Archive for the 'Animals' Category

News from near the viper’s pit.

HAYMARKET, VA — The middle of the night is a perfect time for a black bear to go wandering through a neighborhood in a Washington suburb. Chances are slim the bear will come into contact with a human, making it easier for the bear to enjoy the sights and search for food without interruptions.

[ … ]

If a bear is in your yard and it approaches you, make yourself look big and make loud noises. Remain at a safe distance and throw rocks to make the bear feel unwelcome.

Yes, chances are slim.  And that’s exactly what I recommend you do, folks around the beltway.  Scream and throw rocks to make it feel unwelcome, if you can find any rocks after Pedro has manicured your lawn.

Meanwhile, I suppose governor Ralph “Kill the babies give me all your guns” Northam is proceeding apace to ensure you are incapable of any defense against Mr. bear, so just don’t go out anywhere at night.  Or let your pets out.  Perhaps poochie the dog can take a crap on your carpet.  Is that okay, mommy?

From a reader, news from California.

A woman in California made a brave attempt to fight off a mountain lion and save her dog from an attack by punching and elbowing it before trying to pry open its jaws with her hands.

The woman was eventually unsuccessful and the dog died in the attack, according to multiple reports from local news agencies. 

Officers arriving at the scene saw the lion eating the dog in the woman’s backyard, before it ran away again into the hills, according to the Ventura County Star.

[ … ]

Simi Valley police said that a second dog on a walk in the area was also attacked, according to local TV station NBCLA. 

Officers believe the attack was made by the same mountain lion.

Earlier this year in February a man in Colorado who was jogging when he was attacked by a mountain lion put up a similarly brave fight. 

These are bad animals.  So are bears.  So are Coyotes (or Coywolves), who have learned to travel in packs and related methods of predation because of wolf and dog DNA.

Trying to fist fight a mountain lion is brave.  I’d rather have a large bore handgun.

Dean Weingarten writing at Ammoland.

He turned around, and looked. There, no more than 20 feet away, its feet on a tipped over trash can, was a huge black bear. The bear did not notice him immediately.

But Greg’s dog had come out, and peaked around the corner. It growled and emitted a bark, Grrrr..ru..ruff! The bear jumped over the downed trash can, landed with a Woof!, and charged directly at Greg.

Everything happened extremely fast, but Greg had moved into the psychological state of tachypsychia, where everything seems to slow down. This is a common effect when a human perceives a deadly threat. The effect also distorts distance, and can cause tunnel vision, focused on the threat.

Greg said: Oh f*ck! The .45 Kimber appeared in his hand and he was firing, with the bear taking up his whole field of vision. Greg told me:

“Everything went into like, time lapse.” “It seemed like it took forever!”

In Greg’s heightened state of awareness, he could hear the first three bullets hit.

Thunk, thunk, thunk.

Then his ears were ringing. The bear dropped its head down as he fired the last three shots at extremely close range, Greg said it was three feet or less.

The bear hit the railing of the walkway two feet from him, turned left, and went down the walkway away from Greg, who had the empty Kimber in his hand.

[ … ]

Greg had loaded the magazine with five rounds, with a round in the chamber. He had found, through experience, a fully loaded magazine to be less reliable in his little Kimber.

The cartridges were Federal HST rounds, an aggressive hollow-point design made for defense against humans. The Kimber Ultra Carry II has a three inch barrel, which likely reduces the velocity by 10-15% compared to a standard five inch barrel.

One neighbor said they had seen the bear previously, and believed it to be 500 lbs. Greg initially thought it was 350-400 lbs. Everyone agrees it was a big black bear.

In early November, with plentiful food, it would have had four inches of fat on, under the skin.

[ … ]

A retired officer commented about the bullet’s performance. He said years ago, he had seen a big black bear which had been hit by a car, in the late fall. An officer had shot it with a .40 caliber, in the neck, to put it out of its misery. The .40 caliber hollow point was not sufficient, and a 12 gauge slug was used to finish the job. When the taxidermist skinned out the bear, they found the expanded .40 caliber lodged in the bears neck. It had not penetrated to the spinal column or entered the chest cavity. In a test by luckygunner.com, the HST .45 cartridge had one of the most aggressive expansion and the lowest velocities, of self defense .45 rounds.

Greg says he had considered bringing his Glock 29 10 mm instead of the Kimber .45, but he was not expecting to have to shoot a bear. He had left the Glock and took the Kimber. He thinks .45 full metal jacketed ball ammunition would likely have been sufficient to take down the bear.

