Archive for the 'Animals' Category

News from Michigan.

For many years hunters and groups that support hunters have been relentlessly telling the unbelievers that hunting deer is needed to keep the deer herds in check.  These groups of people just will not believe the educated ones.

Now the Lansing State Journal is reporting that East Lansing City Officials last Tuesday voted to authorize the culling of the deer herds.  To those who may not know what culling the herd means; that means hiring sharpshooters who would kill the deer in specialized hunts in the city parks.

By hiring that means instead of hunters paying for the chance to hunt and kill a deer, the taxpayers of East Lansing has to pay the $6,000 it will cost for this round of culling.  When the cull happens the city manager would partner with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services to bring in those taxpayer-paid sharpshooters who will kill the deer in specialized hunts in the city parks.

It gets even better for all those who are against hunters and hunting, the East Lansing City Manager George Lahanas said the city most likely will not budget $6,000 but closer to $20,000 in case the culling program would be needed in more areas of the city and for a longer period.

The problem with the increasing deer population comes from the fact that they are destroying gardens, vegetation, and increased vehicular crashes.

During the debate Council member Mark Meadows said:

“This is not a vote, for me, based on whether hostas are eaten…There comes a point in time where there isn’t enough food for the deer, and I think controlling the population at this point in time is an appropriate way for us to go forward.”

That my friends is exactly what hunters and the groups that support hunters have been saying for decades.  When there is a protected species with no natural predators the herds will grow beyond them being able to sustain themselves.

Modern game management practices have increased herd sizes and made the herd healthier.  This has been known in America for a century or longer.  It’s probably been known worldwide for millennium.

But only the pros are good enough to hunt the parks.  It’s not good enough to dispatch bow hunters on the deer herd.  They are the “only ones.”

Because, as you know, “Only The King’s Men Can Hunt The Royal Forests.”

From a reader, this news.

According to a follow up article, mountain lions don’t usually come this far down to the prairie area of Redfield. However, the lion was a young male, and young male mountain lions are known to travel. In this case, one particular mountain lion did come down from their normal hunting area, and he found himself a nice big 800lb meal.

As the lion wandered onto the property and attacked the steer, a livestock operator spotted him. Unfortunately, this livestock operator was not armed while he was out feeding the animals. To the lion, he was just another piece of meat on the range.

Fortunately, a neighboring rancher spotted the lion and recognized the danger the animal posed. This beast could have taken down multiple cattle costing thousands of dollars in damages. It could have also taken out the livestock operator.

Bet he’ll carry a gun in the future.  As for me, I think I’d prefer to have a long gun in these circumstances.  For those who don’t live in South Dakota, there’s always Coyotes, so there is always reason to carry, whether on the city streets from two-legged threats or in your yard or ranch from four-legged threats.

News from New Hampshire.

A New Hampshire man fought and killed a coyote on Monday, police said, bringing a spate of attacks to an end.

Ian O’Reilly, from Kensington, choked the coyote to death after it attacked his two-year-old child. The same coyote is believed to have bitten a woman in the buttocks earlier in the day, and attacked a car.

The coyote targeted O’Reilly’s family while they were walking on a trail near Kensington. It bit one of O’Reilly’s three children, prompting the father to kick it. O’Reilly then throttled the animal.

“There was no interest in it going away,” O’Reilly told Boston 25 News. “[I] ultimately had to make the decision to become the aggressor and jumped on it, attacked it and [got] it to the ground.

“When I was able to get on top of it, I put my hand on its snout so it wasn’t able to attack me. There was quite a bit of snow on the ground, so I shoved the face into the snow and then eventually was able [to] put my hand on its snout and expire it through suffocation.

“Ultimately one hand on its windpipe and one hand on its snout did the trick.”

O’Reilly was reportedly bitten in the arm and chest. His child was wearing a bulky snowsuit and was unharmed.

“The coyote attacked a young child, and the child’s dad went into protection mode and suffocated the coyote until it succumbed,” police said.

New Hampshire’s fish and game department was testing the coyote for rabies, according to 25 News. O’Reilly received shots for the virus.

This may be a similar case to the recent event with the California mountain lion.  Shooting at the cat would have been danger close and a mistake of centimeters means life and death for his little boy.

The only other option would have been to jump him and shoot the Coyote point blank range.  I’d probably have tried that, but it’s difficult to say unless I was in that circumstance.

Via reader Richard, news from California.

