’s no mythical beast. It’s no exotic pet that escaped from someone’s condo and is now terrorizing the neighborhood. It’s nothing like that at all,” Tarleton said. “It’s most likely a sick fox.”
Police were called about the animal on Tuesday morning. The police chief happened to be nearby and took the picture. Tarleton arrived in time to see it trotting into the woods.
“It definitely looked sick,” Tarleton said on Thursday.
Tarleton said anyone who sees it should call the police, who would decide whether it should be killed.
“I know some people have suggested that we nurse it back to good health, but it’s not realistic,” Tarleton said. “For an animal this sick, it probably needs to be put down.”
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
China’s Shenzhou-20 crewed spacecraft has delayed its return mission to Earth after the vessel was possibly hit by tiny bits of space debris, the country’s human spaceflight agency said yesterday, an unusual situation that could disrupt the operation of the country’s space station Tiangong. An impact analysis and risk assessment are underway, the China Manned Space Agency (CMSA) said in a statement, without providing a new schedule for the return mission, which was originally set to land in northern China yesterday. The delay highlights the danger to space travel posed by increasing amounts of debris, such as discarded launch vehicles or vessel
RUBBER STAMP? The latest legislative session was the most productive in the number of bills passed, but critics attributed it to a lack of dissenting voices On their last day at work, Hong Kong’s lawmakers — the first batch chosen under Beijing’s mantra of “patriots administering Hong Kong” — posed for group pictures, celebrating a job well done after four years of opposition-free politics. However, despite their smiles, about one-third of the Legislative Council will not seek another term in next month’s election, with the self-described non-establishment figure Tik Chi-yuen (狄志遠) being among those bowing out. “It used to be that [the legislature] had the benefit of free expression... Now it is more uniform. There are multiple voices, but they are not diverse enough,” Tik said, comparing it
TOWERING FIGURE: To Republicans she was emblematic of the excesses of the liberal elite, but lawmakers admired her ability to corral her caucus through difficult votes Nancy Pelosi, a towering figure in US politics, a leading foe of US President Donald Trump and the first woman to serve as US House of Representatives speaker, on Thursday announced that she would step down at the next election. Admired as a master strategist with a no-nonsense leadership style that delivered for her party, the 85-year-old Democrat shepherded historic legislation through the US Congress as she navigated a bitter partisan divide. In later years, she was a fierce adversary of Trump, twice leading his impeachment and stunning Washington in 2020 when she ripped up a copy of his speech to the
RSS