First of all, congratulations to Dean for more great reporting on bear attacks.  Second, take FMJ ammunition if you expect to come into contact with a large predator.  Penetration is the key.  Hollow point ammunition is your enemy in this encounter.  When I expect to be in this position, I carry 450 SMC 230 gr. to push 1120 FPS, always FMJ ammunition for large predators.  Always.

But stay tuned, the best (or worst) part of this report comes up.

Greg was not cited for shooting the bear. He was cited for reckless endangerment and unlawful discharge of a firearm.

The cops would rather he have perished being eaten to death by a 400 pound predator than actually discharged a firearm in self defense.

God help us.  It’s come to this.  The cops actually filed charges against him.

Randall Brackins is the chief of police in Gatlinburg.  Like all good cowards, he has no email.  Take note.  This is not the first (or tenth) time I’ve said this.  If you are on the public dollar and have no contact email, you are a coward.

Hey Randall, I have an email address.  You can contact me at any time.  You, sir, are a coward for not supplying the same thing.

USA Today.

A woman was attacked and killed by a group of feral hogs Sunday morning outside the Southeast Texas home where she worked as a caretaker, authorities said.

Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said in a press conference Monday that Christine Rollins, 59, arrived around 6 to 6:30 a.m. when she was attacked at the Anahuac home, located 40 miles east of Houston.

The 84-year-old woman who has been under her care for almost two years went outside and found Rollins in the front yard between her car and the front door, Hawthorne told reporters.

He said Rollins had a severe head wound and several other injuries consistent with different sized bites indicating multiple animals were involved.

[ … ]

“In my 35 years, it was one of the worst things I had ever seen,” Hawthorne said about the scene.

The coroner in neighboring Jefferson County ruled Monday that Rollins bled to death after an attack by feral hogs.

Hawthorne told reporters that feral hogs have been a problem in the county and throughout the state of Texas, however, incidents like this are extremely rare.

So rare that you are willing to risk you life to being eaten by feral hogs?  Why not carry a gun with you wherever you go?  It’s a pain, I know.  But it all comes down to mitigating high risk outcomes.

If an event is high probability and low consequence, it is at least moderate risk, and may be high risk because of the high probability.  Risk = probability X consequences.  If an event is low probability but high consequence (as loss of life would certainly be), it is certainly of moderate risk, at may be high risk because of the high consequences.

That’s risk analysis 101.

Dean Weingarten.

Thirty-three percent is very far from that 98 percent efficacy rate so widely cited. And it’s an especially problematic number if we accept that firearms can be demonstrated to have a success rate of between a 76 percent (in a worst-case scenario, as presented in “Efficacy of Firearms”) and 96 percent (as is the case in Alaska’s DLP data or that compiled by firearms writer Dean Weingarten).

The Government of Svalbard, Norway,  has strict requirements for protection against bears. People are not allowed to leave the town without adequate protection, because of the large number of polar bears in the vicinity, and the constant potential for attack. The governor of Svalbard does not recommend bear spray. The governor of Svalbard prohibits the use of bear spray as a protection against polar bears. The Governor requires people to have appropriate firearms in their group.

And as Dean points out, this is different from the advice and counsel of the government of Montana.  Wonder why?

You make your decision, I’ll make mine.  When in the bush, I’ll carry a large bore handgun at a minimum.

Via WiscoDave, this ridiculous report.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife officials say if you see an injured animal, do not pick it up and put it in your car.

CPW tweeted that a woman found an injured bobcat on the side of the road. She placed the cat in the backseat of her car next to her child.

Officials were able to remove the cat and say it was too injured to react to the woman putting it in her car.

She’s blessed that cat didn’t rip her child’s eyes out.  These are feral animals.  Teach people not to do that.

Recall that there were multiple bear attacks briefly discussed in this earlier report.  Bear spray was deployed, but there was another attack not fully discussed, where pistols were used.

In addition to their archery equipment, both men had 9 mm pistols. Chris Gregersen had a Glock 43. Donivan Campbell had a Sig Sauer P320. Both guns were loaded with full metal jacketed (FMJ) cartridges.

I like Dean’s detail – I always want to know what weapon was used and what caliber it was.

He took a snap sight picture and fired at the bear’s rear. It was probably 16 seconds into the attack.  The point of aim was the bear’s hind quarters. There was no other choice.  The bear and Donivan were up slope with brush on either side. There was no time to flank the bear, on a steep hill side, with considerable brush, when fractions of a second could make the difference between life and death.   Chris had a clear shot. He has considerable experience shooting under stress while hunting. He says he has “shot a lot.”  He had a brief worry about hitting his friend, so he had to do it right.

