‘Strange creature’ ravages farmer’s banana plants

Farmer Mavis Edwards, of Lawrence Tavern, St Andrew, is now in a state of bewilderment, as the bark of banana trees in her backyard were ravaged by what she believes was a strange creature late Tuesday.

She told THE STAR that when she last saw the trees, about 8 p.m., they were all upright and in good condition. However, about 2 a.m. Wednesday, she was awakened by the loud barking of her dogs, but she did not make any checks until about 6:30. It was then that she saw the damage.

"When mi wake, di tree dem eat up, the leaves dem gone one side. Some come claw off, some standing but all a dem bite up guh down to the root ... just chaw chaw up," explained Edwards, noting that it was the first time in her 10 years as a farmer that she was seeing something like that.

However, this is not the first time that this strange phenomenon has happened here in Jamaica. In 2014, a similar situation occurred in the rural community of Cambridge, in Portland. Following that episode, where banana trees were damaged in a similar fashion, those residents dubbed the unknown creature as, 'The Beast'. Similar to the situation with Edwards, the banana trees in Portland had only the bark damaged as the leaves and fruits were left intact.

The incident has left Edwards and her family frightened and nervous. Her granddaughter, Britney Jones, told THE STAR that she fears the creature may return and hurt more than the bananas trees.

"I don't know what it is. It might come back, enuh. God forbid but there are other banana trees in the yard so we're wondering if it's gonna come back," said Jones, who added that her family is afraid to even go near to the ravaged trees.

"Nobody goes in that area because we don't know what it is, we don't know if we touch it we might get sick ... it's just there. We just leave it ... even when we went closer to it, it had a weird smell, maybe it's the smell of inside the banana tree itself but we don't know," said Jones, who doubts the trees were damaged by a human.

"The way how the tree look, there is no way somebody passed through and chop the tree. It doesn't look like that, it look like when you scrape something with a nail, like a claw something," added Jones.