Archive for the 'Animals' Category

Cowboy State Daily.

A retired Canadian fish and wildlife agent has voiced concern that black bears are “hunting” humans more frequently in Alberta, but that’s not a big concern in Wyoming, some biologists said.

Veteran wildlife agent Murray Bates says he’s noticed a disturbing shift in the pattern of black bear behavior over the course of his 34-year career.

“Grizzlies were protecting their territory, young and food, but certainly, on occasion, killing a human,” he said. “The key word here is hunt. During my tenure I was starting to notice a shift in black bears attacking humans and grizzlies maintaining traditional patterns of attack or kill.

“The records and experts may state otherwise, but I found myself investigating more complaints of black bears tracking humans as prey, then killing and feeding on them,” Bates added.

[ … ]

“I would still rather encounter a predatory black bear than being involved in a surprise encounter with a grizzly bear at a carcass; time is not on your side in the latter whereas with a proper response a predatory black bear can be deterred (first choice is bear spray, followed by standing your ground and fighting with rocks, sticks, and etc.),” he said.

I’m not surprised.  When hunting is discouraged and guns are outlawed, the predators will roam free to do what they want.

Suck it up, Canadians.  There’s more to come with the impending laws against basically any firearm, including hunting with bolt action rifles.  Get used to it, change your government, or carry non-permissively.

And as for his advice to “stand your ground,” that’s not even done in America without a weapon.  The whole notion is legalization of the use of weapons in stand your ground cases rather than having a duty to retreat.

It’s probably not a big concern for Wyoming because they carry guns.

Video here. News story here.

Goldsby’s husband, Thomas, was out walking their elderly dog, Dandy, at about 4:45 a.m. along Main Street when he ran into a Knoxville police officer shining his spotlight along the First Baptist Church lawn.

The officer rolled down his window and asked him if he had seen a bear.

[…]

Bear sightings in Knoxville occur with some frequency. Erland [PD Spokespuppet] said he recalled one instance, about three years ago, when a bear refused to leave a tree in Morningside Gardens Apartments in the Five Points neighborhood. In that instance, TWRA wildlife officers tranquilized the bear and relocated it to a forest, he said.

Bear populations are growing in Tennessee, but it is more common to see bears in the spring and summer, according to the TWRA website.

East Tennessee’s black bears are normally elusive and shy animals, and unless they have become accustomed to human food sources, they tend to avoid people, the website says.

Any local can tell you that that is a bald-faced lie. The article had just said sightings “occur with some frequency,” which is much closer to the truth. It’s never good to see a bear in winter. Winter bears are usually hungry and may have no fixed den location. They should be avoided. Info about bear dens is here and here. I suspect they’re living within city limits and certainly in Knox County.

If you encounter a bear at close range, the TWRA advises, “Make your presence known by yelling and shouting at the bear in an attempt to scare it away. If a bear is reluctant to leave then proceed to throw rocks or other objects at the bear while continuing to yell. Portray yourself as the dominant animal and do not back down. If a bear is close enough that you feel uncomfortable, slowly back away, continuing to yell while watching the bear at all times. Never run from a black bear as this may trigger a natural response to chase.”

Discharging a firearm inside city limits is illegal, but self-defense, which the State has preeminence over, is not. I generally carry hollow points unless purposefully going to a less populated region; that may have to change. Run by communists and being overwhelmed with carpetbagging leftists who destroyed Maryland, California, Illinois, and Massachusetts, Knoxville is turning into an unpleasant place to live; bears are the least of its problems.

Specifically, leopards.  As best as I can tell, both of the incidents in the linked videos happened in India.  The first dog gave up enough fight to end it.  The second dog had that big cat by the neck and the big cat wondered why he had decided to get into brawl.  It both cases, the fights ended with both the dog and big cats deciding to retreat and live another day.

I love dogs.  Man’s best friend and best protector.

LINK.

For the second encounter use this link.

Coyote drags two-year-old away.

Heart-pounding footage shows the moment a quick-thinking Israeli man jumped into action to save his two-year-old daughter before she was dragged away by a coyote outside their Los Angeles home.

