- 4 weeks ago
We’re going to hear about a tragic story involving a baby donkey and get an update on the spotted lanternfly invasion flapping across the U.S. Then we’ll take a peek at a secret world underneath a Bay Area marina, visit a real-life Charlotte’s spider web in the Kansas City area, hear about an escaped pet Kangaroo and meet llamas as they prepare for a costume contest.
Featuring audio from the Dave Glover Show out of KMOX in St. Louis, WWJ Newsradio in Detroit, KCBS in the Bay Area, the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City and Jason DeRusha out of WCCO News Talk in the Twin Cities.
Featuring audio from the Dave Glover Show out of KMOX in St. Louis, WWJ Newsradio in Detroit, KCBS in the Bay Area, the Dana & Parks Show out of KMBZ in Kansas City and Jason DeRusha out of WCCO News Talk in the Twin Cities.
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NewsTranscript
00:06Welcome to a Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something Offbeat podcast.
00:12We explore strange tales reported on by Odyssey's radio newsrooms from coast to coast.
00:19I'm your Roundup host, Lauren Berry.
00:22This week, we've got a whole zoo full of creature chronicles.
00:27We're going to hear about a tragic story involving a baby donkey, and we'll get an
00:34update on the spotted lanternfly invasion flapping across the U.S.
00:40Then, we'll take a peek at a secret world underneath a Bay Area marina, visit a real-life
00:47Charlotte spiderweb in the Kansas City area, hear about an escaped kangaroo, and meet llamas
00:56as they prepare for a costume contest.
01:01First, we're going to hear about a truly adorable baby donkey named Hee Haw.
01:08Hee Haw was shot by authorities in Georgia during the last weekend of August.
01:13After this story came out, backlash on social media was swift.
01:18Here's the team from the Dave Glover Show out of Odyssey Station KMOX in St. Louis, with
01:25more on the story.
01:28Oh boy.
01:29Now we have to talk about a sad thing.
01:30Oh no.
01:31And Rach is going to cry.
01:32Oh, this is so upsetting.
01:34I already made her cry once.
01:36I'm going to go ahead and show the stream, the picture.
01:40Hee Haw.
01:43That is Hee Haw.
01:45Yeah, tap your phone a little bit.
01:47Hee Haw.
01:47Yeah, we want to refocus the...
01:49Oh, shut up.
01:50Hee Haw is a baby donkey.
01:54Yes.
01:55Bottle raised.
01:56Aw.
01:56And the cops came to his house.
02:00Oh, he got arrested?
02:01At 12.45 a.m.
02:04Unannounced.
02:04He has his own house.
02:05No nothing.
02:07So that...
02:08Because they were looking for a missing person.
02:10And Hee Haw came running out to greet them.
02:12Because he's never met a stranger.
02:14Oh no.
02:15And they shot him dead.
02:16Oh my god.
02:17Why would you shoot a donkey?
02:19That's what I said.
02:19I said, just get back in the car.
02:20If you're scared he's going to bite you, just get in the car.
02:23Did you think a small ass donkey was going to attack you?
02:27Right.
02:27He's so small.
02:28Like seriously, you're fired.
02:30Bye.
02:30You can't have a badge if you're that twitchy.
02:34It's a donkey.
02:36Dave, I'm seeing here that they tased him.
02:39Oh, they tried to tase him and then they shot him.
02:42Why are you tasing a donkey?
02:44What's the donkey?
02:45What are you scared of?
02:47What's he going to relent and be like, stop tasing me, bro?
02:48I mean, I'm looking at a picture of a fairly small woman carrying him.
02:54He's like the size of a dog.
02:56Crazy.
02:57And he's a donkey.
02:58They don't have like sharp teeth.
03:00They're not aggressive.
03:01What is wrong with you?
03:03Oh, his owner says, we are heartbroken.
03:05He was my son.
03:06I mean, seriously, if the cop that did that isn't just fired and told, you can never work
03:13in law enforcement again, what are we doing?
03:15You cannot be that twitchy.
03:19And if you're scared of a baby donkey, maybe first responders not for you.
03:25Excellent point.
03:26You know?
03:27I understand if there's a big scary dog running at you and it's the middle of the night.
03:31Hey, if you're hearing a pit bull barking, it's charging.
03:33I get it.
03:34I get it.