Emergency crews responded to Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in Lake Forest, California, Monday afternoon for a reported mountain lion attack on a 3-year-old child.

The child suffered injuries to the neck as a result of the attack, according to the Orange County Fire Authority who said the family of six was walking in the park with the 3-year-old in front of his father when the feline came out of nowhere and grabbed the child by the neck.

The father threw a backpack at the mountain lion, at which point the animal dropped the child in lieu of the backpack and jumped up a tree, the Orange County Fire Authority said.

While it’s tempting to say that I’d like to hurl a .45 ACP 230 grain fat boy at the cat, this instance is one where you’ve got to do something different.

Shooting at the cat that has your son in its clutches isn’t so smart.  If he’d had a gun he could have jumped the cat and shot it point blank, but you’ve got to have a lot of confidence in your shooting ability to hit a moving target and not shoot your own child.  A mistake of centimeters means life or death for your son.

Kudos to the father.

Via reader Fred.  News from L.A.

You learn two things from this video.  First of all, Coyotes have lost their fear of other Coyotes and now work in packs.  This is learned behavior, along with an admixture of Wolf DNA.  Don’t go out unarmed.

Second, cats.  Even when I walked my 90 pound Doberman Heidi (before she passed away), when she tried to screw with local cats I always pulled her back.

I’d say to her, “That cat will claw your eyes out girl and I’ll be walking a blind dog.  Learn what you can mess with and what you can’t.”

I would have turned her loose on Yotes, other dogs, or two-legged assailants.  Not cats.

Good Lord, I miss my girl.  So much.

From reader Wynn A, news from North Carolina.

Two people were hospitalized Monday in central North Carolina after being attacked by what is believed to be a coyote.

TV station WXII is reporting the victims were a father and daughter.

The Davie County Sheriff’s Office is warning people that the animal is still on the loose. It’s the second time this year that a coyote attack has been reported outside a Davie County home.

Before I even looked at the caption I said to myself, “That Yote is rabid.”  There’s only one solution to a rabid Coyote.

Just because you’re in your backyard doesn’t mean you shouldn’t carry.

It’s not just gangs.  It’s lone attackers as well in Chicago.

A 5-year-old boy was taken to the hospital Wednesday after a coyote bit him several times outside a nature museum in Lincoln Park, CBS Chicago reports. Police said the boy was near the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum when a coyote bit him “multiple times” around 4 p.m.

A Fire Department spokesman said the boy was bitten on the head and was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital to be treated. His condition was stable, according to police.

After the attack, the coyote took off running north. CBS Chicago reported the coyote was still on the loose Wednesday night. Police drove squad cars along the running paths in the park of Lincoln Park with their spotlights shining.

[ … ]

In recent days, several coyotes have been spotted walking the streets of Chicago. While attacks on people are extremely rare, dogs have been targets.

Yes.  That’s right.  Extremely rare, just like attacks from Mountain Lions and Bears.  All of them.  Extremely rare.  Just like attacks from feral gang members.

Why would you ever carry means of self defense when attacks are so rare and the cops are there to protect and defend you, being heroes of the community and all that, responding within seconds to any threat?

Isn’t that what the controllers in Chicago tell you?

Stars and Stripes.

The U.S. is temporarily halting a program under which bomb-sniffing dogs were sent to countries in the Middle East after a report released Friday found at least five more of the specially trained dogs had died in Jordan and Egypt following poor care, mistreatment or negligence.

One of the dogs in Jordan died after overheating in June, and another was poisoned by insecticide sprayed near its kennel in September, the report by the State Department’s Inspector General said.

Three of 10 dogs the U.S. has provided to Egypt in the past year have also died — one from lung cancer, one from a ruptured gall bladder and one from heat stroke, the report said.

The announcement that the program is being stopped comes months after American inspectors found that at least 12 of the U.S.-trained canines sent to Jordan under an antiterrorism program had died from medical problems. Others were overworked, unhealthy and forced to live in kennels with “barely existent” sanitation, the officials said in an evaluation released in September.

At the time, the IG called for the U.S. to stop sending dogs to Jordan until a plan could be put in place to ensure the animals’ health and welfare, but State Department officials refused to do so. The department’s top security and counterterrorism officials said at the time their divisions were taking steps to improve monitoring of the health and training of dogs provided to foreign partner countries.

But the IG learned through a hotline complaint after the original report was published that two additional dogs had died in Jordan of “non-natural,” preventable causes.

