BEFORE YOU SCROLL DOWN TO THE PHOTOS, BE WARNED, THEY ARE NOT FOR THE FAINT-HEARTED!

Welcome to the village of Salba, 610 km southeast of the Siberian city of Krasnoyarsk. This is where 600 Siberian Marals (a subspecies of Red-Deer) lose their antlers every year. These photos, taken June 15 2009, at a private ranch, in Salba, show the marals held in special devices, in order to have their antlers removed with a hand saw.

The antlers are sold to markets in Russia and East Asia, where antler velvet is used as a holistic medicine. Some people consume the antlers themselves, grinding and consuming them in small quantities.

Marals go through this brutal process every year and, even though some say it doesn’t cause them too much pain because they have no nerves in the antlers, I still call it animal cruelty.

Photos by REUTERS/Ilya Naymushin

via Drugoi

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At least that was the case when young Kimberley Vlaminck asked for three stars tattooed near her left eye.

The young Belgian says she went to a tattoo parlor to get three small stars tattooed, but the foreign artist misunderstood her request and left her with 56 stars covering the left side of her face. How could that possibly have happened, you say? Simple, she fell asleep during the procedure and woke up when the artist finished his work.

Now, the guy who tattooed her doesn’t exactly look like the most trustworthy person in the world (he’s the guy in the last photo), but I find it hard to believe someone could fall asleep while getting a tattoo. Nevermind the pain, the noise of the tattoo-gun right next to her left ear would have been enough to keep her awake.

Kimberley says she must have been drugged by Rouslan Toumaniantz, the shop-owner and the guy who executed the tattoo, but he insists the girl specifically asked for 56 stars tattooed on her face. He says the whole scandal started when the 18-year-old went home and showed her family and boyfriend the permanent artwork. They went crazy, so miss Vlaminck returned to the tattoo-shop and accused Toumaniantz of misunderstanding her request.

Now Kimberley Vlaminck is suing Toumanintz for 10,000 pounds, the cost of a laser-procedure to remove his ‘mistake’. Although the tattoo artist maintains that the girl asked for 56 stars, and even brought in a witness to sustain his claim, he agreed to pay half of the procedure costs, just because he doesn’t want an unsatisfied customer.

Kimberley hasn’t accepted his offer yet.
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While other two-year-olds are just learning to walk and talk, the children of the nomad Vadi Tribe are introduced to the centuries-old art of snake charming.

All the children of the Vadi Tribe come face to face with a poisonous cobra at age two, and go through a ten-year ritual, in which they learn all the secrets of snake charming. Both boys and girls must learn to handle snakes. While men must be able to manipulate cobras by playing the flute, the women must know how to take care of the reptiles when their husbands or brothers are away.

The Vadi treat snakes like their own children, never keeping them away from their natural habitat for more than seven months. Any longer than that would be disrespectful to the snakes, according to Babanath Mithunath Madari, the 60-year-old Vadi chief-charmer. In fact, the only time a snake actually bit his charmer, was when he kept it for more than seven months.

Vadi snake-charmers don’t cut the fangs of their snakes, instead they feed them an herbal mixture which, they say,  makes their deadly poison harmless.

Unfortunately, in 1991, the thousand-year-old tradition of snake-charming was banned in India, and the Vadi tribe are stripped of their snakes whenever they are confronted by the police. They never spend more than six months in the same place.

Photos by BARCROFT MEDIA

via Telegraph.co.uk

This weird cat with wings was spotted in Chonqing, China.

Although you might think the angel-cat of Chonqing is unique, there have been other cats with wings in Russia and the United States. Her owner says she wasn’t born like this, her wings started growing when she was one year old.

A worker from the Chonqing Museum of Natural History says this kind of oddities are becoming quite common and are the results of pollution in the area. This particular angel cat will be adopted by the Chonqing Museum.

via China.org.cn

Well, it’s not exactly the blonde we’re used to, but it’s as blonde as a black bear can get.

Known as a Spirit Bear or Kermode Bear, this polar-bear look-alike was thought to exist only in Indian mythology. Brave photographer Steven Kazlowski took some photos of a Spirit Bear, an achievement considered impossible among wildlife photographers. 39-year-old Steven went through a one-one-one encounter with one of these great white beasts, but managed to escape with his life.

It’s important to mention that Spirit Bears are not albino animals, they’re what you can call a blonde black bear. They are extremely rare creatures and because of extensive logging around coastal temperate rainforests, their habitat has shrunk even more.

Photos by Steven Kazlowski, BARCROFT MEDIA

via Daily Mail

Everyone keeps telling me about the beneficial effects of practicing Yoga, but this is too much.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen what Yoga can do for older people, but that doesn’t make these photos any less impressive. I was around five or six the last time I was able to bring my foot up to the tip of my nose, and this guy puts his feet behind his back with ease, at over fifty years of age. I really have to start practicing Yoga!

via Moobol

What would your reaction be if you woke-up one morning and found an alligator swimming in your pool?

