ODDLY ENOUGH

ODDLY ENOUGH

Rare ‘king of herrings’ found

STOCKHOLM

First he thought it was a piece of plastic floating near the shoreline. When he got closer, 73-year-old Kurt Ove Eriksson realized the 12-foot serpentlike object was a rare creature from the depths of the ocean.

Marine biologists later determined Eriksson had found a Giant Oarfish — the world’s largest bony fish — last seen in Swedish waters about 130 years ago.

“It was very long and shiny,” Eriksson told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “It also had whiskers, even though it looked like they had been broken off. And a strange, light-pink dorsal fin.”

A retired engineer and avid fisherman, Eriksson made the unusual discovery Saturday on his way to his boathouse in Bovallstrand, on Sweden’s west coast.

“I’ve been fishing around here since 1957, and I’ve never seen anything like it,” he said. “But I’ve seen enough fish to know that it was a deep-water fish.”

Eriksson handed over the dead fish to The House of the Sea, an aquarium in the nearby town of Lysekil, where marine expert Roger Jansson said it’s being kept pending a decision on what to do with it. Jansson said the Giant Oarfish can grow up to 36 feet and is believed to live in deep waters. He said the last recorded discovery in Sweden was in 1879. Sightings of the fish are believed to have inspired tales of sea serpents.

Alpaca fiber to aid oil cleanup

MOUNT JOY, Pa.

Hair from more than 100 central- Pennsylvania alpacas is on its way to the Gulf of Mexico to soak up oil that’s being released by a leaking well. The owners of the Eastland Alpaca Farm say they’re sending about 200 pounds of waste fibers to a warehouse in Florida where it’ll be used in booms to surround and soak up spilled oil.

Sue and Kevin Zurin are donating the fibers to Matter of Trust, a San Francisco environmental charity. The alpaca hair and other natural materials including human hair, wool and feathers are stuffed into nylon stockings and used to make the floating booms.The Zurins sheared 100 of their own alpacas at their Mount Joy farm Monday and about three dozen more Tuesday.

Probation for tree slashing

ERIE, Pa.

A retired funeral director will serve probation in a first-time-offenders program after authorities said he sliced into two large maple trees that block the view of Presque Isle Bay in Erie from a rental property he owns.

Eighty-five-year-old Paul Brugger had been scheduled for trial on felony charges because police claimed the trees were valued at $15,000. Brugger’s attorney disputed that, saying the trees were worth less than the $5,000 felony threshold. Brugger entered the first-offenders program Tuesday, and his record will be expunged if he completes one year of probation without incident. The trees are expected to survive the cuts.