Mushroom Hunters Should Beware of Cliffs
It would seem that when one’s eyes are peeled for any signs of valuable fungi, the probability of walking off of a cliff seem to go up considerably. At least that’s the story out of Italy these days, as the so called “massacre” of mushroom hunters has resulted in 18 deaths, ten of which were caused by accidental falls.
A post at Time .com sheds a slightly humorous light on what is certainly a tragic situation for those involved, with The New Danger-Career: Mushroom Hunting?:
The Guardian reports that there has been an “explosion in the number of edible fungi clinging to tree stumps and undergrowths in northern Italy” and that the increase has resulted in a proportional upsurge in the number of mushroom pickers.
While hunting mushrooms might not seem like the most deadly of missions–after all, eating them is where the real danger is, right?–it’s the location that proves to be the problem. The terrain where the mushrooms are growing is marked with steep hills and cliffs and a number of hunters have fallen to their death.
It is certainly unusual for that many people to die of accidents while foraying for mushrooms. Perhaps they should be more careful to avoid the “one time only” base jumps.
"Hey look! A mushroom!" (Wiki Commons)
Tags: accidents, Italy, mushroom hunting, mushrorom massacre
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