Revellers attending the Glastonbury music festival this week are warned that a significant group of ticketless alligators have once again breached the perimeter fence of what will almost certainly be another mud bath. CCTV cameras have discovered up to 30 of the 12-13ft man-eaters sliding under the fence on Monday evening in preparation for Friday’s opening day.
With over 400,000 expected to attend the music event this weekend, scientists believe that the conditions could prove fatal. “You’ve got a potentially fatal cocktail here,” said Jess Monk of the London Zoological Society. “Thousands of left-leaning, middle-class drunkards, partying with one of Earth’s most savage man-eaters,” claimed Monk.
The reptiles – believed to be ancestors of some Bristol Zoo escapees from 1979 – have been identified on CCTV as North American Alligators; which can reach 13ft in length with a bodyweight of 400lb. “Once they have established a nest, they will start to take out stragglers, either savaging them there and then or take them back to a ‘killing place’,” Monk explained.
Festival organiser Michael Eavis tried to calm fears of a gator bloodbath yet wouldn’t sanction armed security guards. “With many animal rights campaigners attending the event, I am loathe to kill the animals unless absolutely necessary,” said Eavis. “If people are vigilante, and give the animals some space, they should back off with a swift rap around the snout.”
This isn’t the first time that giant reptiles have caused problems at the music festival, however, with now DJ George Lamb falling victim to three scaly assailants in 2010. Although the gators were far fewer in number than this year’s unwelcome guests, the former Radio 6 disc jockey represented a relatively high-profile scalp for the creatures, which also took down four unicyclists on the Sunday.
Lamb had left the VIP tent for a pee at around 10.30pm on the Saturday night, whilst carrying a wobbly paper tray of cold cuts that had almost certainly alerted his killers. Eye-witness Josh Loreal saw the gory attack, stating that Lamb was “torn apart like a pair of Levi’s”, by what were believed to be three adult males.
This year’s increased gator threat is being taken seriously by many of the acts, including Bono from U2, who has asked Eavis to place carefully-positioned snipers with night-vision capabilities around the festival site with a mandate to shoot on sight. “They lay low like cowards during the day, waiting for the cover of darkness,” Bono told a press conference, adding, “and then once the crowds are tired and tipsy, they strike. The key is to find the nest. Find the nest and you can wipe out the bloody lot of them.”
