WINTERSVILLE, Ohio–A 7-year-old Ohio boy playing a game of backyard football was tackled by a deer.
Brandon Hiles says he encountered the charger — and not the kind from San Diego — when the ball rolled into woods while he was playing with friends Saturday in Wintersville, about 125 miles east of Columbus. The boy says the buck ran at him and flipped him with its horns, leaving bruises and a gash.
A 9-year-old pal, Wyatt Pugh, beat the deer with a stick to make it go away.
Wintersville Police Officer Art Fowler Jr. says there were actually two bucks in the area gearing for a fight, and Brandon was attacked when he inadvertently got between them.–foxnews
Fresno, CA — A woman in Northern California is recovering from major injuries, after being attacked by a deer, all for trying to protect her great grandson.
The animals usually roam free on this ranch in Placer County, but recently a usually calm buck named “Billy” started charging toward Doris Bower’s great-grandson and his mother. Witnesses said Bower stepped out in front of the deer.
The buck rammed his antlers into Bower’s leg, severing a main artery.
A ranger showed up and shot and killed the buck before it could do more harm.
Bower underwent surgery and is expected to fully recover.
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There was an unexpected guest** for a luncheon in a Michigan restaurant on Sunday afternoon. Patrons and workers alike in Livonia, Mich., ran for cover when their diner was invaded by a wayward deer.
The deer crashed through the window, then ran through the dining room before heading out the front door.
He didn’t even stay for desert.
All in all, the deer was only in the restaurant for only 10 seconds. Nobody knows where the deer came from, or where it went.
The restaurant was closed for the rest of the day.
BRUNSWICK — When it comes to finding food, most deer do their searching outdoors. But one doe and a fawn, instead ended up inside a local grocery store.
Surveillance cameras captured the incident inside a Brunswick Buehler’s store earlier this month. The deer walked through the store’s automatic doors and went straight for the apple display in the produce aisle. The deer munched on a few of the apples then became frightened and tried to run through the store’s front window.
The animals received cuts from the window glass. Store employees helped corner the deer until animal control officers arrived.
The deer were sedated and then taken away and released.
None of the customers inside the store were hurt.
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SIOUX CITY, Iowa** — You’ll never see this clown in the circus. Animal control officers in Sioux City, Iowa, say someone dressed a dead deer in a clown suit and wig and put it on a family’s porch. Officers suspect it was a prank, considering Halloween is approaching, but they say it’s not funny, safe or acceptable.
The deer was discovered Wednesday morning.
Animal Control Officer Jake Appel says leaving a dead animal is immature and illegal. He says officers will dispose of the deer properly.
Sioux City police have not opened an investigation.
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A 27-year-old game manager** has been gored to death at an exotic game hunting ranch in Central Texas by a rare deer known for its full, sharply pointed rack.
Brandon Buchi, a game manager at the Y.O. Ranch, suffered puncture wounds to the side and thigh last week.
Kerrville County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer said Wednesday that the deer, known as a Barasingha (bar-a-sing-ga), attacked after Buchi removed it from a transport trailer on ranch grounds Oct. 1.
Hierholzer tells the Austin American-Statesman that the deer died from the exertion of the attack.
The Y.O. Ranch, founded in 1880, is located about 100 miles west of Austin.
WABASH, Ind. – State conservation officers have arrested a 25-year-old man who they say was “thrill-killing” deer in rural Wabash and Whitley counties.
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources says in a press release that Grant Kelley, of Wabash, is charged with 17 misdemeanors for wildlife or firearm violations. He was arrested after a six-month investigation by conservation officers acting on a tip.
The DNR alleges Kelley, a self-employed welder, would drive through rural areas looking for deer, shoot them with a variety of firearms including a .30-06 rifle and an AK-47, and leave them to die. Conservation officer Jerry Hoerdt, who investigated the incidents, said Kelley apparently made no effort to harvest any of the animals.
