‘Enraged’ Camel Attacks, Kills Chicago Man
The American owner of a wildlife park in Mexico has been attacked and killed by a camel which escaped from its pen, and rescuers were forced to employ extreme measures in order to retrieve the man’s body.
According to The Associated Press, Richard Mileski of Chicago was fatally attacked on Monday in the Mexican resort of Tulum. Alberto Canto, a Civil Defense official, said that rescuers had to resort to using a rope tied to a pickup truck to move the obstinate camel off Mileski’s body.
“The camel kicked and bit him practically to death, and when he was almost dead, he sat on him,” he related. “Between the blows and the weight of the camel on top of him, he was asphyxiated.”
While it is unclear why the camel attacked the 60-year-old Mileski, authorities say they have heard a number of possible reasons for the assault, including one that revealed the camel was accustomed to an unusual treat.
Camel that killed wildlife park boss may have got the hump after not getting its daily Coke http://t.co/T1qEpqra4U pic.twitter.com/QLA0Xy6z3j
— The Scottish Sun (@ScottishSun) October 16, 2014
“One version is that he would always give him a Coca-Cola to drink, and apparently that day he didn’t give him the Coca-Cola,” Canto noted, adding, “[T]here are a lot of versions.”
While the camel was kept in an enclosure, Reuters notes that it was able to escape its stable in order to attack Mileski. Mexico’s federal agency of environmental protection removed the camel, before emergency services closed the park.
A camel may have gone berserk and killed its owner because it wanted its daily fizzy drink http://t.co/bqG5rppCou pic.twitter.com/WnlqOnJBFB
— Sky News (@SkyNews) October 15, 2014
The sanctuary where the camel attack took place, Tulum Monkey Jungle, was owned by Mileski. Along with the camel, 13 spider monkeys, six deer, two emus, two llamas, and a wild boar were seized by authorities pending an investigation, according to The Huffington Post. Officials said that the sanctuary did not have the proper legal documentation proving ownership of the animals.
A former Chicagoan was killed in a camel attack at a Mexican wildlife refuge. http://t.co/aV3Pn2Pmy0 pic.twitter.com/AxyfosKfpg
— Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) October 16, 2014
The animal responsible for the attack is a dromedary, a type of camel which predominantly originates from the Middle East and North Africa. Earlier this year, an extremely rare baby wild Bactrian camel debuted to the public at the Budapest zoo in Hungary. As The Inquisitr noted, Bactrian camels are thought to be close to extinction in the wild.
[Image via Wikimedia Commons]
