5 Crazy Natural Wonders Found In The Last Place You'd Expect

The mall ceased operations over 20 years ago, and subsequent floods turned the site into an ideal breeding ground for marauding mosquitos. To combat this, local shopkeeps started tossing in koi, carp, tilapia, and catfish. But the fish began thriving as well as the mosquitoes, mainly thanks to all the tourists who started showing up to feed them. Since no one thought to send crocodiles to eat the fish, and then hippos to eat the crocodiles, the place became a makeshift aquarium.

In 2015, authorities finally decided that that having an unlicensed aquarium / biohazard / structural menace smack dab in the middle of the city was no longer acceptable. But don't worry, before the entire structure was demolished, the fish were relocated to waterways elsewhere in the country. There, they are presumably shunned and ostracized by the other fish, who cannot believe or even fathom the concept of a mall.

Now THAT'S a water hazard! ... We'll see ourselves out.

For the past 24 years, bull sharks (one of the few shark species with a taste for people-meat) have been living in one of the ponds at Brisbane's Carbrook Golf Course. As you've probably guessed, sharks aren't a typical feature of a water trap, and they were not placed there by a golf course designer who took their inspiration from old Nintendo games.

The sharks got in during a period of catastrophic flooding years ago, when the nearby Logan River spilled onto the course. The owners assumed there were maybe one or two, and that they'd die after a brief reign of terror. But nope! The sharks have managed to thrive because of the abundant fish population and lack of other predators. The owners now believe that they probably own around six sharks, but they're not sure, which is a sentence that can only be said in Australia.

White storks in Europe figured that instead of making their yearly trek to Africa for the winter, it would be a helluva lot easier to pick through scraps at nearby landfills. But the practice isn't without peril. There's harmful chemical ingestion and plastic traps, for starters. It started out slow, with just a few lazy storks in the 1980s saying that Africa sounds, like ... pretty far, man.

gallinago_media/Adobe Stock"Migrating is for birds, man."
"We are birds, Larry."
"... Shut up."

But now, tens of thousands stay behind to gorge themselves at a disgusting but reliable food source. At some point in the future, flocks of storks making their annual journey to cold weather havens will be a thing of the past. As will the birds themselves, unless the steady consumption of toxins mutates them into TMNT villains or something.

As a result of their unlikely resilience, monk parakeets are about as omnipresent as Starbucks. You can find them in Flushing, Upper Manhattan, along the George Washington Bridge, in Riverside Park, and especially in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery.

Rhododendrites/Wiki Commons"HEY, WE'RE MOURNIN' O'VA HERE!"

Some residents consider them pests and want them removed. Others love them -- especially the ones making money by running parakeet tours in New York City. No matter how many times you read that last sentence, it just doesn't look right.

It's actually surprisingly easy to build yourself a koi pond/aquarium like that one up there -- just make sure your fish can hack it year-round.

Support your favorite Cracked writers with a visit to our Contribution Page. Please and thank you.

For more, check out 6 Disturbing Abandoned Places (Hiding Right In Plain Sight) and 5 Amazing Abandoned Wastelands ... Within Walking Distance.

You really should be following us on Facebook.