HELENA, Mont. — Call it a case of Christmas creep. A young mule deer in Montana is ushering in the holiday season early. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden Kevin Cook says the buck got mixed up with a string of Christmas lights and now they are hanging from his antlers and body. The agency started getting reports about the decorated deer near Fort Harrison last week. Cook says the buck probably became entangled when he rubbed his antlers on a tree. He says the department is keeping an eye on the animal, but so far it seems to be full of mule-tide cheer. Cook says similar incidents have happened previously, including a deer with a swing in its antlers and another sporting a clothes line, complete with clothing. The deer usually lose the accessories when they shed their antlers.
VANCOUVER (CBC) – Two Nelson, B.C., men are recovering from wounds suffered in a grizzly bear attack earlier this week.
Jeff Hebert and Ken Scown were on a hunting trip in the near Canal Flats in the East Kootenay region, about 300 kilometers southwest of Calgary, when they say a grizzly attacked them early Wednesday morning as they slept in their tent.
The animal estimated to be two meters tall jumped onto the tent, landing on Scown, while Hebert struggled to load his rifle in the dark.
“Right off the bat, [the bear] pinned me and bit me in the right leg, and she got me in the arm,” said Scown.
Hebert said he was trying to push the bear off Scown while Hebert was struggling to get a round into the rifle.
Hebert said they were, “being tossed in the tent like we were in the rodeo. “
“I closed the bolt on the gun, thinking I have a bullet in and pushed the bear up because I didn’t want to shoot my friend,” Hebert said.
Hebert thought he had a clear shot and squeezed the trigger, but only heard a “click.” He had not pushed the bullet all the way into position in the gun.
“I just put gun to the side, trying to push the bear off [and] Ken is telling me, ‘shoot the bear, shoot the bear!'” Hebert said.
The bear tore through the tent, gouging both men before Hebert managed to get free and chase it away.
“I kind of always wondered what it felt like to be bit,” Scown said. “Luckily, it didn’t get a full upper and lower jaw-bite on me, but it didn’t feel as bad as I thought it was going to feel.
“I didn’t know it was bleeding until I got out [of the tent] and felt it running down my hand and dripping all over the snow,” said Scown.
They were treated in hospital for wounds to their forearms and released. Scown also had a bite on his leg. The injuries were not serious.
The men said that once they cleaned up and hiked back to their truck, they could see bear tracks that indicated the animal had been following them the previous day.
“I firmly believe she was hunting us,” said Scown.
Hebert says the attack also dispelled a hunter’s myth for him.
“Once you go to sleep in your tent it’s not going to see your tent as a threat,” Hebert said. “But that’s not the case anymore.” –Reuters
FLORISSANT, Colo. (AP) — Colorado Wildlife officials say a 63-year-old woman was attacked by a buck mule deer when she tried to pet the animal.
Division of Wildlife spokesman Michael Seraphin says Joan Nutt suffered lacerations after she was struck by the deer’s hooves and antlers Monday evening outside her sister’s home in Florissant, about 105 southwest of Denver.
Nutt says she had called the deer over so she could pet it. Seraphin says the deer lowered its head and charged the woman once it got close.
A driver who witnessed the attack called for help and scared away the deer.
Wildlife officials have euthanized the animal because they say it had become a threat to people.
PULASKI, Va. (AP) – Virginia wildlife officers say there have been two attacks by deer in Pulaski County that injured three people.
The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries said Wednesday that a deer attacked a man and his son on Saturday in the Delton area.
Officials say the 7-year-old boy had an abrasion on his face, and his father had a broken arm and bruises.
The department says a deer kicked and bit a man who was clearing brush Monday about a half-mile away.
As a game officer investigated the second attack on Wednesday, he shot and killed a deer that exhibited aggressive behavior.
Tissue samples from the animal are being tested for rabies.
Officials can’t determine whether that deer was responsible for the attacks.
Karl Wolfe had a half-day to hunt for blacktail deer, but the outing ended just 15 minutes after he left his truck.
Hiking in darkness and a steady rain up a steep Sitka slope, Wolfe was attacked Sunday morning by a brown bear, which chomped down on his arm and knocked him to the ground.
Wolfe managed to fend the bear off by hitting it with his rifle and firing a round. He escaped relatively unscathed — just two bites that were stapled shut at the Sitka hospital.
Department of Fish and Game biologist Phil Mooney visited the site Monday, looking for clues to what triggered the attack and for signs of a wounded bear.
