Columns

Following a rash of break-ins by intoxicated students at the Botanic Gardens over the past two weeks, Dunedin City Council officials have been forced to take extreme measures to put an end to these hijinks. The beautiful Botanic Gardens are open year-round to the public, but the gates are locked after nightfall to guard against the wandering homeless and unsupervised needle sharing.

Recently, however, some students with no social lives or prospects of ever getting laid have been vaulting over the fence after dark, proceeding to do God-knows-what in there. One perpetrator told police that he was only “trying to get closer to nature,” which can probably be interpreted as “searching for hallucinogenic mushrooms.” The solitary night-watchman, found tangled in the playground’s swing set after one particularly rowdy evening, reported that he was unable to keep the onslaught of rebels at bay on his own.

Luckily, the long-standing “sister city” relationship between Dunedin and Shanghai, China, has finally proven useful—just last week, the DCC was able to secure a shipment of no less than 14 African wildcats—including lions, cheetahs and leopards. Normally, this would be quite an expensive acquisition, but through Shanghai’s black market the entire deal only set them back $34.50 plus shipping and handling (magnanimously discounted from $35.00).

After two hours of intensive training, the DCC was satisfied that the cats would only “slightly maul” anyone they encountered. Since then, they have been released into the gardens every evening after closing, with the intention of warding off any trespassers. It was hoped that the news would get around quickly and people would stop entering the gardens illegally, but it seems that alcohol makes the students at Otago University believe themselves to be nearly invincible. Either that, or they assumed that it was just an elaborate hoax.

For the first few nights, the cats were occupied with stealthily depleting the Botanic Garden’s exotic bird aviary, left with barely any time to hassle students. This came as a blow to the DCC, which, having purchased the birds legitimately, are now out hundreds of thousands of dollars. Once the cats had exhausted this food source, they turned their attention to the naughty nighttime nuisances. One lucky young man opted to stay and fight instead of running from the cats, earning himself a ride in a med-evac helicopter. Bet he’ll do that again.

This time, word got out and the raids on the gardens have slowed to a “steady trickle,” which according to the night watchman is “manageable.” The DCC has now sent the cats back to where they were originally captured, just outside the village of Kamanjab, Namibia. That’s in Africa.