This story, from the Daily Post of Wales (h/t Matthew), wouldn’t give you much pause just from the headline. Yes, a guy was caught smuggling equids from Ireland to Leeds, but that’s sort of. . . ho-hum. It’s the photos, or rather one photo, that make this story. Click on the headline to see the tale of the donkey + horse smuggler:
A summary from the Post:
A donkey smuggler has been sentenced for trying to bring the animals into Wales without the proper paperwork.
John Peter Luke Wilcock admitted five charges brought against him by Anglesey council when he appeared at Caernarfon magistrates court.
Delyth Crisp, prosecuting, said the 37-year-old, of Dens Green, Bradford, was driving an animal transporter but was stopped at Holyhead Port in May.
Officials were concerned and, upon inspection, found 12 donkeys and a horse in the vehicle.
. . . Wilcock was also ordered to perform 200 hours of unpaid work, 20 days rehabilitation activity, and pay £100 costs.
Here’s the miscreant. Note that his face is fully visible:
And here are the donkeys Wilcock smuggled. THEY BLACKED OUT THEIR EYES IN THE PHOTO!!
There is no indication that this is a joke, but it surely must be, right? If it’s serious, then one must wonder what the purpose of this concealment is. Are the donkeys considered as children to be hidden so they won’t be harassed? I have no idea, but look and giggle:
Waste of blackout, I’d know that jackass anywhere!
Hey, donkeys deserve identity protection too. Wouldn’t want their moms to see this.
I’m thinking that they are just in the habit of doing the same for sheep.
So were the donkeys also stolen prior to the illegal entry? In America stealing horses, or donkeys years ago could get you hung. And, what is the goal, to make a few mules?
The donkeys & the horse were probably bought for cash in the Republic of Ireland where they are cheap compared to the UK. This useless piece of trash almost certainly bought them because it’s very, very hard to steal equines in a place as nosy & populated as the British Isles. You can’t do anything in rural Eire without someone putting together the puzzle & this tosser would not have the nous to steal a toffee from a kiddo. His seller may have stolen them, or they were off to slaughter because age or health.
HEALTHY AVERAGE DONKEYS FOR RESALE:
Typical Eire wholesale/auction: €20 to €160 = $200
Typical UK retail: £650 = $900
The Irish donkeys have no names & by the time they’re on a Brit website for sale they’ll be called Sally & they’ll have a cute bio
DONKEYS TO BE ‘RENDERED’
Horses, ponies, donkeys, mules & zebras must have a ‘Horse Passport’ by EU Directive [this applies to both Eire & UK] to protect the human food chain & to ensure that no horses treated with certain drugs are slaughtered for human consumption.
There is a large Chinese market for donkey skins for use in their crackpot medicine in the form of donkey-hide gelatine [ejiao] – the demand is five times larger than the supply. For this purpose an old, cheap donkey is a profitable export [$400/kilo of gelatine] – right now there’s a donkey holocaust going on.
MY ASSESSMENT
Numbnuts is going the rendering route because no feed or care required. He’s been prosecuted in the past for running a puppy farm. The judge should have ordered an investigation into where he was really bringing those animals & what else he’s up to: He needs ‘dealing with’ slowly & painfully – I hate people like him. Here’s the PUPPY FARM STORY you shouldn’t read
I had no idea this kind of thing went on over there. Here in the states I would believe it and see that awful puppy farm thing every so often. They should have put this guy out of business long ago.
I go to Appleby Horse Fair every year for the craic & the cards with the Gypsies & the Travellers, gonna miss this year unfortunately, but the things I’ve been told.
The illegal export of US horses to Europe for meat & fertiliser. Something like 100,000 unwanted horses a year going out via Canada & Mexico. People getting PAID to take horses away because of the costs of all other legal solutions.
Also ex-racehorses, show horses etc – too expensive to give them a well-deserved retirement in some sun-dappled meadow. Too expensive to ‘process’ old horses in USA [regulations, paperwork, vets, fees] – cheaper to ship ’em abroad alive & make them someone else’s problem.
Shameful. We are a degen species.
“this tosser would not have the nous to steal a toffee from a kiddo.”
Hmmm…Google translate to esperanto gives: “ĉi tiu lanĉisto ne havus la nous ŝteli toffee de kiddo.”
So, I guess that means…er…
The ultimate dead language
And back again gives: “This launcher…” which amuses me
I’ve just discovered that “nous” has a philosophical pedigree:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/nous
Quell surprise
Not only that: “It is sometimes identified with the highest or divine intellect.”
ne sommes-nous pas spéciaux.
I suppose its connected with γνωσις (gnosis). Nous means about the same as ‘wit’ in modern English (from gewitt).
Both words mean ‘mind’ originally.
They breed them with horses and then use the offspring to smuggle cocaine and heroin – drugs mules.
I’ll see myself out.
Here is another one (from Norway’s largest newspaper): https://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/rettssaken-mot-eirik-jensen/politiet-tok-beslag-i-hesten-til-gjengmedlem/a/10137709/. It’s about a horse that was confiscated by the police in connection with a corruption case. The reason for the blackout (so the caption reads) is that the paper «do not want to draw suspicion to the former or current owners of the horse» (apparently they assume people would be able to recognise the horse and hence identify the owner if they showed its eyes). It is not a joke.
