If you’ve never read the Darwin Awards, prepare to be amazed, bemused and quite frankly – appalled at the stupidity of man.

“Named in honour of Charles Darwin, the father of evolution, the Darwin Awards commemorate those who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it.” The website goes on to say, “In order to qualify for a Darwin Award, a person must remove himself from the gene pool via an astounding misapplication of judgement in an extraordinarily idiotic manner.”

Let these examples of extreme stupidity serve as a lesson to think carefully before you do something that could be considered really dumb, or you may find yourself winning a Darwin Award and that would be fatal!

Here are a few examples:

A drunk man at Belgrade Zoo in Serbia took off all his clothes then entered the bear cage. For what reason you may ask? Perhaps for a bear hug, but Misha and Masha bear weren’t in the Goldilocks mood and mauled him to death! The Zoo director said, “Only an idiot would jump into the bear cage.”

In his effort to eradicate moles, a 63-year-old German inserted metal rods into the mole holes, then connected them – not to household current, but to a high-voltage power line! He electrified the very ground he was standing on and himself in the process!

The Darwin Awards alleges these people deserve the award because of “the spectacular means by which they snuff themselves.” Like the terrorist who mailed a letter bomb with insufficient postage and blew himself up opening the returned package. Or the fisherman who threw a lit stick of dynamite which his faithful golden retriever fetched and returned to him.  Or another fishing story about a man who used household current to deaden fish in a pond, then waded in to collect his catch without removing the wire.

No, really? It’s all true!