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Rogue echidna breaks into alcohol store, smashes booze, and passes out

It’s not every day that an echidna breaks into an alcohol store, but that’s exactly what one such creature in Australia with a taste for chaos and booze did. It caused mayhem in a liquor store after smashing up several bottles before passing out on the floor.

echidna breaks into alcohol store
Credit: Brian Watson-Bell / ABC

Staff at a bottle-o in Australia were left stunned after discovering the culprit behind a load of broken bottles in the store. That’s because it wasn’t an errant thief or a particularly ungainly punter, but an altogether more prickly customer.

Yes, the guilty party was in fact an echidna, who had wrought chaos on the liquor store before promptly passing out, presumably content and exhausted after the commotion it had caused.

Brian Watson-Bell, who works at the store, told ABC:

“I thought there had to be a critter in here somewhere – there was just too much damage for a rat. But there he was, an echidna, and he wasn’t little.

“He had gone through a couple of bottles of vodka and a bottle of chocolate Baileys, he was sleeping it off for sure.

“I think if he had gone for a crawl he would have been stumbling a bit, I don’t think he was fit to drive.”

echidna breaks into alcohol store
Credit: Brian Watson-Bell/ ABC

Fortunately, the echidna was safely escorted from the premises by a volunteer from WIRES Wildlife Rescue charity. The creature was reportedly freed without a scratch and was later released without charge.

Remarkably, this isn’t the only example of an animal breaking into a liquor store this week. We previously reported that a monkey had broken into a store in India and proceeded to sip from a bottle of booze.

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