"Warwickshire"

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9th March 2004

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DATE: ANIMAL: LOCATION:
21st August 2003 DEATHS-HEAD HAWKMOTH CATERPILLARS Stockton
20th January 2004 WILD BOAR Coughton

 

Stockton
DEATHS-HEAD HAWKMOTH CATERPILLARS
HORROR FILM CATERPILLARS FOUND
Clive Coleman from Stockton in Warwickshire discovered Death Head caterpillars in the potato patch of his garden.

Clive stated that:
“I couldn’t believe it when I saw them. They were the biggest caterpillars I’ve ever seen in my life and when I picked them up they started waving their heads and making a clicking noise”.

Experts at the Butterfly farm in Stratford-on-Avon said that the mother must have flown to Britain from North Africa earlier this summer, drawn by the unusually hot summer temperatures”. These caterpillars can grow up to 6” long and are bright yellow with purple stripes along their sides. When provoked, they make a menacing clicking noise with their jaws.

They pupae in soil and emerge as a strangely patterned moth a few weeks later. They are known to enter Bee hives for honey and can make a noise mimicking the queen bee by emitting a loud squeak. They hold a place in mythology as the adult moth has the strange skull and crossbones pattern on its back.

21st August 2003

File: 2003-80
Ref No: 814

Coughton
WILD BOAR
Farmers warn of wild boar dangers
An increase in the reported number of wild boar roaming woodlands in certain parts of England has raised concern for the safety of farm animals. Farming leaders in the West Midlands blamed the tusked animal for savaging livestock, damaging crops and impregnating pig sows in the region

In one incident, a farmer said a wild boar chased 19 of his heifers across fields into a neighbouring farm at Coughton, near Alcester, Warwickshire, and attacked a pregnant cow

The National Farmers' Union warned the nocturnal beasts could be dangerous to the public after a woman riding a horse in Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire, was also chased. Matthew Price, group secretary of the NFU in Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye, said he was concerned by the animals. "My main concern is public safety, both from the boar and from people who try shooting them," he said. "A sow with piglets is extremely dangerous. They are impressively large creatures, very fast and aggressive. In my opinion they are dangerous things. "The population is fairly prolific. I have noticed a rise over the last two to three years."

Mr Price said some farmers had shot wild boar after they caused considerable crop damage and a professional stalker had been hired on one farm to thin out the population.

(Source: BBC News - 20th January 2004)

Contributed by: Lisa Willow

File: 2004-107
Ref No: 1007

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