By Tim Binnall
A Jamaican family is on edge after a mysterious creature crept onto their property and inexplicably stripped the bark from their banana trees, but left all of the fruit untouched. According to a local media report, the odd incident occurred early Wednesday morning in the community of Lawrence Tavern when farmer Mavis Edwards was roused from her sleep by the sound of her dogs causing a commotion outside of her home. In a decision that she likely now regrets, the farmer dismissed the ruckus in order to get a few more hours of shuteye. Upon starting her day a few hours later, Edwards was stunned to discover that several of her previously intact banana trees had been stripped of their bark.
Marveling that the damage done to the trees was unlike anything she has seen in the ten years that she has worked as a farmer, Edwards observed that the perpetrator of the puzzling 'attack' had seemingly chewed or clawed away at the bark of the trees, but spared both the leaves and the fruit. While the puzzling turn of events bewildered the farmer, it was eerily similar to an incident that unfolded a decade earlier in the Jamaican town of Cambridge wherein a mystery creature also damaged banana trees in the same peculiar fashion. In that instance, unsettled residents came to call the perpetrator 'The Beast' and the case was never solved.
Understandably unnerved by what unfolded on the farm last week, Edwards' family expressed concern that the mysterious creature could come back with a taste for something more than banana tree bark. Her granddaughter indicated that no one wants to venture too close to the damaged trees because they are afraid of getting sick, noting that the scene "had a weird smell" that only served to amplify the strangeness surrounding the situation. And, as one might imagine, farmers throughout the area are equally worried about what happened on the Edwards farm as they fear that the perpetrator could be some kind of invasive species that might cause considerable damage to the country's banana crops if it manages to establish a foothold in the region.