Archive for the 'Animals' Category

And an SBR at that! Here is the scoop.

1. Did you get to keep the bear? No. He contacted both the sheriff and Parks and Wildlife. In self-defense bear shootings, the animal is collected by authorities.
2. How did the bear get in? It climbed a second-story deck, opened a cracked window by pushing in the screen. Due to mountain weather and a lack of AC, the window had been left ajar.
3. Is your hearing okay? Yes. The firearm was equipped with a suppressor, and the shooter routinely suppresses all his guns.
4. Did you know it was a bear? No. He only confirmed it upon visually identifying the animal inside the home.
5. What gun did you use? A Geissele Super Duty 11.5-inch AR-15 in 5.56, which he described as a personal favorite.
6. Any damage to the house? Minimal. All seven rounds hit the bear. One fragment nicked the floor, but no other property damage was reported.
7. What ammo did you use? Hornady Critical Defense 55 grain. Despite common skepticism about the 5.56 round on large animals, the ammunition performed effectively.

This is the first video I’ve seen that frankly admits that it takes too much time, too many resources, and too much manpower to catch hogs in traps. And the first to admit that hunting has the most immediate and dramatic impact on the population.

There is one issue I have with the video. He says, “When you shoot one the rest won’t come back.” Hogwash. I’ve seen it happen within 15 minutes.

By the way, you see that shot at 13:13 of the video? That’s how you take hogs (direct hit to the head or just behind the ear) with smaller caliber rifles. With big bore guns you aren’t so limited.

Not mine, but his.

I’m surprised he isn’t carrying his .454 Casull wheel gun.

I don’t go into the bush where I live without being armed, much less in Alaska.

I’ve remarked before about the virtue and even necessity of controlled – managed – prescribed burns. It’s good for the environment. It’s good for other things too.

Adams says the location had a lot to do with the number of ticks swarming the deer carcass. The animal came from an area of Oklahoma with dense vegetation and no recent prescribed fire, which can create a perfect storm for ticks.

“This region tends to produce deer with heavier parasite loads,” Adams says. “But this was an extreme case, even for there.”

[ … ]

“Young fawns don’t move much. That’s their survival mechanism,” Adams says. “In areas that have lots of ticks, they will just cover the fawns. They’ll be all around their eyes, nose, and mouth. In those cases, ticks can actually kill fawns.”

[ … ]

Ongoing research from Craig Harper at the University of Tennessee is exploring how prescribed burning can impact tick populations. Early findings suggest that fire could be an effective tool for reducing ticks, in addition to its known benefits for habitat and forage.

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Like I said about cattle (and specifically bulls), you don’t mess with large animals. That wolf may have a broken jaw now and may not survive.

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Cowboy State Daily.

Can Wyoming ranchers prevent grizzlies from killing their cattle? Possibly, if they go all-in on Charolais cattle.

That’s what happened last week when a herd of Charolais cattle on a ranch owned by DeBruycker Charolais in Dutton, Montana, decided that a pesky grizzly had to go.

Where most cattle might panic or run at the approach of the apex predator, this herd went on the offensive.

“They’re protective of their babies, as any good mother should be,” owner Brett DeBruycker told Cowboy State Daily.

Rather than running away from the grizzly, the cattle approached the pernicious predator. The grizzly was surrounded and sent running for its life, with dozens of Charolais hot on its tail to ensure it was evicted from the property.

“Charolais tough,” Kesler Martin, DeBruycker’s nephew and one of the owners of DeBruycker Charolais, posted on social media. “That bear didn’t stand a chance.”

This behavior is expected for bison, but uncommon for domestic cattle. Could Charolais cattle be the cure for grizzly predation in Wyoming?

Video at the link.

I’m no so sure about the statement that this would be “uncommon for domestic cattle.” Maybe for cows and steers, but if you’ve ever been around bulls, you know that they are some of the meanest animals God ever created.

American Hunter.

A New World screwworm (NWS) outbreak in Mexico has raised alarms at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which is painfully familiar with the consequences should the parasite invade the United States. The impact on livestock and wildlife—including game animals—could be devastating if the flying insect and the flesh-eating maggots it produces are not stopped before gaining entry.

On May 11 U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke L. Rollins announced, “The United States has ordered the suspension of livestock imports through ports of entry along our southern border after the continued spread of the New World Screwworm in Mexico…The protection of our animals and safety of our nation’s food supply is a national security issue of the utmost importance.”

An adult NWS is similar in appearance to a common fly, but according to the USDA they, “…are blue-green, have three dark stripes on their backs, and have orange eyes; they are about twice the size of a housefly.” It’s the parasite’s larval stage that threatens warm-blooded mammals.

“They drop their eggs primarily in surface wounds, but also in noses and sinus cavities. Left untreated in humans, livestock, or wild animals, the egg masses hatch into swarms of larvae—the ‘worm stage’—which embed themselves in the host’s flesh and consume the living tissue and fluids. The appearance of the larvae and the way they burrow into the host’s flesh give the screwworm its common name. Feeding screwworms enlarge the wound and attract additional female flies, which deposit more and more eggs in the wound. If the infestation remains untreated, the host animal has little chance of surviving the secondary infections that often follow,” the above-linked USDA webpage explains.

Wonderful. But there’s a way to handle these devilish things. Dropping sterilized flies into the Darien gap. But there’s one problem.

“All we needed to do was keep a flow of those planes. But the cartels were extorting money for every flight of flies that came out of Panama. They were extorting $35,000 a plane,” he said. “So, for all practical purposes, this is really kind of a political closing to make a point that they have got to get their act together.”

So you kill the cartel boss who’s extorting money for the USDA flights. Then when you try another flight and some cartel big wig tries to extort money from you, you send folks to kill him too. And so on. Until you reach the end of cartel bosses who want to perish because of fly drops.

There is no real problem that can’t be solved in this manner. The other option is to let our cattle herds be eaten alive and forswear ever eating beef again.

Which will it be?

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I had never heard this story before about survival after a bear attack.

At Outdoor Life.