03:35So it's like that is their private property.
03:37And that's why they own those animals to alert them to strangers showing up on the property.
03:42So even if it is a big scary dog, maybe just get back in the car for a second and
03:47see if
03:47things like I don't get I don't get it.
03:50Like you didn't tell them you were coming.
03:53This animal is behaving like an animal and doing what it's been trained to do, which is
03:57I'm going to make noise because someone's here that I don't think is supposed to be here.
04:01Right.
04:02And in Hee Haw's case, he just thought he made some new friends.
04:05I mean, you're in it's from Polk County, Georgia.
04:09Seriously.
04:11I mean, are we looking at like the Dukes of Hazzard?
04:14Are you Cletus?
04:15I mean, are you seriously that stupid?
04:18I mean, this could be anything to like how if you're going to shoot just a tiny ass donkey
04:23in the middle of a field because you're scurred, who else are you going to shoot?
04:27What else are you going to fire?
04:28Are you going to fire at like a teenager if they come running?
04:31Like, how are you that jumpy?
04:35And you're not looking for you're not like high speed chase.
04:39We're chasing a murderer.
04:40It's a murderer running through there.
04:41You're just looking for a missing person.
04:43This is not like some high speed chase kind of situation where you're afraid for your life.
04:47Yeah.
04:48Yeah.
04:49It's a missing person search, which is serious.
04:51But it's also not like you're chasing down Charles Manson.
04:55This stuff pisses me off.
04:57Like, I just I can't take anybody that's in that kind of job that is like that.
05:01Like, you're so edgy that you're just going to shoot a tiny ass little animal because it scared you.
05:06So they did a GoFundMe to help with legal fees because they wanted to try to press charges.
05:13But now it looks like a lawyer is going to handle the case pro bono.
05:16So they're offering refunds on them.
05:19That's nice.
05:20They're not just keeping the money.
05:24Yeah, it's stupid.
05:26I'm looking at a picture of them wearing a little diaper.
05:29I have one of me like that.
05:30That's sweet.
05:32Recent.
05:34Yeah, I mean, I don't know.
05:37I don't.
05:38It's not that obviously it's not the same as shooting a person.
05:41That's not what I'm saying at all.
05:43I'm saying it's inexcusable that you don't have better impulse control when somebody's
05:48when a donkey that doesn't even come up to your waist is coming up to you and you're like,
05:52ah, shoot it.
05:53Yeah.
05:53I mean, would you shoot a horse that was galloping towards you?
05:56Like, just get in the squad car if you're worried.
05:59I don't understand.
06:01Yeah.
06:02While the public was horrified about the death of Hee Haw, there is at least one type of
06:08wildlife that experts are actually urging people to kill.
06:13That's the spotted lanternfly.
06:15It's an invasive species here in the U.S. that is originally from Asia.
06:21It was first spotted in Pennsylvania a little over a decade ago.
06:25Amanda Forrester of Odyssey Station WWJ Newsradio in Detroit discussed issues caused by spotted
06:33lanternflies and how to stop their spread with Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural
06:40Development Invasive Species Coordinator Lindsay Patrick this week.
06:47Spotted lanternfly is an invasive species, so it's not from here and it's not easily controlled
06:55by anything in our natural ecosystems.
06:58So people are seeing a lot of them in some areas.
07:02So spotted lanternfly, though, is mainly a nuisance pest.
07:07So it's annoying.
07:09It releases, it feeds on the trees, it feeds on plants, and it releases this honeydew, which
07:15is a sticky, sugary substance.
07:17And this coats the surfaces below the trees.
07:21And on the honeydew can grow sooty mold, which is like a blackened color.
07:26And this sugary substance can also attract wasps.
07:30So it's super annoying, especially if you've got a tree with spotted lanternfly over your
07:36porch or over your outdoor furniture, things like that.
07:41That sooty mold can grow on there.
07:44What do people do if they find a spotted lanternfly?
07:48Should they report it?
07:49What do they do with the bug itself?
07:52What is, what do people need to know if they stumble across one in their yard, on their
07:58walk, just everyday life?
08:01Mm-hmm.
08:02So the good thing about spotted lanternfly is it does not kill, it doesn't generally kill
08:07the plants that it feeds on.
08:08And its favorite plant to eat is tree of heaven, which is also an invasive plant.