Georgia sheepdog, Casper, fights off, kills 8 coyotes after pack attacks his sheep

A harrowing story in the video at the link. That’s one tough dog.

A Georgia sheepdog is recovering from injuries after squaring off against a pack of coyotes, killing eight of them, while protecting his flock.

Casper, a sheepdog who works on John Wierwiller’s Georgia farm, fought off the more than half a dozen coyotes in a fight that lasted over half an hour, WAGA-TV reported.

Wierwiller says that Casper disappeared for two days after the brutal fight.

“We knew he was hurt because we found parts of his tail and blood and other things, so we were worried,” Wierwiller said.

That’s a good boy.

H/T Battle Beagle @HarmlessYardDog

Using the power of the state to punish your enemies isn’t a tactic limited to the beltway.  It happens all the time in small town America.

One commenter suggests this: “I know what happened here, the person who made the complaint had been feeding that deer and getting trail cam pictures of it. That person just happens to be a friend of that DNR officer. This was a jealously case, the person who was feeding the deer was pissed someone else shot his trophy buck and was using the power of the DNR to get the antlers for himself. I’m from WV, hope he sues the crap out of the DNR for public defamation.”

And law enforcement couldn’t be silent about it.  They just had to go and defame his character in front of the world, with no evidence that he did anything they said he did.

This really is an ugly look for local law enforcement, and also for DNR.  Jealousy is always and everywhere a sin, it and can control a man’s heart.

The only thing this guy did wrong is talk to the police.  Never, ever talk to the police.  Let your attorney do your talking for you.

Caught on video, the cat was “known to authorities” and even has a tracking collar.

Wildlife experts have confirmed that LA’s most well-known mountain lion, P-22, was the big cat that attacked and killed a dog on a leash near the Hollywood Reservoir earlier this month.

A Chihuahua named Piper was killed in the attack, but the family’s other dog survived.

They were able to make that determination using P-22’s GPS tracking collar and other information.

The National Park Service, which tracks and studies mountain lions in the region, said attacks on leashed pets are rare. The service is not aware of any other such attacks in the Los Angeles area and has only seen studies that have documented two other such incidents, one in Colorado and one elsewhere in Southern California.

They also generally do not attack humans and the service noted the person walking the dog was not harmed.

P-22 typically hunts prey animals such as deer and coyotes and recently killed a large buck in Griffith Park, officials say.

“In terms of this incident, there is no evidence that preying on pets is related to an increased chance of an attack on a person, either in mountain lions, or in other urban carnivores such as coyotes,” according to a post from the service’s Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. “Mountain lion attacks on humans are exceedingly rare, although they do occur.”

P-22 lives in Griffith Park and is estimated to be 12 years old. He is known as the most famous cat tracked in the Los Angeles area, making appearances in backyards and neighborhoods around Griffith Park and the Hollywood Hills.

It’ll start killing people soon.

Source:

Wyoming dentist, Dr. Lee Francis, 65 years old, was hunting elk with his 40-year-old son, in the area near Rock Creek, in the Sawtooth Mountains, east of Bondurant, Wyoming.

In this video from KSAL-TV, he gives an interview and explains what happened. Dr. Francis is an avid hunter and outdoorsman. He successfully collected a large grizzly bear with a bow and arrow in 2013. Several attempts to contact Dr. Francis have been unsuccessful.

Dr. Francis had separated from his son when he unintentionally stepped in front of the entrance to a bear den. He saw the fresh dirt, had drawn his Glock 10mm, chambered a round, and was backing away when the bear charged at him out of the den from 10 feet away.

The best interview about the encounter appears to have been in an article at cowboystatedaily.com.  The article says Dr. Francis used 130-grain hardcast bullets in his 10mm Glock.

“He came right at me, and he came on full blast,” the elder Francis said. 

Counting the cartridge already in the chamber, he had 14 rounds loaded with 130 grain hard cast bullets in his Glock. 

“I just remember shooting three or for times, right before he hit me,” he said. “Then I went down on my back.”…

Hard cast bullets will punch through a bruin’s body, instead of rapidly expanding and expending their energy in massive, shallow wounds
the way that hollow point bullets do, he said. 

“Hollow points are meant for stopping people, not bears,” he said, adding that it was also fortunate for him that his weapon was loaded
with hard cast bullets. 

