If you’re a well-behaved animal, it’s almost impossible
to make the news. Nobody really cares if an animal
is well-trained and has followed the rules. But the moment
the animal does something wrong, the reporters
and TV cameras show up.
Take the goat named Babli in Chhattisgarh, for example.
It was recently taken into custody, along with its
owner, Abdul Hassan, after it made the mistake of straying
into a neighbor’s yard and eating flowers and vegetables.
Unfortunately for the female goat, the neighbor
was no ordinary citizen. He was a judge.
“We received a written complaint from the judge’s
office on the basis of which we have registered a case,”
assistant sub-inspector R. Srivastav told SkyNews. “An
investigation is on and the goat has been arrested.”
Srivastav did not release a mug shot of the goat, nor
did he describe the goat’s response when a police officer
read the charges to it.
Goats, even at their worst, do not cause much
damage, which explains
why they rarely
make the news. Elephants,
on the other
hand, are frequent
headline-grabbers.
The wild elephant
that recently went
on a rampage in the
town of Siliguri, West
Bengal, found itself
pictured in numerous
newspapers worldwide.
The elephant knocked over shacks and trampled
motorbikes, causing quite a scare. The authorities had
to use four tranquilizer darts to knock out the elephant.
It was eventually returned to the forest, with help of
a crane and harness—but it was smart enough not to
damage anything belonging to a judge.