Posted 4/15/2007 05:22:00 PM by Douglas

What the heck is going on in South Texas?

A member of one of Texas' oldest ranching families has locked horns with an oil company in a bizarre dispute involving pet rhinos, steel pipe and allegations of radiation poisoning and a corporate vendetta.

Rancher Jimmy McAllen, the 10th generation of his family to work the 70,000-acre ranch in South Texas, says that the old pipe he used to build a corral for two African black rhinoceroses in the mid-1990s proved to be loaded with radioactive material.

He blames the radiation for the mysterious 1995 death of one of his rhinos. And he says he suspects it caused the rare form of cancer that cost him his lower right leg in 2005.

Moreover, he says the Forest Oil Co. — which holds a lease to drill for gas on his property and gave him the old pipe for the corral and other projects around the ranch — deliberately poisoned his land in retaliation for a dispute the two sides had over gas payments.

"It's like giving someone a poison apple on Halloween," the 69-year-old said.

And then it got weird. . .