08:14And it, unfortunately, it doesn't kill tree of heaven as well.
08:18So that's a little bit of a bummer.
08:20It, in spotted lanternfly does not hurt humans or pets.
08:24It doesn't bite.
08:25So it is mainly a nuisance.
08:28And I, we were speaking in the newsroom earlier and someone mentioned that they were at the
08:36Toledo Zoo and there were swarms of them.
08:40They said that they could not take a step without crushing multiple bugs.
08:44Their daughter still talks about these gross bugs that they had to walk on.
08:49So I, I would be wondering if maybe the area where they were at and seeing so many had
08:55a lot of tree of heaven.
08:56And so tree of heaven, that plant that they love so much is not everywhere.
09:01You can find it, though, in some areas in really dense clumps.
09:06Spotted lanternfly is a really good hitchhiker.
09:09So the adults can sometimes hitch a ride on vehicles or trailers or anything like that.
09:16And they are going to be laying eggs soon.
09:19So they can lay eggs on pretty much any smooth, hard surface or even soft surface.
09:25They lay eggs sometimes on outdoor furniture, things like that, building materials.
09:31And so anytime anyone in an area that has spotted lanternfly is moving, things like that,
09:38they should take a look before they go, especially if they've seen a lot of spotted lanternfly around.
09:43What do the eggs look like?
09:45So spotted lanternfly eggs, they are laid in rows.
09:50And so they're little ovals.
09:52And the female spotted lanternfly lays them in rows.
09:55And then most of the time, the rows of eggs are covered by, it almost looks like putty.
10:03And then it like dries and almost looks like dried, cracked mud on the bark of trees or on
10:09any surface where they lay their eggs.
10:11And so some of those egg masses will be totally covered by the putty looking, maybe dried gum
10:18sort of spot on the tree.
10:20And then some of them are partially covered and you'll be able to see the rows of eggs.
10:25And if you see them, you can gently crush them with like a putty knife or with a credit card
10:33or something, but you can crush those and that'll reduce the number of spotted lanternfly the
10:39next year.
10:43Up next, we'll hear about a whole world that can be found underneath a marina dock, a real
10:49life Charlotte's Web, an escaped kangaroo, and llamas in costumes.
10:55All of that after a quick break on this roundup of weird news from Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:03Thank you for listening to this special presentation of weird news from Odyssey's Something Offbeat.
11:09There are tiny little worlds all around us, underneath rocks, in puddles, and in some cases, under
11:19the bottom of a marina dock.
11:21This week, a reporter from Odyssey Station, KCBS Radio in the Bay Area, went on a trip into
11:29that secret watery universe under the dock to see what's really going on there.
11:34Have you ever looked over the edge of a marina dock and noticed just how much life is growing
11:42under the surface of the water?
11:44KCBS's Shannon Golden reports from the San Francisco Marina that there's an entire hobby
11:50dedicated to exploring that hidden world.
11:52It's called dock fowling, which happens to be the name for all that marine life clinging
11:57to pilings, floats, and submerged surfaces.
12:00And it's pretty simple, according to science writer Eric Simmons.
12:03It's going to a dock, usually a public dock or a dock where someone's let you in, and
12:09looking to see what's living on it.
12:10Of course, the best way to do that is putting your face just inches from the water's surface.
12:15I am officially lying flat on my stomach here, and I'm going to dip my hands into the water.
12:25I gave it a go alongside other intrepid explorers during an excursion run by Bay Nature here
12:31at the marina.
12:33Oh, yeah.
12:34That definitely looks like it.
12:36Wow.
12:37Good find.
12:38Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:39What is this?
12:39A bugula.
12:41Oh, I'm so excited.
12:43You quickly realize there's all sorts of things to find.
12:47Algae, of course.
12:48There's these bryozoans, similar to a coral.
12:51You know, they're little animals that form colonies.
12:54There's a lot of tunicates that come in these really bright colors.
12:57And Simmons says a lot of the creatures here in the Bay are from all over the world, brought
13:02in over centuries on the undersides of ships and barges.
13:05Everything here has this amazing story from how it got here, what it's doing here.
13:09It's Jason's first time dockfowling, and for him, it's a reminder that nature is all around
13:15us, even here in the city.
13:16We humans have completely taken over and re-geo-organized the entire planet.
