Stoned wallabies create opium crop circles

Wallabies are getting stoned on Tasmania's opium poppy crops and hopping about in circles.

Attorney-General Lara Giddings says wallabies have created crop circles of squashed poppies as they increasingly hop in to the fields eating the poppy heads.

That causes them to get high and run around in turns creating crop circles, she told a budget estimates hearing.

"The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles," Ms Giddings is quouted in The Mercury newspaper as saying.

"Then they crash. We see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high."

Tasmanian Alkaloids field operations manager Rick Rockliff said wildlife and livestock which ate the poppies were known to "act weird" - including deer and sheep in the state's highlands.

"There have been many stories about sheep that have eaten some of the poppies after harvesting and they all walk around in circles," Mr Rockliff told The Mercury.

Tasmania is the world's largest producer of legally grown opium for the pharmaceutical market.

About 500 farmers grow the crop supplying the market with about 50 percent of the world's raw material for morphine and related opiates.

Ms Giddings was answering questions about the security of Tasmania's poppy stocks, which are considered some of the safest in the world.

- AAP

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~curious~   #12   10:48 am Nov 14 2009

So if they get stoned, get the munchies, then pass out how do they keep them from eating all of the crops when they wake up??!!! lol!

TC   #11   08:09 am Jun 28 2009

Well the world is round....

Paul   #10   04:00 am Jun 28 2009

No wallabies were hurt during the production of this article. (As far as I know - which is not much at all really).

neil   #9   10:05 am Jun 27 2009

Clockwise circles or anti-clockwise or both I wonder.

Rich   #8   05:53 pm Jun 26 2009

I would like photo's of this :'D

lol @ #1 also

Greg   #7   05:12 pm Jun 26 2009

I think the All Blacks should cancel their four yearly trip to Tassie. How else can you explain why whenever there's a World Cup they start running around in circles trying to find a way through the Wallabies defence.

Shirley   #6   02:36 pm Jun 26 2009

Had to laugh at Ken #1's comment.

Ben   #5   01:00 pm Jun 26 2009

The headline is a bit misleading. It isn't stoned Wallabies, it's stoned wallabies. The capital 'W' implies the rugby team.

Sarah   #4   12:51 pm Jun 26 2009

Hehe, I read the headline and thought they were talking about the rugby team!!

Kyle   #3   12:09 pm Jun 26 2009

So, the ozzies have been drugging their sheep. Does that make it consentual loving?

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