Thanks for your comment! Makes more sense than “all donkeys are kept anonymous in order to protect their asses.”
Ha ha!
I can confirm that if you were a horse or donkey person, you would be able to recognize them from the picture if you knew the animals.
Horses have individual passports when they travel for eventing, racing etc., which include a photo. Using another horse’s passport is like trying to get away with using another human’s passport.
What a laugh (for this morning) the perp gets a full facial, the innocent get recognition protection… as it should be.
Now that i have stopped laughing.
Someone i know recruits for a veterinarian company in the UK and for employment purposes you can do a virtual tour of the locations.
All animal faces are blurred out as they don’t have the permission of the owners.
Might explain what’s going on.
They do the same for ex-SAS soldier Andy McNab. He’s an ass.
I’m sure it’s a joke. I used to live in North Wales. It’s a quiet, rural area with very little serious crime of any kind. My guess is that this is the work of some junior reporter bored with writing about holes in the road, drunk & disorderlies and the price of sheep, and deciding to have a laugh with the closest thing to organised crime that Gogledd Cymru can offer.
It’s what we locally call a “bass awkward” joke, because you cannot be really sure.
Doubly fun if actual asses are involved.
I now live in the West Highlands of Scotland, an even quieter and more rural area. I remember some years ago the local newspaper carried a story headlined “Goat seen on road”, reporting the sighting of, yes, a goat, crossing the road just south of the main town in the area. “Sheep seen on road” wouldn’t have been a story, because you see that all the time, but a goat…well, that’s something out of the ordinary and worth reporting!
Reminds me of the whistle theft story line in Father Ted , the Craggy Island newspaper did a special supplement on whistles.
Apart from the occasional tonne of cocaine (or was it heroin, I forget) landed on a remote beach.
This might give some Americans pause for thought – in that region of around a hundred thousand people, there was a murder which is still talked about. It was about 1985. For a murder rate in the order of 0.2/100,000/year. It’s probably one of the highest gun-ownership parts of the country, maybe a thousand in the region?
Because facial recognition is how we identify donkeys. Oh sure, to a degree that is true, but hardly to the same degree that we recognize humans by faces.
Animals usually don’t wear clothes, so are often identified by their bodies.
Glen Davidson
Donkeys have passports! Who knew? I assume they have to show their eyes for the passport photo 🙂
Horses, donkeys, and mules in the US require Coggins test papers for transport. The newer Coggins papers have photos of the animal from the right and left sides, and of the face. Older Coggins papers have diagrams of these views with the extent of distinguishing marks (blaze, star, socks, whorls, etc.) drawn onto them by the vet or vet tech who did the blood draw. For donkeys, which don’t typically have blazes, snips, or stars on the face, the extent of white/lighter hair around the eyes varies between animals and is thus a distinguishing feature – this is always marked (or photographed) on Coggins papers. Anyone showing donkeys, mules, or horses at a horse show in the US must have a Coggins test paper for each of their animals … so yeah, in a sense it’s like a passport.
Adding that the Coggins test is for equine infectious anemia (EIA).
Photos with eyes blacked out .Reminds me of the mags i used to find in my older brothers bedroom.
Your brother kept mags of sheep in his bedroom ?
HAHA ,good one .
Better than making the farmers’ sheep nervous.
#include shetlander-jokes.h
Those look like blinders to me.
The miscreant has seen the error of his asinine behaviour, and now prays every day to St Thomas Equinas.
It’s a British joke in which you don’t say it’s a joke.
Like scandal mags from the ’50s used to do when Hollywood up-and-comers would get busted on dope or morals raps.
What kinda perversion were those donkeys up to in that lorry?
I’ve heard of this stuff happenin’ in Tijuana, but Hibernia?
Isn’t one of them a relative of Francis the talking mule? I’m dating myself now!!!
If only the blinder wasn’t there I could see if there is a family resemblance to Francis.
“Donkey smuggler” sounds like one of those expletive substitutes like Steve Carrel’s character yelled in the chest hair removal scene in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”.
I once had a hairy chest, but the wardrobe was depilated.
A medical orderly once shaved my chest for an ECG. He used a dry, cheap plastic razor.
Made a noise like a cheese grater on concrete.
Not me, the razor.
lol
These decades, you want them to use a reusable razor?
Quite right. Just that it was one of those lightweight ones that give you a terrible shave (especially when dry) and judders. When I was operated on afterwards, I got shaved in other more sensitive regions, though I was fortunately under anaesthetic at the time.
Even when I’m bearded, I keep a fist full of such in my work bag. If the “sour gas” alarm goes off, I want a lovely snug fit of that rubber to my face, and I’m not worried about shedding blood to get it.
Maybe they are donkey sunglasses.
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We must conceal the identities of the donkeys!
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Being tedious – photo of the donkeys was provided by the police. Photo of the admitted perpetrator was taken by either Joe Smalltime Reporter, or someone even less concerned with legal niceties.
These may be lazy boys kept at an amusement park until their assinine behavior transformed them into donkeys, and now for sale.