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October 29, 2009 by
In a story from: www.spinner.com
A teenage folk singer was attacked and killed by two coyotes in a national park in eastern Canada.
Taylor Mitchell, 19, was attacked while she was hiking alone in Cape Breton Highlands Park, Nova Scotia, when she was attacked by two of the animals on Tuesday. She died of her wounds on Wednesday.
Nearby walkers heard her screams and alerted park rangers, who arrived on the scene and shot one of the animals. The other has yet to be found.
A police spokesperson said the two coyotes were "extremely aggressive" when rangers arrived on the scene.
"Coyotes are normally afraid of humans. This is a very irregular occurrence," Bridgit Leger, a spokeswoman for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, told Reuters news agency.
Mitchell was airlifted to hospital in Halifax but died there. Paul Maynard of Emergency Health Services said she had been admitted with multiple bite wounds on her body.
"Words can't begin to express the sadness and tragedy of losing such a sweet, compassionate, vibrant, and phenomenally talented young woman," Lisa Weitz, Mitchell's manager, said. "She just turned 19 two months ago, and was so excited about the future."
Mitchell's debut album 'For Your Consideration' had been recorded earlier this year and the artist had been on a tour of eastern Canada when the attack occurred.
"She was so young and talented -- her big dreams were a perfect match with her big, kind heart," said Michael Johnston, the album's producer.
Biologists said attacks by coyotes -- also known as prairie wolves -- were extremely rare because the animals were usually very wary of humans. The area of the park where the attack happened has now been blocked of as officials try to find out what caused the attack.
[ Read Full Post ] October 23, 2009 by
A deer hunter in northwest Kansas has provided the state Department of Wildlife and Parks with photographic evidence of a mountain lion he watched from his treestand earlier this month, marking the first live cougar documentation in The Sunflower State in 100 years.
The hunter, who was not identified by the KDWP, took the photographs while aloft in a treestand near Wakeeney. He told officials the lion emerged near a pile of corn he was perched above and he was able to snap multiple photos as it approached within 10 feet of the tree stand.
“They aren’t real good pictures,” Mike Mitchener, wildlife section chief for KDWP told the Hayes Daily News. “(but) they’re good enough.”
The hunter told wildlife authorities that the animal looked up at him, then moved out of sight, he said. The entire encounter lasted less than a minute, and the lion never stopped walking.
“KDWP staff were able to verify that the location was in Kansas, and the story seemed legitimate,” said Matt Peek, KDWP furbearer research biologist.
Although the origin of the mountain lion is unknown, cougars have appeared with varying frequency in other Midwestern states since the 1990s. In November, 2007, a young male mountain lion was shot by a landowner in Barber County. Prior to that, the last documented occurrence was in 1904.
“KDWP receives numerous reports of mountain lion sightings annually,” Peek added, “but almost all have either been cases of mistaken identity or lacked physical evidence indicating a mountain lion had been present.”
[ Read Full Post ] October 22, 2009 by
The Martha’s Vineyard (Mass.) Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby committee voted last week to disqualify the heaviest bluefish entered in its competition after it was found to contain ice cubes weighing 1.8 ounces in its stomach.
The Fish, caught by Stephen Pietruska of West Tisbury, weighed 13.86 pounds, exceeding the leading boat bluefish by .05 pounds.
The annual Derby awards prizes in both shore and boat divisions for bluefish, striped bass, false albacore and bonito. The top prize in the boat division is a new truck.
The ice cubes were discovered when Pietruska’s fish was cut open and examined—a standard Derby procedure when a fish becomes a new category leader.
Pietruska said he did not know how the ice got into the fish’s stomach, but suspected it occurred because he forced the fish with its mouth open into a cooler filled with ice.
The Martha’s Vineyard Times reported that no further action would be taken by the Derby Committee, according to its official statement on the case.
“Although the angler’s intent may have been to protect the freshness of his fish for the filet program and to reduce the loss of weight of his fish from catch to weigh-in, it is the responsibility of the angler to bring a fish to the Derby scale without any ice that may add additional weight to his catch.
