Swedes Put Mythical Monster on List of Endangered Species

Those zany Swedes have outdone Al Gore in the Chicken Little junk science eco-scare department: They've put a non-existent monster on their list of endangered species.

Now a government watchdog in Stockholm has asked a regional council to explain the laughable listing.

"The Parliamentary Ombudsman's office in Stockholm also asked the environment court in the Jaemtland province of central Sweden to explain why a businessman, who said he wanted to raise monster babies, was denied permission to search for its purported eggs," the Associated Press reported today.

Parliamentary Ombudsman Nils-Olof Berggren said: "During a routine inspection of the environment court in Jaemtland recently, we came across a decision that attracted our interest. It was the local environment court, as a superior instance to the regional council, that had turned down an application from a man who wanted to search for and hatch the monster's eggs, probably believing it was just a joke."

Berggren, though, discovered that there was a decree in 1986 that put the legendary dog-headed giant serpent, similar to Scotland's ever-popular Loch Ness Monster, under protection.

"So far we decided to have a closer look at how the listing came about, and how it is applied. If a court decided that it cannot be applied, we want to find out if the monster really needs to be protected or if the decision can be scrapped," Berggren told AP.

He said he might take up to three months to decide what to do.

The would-be egg hunter, Magnus Cedergren, said he wanted to raise baby monsters as a tourist attraction.

"It is my idea to hopefully contribute to the business development in the Jaemtland county, by creating new possibilities for adventure tourism," Cedergren said in his complaint.

Editor's note: