An enraged dolphin has been terrorising the French Atlantic coast for several weeks, attacking boats and knocking fishermen into the sea.

"He’s like a mad dog," said Henri Le Lay, president of the association of fishermen and yachtsmen of the port of Brezellec, in Brittany.

"He has caused at least 1,500 euros ($2,530) worth of damage in the past few weeks."

The dolphin, named Jean Floch, has destroyed rowboats, overturned open boats, flooded engines and twisted mooring lines.

Two fishermen were knocked into the sea after the dolphin overturned their boat.

Jean Floch has been a popular and familiar sight along the coast of Brittany since 2002.

But experts say that he must have been excluded from his group recently to have turned so violent.

According to Sami Hassani, of the Oceanapolis Department of Sea Mammals, "because of their dominant personalities and their sexual maturity, males could become dangerous."

and…

POITIERS, France, Aug 10, 2006 (AFP) - A deer that sowed terror in a village in central France for several days — charging and badly injuring a 71-year-old woman — has been tracked down and shot, the local mayor said Thursday.

The hot-headed herbivore, a one-year-old male, was spotted late Wednesday by a jogger who had been attacked by the deer earlier in the day.

A local ranger, alerted of his whereabouts, hunted him down, the mayor of Anche François de Lauzon told AFP.

The hunt for the rampaging animal started on Sunday after it charged the elderly woman on a country path, badly injuring her legs and arms, before chasing a group of eight-year-olds heading for a swim in a nearby river.

"It was probably a tame fawn, who was either released or escaped from captivity, but was still seeking out a human presence. Maybe he just wanted to play," suggested the mayor.

"It’s sad it had to come this, because the real monster was the person who tried to rear the animal for his own pleasure," he said.

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