Hoot, There It Is

Look, you may say this has nothing to do with sports, but we don't care. Sometimes a story transcends compartmentalization ... You do not come into the owl's house talkin' trash!

A scantily clad, 32-year-old man was found dead early Monday in a pool of blood in an owl cage at the Moscow Zoo. A bird keeper at the zoo found the man, Alexander Luparev at about 10 a.m., lying in the cage, which is home to a Siberina long-tailed tawny owl.

Sure, Billy Packer claims it was all inadvertent, as one might guess. But we're skeptical. Consider this evidence from the story in the Moscow Times:

• Luparev's clothes were strewn across the concrete base of the cage. Also found were his documents, an undisclosed amount of money, and a half-empty, one-liter bottle of vodka.

• At this point, no one quite knows what happened. Luparev apparently hit his head on the ground — possibly following an altercation with the owl — and fell unconscious.

• "The owl is still in a state of shock," zoo spokeswoman Natalya Istratova said Wednesday.

• Luparev is believed to have been drunk.

Why do we have the feeling that it was probably this guy?

Man Found Dead, Naked Inside Owl Cage [Moscow Times]