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March 31, 2009 by
From the Canadian Press...(You can't make this stuff up)...
SARNIA, Ont. - A cardboard cutout of a coyote designed to scare off Canada geese in a southern Ontario park proved so realistic it prompted an attempted police takedown.
Sarnia city hall staff purchased a pair of the animal cutouts hoping they might help reduce goose droppings in the waterfront park and set them up last summer.
But after a few weeks the cutouts vanished.
'We just figured vandals took them,' said Terry McCallum, Sarnia's director of community services.
'You can't put up any really fancy signs in the park because they usually disappear.'
But the full story has only now emerged.
A jogger out for a run early one morning came across the coyote cutouts and was so startled she ran to a nearby construction site.
There, she told a worker a coyote had 'barked' at her and that she feared it would give chase, McCallum said.
The worker called 911 and Sarnia police were dispatched.
They arrived on the scene and quickly surrounded the coyote, only then discovering it was made of cardboard.
The police, smelling an elaborate prank, confiscated the cutouts.
[ Read Full Post ]March 27, 2009 by
The state of Montana is home to three species of whitefish in its lakes and streams—the mountain whitefish, lake whitefish and pygmy whitefish.
As the name implies, the pygmy is the smallest of the three.
Earlier this month, ice angler Eric Tullett of Kalispell tied the state record for the species, hauling the fish up from a depth of 80 feet while using a glow hook and maggot for bait.
Mark Deleray, a biologist with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks positively identified and measured the fish after it was weighed on a certified scale.
The behemoth tipped the scales at (ready for this?) a whopping 3.7 ounces. That’s .23 pounds for those of you keeping score.
“My arm is still hurting,” the angler joked hours after reeling in the massive pygmy.
Or should that be enormous pygmy?
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March 21, 2009 by
No one seems to know exactly what force—or combination of forces—caused dozens of Canada geese to fall from the sky during a severe thunderstorm in central Pennsylvania.
Under the circumstances, most folks initially speculated that lightning killed an estimated 56 wild geese found on a highway near State College, Pa. following a severe thunderstorm on Feb. 27.
Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Charles Wilt came upon the scene near the Bald Eagle exit of Interstate 99 in Blair County just moments after it occurred.
“A couple of birds appeared to have been run over by cars after they fell, but most of them didn’t show any outward damage,” Trooper Wilt told the Centre Daily Times. “I thought that maybe they had been struck by lightning.”
Trooper Wilt said all the geese he observed were dead.
However, on further examination, none of the nine geese tested the Animal Diagnostic Laboratory at Penn State University showed signs of lightning strikes.
“A necropsy was performed at PSU on the geese, and they all had crushed breastbones and trachea, with no sign of electrocution,” said Terry Clevenger, dispatcher in the Southcentral Office of the Pennsylvania Game Commission.
“Although they are continuing the investigation, the most likely explanation is that they were thrown to the ground by a severe downdraft during the storm.”
Game Commission veterinarian Dr. Walter Cottrell agreed with the assessment of damage, but hedged on the possible cause.
“The geese all had quite severe trauma to their undersides, including massive bruising and crushed breastbones,” Cottrell said. “It is no doubt that they died from hitting the pavement or ground, and the force involved was more than just a bad landing.”
Bad landing? That brings up yet another possible explanation that no one has mentioned.
Insufficient de-icer on their wings.
[ Read Full Post ]March 18, 2009 by
Adam Dancy says it’s how his dad wanted it.
Adam’s father, Albert Dancy, 50, was shot and killed Feb. 15, in what authorities say began as a domestic dispute involving his ex-wife and Robert Dodrill, Jr. According to The Charleston Daily Mail, Dodrill, 44, has been charged with first-degree murder and burglary for allegedly forcing his way into Darcy’s Summersville, W.Va. mobile home and shooting him in the chest with a small caliber handgun.
While he was alive, Dancy, a carpenter, coal miner, avid hunter and angler, always told his son that when his time on Earth was done, he wanted to be buried in his 1967 turquoise-colored Chevy pick-up truck.
“He said it always joking around, but he said it for so many years it was pretty much serious to me,” Adam, 24, told the Charleston paper. “I always took him seriously. It was the last thing I could do for him.”
So last week, on a private plot located on Adam Dancy’s Clay County place that once belonged to his father, Albert was laid to rest, in a coffin carried in the truck’s bed.
Inside the casket, the elder Dancy was dressed in his camouflaged hunting clothes. His favorite Old Timer folding knife was in his pocket and the .243 Remington that he used to kill a nice 10-point buck the year before last was at his side.
In accordance with environmental regulations, the truck’s tires were removed and all fluids were drained before it was placed in the ground.
The junior Dancy told the Charleston paper there was no deep symbolic meaning to the interment, like burying his father with things he might find useful in the hereafter.
“We gave him a truck with no tires. We gave him a gun with no shells,” Dancy said. “He’ll be s**t out of luck.”
