The village’s allotments are being devastated by a creature in a scenario with astonishing similarities to that in the latest Wallace and Gromit film.
A large monster, said to be a cross between a rabbit and a hare and bigger than either, has been dining on holders’ prized vegetables by night – just as the Were-Rabbit does in the movie.
The pest with a penchant for plants is black and brown with one ear bigger than the other.
Boasting an exquisite palate, the beast has been ripping out and munching the tops off leeks, Japanese onions, parsnips and spring carrots at the Mouldshaugh Lane site.
The 12 allotment holders have reached the end of their tether and have appointed two armed watchmen – one a licensed gamekeeper – to stand by with a remit to catch or kill their nemesis.
Jeff Smith, an allotment holder since the 1980s, first saw the animal in February.
Since then two or three others have spotted it, and the creature has been witnessed running about on a resident’s lawn.
Mr Smith said: “It is a massive thing. It is a monster. The first time I saw it, I said what the hell is that.
“The prints were far bigger than a hare, they were like a deer. It is a brute of a thing.
“We have got two lads here trying to shoot it but they never see it.”
Use of a snare has been ruled out due to the risk to humans.
Mr Smith told Felton Parish Council on Monday night: “When we get it killed, when we shoot it, we are going to hang it up on a tree so folk can see it.”
There is one alternative: “It will make a good meal.”
Mr Smith, of South View and a resident of Felton most of his life, believes the phenomena is not new, claiming such beasts were common place in the 1950s and 60s before pesticides and fertilisers were used.
As a boy, he chased them across cornfields on Mouldshaugh Farm.
THURSDAY, APRIL 6, 2006
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