“There was insufficient evidence to prove intent to deliberately increase the weight of the fish, so no further action is to be taken,” read the official committee statement.
[ Read Full Post ]October 21, 2009 by
For the rest of his life, Caden Smith will probably relish the time he caught a catfish weighing more than himself—a feat he will quite likely never surpass. That’s because last weekend Caden, a 40-pound 4-year-old, caught and released a 45-pound flathead catfish from Texas’ Trinity River.
Caden was fishing with his family near his home in Joshua, Texas when he hooked the fish of his short lifetime.
“He battled for his life,” his uncle Dan Smith told the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram.
Proud mom Natalie said the fish was as big as her son.
“When they got it out, he hugged it,” she said.
Though not a record breaker—a 56-pounder caught in the Trinity in 2004 holds that distinction for a junior angler—it is an impressive feat nonetheless.
Per the wishes of the newly seasoned angler, the bottom-feeding behemoth was released, to fight again.
[ Read Full Post ] October 17, 2009 by
Probably no genre of angler is more obsessed with casting accuracy and prowess than fly fishermen.
And, when it comes to fly casting, there’s not a book and movie combination that brought more interest and excitement to the sport than the 1976 memoir “A River Runs Through It,” by Norman Maclean, and the subsequent 1992 film featuring emerging (at that time) mega-star Brad Pitt.
On Sunday, a monument honoring the central character in the story, minister and fly fisherman John Maclean, was dedicated at the First Presbyterian Church on Fifth St. in Missoula, Montana. It was in this Western city that Maclean presented his first sermon as pastor of the congregation one hundred years ago this year, in February 1909. He planned and oversaw the building of the current house of worship, which was completed in 1915.
Rev. Maclean, his wife Clara, and son Paul—around whose 1938 murder the book’s plot is constructed—are all buried in the church cemetery.
Fly-fishing notwithstanding, it could be said that casting is equally important in movies. As proof of this premise, The Newshound offers the photographs of Rev. Maclean and actor Tom Skerritt, as the latter depicted the fly-fishing pastor in the film. Pretty incredible similarity, wouldn’t you agree?
If you only saw the movie and neglected to read Maclean’s magnificent book, you missed some classic and inspiring fishing lines (pun intended). Among them:
“Poets talk about ‘spots of time,’ but it is really the fishermen who experience eternity compressed into a moment. No one can tell what a spot of time is until suddenly the whole world is a fish and the fish is gone. I shall remember that son of a bitch forever.”
“He told us about Christ’s disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume...that all great fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fisherman and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.”
“Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.”
[ Read Full Post ] October 16, 2009 by Authorities near Cooke City, Montana are continuing to investigate an incident in which a hunter accidentally shot his companion in the middle of his struggle with an attacking grizzly bear on Saturday.
Both hunters survived the bizarre incident. The boar grizzly, estimated to be more than 20 years old, was not as fortunate.
Officials with the Montana Fish Wildlife and Park and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have not released the names of the hunters involved, but said they discovered no negligence and the shooting is officially ruled as accidental.
A joint investigation conducted by the Park County Sheriff’s Department determined that the two hunters were tracking what they believed to be a black bear near Cooke City at around 10:30 a.m. Saturday. Upon entering a thicket of very dense, 6-to-8-foot second-generation pine their quarry—which turned out to be a grizzly—jumped one of the hunters.
“He was yelling at his partner to shoot the bear,” Park County Sheriff Allan Lutes told the Powell (Wyo.) Tribune.
The newspaper reported that the first shot (from an unspecified gun and caliber) struck the hunter in the arm. Follow-up shots proved fatal to the bear.
The sheriff reiterated that the shooting was accidental and the incident was the result of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Simply, said the sheriff, they never saw it coming
“Bam! There he was. I don’t think they had a heads-up the bear was that close,” said Sheriff Lutes.