SOL, indeed.
[ Read Full Post ]March 16, 2009 by
Okay, so I owe my daughter Amy and apology for thinking her a bit odd for recently grabbing a bag of Ketchup-flavored potato chips off the supermarket shelf. Ketchup chips are downright run-of-the-mill as compared to Walkers Cajun Squirrel chips.
British 'crisps' maker, Walkers apparently derived their inspiration for Squirrel chips from the popularity of Brunswick Stew both here in the U.S. and Great Britain. Besides, it probably goes along great with their other flavors which include: Chili and Chocolate, Fish and Chips and Crispy Duck.
This past week, however, Britons grew a bit squeamish as a nation when The Sun spread word that squirrel chips might be most popular with...gulp...squirrels. Apparently the thought of cannabalistic tree rats is more than they can handle in one sitting.
[ Read Full Post ]March 16, 2009 by
British businessman Andrew Cheatle thought his cellphone was gone for good after he dropped it while walking his dog on the beach.
“I was messing about with my dog and my phone must have fallen out and been swept out in the swell,” he told The UK;s Sun newspaper. “I kept calling it but I gave up hope after a couple of days.”
A week after the incident, when his girlfriend received a call originating from Cheatle’s lost phone, she wasn’t sure what to expect when she answered it.
It was trawler fisherman Glen Kerley, who said he discovered the Nokia 1660 phone inside a 25-pound cod he’d netted. He and Cheatle made arrangements to meet.
“I didn’t believe him but went to meet him and found it was my phone—a bit smelly and battered—but incredibly it still worked after I let it dry out,” said Cheatle.
Trawlerman Kerley said it’s not unusual to find objects inside fish, especially with cod.
“Cod are greedy fish—they’ll eat anything. I’ve found plastic cups, stones, teaspoons, batteries and I’ve also heard of someone finding false teeth in one.”
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March 9, 2009 by
A pair of Southwest Florida ne’er-do-wells didn’t exactly give police specific directions to one of their homes after allegedly committing a home burglary last week—but they might as well have.
Responding to a report of a home burglary and theft on Tuesday, police in Ft. Myers, Fla. were told that among the items taken were a dirt bike, flat screen TV, computer, Ford SUV and a gun safe containing various firearms.
With minimal detective work, the cops easily identified scrape marks in the yard of the burglarized residence indicating that the gun safe had been dragged behind the stolen SUV. From that starting point, authorities followed about 800 yards of continuous drag marks in the ground and gouges in the pavement, leading from the residence, across the street, and through several vacant lots.
Straight to the home of Jarvis B. Bowens, 23.
A subsequent search of Bowens’ residence revealed many of the missing items. The stolen SUV was found in a nearby wooded area.
The Ft. Myers News-Press reports that Bowens and Wayne Blanks, 19, were jailed and charged with 36 felonies for theft and burglary.
[ Read Full Post ]March 3, 2009 by
Organizers of a weekend ice-fishing tournament in Somerset, Wisc. said they smelled something fishy after receiving several anonymous tips that the contest winner—and recipient of a new pickup truck worth $28,000—had allegedly cheated his way to the grand prize.
But authorities investigating the incident say Lee Shehow, 38, may face criminal charges after admitting he smuggled a 2.42-pound northern pike inside his sweatshirt to win the annual Somerset Youth Athletics 2009 Bass Lake Ice Fishing Contest on Saturday at Bass Lake.
The event drew about 2,500 participants and raised an estimated $150,000 for youth athletics in the Somerset area.
John Monpetit, spokesman for the sponsoring organization, told the Eau Clair Leader-Telegram that investigators at the tournament initially became suspicious of Shehow after “he purchased water at a pace that was inconsistent with what a normal person would drink on a 14-degree day.”
The St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer-Press reported yesterday that contest officials asked a polygraphist and former Minnesota State Patrol officer to question Shehow and assess him for a lie-detector test. After the two spoke Sunday morning, Shehow subsequently disqualified himself and returned the keys to the fully loaded 2008 Dodge Dakota pickup truck.
Ice-fishing tournaments are increasingly popular in northern climes during winter months, and most organizers these days keep a watchful eye out for potentially unscrupulous activity.
Jack Baker, president of the North American Ice Fishing Circuit, told the Pioneer-Press that one popular cheating technique is to lower a basket containing fish into the water prior to an event.
But Baker didn’t mention if the pike-inside-the-shirt method was one of the more common ways of skirting contest rules.
During a second awards ceremony on Tuesday, the keys to the new Dodge truck were presented to thrilled runner-up Monica Slimmen of La Crosse for her 1.72-pound pike.
“I haven’t slept in two days, I was so excited,” an ecstatic Slimmen proclaimed. “Karma does come around, and, you know, cheaters don’t win.”
That’s right, Monica. After all, this is ice fishing, not Major League Baseball.
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