That’s what happened to Larry Bland, from Texas, who found a 5-foot-alligator cooling-in his backyard pool. Apparently the burning sun was too much for this reptile and Bland’s pool was the perfect getaway.

The uninvited guest was removed by Gary Saurage, a very brave trapper who went into the pool, brought it up to the surface and then pushed it out. That takes some serious “cojones”, I’ll tell you…

Photos by [CFP]

via China.org.cn

Seemed like a catchy title, but there’s really nothing hilarious about it, just tragic and bizarre.

These photos were taken at the Fairview Cemetery, in Springfield, where 79-year-old Norman Thompson, member of the Antioch Shrine Funster Clown Unit, was buried, on May 29. His clown-friends dressed up for the occasion and honored Norman, for the last time.

It looks bizarre, I know, but I was reading about this on the web, and found out that this is a tradition for clowns and magicians. Apparently this is the way they show their respect to their fallen colleagues.

via Springfield News Sun

It doesn’t happen as often as it would if the fight was actually fair, but it’s nice to see the underdog win for a change.

Israel Lancho had the misfortune of getting impaled by a bull, last Wednesday, in Madrid. The bull’s horn went in 8 inches and doctors said it was a miracle that it didn’t hit the matador’s heart. 30-year-old Israel is now recuperating. I wonder if he’s ever going to go into the bull-ring again.

UPDATE:  One of our visitors left a comment saying the matador died of complications. That is not true, but, while he received medical attention, the bull did in fact die as a result of his wounds. Others said this is tradition and should be accepted as such…Well, the shearing of the beasts, donkey basketball, Grindadrap or Afghan dog-fights are also old traditions, but I refuse to respect them. Read More »

I could totally see Fred Flinstone riding one of these things.

Not much is known about this weird multi-angle bicycle, only that it was invented by Guan Baihua, a Chinese man who thought he should give people ‘an alternative to the normal, boring bikes.’ It doesn’t look too fun to ride, with a polygonal wheel at the front and a triangular one at the back, but it must be a great way to lose weight. This is not the first weird  Chinese two-wheeled creation, the home-made chopper is also something you don’t see every day.

If Guan wants some tips about designing an original, yet cool bike, he should have a look at Jason Battersby’s Tequila Sunrise and Eye Candy.

via China.org.cn

Believe it or not, shoes can be a luxury item in poor countries. But we humans are resourceful creatures, so we rarely let lack of money stand in our way. Case and point, these guys in poor African and South-American countries use old tires to make their own slippers. Sure they may not make to a fashion presentation in Milan, but I’m sure they’re a lot more durable than what we buy from the shop.

Sweets keep getting weirder and weirder these days. After the bacon-flavored chocolate, I present to you the honey baked ham cupcakes.

Stef, from the Cupcake Project blog, has baked what she says is the world’s first honey baked ham cupcake. Those who tried these weird delicacies said they couldn’t really taste the ham, if anything it just gives the cupcake a nice sweet-salty flavor. In fact, the ham only acts as an edible cupcake wrapping, through which you have to bite your way to the tasty cinnamon cream cheese frosting.

If you want to try these at home, just visit Cupcake Project page and check the recipe.

Fried insects are considered delicacies in many cultures, but ant sauce? That’s something new.

During the April-June season, thousands of Colombian farmers collect giant ants, named ulonas, cook them and sell them as a traditional exotic dish. The ants are roasted in big bowls, bagged and shipped to stores around the country.

Some people eat the roasted ants, known as Culonas, as snacks, while others use them to make a special sauce that goes great with potato chips. To me, this looks almost as “tasty” as the Chinese fried insects menu.

Photos by Xianhua/Reuters

via Reuters

I’ve heard about a lot of weird things that people take pleasure in eating, but sand?

Apparently there is someone out there who not only eats sand, but considers it a delicacy. Not much is known about this woman, other than she lives in a Russian village and every day she goes out, fills her bucket with sand and…eats it. You can see from the pics that she likes her sand very much.

via English Russia

This dude would make a great escape artist. I bet he could break out of a pair of handcuffs with ease.

Sure, he’s no Rubberboy, but I tried bending my fingers like that, and I almost broke one of them. Looking at some of the photos, I thought to myself ‘this doesn’t look too difficult’, but turns out I was seriously wrong. Either that or I have the stiffest hands on Earth.

Take a look at mister flexible here and let me know if you can pull of his hand-tricks. Don’t over-do it though, I take no personal responsibility for your injuries.

via DooDoo