[ … ]

Chris emphasized bear spray would not have been sufficient. The spray would have been directed at the bear’s backside. If the spray had reached the bear’s head, it would have disabled Donivan as well. When the bear charged again, the bear spray would have been unlikely to reach the bear through the heavy cover.

There were multiple charges, each time repelled by yelling and gunfire.  The injuries were bad, and Dean has some good pictures of the area as well.

This further confirms that bear spray is simply not an effective deterrent against a determined, large predator.  But a gun is – I guess I would have chosen a larger bore handgun.  There is also this observation.

A warden suggested more power, and a large magazine capacity gave a better chance of hitting the central nervous system. He recommended the Glock 20 in 10mm

I have a better solution: A 1911 shooting 450 SMC, with higher muzzle velocity and a heavier bullet.  I’m accurate with it, I just can’t shoot 50 rounds without ceasing to have fun.  It’s not a plinker.

News from Georgia.

Deer season for archery is currently open in Georgia, but firearms season doesn’t start until Oct. 19. Meanwhile, Glynn County police and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources is continuing to investigate how a teen was shot dead by another man’s rifle while hunting Saturday.

Bobby Lane, 17, was pronounced dead at a hospital after police say fellow hunter Hector Romero mistook him for a deer, according to a DNR news release.

Witnesses told police that all of the parties involved knew each other and came to the Myers Hill area to go hunting. Police were called to a wooded area in the 500 block of Myers Hill Road in response to reports of a person shot. Once there, officers met with a group of hunters at Friendly Express on highways 82 and 303.

First Coast News spoke with Lane’s cousin who says Lane and Romero were hunting friends and had been on trips before.

Firearms season doesn’t start until October 19 and Rawling said Lane and Romero knew of the state regulations.

“I’ve been hunting for a very long time and in all my years of hunting, I’ve been told if you don’t exactly know what it is, 100 percent exactly what it is, you do not pull the trigger,” Rawling said.

Let’s see.  Four legs versus two, deer skin versus human skin, clothing, etc., etc.  Yea, I can see how the mistake was made.

This is absolutely stupid.  First of all such a shot risks an unethical kill on a deer.  Second, it risks killing a human.

Don’t be this person.

Fox News.

A Canadian man fighting for his life begged his assailant to let him go, but his pleas went unheeded — which is probably because black bears don’t understand English.

Brandon Lattie, 27, was on a walking trail in British Columbia at the Ferguson Lake Nature Reserve on Wednesday night when he says he spotted the bear, which began to chase him.

Lattie told CBC News he ran and jumped into a small lake, not expecting the bear to follow him.

“It happened so fast I couldn’t even think, so that seemed like the right thing to do,” he said.

Brandon Lattie says he was attacked by a black bear at Ferguson Lake Nature Reserve in British Columbia, Canada.

Brandon Lattie says he was attacked by a black bear at Ferguson Lake Nature Reserve in British Columbia, Canada. (Brandon Lattie)

But the swampy water slowed him and the bear swiped at Lattie, leaving him with scratch marks on his back and arm. The 27-year-old said the dogged bear even tried to hold him underwater.

“I think it was trying to hold me underwater. I was already physically tired and kind of out of breath from when I ran away and then the next thing I know I’m…going to try to get drowned by a frickin’ bear,” he told the news outlet.

Lattie said he noticed “there was at least a foot or two of water above me” and pushed himself “back up to fight back.”

It was then, Lattie said, he resorted to begging.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said he told the bear. “You don’t want to do it.”

A family said they were nearby and saw Lattie running away from the bear in the lake. Lucky for Lattie, the family’s dog began to bark, distracting the bear and giving the 27-year-old a chance to break free and swim to a dock.

“It could have been a whole lot worse,” Lattie said. “As soon as I got hit, I just thought, ‘OK, this is where I die. This is where my head gets chewed apart.'”

I don’t think bears have feelings of sympathy or a conscience.  I think a large bore handgun would have been a better choice.

News from the Northwest.

MTN News reports that the morning attack involved two bowhunters who, after getting medical care, “came into Shedhorn Sports in Ennis dressed in hospital gowns looking for new clothing. Shedhorn staff told MTN the men said they were able to deploy bear spray which ultimately drove the bear off.”

I don’t consider this successful use of bear spray.  If it had been successful, the men wouldn’t have been in hospital gowns.  I think a large bore handgun would have been a better choice.