Wolfe, an experienced hunter, had no way to know he was about to have a bear encounter, Mooney said.
“This bear essentially gave him no warning,” Mooney said Tuesday. “It was very quick.”
Sitka is a community of about 8,600 on Baranof Island. Admiralty, Baranof, and Chichagof islands together are known as the “ABC” islands, sparsely populated with humans, heavily populated with bears that Alaska researchers have found are related more closely to polar bears than to other brown bears.
The attack occurred about 200 feet from a road that passes near Sitka’s old pulp mill and less than 300 yards above Sawmill Creek, where a few residual pink salmon remain and coho salmon are starting to come in.
“Bears have been up on that slope resting, and then they cross the road and fish at a stream below,” Mooney said.
Mooney called the site a “dog hair thicket,” an area overgrown with new hemlock about 20 feet tall but just two inches to four inches in diameter and few branches as the trees compete for sunlight.
“It’s like walking through a forest of toothpicks,” Mooney said.
Visibility is only about 30 to 35 feet even when the sun is out.
“It’s a good place for bears to sit,” Mooney said. They can lie uphill without disclosing their location and listen and look for anything coming at them. They’re not hiding from humans, Mooney said, but from other bears.
Mooney found no evidence that the attacking bear was defending a food cache. He found few tracks and nothing to indicate the presence of a cub.
What he did find was a rock shelf above Wolfe’s path. A mix of fallen trees and root wads had created a canopy and a dry spot about the size of a dining room table. A bear had dug a bed in the needles before Wolfe arrived.
“I’m just guessing, but the bear could have been asleep and didn’t hear him until he was very close,” Mooney said.
Wolfe told the Daily Sitka Sentinel he was “side-hilling” — zigzagging up the mountain because it was so steep. He followed a rough trail wide enough for one person that had been cut in by the Sitka Mountain Rescue team.
The bear needed only about three steps to cover the 20 feet to Wolfe. His backpack’s strap may have deflected the bear’s jaw. The momentum knocked Wolfe to the ground between two trees.
Wolfe swung his rifle around and hit the bear with the butt end. The animal turned away for a moment but still had its ears back, Wolfe said.
“It didn’t go away, it was regrouping,” he told the Sentinel. “It swung around and was coming at me aggressively.”
Wolfe chambered a round into his rifle and fired from hip at close range. He said he didn’t know if he hit the bear, but he didn’t wait to find out.
“I knew I was bleeding a little, and I knew I needed to get out of the woods,” Wolfe said.
He said he reached his truck and drove to the Sitka hospital.
His heavy clothes and the pack may have prevented a more serious injury.
“The bear didn’t hook him in the back, in the shoulder blades or the ribs,” Mooney told the AP. “It’s just one of those things. Sometimes you just can’t beat luck.”
Mooney found no blood to indicate the bear had been wounded.
The hunt is on for a feisty mule deer buck that charged and pummeled an elderly man near Cameron on Monday morning before it was distracted by the sight of its own reflection.
A Madison Valley game warden is looking for the four-point buck, which attacked Gene Novikoff at his home south of Cameron.
Novikoff had several previous run-ins with the buck this summer, he said Tuesday in a telephone interview, but this time the deer snuck up on him in the driveway.
“I tried to get inside the house, but he charged me before I could,” he said. “I wrestled with him, which was a mistake — I’m 80 years old, he’s only about 2 or 3.”
The buck knocked Novikoff over and pummeled him with its front hooves for more than five minutes. Novikoff suffered a broken rib, bruises and scratches on his torso, hands and head.
Novikoff feared the deer was going to kill him. He called for help, but his wife was inside the house and didn’t hear him.
Eventually the deer noticed its own reflection in Novikoff’s shiny SUV parked nearby and was intrigued.
That gave Novikoff enough time to open the garage door and get inside, he said.
“Thank God I had the car cleaned a couple of weeks ago,” Novikoff said. “If he hadn’t gotten interested in looking at himself, I don’t think I would have made it.”
At that point, Novikoff shot the deer six times with a .22-caliber rifle and it ran off.