“The death of two canines from non-natural causes — namely, hyperthermia and poisoning — since June 2019 raises serious questions about the Department’s contention that it has taken adequate steps to protect their health and safety,” said the report released Friday.

A third dog in Jordan was infected with leishmaniasis, a preventable disease spread by sand flies, officials told the IG in October. Last year, a 3-year-old Belgian Malinois provided to Jordan had to be euthanized after being infected by the same disease.

Jordan is the main recipient of U.S.-trained bomb-sniffing dogs but several other countries have also received canines under the program, which has been running for some 20 years.

Two of the deaths in Egypt were not previously disclosed to the IG, the new report said. Egypt had denied U.S. officials permission to visit the kennels or the airport where the animals would work, and would not allow U.S. mentors to accompany the dogs to Egypt for in-country training.

[ … ]

In its earlier evaluation, the IG said the department could not provide detailed information about programs in nine other countries which had a total of between 75 and 100 dogs as of last September.

In August, the State Department repossessed 10 dogs from Morocco because they were not being used for their intended purpose, the IG said.

Oh.  Okay.  It all makes sense now.  The State Department is responsible for this grotesque program.

Now see, this really pisses me off.  We’ve bred wolves (and then dogs) for millennia to be our under-foot partners and companions, always with us, faithful and loyal to us to the end.  This kind of treatment in return is an abomination.  End the program … NOW!  Totally and completely, no second chances, no modifications, no alterations.  End the program.  That’s the only thing I’ll accept.

A good man has regard for the life of his beast, the evil man doesn’t.  The State Department is evil for doing this, among many other reasons.  The article has pictures of starving dogs that I can’t bring myself to embed.

So the U.S., under the flag of foreign relations, spends a ton of money training dogs to detect explosives, sends them overseas to be used, and instead of taking care of them, they are abused by their handlers if used at all for their intended purpose.  And after finding that out, the State Department refused to stop the program.

Why does the State Department exist?  Rex Tillerson made this major mistake, among many moderate and smaller ones.  When he fired an entire floor of employees from the State Department, he should have emptied the building and permanently shuttered it.  It’s good for nothing at all.

So the intent is to detect explosives?  The Arabic culture disrespects dogs?  Fine.  Let those countries explode to hell and back.  I don’t care.

My own Marine who did a tour in Fallujah in 2007 came home disgusted and repulsed by the obscene and revolting treatment of dogs in middle eastern culture.  If you look at dogs the way they do, I look at you the way I look at the middle eastern culture.

There.  Is that clear enough for you?  On both accounts?

Ammoland.

Mountain lion populations are on the increase and pose significant threats to unarmed humans.  Mountain lions were involved in a flurry of interaction with humans in the last two weeks of 2019.

On 26 December 2019, Gary Gorney was hunting pheasants with his two dogs, in the Custer Mine hunting area near Minot, North Dakota. His dogs alerted him to something ahead. Instead of a pheasant, a large female mountain lion charged him out of the grass. He shot and killed the lion with his 9mm pistol.

[ … ]

On the last day of the year, in 2019, near the Pine Canyon trailhead, a few miles Northeast of Tucson, Arizona, Pima County Sheriff deputies discovered three mountain lions were feeding on a human body.  The three lions were unafraid of people. The lions did not flee as officers approached. They were feeding on the body within sight of human homes.

[ … ]

In the week before Christmas, 2019, mountain lions attacked five pet dogs in the Wood River Valley in Idaho.

Dean could have added the fact that Idaho has seen a rash of pet killings and a mountain lion was killed while eating a pet dog on January 3, 2020.

But hey, the tree huggers say that this kind of thing is extremely rare.  So there’s that.  Say that to yourself when you send your pet out to play or go hiking or backpacking.

News from the Northeast.

Critics of the contests welcome the ban. They say the contests inflict needless pain by encouraging the killing of animals for cash or prizes.

“Participants of wildlife killing contests often use unsporting and cruel techniques – such as calling devices that mimic the sound of prey or even pups in distress – so that they can lure shy coyotes and foxes to shoot at close range,” Laura Hagen, Massachusetts state director for the Humane Society of the United States, said in a statement.

All of you boys who have worked so hard on your Turkey calls to lure those shy gobblers didn’t know you were using an unsporting and cruel technique, huh?

May the pet owners of Massachusetts get what they so richly deserve with these duly elected rulers.