13:23So you may as well look at the interfaces of where nature and the built environment come
13:28together.
13:28At the San Francisco marina, Shannon Golden, KCBS.
13:32Other tiny worlds all around us exist in the corners of door frames and other random places
13:40around our own homes.
13:42I'm talking about spiderwebs.
13:45Dana Wright of the Dana and Parks podcast out of Odyssey Station KMBC in Kansas City
13:51recently told her co-hosts Scott Parks and Sam Stevie III about her own experience that's
13:58right out of E.B. White's classic novel, Charlotte's Web.
14:02We are living with a spider I've named Charlotte.
14:06And I posted a video.
14:08Why are you living with it?
14:09I'm going to tell you.
14:10She, I assume it's a she, has decided to spin the most glorious, perfectly artistic web you
14:19have ever seen.
14:21She starts around now, okay?
14:23She spins and spins and spins that thing all night and sits right there in the middle.
14:29And it does look like art.
14:30It is a perfectly shaped spiderweb, okay?
14:33They're beautiful.
14:34Then in the morning, she takes it down.
14:37And then she comes back toward dusk and starts all over again every day.
14:42We are like on day 30.
14:44She takes it down.
14:45Yes, it's a certain kind of spider, and I'm going to look it up because when I told our
14:49listeners about it, they were like, oh my gosh, she's beautiful.
14:52I would not want her on my face, but when you leave my backyard, Scott, you leave the
14:57house and you go to turn left, you would walk right into this spider, about this big.
15:02It's a big one.
15:03How do you know she takes it down and it doesn't like-
15:06Because that's that type of spider.
15:07No, no, no, no, no.
15:08Every single night, she takes it down.
15:10And then in the morning, she's back up at it.
15:11And I've sort of become mesmerized by her and the tenacity that these spiders-
15:19I'll look it up during a break.
15:20Perseverance is a word.
15:20Oh, just keeps going and going.
15:22The children are now trained that when you leave, you do not turn left because you will
15:27get a face full of web.
15:30And again, I love her.
15:31I wouldn't want her crawling on me.
15:32So when we leave, we exit straight out around the web.
15:36I actually applaud you on this because I think a creature outside should be left alone.
15:42Absolutely.
15:43Unless it's a fly and then they have to die.
15:46But we went out back the other morning and it was like 5.15.
15:50There was a possum in the backyard and I got Lizzie in as quickly as I could.
15:54I love the idea that there's a possum that lives somewhere in my backyard.
15:58This is not the first time I've seen this possum.
16:00And there's also a bunny rabbit that lives in our backyard.
16:05Both would be food for Lizzie or just an opportunity to kill something.
16:12And I love it.
16:14As long as they don't try to get into the house, mouse or back in the day when I lived
16:19in Ropo,
16:20it was the, not squirrels, but chipmunks.
16:24Chipmunks.
16:24Chipmunks, thank you.
16:25They kept coming into the garage.
16:27I'm sorry.
16:27She is a garden orb weaver.
16:31Garden orb.
16:32I'll show you a picture.
16:33Man, she is big.
16:34I'll look it up.
16:35I took down probably 80 spider webs in the last two days.
16:38Oh, Sam.
16:39Outdoors?
16:40Yeah, they're all over my house.
16:41I'll leave them alone.
16:42They're not hurting you.
16:43Keeping a pet spider might seem a little bit offbeat.
16:47But how about keeping a pet kangaroo?
16:50The Dana and Parks team also discussed the wild story of this marsupial that escaped last month.
16:58Story here from Fox 4.
17:01Blue Valley Tractor Supply in Bucyrus, Kansas took to social media over the weekend to share surveillance footage of an
17:08unexpected visitor last week.
17:10On Thursday, cameras outside the business captured what the owners thought was an injured deer running down the road.
17:17But upon further inspection, they later discovered it was not a deer at all.
17:22It was a kangaroo hopping along 199th Street.
17:26Yep.
17:27You may be wondering, where did this missing marsupial come from?
17:32How did it find its way to Bucyrus?
17:34It turns out there is not some one-off kangaroo species born and bred on the plains.
17:38In fact, the kangaroo is not wild at all.
17:40It is somebody's pet.
17:41They didn't follow the advice of the song.
17:45Tie me kangaroo down, sport.