“A hit from a hollow point would have probably just exploded my whole foot,” he said. 

He also said he favors the high-capacity, semi-automatic Glock over magnum revolvers.

130-grain hardcast bullets for a 10mm would be unusual. Perhaps it is a typo or misreading of notes, where another weight of bullet was intended.  Buffalo Bore has a 220-grain hardcast bullets loaded for bear in the 10mm.

More at the link and the CowboyDaily link has good details as well.

Source:

The New Jersey Fish and Wildlife Council will vote Tuesday on a proposal to revive the state’s bear hunting season.

The bear hunting season could be returning to New Jersey after farmers and residents have complained about the surging black bear population and the Department of Environmental Protection reporting that encounters with bears have increased by 237% over 2021 numbers, according to reporting from News 12 New Jersey.

Those factors have prompted Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy to reconsider his stance on the season, which he canceled in part starting in 2018 and entirely last year, following through on a promise he made to animal rights activists during his 2017 election campaign.

“Since the outset of my administration, I have promised to ground every difficult decision on the latest science and evidence in order to protect our communities,” Murphy said in a statement last week while signaling support for reviving the hunt.

“From the data we have analyzed to the stories we have heard from families across the state, it is clear that New Jersey’s black bear population is growing significantly, and nonlethal bear management strategies alone are not enough to mitigate this trend.”

Murphy’s change of heart would be a welcome one for many state residents who have complained of increased encounters with bears that have terrified residents and damaged crops and livestock.

“They really knock a lot of corn down, eat a lot of corn and they’ll take anywhere from 5% to 25% of a field. We’ve seen some fields that have been 70% decimated this year,” Phillip Broadhecker, a farmer from Hampton Township, told News 12. “You can actually go on to Google maps and look at Earth views in the fall of fields and see circles and round spots in fields, and it’s astounding how bad it is.”

Broadhecker said the damage doesn’t stop at crops, noting that livestock and even people’s pets have been the targets of the growing population of bears.

“We’ve got a lot of livestock that have been killed or injured up here. Goats, chickens, pigs, small horses, even people’s dogs,” he said.

He has no control over his own dog.  He doesn’t rule the dog – the dog rules him.  All he could do when it was over is ask is the child is okay.

If the child had been harmed in any way, he should have been held legally liable for any damages or medical bills, and then worse if the child had been killed.

Real men have control over their beasts.  Don’t be this pathetic man.

Source.

Wildlife encounters are pretty common in the Greater Boston area, from wild turkeys at crosswalks to coyotes in yards. Well-publicized coyote attacks in recent years and an uptick in sightings this year have some people worried. Wildlife biologist Susan McCarthy from the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife joined GBH All Things Considered host Arun Rath to help us understand coyote activity in the area. This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Arun Rath: So first, could you start off by giving us maybe a bit of a coyote reality check? Are we seeing significantly more sightings in encounters than in the past? And does that mean there are more coyotes on the ground in Eastern Massachusetts?

Susan McCarthy: Well, what I can say is that it does seem as though there are more reports of coyotes in suburban and urban environments. But whether or not that means there are more coyotes on the landscape is a great question to ask. And so what we’ve determined is that over the past 10 years, the coyote population in Massachusetts has stabilized. Coyotes are existing at very high densities and they’re in all available habitats throughout the commonwealth of Massachusetts. We wouldn’t say that the coyote population is growing. … We know that’s not true. That’s not the case.

Yea, you go ahead and keep telling yourself that.  Mind you, don’t be so confused as to believe that Coyotes are afraid of you when you meet up with them.  With a buddy to help him out, this Coyote might have succeeded against that big cat.  But the point is that a single Coyote had the steel to go up against a big cat alone, even though he ended up calling it off in the end.

So as you walk your dogs in the evening and carry your cell phone to call 911 (but no sidearm), you tell yourself that Coyotes aren’t more numerous and there is no problem when those six eyes are staring at you from the bush.

Ever see a coyote and a mountain lion fight? 👀 pic.twitter.com/73GAYiMFr5

— Old Row Outdoors (@OldRowOutdoors) April 9, 2018