Archive for the 'Animals' Category

Mirror.

For 13 years Timothy Treadwell spent his summers camping out in Alaska with wild bears.

A former heroin addict, the 46-year-old found solace with the grizzlies – who he spoke to, played with and even touched. He gave each one a name and classed them as his friends.

But his luck ran out one stormy October evening when, just hours from when he was due to be picked up by seaplane to return home for winter, he was mauled to death in front of girlfriend Amie Huguenard, 37, before the bear turned on her.

Air taxi pilot Willy Fulton immediately knew what had happened when he landed at Katmai National Park to collect the duo just 24 hours after last speaking to Timothy.

Instead of finding the pair waiting on the shore, there was an eerie silence and the ‘meanest looking bear sitting atop of a pile of human remains, feeding from a human ribcage.

Tim and Aime’s tents were found collapsed and torn with their evening snack lying opened and untouched. Their shoes were lay neatly by the door.

Outside one tent lay a 3ft-high mound of grass, mud, twigs and remains, with ranger Joe Ellis spotting fingers and an arm protruding from the grotesque pile.

Nearby they found what was left of Tim’s mauled head connected to a small piece of spine. His right arm was also found, his wrist watch still attached.

But it was the video camera in Tim’s tent that would provide the full terrifying picture of what really happened.

Tim recorded all his bear interactions and the ferocious attack was no exception. But in their panic, either he or Amie didn’t have time to remove the lens, resulting in six long minutes of blood-curdling audio.

It starts with a frightened Amie asking if the bear is still out there before Tim screams: “Get out here! I’m getting killed out here!”

The tent zipper is heard going as Amie rushes out into the storm and shouts for her boyfriend to ‘play dead’. Her screams and shouts appear to work and the bear lets Tim out of its grip, but as soon as she heads to help it returns, apparently clamping its jaws around his head once more and pulling him towards the undergrowth.

Frantic, Tim screams for Amy to ‘hit the bear’ and she is heard telling him to ‘fight back’ before attacking it with a frying pan.

Throughout the bear is sinisterly silent, with Tim’s shouts giving way to moans before Amy panics and lets out a series of spine-chilling screams.

There the tape runs out.

When the bear was shot, investigators recovered four bin bags full of human remains from the stomach of the 1,000 pound 28-year-old male, who is said to have struggled to feed that season due to his age and broken teeth.

The October 2003 attack was the subject of award-winning documentary The Grizzly Man by Werner Herzog, which revealed how Amie was terrified of the bears and thought her boyfriend was ‘hellbent on destruction’.

She’d told Tim the trip would be her last and had a new job waiting for her back in California.

As for the tape, he warned that people should ‘never listen to this’ and it is believed to have been placed under lock and key with one of his friends.

That’s okay.  I don’t want to see it.

I actually don’t have a problem with his being so arrogant about things.  I also don’t have a problem with his having put himself in danger – lots of people do that for various and sundry reasons.  I also don’t have a problem with his love for the beasts.

What I have a problem with is his having put himself in a position of danger without means of self defense, and especially that he put someone else’s life in danger without that same thing.

Don’t do that with any beast, whether two-legged or four-legged, whether inner city or the bush.

Reader 41mag sends these pictures, with the warning “we had 3 bobcats come into our backyard over New Years. They’re about the size of large breed dog, bigger than our German Short Haired Pointer.”  This is from Arizona, and one of the pictures is from a neighbor’s roof.

More News from Arizona.

The Arizona Daily Star reports the Sun City, Arizona, man was attacked Thursday while he was working on a bike or motorcycle in his garage.

Risks: Health and welfare of your children, health and welfare of you, and health and welfare of your pets.  So what’s the issue?  Carry.  You don’t drive without auto insurance, do you?

@Fred, no, you can’t pet them.  They won’t purr at you.  They aren’t your friend.

We discussed how Dean Weingarten had been tracking bear attacks with associated data on the effectiveness of handguns to stop them.  He previously had cataloged 63 cases.  Now, Dean updates his data to include up to a total of 93 cases, concluding that a handgun was effective 97% of the time.

As of March 2020, we have found 20 more handgun cases, for a total of 93 cases, with three failures, for a success rate of 97%.

In addition to the handgun defenses, there are four more instances where handguns were used in combination with long guns, bringing the total to eight; one where a pistol was used on an aggressive bear hit by a vehicle, two examples where pistols were present but not used, one indeterminate case, and two examples of unconfirmed incidents.  All of these additional incidents are referenced but are not included in the 93 cases or the 97% success rate.

[ … ]

The handgun calibers, when known, range from .22 rimfire to .460 Smith & Wesson Magnum. The most common are .44 magnums with 28 cases, all successful.  There were 2 combinations of .44 magnum and .357 magnum cases. Six of the combination handgun and long gun cases involved .44 magnum revolvers.

For this update, we found another .22 rimfire case, two additional 9mm cases, another .38 special case, three additional .357 magnum cases, another 10mm case, five additional .44 magnum cases (included in the 28 total .44 magnum number), another .45 ACP case, another .454 Casull case, four more cases where the caliber was unknown, and one more case where both .357 and .44 magnum revolvers were used. All 93 cases are referenced below, as well as the combination cases and examples of incidents that were not included, in the interest of transparency and completeness.

And he lists the cases for any detractors, stating that they can be independently verified.

Once again, congratulations to Dean on outstanding research.  Lesson: In the bush, carry means of self defense.  I prefer a larger bore bullet, specifically, 45 SMC.

What would TheAlaskan think about carrying a .22LR for self defense in the Alaskan bush?  I think I’ll take a pass on that.

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?