[ Read Full Post ]October 14, 2009 by
There may be some argument among National Football League faithful, but probably no pro football fan base includes more hunters and shooters than the Green Bay Packers. Where else but Lambeau Field can as much camouflage and blaze orange garb be seen in the stadium on a Sunday afternoon?
This week the Packers announced a “Hunting Down Hunger” campaign to raise money, awareness and venison donations for state food pantries and relief efforts.
The Packers are selling a special line of hunter orange and camouflage hats emblazoned with the team’s trademark “G.” Five dollars from the sale of each hat will be contributed to state food pantries and other hunger relief efforts.
In addition, Cheesehead hunters will again giving their excess and unwanted deer to the Wisconsin Deer Donation program, which has provided more than 3.1 million pounds of ground venison for needy state residents.
Packers “Hunting Down Hunger” gear may be seen at: www.packersproshop.com.
[ Read Full Post ] October 9, 2009 by
The Pennsylvania Game Commission’s veterinary consultant this week recommended the statewide prohibition of scents and attractants utilizing deer urine in an effort to prevent the spread of chronic wasting disease into The Keystone State.
Walt Cottrell, PGC chief veterinarian, told the Pennsylvania Game Commission during its regular October meeting Monday that nine states are presently considering banning deer urine use by hunters because of its potential to spread chronic wasting disease.
Recent scientific findings indicate that CWD can be spread by excreted prions (altered proteins) found in the waste of infected animals, long before the disease is manifested in cervids like deer and elk.
First identified in Colorado in 1967, CWD has been found in Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Utah, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. No cases of CWD have been identified in Pennsylvania.
The disease is spread from one deer to another through saliva and other bodily fluids, along with food that has grown in CWD-contaminated soil. The proteins that carry CWD are excreted in both feces and urine, and once they reach the soil, according to Cottrell, become 700 times more infectious.
In his presentation to the Commission, Cottrell said he would recommend and support an immediate ban on the use of deer urine, as well as the feeding of deer with food that may have been grown in CWD-contaminated soil from other states.
The Commission did not act upon Cottrell’s recommendations.
[ Read Full Post ] October 6, 2009 by
A Fort St. John, British Colombia bowhunter saved his bacon last week by plunging one of his hunting arrows into the neck of an attacking grizzly bear at his Kechika River hunting camp.
The action began when Rory Chapple, 39, heard the telltale huffing sounds of an agitated grizzly bear coming toward him. Though he was armed with his hunting bow, there was no time to nock an arrow, much less draw, aim and fire.
As the bowhunter back-pedaled and the sow grizzly moved closer, he concluded his only defense was to use one of his hunting arrows as a lance. When the grizzly made its lunge, Chapple jabbed—Zorro style—and the broadhead-tipped arrow sliced the bruin’s throat, inflicting enough damage to thwart a further advance.
“It was a glancing blow but as soon as that arrow struck home, she went from gnarling and growing and huffing at me to gurgling,” Chapple said.
The father of two and president of his local archery club escaped the ordeal with ripped pants, a sore back, and a whale of a story to tell.
[ Read Full Post ] October 2, 2009 by
Supporters of a dangerous ballot initiative aimed at banning the use of traps to manage furbearers on public land in Montana have been cleared to begin acquiring the 24,400 petition signatures necessary to qualify the measure for the 2010 general election.
The Montana Secretary of State’s office concluded last week that Florence-based Footloose Montana has until June 18, 2010 to obtain signatures from 5 percent of the total number of qualified voters in Montana, including 5 percent in each of the 34 legislative house districts. That translates into approximately 24,337 signatures to land the initiative on the November 2010 general election ballot.
The group claims it seeks to ban trapping on public lands in the state for “scientific, public health and safety activities.”
Terri Knapp, communications director for the Secretary of State, said the initiative has been titled I-160 and bears the official name “Montana Trap-Free Public Lands Act.”
“The petition has been approved for signature gathering,” Knapp said. “This is a statutory amendment by initiative.”
[ Read Full Post ]
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