Cocaine Bear, Reefer Raccoon and boozy birds! Wildlife experts reveal the most bizarre cases of animals eating the strangest things - from drugs to fermented fruit
- The famous Cocaine Bear of Georgia overdosed on the drug in 1985 after eating around 75 pounds of it in the mountains
- The drugs were dropped in the mountains after Andrew Thornton II parachuted out of his plane, which later crashed
- Other animals have gotten high and drunk off fermented berries and human trash
Investigators spent months looking for Thornton's stash of drugs, but were beaten to it by a bear in the Northern Georgia mountains.
'The bear got to it before we could, and he tore the duffel bag open, got him some cocaine and OD’d,' an official from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told the Associated Press in 1985. 'There’s nothing left but bones and a big hide.'
The bear is believed to have eaten around 75 pounds of cocaine before he died. His remains were found not far from the Tennessee border, where 40 bags of cocaine - worth roughly $20millions at the time - had been ripped open and scattered in the mountains.
Cocaine Bear has been idolized in the small Southern area where it died since September 1985 after drug smuggler Andrew Thornton II, a former Kentucky narcotics investigator, dropped loads of the packaged white powder across the South during a plane crash
However, Cocaine Bear is not the only animal that has gotten into trouble
A dazed raccoon got high in British Columbia, Canada, in January 2018. The dazed animal were found in a yard. He wasn't dead, but high off marijuana and benzodiazepines.
The Gibsons Wildlife Rehabilitation Center took him in and kept the raccoon warm until the effects subsided within a few hours.
Cocaine Bear wasn't the only animal that got into things it wasn't supposed to. A dazed raccoon got high in British Columbia, Canada, in January 2018, on marijuana and benzodiazepines. It is unclear how the animal got the drugs
In Oregon, cedar waxwing birds became drunk after eating fermented berries, leaving them 'pretty wobbly.' Many animals, including bears and elephants, can become drunk from fermented fruit
Veterinarians are also seeing a rise of animals, especially dogs, getting high in states where weed has become legal, according to the Times.
Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation's Curt Allen said that raccoons 'relentlessly seek out edible garbage.'
In Oregon, cedar waxwing birds are becoming drunk after eating fermented berries, leaving them 'pretty wobbly.'
'Because of that disorientation and incoordination, they end up striking windows,' Molly Honea of Think Wild Central Oregon, told the Times.
Bohemian waxwings also get drunk off berries in Alaska, as the state is full of ornamental berry trees like mountain ash.
birds become 'goofy' and less oriented while on the berries.
Bears, elk, and elephants also have trouble holding it down after eating fermented fruit.
A herd of two dozen elephants got so drunk after drinking home-brew alcohol made by villagers in India that they collapsed and had to sleep off their heavy night of boozing.
The group of 24 elephants were traipsing through the jungle in the eastern state of Odisha when they came across large clay pots of 'muhua', a traditional liquor made from the flower of the madhuca longifolia tree.
Locals from the village of Salipada had left the jars of alcohol to ferment in the jungle - only for them to find the pots broken and a herd of elephants collapsed on the floor in a drunken stupor next to the shards of clay.
The herd, which included nine calves, had devoured the contents and got so drunk that locals were unable to wake them from their deep sleep.
The herd, which included nine calves, had devoured the contents and got so drunk that locals were unable to wake them from their deep sleep
They love it. It's pure, it's tasty, and it's powerful,' Kartick Satyanarayan, the chief executive of Wildlife SOS, told The Times.
'When they smell it, they can poke their trunks into kitchens or break down walls to get to it. Once finished, they stagger back home, toppling the odd tree or house on the way.'
A pair of 'drunken' elephants were snapped staggering around a tea field, by villagers in Yunnan, southern China after the elephants ransacked an alcohol store
14 Asian elephants broke in to their grain alcohol stores
The group of elephants as they lay down to rest
The raid: 14 elephants can be seen going to town on the grain alcohol store, in the county of Menghai, Southern China
The elephant can be seen flopping over after struggling to sit up straight.
Fifty drunken elephants caused havoc in an Indian village and destroyed three houses after gulping down an astonishing 500 litres of alcohol.
The animals destroyed a shop stocking Mahua and ruined crops in Dumurkota, east India, after drinking 18 containers of the alcoholic drink.
However they were not satisfied after the drinking session and ransacked adjoining huts to find more of the liquor, according to local reports.
Rampage: The animals destroyed a shop stocking Mahua and ruined crops in Dumurkota in eastern India after drinking 18 containers of an alcoholic drink (file)
The herd had been drawn out of a forest by the strong smell of Mahua and raided the shop stocking the drink
Rainbow lorikeets in Adelaide's Botanic Garden have been wreaking havoc after getting 'drunk' on fermented nectar from the Weeping Boer-bean tree.
In fact, the later months of the year are sometimes referred to as 'drunken parrot season' by ornithologists studying the behaviour of birds before the wet season.
Rainbow lorikeets in Adelaide's Botanic Garden have been getting 'drunk' on fermented nectar
Birds flock to drink fermented nectar from 'the drunken parrot tree' (Weeping Boer-bean tree)
The Weeping Boer-bean tree has actually been named 'the drunken parrot tree', as lorikeets flock to drink fermented nectar from its flowers - which can have a similar alcohol strength to beer.
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