He said the deer was still hanging around the car and that’s why he had to shoot at it.
Novikoff’s wife took him to the emergency room at the Madison Valley Hospital, where he was treated for lacerations and bruises.
Even before the attack, officials had decided the deer needed to be dealt with, said Marc Glines, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks game warden.
The buck had grown so brazen it repeatedly chased anglers on the Madison River and once entered a man’s garage.
It was likely raised as a pet by someone because the buck shows no fear of humans, Glines said.
Once a deer has become so habituated that it will aggressively go after people, it has to be killed, he said.
“FWP was worried that a fisherman would trip while getting away, or it would run into a child and someone would get hurt or killed,” he said.
Novikoff’s neighbor has twice doused the deer with pepper spray. But even that painful experience failed to spook the deer away for good.
Glines has since loaned a hunting rifle to Novikoff to use if the deer shows up again.
Meanwhile, Glines is also looking for the deer, which has proved elusive.
“That creature, as nutty as it is, it can sense when he’s around,” Novikoff said.
Aspen Daily News Staff Report– Wildlife officers with the Colorado Division of Wildlife are searching for a bear involved in an attack Thursday night in Aspen. A man living in the Meadowood Drive area off Castle Creek on the west side of Aspen was reportedly attacked in his home by a bear shortly after 8 p.m.
The victim is undergoing treatment for his injuries, which are not considered life threatening, according to the Division of Wildlife.
Preliminary details indicate that the homeowner’s three dogs began barking loudly in the ground floor of the house, according to a statement released by the Division of Wildlife. When the homeowner went downstairs to check on the dogs, he was confronted by a large, black bear. The man was struck by the bear but managed to open a window, allowing the bear to leave the house, the DOW said.
Wildlife officers have set a trap for the bear at the site and are patrolling the neighborhood. If captured, the bear will be euthanized for the attack.
As of Friday afternoon, the victim was still being treated at an area hospital.
The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk
ROSS TOWNSHIP, Pa. — A woman died Sunday when she was attacked by her 350-pound pet black bear after she entered its cage for cleaning and feeding, according to a report in The Express-Times.
The report said Kelly Ann Walz, 37, was found dead at about 5 p.m. by Pennsylvania State Police. She was licensed to keep the bear, as well as a a Bengal tiger and an African lion.
Bear ambushes hiker, attacks her iPhone instead
By Caroline McCarthy, cnet news
Bears have some awfully funny inclinations. Back in 2004 there were all those wackynews stories about the bear who’d downed three dozen cans of beer at a campground and proceeded to pass out.
But this one takes the cake: this summer, when Vermont hiker Kris Rowley was approached by a bear and it kept following her, it proved more interested in chowing down on her iPhone.
Rowley, who serves as Vermont’s chief information security officer, tells CIO.com: “In a semi-panic, I threw the phone at the bear.”
The bear proceeded to ignore Rowley and started clawing at the iPhone instead, CIO.com explains. Rowley used that as her chance to make a hasty exit. She returned two days later to get her iPhone back–bringing along a baseball bat for defense–and found it still there, but chewed and scratched up to the point where she couldn’t use it anymore.
Unfortunately, the Genius Bar support team at her local Apple Store wouldn’t take “a bear ate my iPhone” as a legitimate excuse to get a new one on the house: Rowley had to pay full price for a replacement.
Maybe that would’ve been different if she’d brought the bear along with her. Just a thought.
MOUNT PLEASANT, Wis. (AP) – A Racine-area man says the prognosis is good for his 6-year-old dog, nine days after it was nearly killed in a bear attack.
Tim Peltz of Mount Pleasant says Roxie lost a lot of blood in the Oct. 17 attack, but the boxer’s recovery has been promising.
Peltz had just let Roxie out near Crivitz when the dog darted into the forest. As two bear cubs scrambled up into trees, Roxie collided with the mother bear.
The bear locked its jaws onto the dog and swung it around. Peltz ran into the house for a gun, and when he came back the bears were gone.
He found Roxie in a pool of blood. Veterinarians told him they didn’t think the dog would survive.
But Roxie is bucking the odds. Her chest is covered in stitches and staples but Peltz says she’s regaining her strength.