France's wild hamsters being turned into 'crazed cannibals' by diet of corn

Starving rodents in north-eastern France are suffering from vitamin deficiencies that prompt them to eat their own young

A diet of corn is turning wild hamsters in north-eastern France into deranged cannibals that devour their offspring, researchers have reported.

"There's clearly an imbalance," Gerard Baumgart, President of the Research Centre for Environmental Protection in Alsace, and an expert on the European hamster, said on Friday. "Our hamster habitat is collapsing," he said.