Silk Road forums
Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: This Is Serious Mum on May 27, 2013, 11:47 pm
-
For the benefit of those curious to visit the wonderful land down under, I thought I'd copy/paste a previous posting for educational and safety purposes only.
DROP BEARS.
In Australia we have 'Drop Bears' which are a subspecies of the normal Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus).
The Drop Bears are usually placid, however upon ingestion of the Australian Tea Tree, they can't reduce the inherent poison in the Tea Tree (Melaleuca alternifolia)** as efficiently as normal Wattle Trees and thus become highly agitated and outwardly aggressive.
These Drop Bears then physically attack any passer underneath them....dogs, kangaroos, humans. They can inflict very nasty damage. Many unsuspecting tourists receive horrible facial wounds every year here. The weird thing is that the drop bear has a certain bacteria (related to the Indonesian Komono Dragon's saliva: E. coli, Staphylococcus sp., Providencia sp., Proteus morgani',' and P. mirabilis) which prevents healing and can, in rare circumstances, result in death within a few days to a week.
Now you know why we Australians keep well away from our forests...and obviously, not something we promote in our tourist brochures.
So if you ever venture Down Under be damn careful of these nasty creatures...and keep well away from the forests!
**According to the American Cancer Society: "Tea tree oil is toxic when swallowed. It has been reported to cause drowsiness, confusion, hallucinations, coma, unsteadiness, weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, stomach upset, blood cell abnormalities, and severe rashes. It should be kept away from pets and children."[22]
-
I had no idea it was tea tree that made them go crazy. Fuckin scary lil pricks. Ex misses ended up in hospital about a year back walkin in some NSW hinterland and got attacked pretty badly. Scars mostly healed up, just don't look too close.
Need more public awareness of this shit hey. Everyone is scared of snakes, spiders & sharks... tourists rarely even know about the drop bears let alone been trained on how to prevent an attack using watered down/melted kangaroo shit...