17:47Okay, get out.
17:49Can I just tell you one thing?
17:50Get out.
17:51I reached out to this family.
17:53It belongs to a family.
17:55His name is Leonard.
17:56Leonard.
17:56Leonard Skinner.
17:57Yes.
17:57Leonard belongs to a family in Bucyrus.
17:59He's three years old.
18:01And I thought.
18:01Loves bananas.
18:02It would be fun to talk to them, and maybe they could swing Leonard by.
18:06No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
18:07I just saw the email that we got this week.
18:09I bring one pig into the studio one time while someone simultaneously has an accident in the elevator.
18:16I don't know who it was.
18:18And now we're barred from really discussing animals at all.
18:20I mean, are you investigating who the real pooper is?
18:24No, Dan.
18:24I don't want to run that through DNA, but I'm just saying I didn't see it happen.
18:30I don't know who pooped in the elevator.
18:31I think the DNA would come back swine.
18:34It was an interesting interview.
18:37Everybody poops.
18:38Leonard belongs to Jeff Miller and Casey Hubelli, a Bucyrus-based couple with approximately 20 acres of land, a barn,
18:46and lots of farm animals, including a few exotic bats.
18:50They own two emus.
18:53I wonder if lemued the emus down there.
18:55Two horses, a cow, one dog, several chickens.
19:02I would love to know or to be a fly on the wall when the first person spotted the kangaroo
19:09because you saw at first they thought it was a deer.
19:11I don't know why.
19:13It's a hoppy deer hopping on their back feet.
19:16At first they thought it was a deer.
19:17Can you imagine the call that was made to 911 or whoever when they realized it was a kangaroo and
19:23then the reaction on the other end of said phone call?
19:27If the word crikey wasn't in there somewhere, I'm upset.
19:31In Minnesota, llamas were on display this week for an annual state fair tradition.
19:38Jason Derusha of Odyssey Station WCCO News Talk in the Twin Cities was on the scene.
19:44The llama costume contest, which is one of the most hilarious things at the Minnesota State Fair.
19:50One of the most unique things, too, right, Trace?
19:52This is such a crowd.
19:53I mean, you guys went from the smaller arena to compete, too.
19:57You were in the Coliseum.
19:59This is a pretty much fillet, yeah.
20:01All right, that's Flora.
20:03Flora, where are you from?
20:04I'm from Chaska, Minnesota, so Carver County.
20:07And you raise llamas?
20:10I don't really raise them.
20:12I just have a couple as pets, and then I board them at a farm in Wisconsin, Standing Rock Llamas.
20:17What is the biggest misperception?
20:20What don't people know about llamas?
20:22Well, we always get asked if we're going to get spit on.
20:24They always think they're going to spit on you.
20:26And in reality, I mean, they can spit.
20:28Llamas can spit, but they are so friendly, so gentle, especially these ones.
20:31Ones that are worked with with 4-H kids get worked with so much by kids on just a daily
20:36basis.
20:36I mean, like, you can do pretty much anything to these guys.
20:38They don't care.
20:40I mean, just wait until the costume contest.
20:41They're fully covered.
20:42Like, they don't.
20:43They're not going to spit on you because they're mean.
20:46They're so soft.
20:47Is Mio going to be in the costume contest?
20:50He is, yeah.
20:51And what is the theme, or what is the outfit?
20:53Yeah, so you know the movie Mamma Mia?
20:54Yes.
20:54So we're doing Llamma Mia, so we're Donna and the Dynamos.
20:59Stop it right now.
21:00Mamma Mia.
21:01It's pretty fun.
21:02That's pretty great.
21:03Yeah.
21:03That's pretty great.
21:07Thank you so much for listening to this Weird News Roundup, presented by Odyssey's Something
21:12Offbeat podcast.
21:14This episode was written and produced by me, Lauren Berry.
21:19Special thanks to the Dave Glover Show out of KMOX in St. Louis, WWJ News Radio in Detroit,
21:28KCBS Radio in the Bay Area, Jason DeRosha of Odyssey Station WCCO News Talk in the Twin Cities,
21:36and the Dana and Parks Show out of KMBC in Kansas City.
21:41You can find all of these programs, including the Something Offbeat podcast, on the Odyssey
21:47app, or wherever you get your podcasts.