Paul the 'psychic' octopus's worldwide fame has spawned a league of imitators ahead of the Euros final
It started with Paul, an ordinary octopus from Weymouth who garnered worldwide attention after spending the summer of 2010 correctly predicting the results of Germany's eight World Cup matches.
Inspired by Paul's success, animals across Germany, from elephants to pythons, are now working the pundits' circuit and forecasting the results of Euro 2012.
Appearing on home videos posted on the internet, TV and radio shows, alpacas, bulldogs and even a Mangalitza pig are under pressure to predict the outcome of the tournament – and Germany's game against Italy tonight.
But Germany's animal rights activists have called on pet owners to think twice before parading their animals as sporting forecasters, saying the national phenomenon – which is now spreading around the world – is spiralling out of control.
The Deutscher Tierschutzbund (TSB), or animal welfare association, says many animals are being exploited, forced to do things that are unnatural to them, and suffering as a result of what it calls a "craze".
It cited an internet radio station that filmed a python called Ado being offered the choice of two live rats, one representing Germany and another representing Portugal. The snake ate the rat representing Portugal meaning, according to the radio station, that Portugal would win the championship. Despite the fact that the python's prediction was obviously wrong, and no animal coming close to matching Paul's accuracy, the number of animals now employed as football psychics is on the rise.
Marius Tünte of the TSB said: "There's hardly an animal that's not being used as a prophet. From pigs and parrots to hamsters to dogs, everyone's at it. We've got elephants kicking balls into nets or forced to do handstands; chimpanzees dressed up and paraded on TV. In many cases the dignity of the animals is being completely ignored, and they're being forced to do things that are totally unnatural to them and in some cases are causing them to suffer."
He said zoos and animal parks have also joined in after realising how much positive publicity such oracles can generate. Paul the octopus drew hundreds of thousands of visitors to his hitherto little-known aquarium in Oberhausen in western Germany.
"It's not just during the tournament, but afterwards as well, when people say: 'let's go to see that animal that everyone's been talking about,'" he said, adding that the trend had its origins in Knut, a prized polar bear cub at Berlin zoo who was saved from death as a newborn cub in 2006 and went on to become the most celebrated and highest-grossing animal in the world.
Among the most engaging, though hardly reliable pundits are Xaver the bulldog, who, predictably, chose German sausages over a bottle of Portuguese red wine; a pair of otters called Mörmel and Ferret; and a goat called Traudl, who is under contract at a Bavarian radio station.
Tünte welcomed a satirical take on the mania by Die Welt, which imagined a scenario where dogs that had made false predictions were abandoned at autobahn service stations by their disgusted owners, while failed prophet pigs and parrots were sent for slaughter, or stuffed and offered for sale on eBay.
"It's not far from the truth and shows just how out of hand it has got," he said.
Experts say the animal oracles served a wider purpose by giving people a sense of security and a feeling that they can control an unpredictable situation. "It helps them escape from the everyday," Tünte said. Read More
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