Archive for the 'Animals' Category

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.

Nina Pullano.  The actual title of her piece is Scientists: No, you cannot kill 30 to 50 feral hogs with an automatic rifle.

So while the hype raged on, Inverse turned to the science to see if McNabb’s statement had any truth to it.

Turns out an automatic rifle would simply not be an effective way to get rid of the feral pigs ravaging parts of the country. That’s according to pig experts and Clemson University researchers Shari Rodriguez and Christie Sampson.

“They’re difficult to get rid of in a way that doesn’t educate them on our methods of mitigation,” Rodriguez told Inverse at the time. If you trap and remove most of a particular group of hogs, the others will quickly learn to avoid your tricks next time. To get rid of them, you have to get rid of the entire group.

“So while you may get an animal or two [with a rifle], it’s a drop in the bucket,” Rodriguez said. “It really does nothing to decrease the population of hogs.”

“Also, because hogs are so smart, they will habituate to that method and begin avoiding areas where they think they might get shot,” she said. “It’s not a long-term, sustainable solution.”

Instead, governments need to take feral hogs into account in policies that protect livestock from carnivorous predators, the researchers said.

Hmm … and this passes for research in academia.

Okay, so we have a few things to cover, Nina, Shari and Christie.  First of all, an AR-15 isn’t an automatic rifle, at least, not unless it’s a machine gun that was registered before 1968.  No one uses that for hunting.

The rifles in question are semi-automatic, and if you’re hunting a large population that groups together, that’s the preferred method.  Furthermore, no one with any sense would prefer to have a bolt action rifle if a group of hogs enters your neighborhood and you need to protect your children.  People have indeed been killed by feral hogs, and even in the daytime hours.

The question being addressed by the researchers and you are two different questions.  You’re asking if it’s possible to kill a lot of hogs at one time with an AR-15.  Well of course it is.

At his farmhouse, Campbell goes to his gun safe.

“It will hold about 40 guns, and I’ve got about 25 in there. But I’ve got some really neat guns,” Campbell says. “I’ve got my grandfather’s .22. I have an STW. I have an AR-15. I have a Smith & Wesson .22-250.”

Some of the rifles are for deer. Campbell has many beautiful shotguns because he is an avid duck hunter. He uses the AR-15, which is essentially the military’s M16, to hunt feral hogs. We go out back, and the judge lets fly with the semiautomatic.

“I’ve got a night vision scope on it. And the hogs only come out at 2 o’clock in the morning. There are certain spots they come out at. I drive up very quietly. I’m normally only 200 yards out, and I turn on my little trusty night vision scope and I smoke ’em. All of ’em,” Campbell says. “I can shoot 30 shots in eight seconds, and I’ve killed as many as 26 out of 30 shots at night with that gun.”

The question being addressed by the researchers is one of the strategy of population control, and that’s more complicated.  What they’ve suggested, to wit, “governments need to take feral hogs into account in policies that protect livestock from carnivorous predators,” is completely infeasible, impractical and too expensive.  It also wouldn’t do anything to protect the indigenous species, protect the potable water supply, or prevent crops from being destroyed.  You do realize that all of your food comes from land where these hogs are a problem, right?  You do realize that entire crops have been destroyed and farmers run out of business because of feral hogs, right?

They eat the eggs of the sea turtle, an endangered species, on barrier islands off the East Coast, and root up rare and diverse species of plants all over, and contribute to the replacement of those plants by weedy, invasive species, and promote erosion, and undermine roadbeds and bridges with their rooting, and push expensive horses away from food stations in pastures in Georgia, and inflict tusk marks on the legs of these horses, and eat eggs of game birds like quail and grouse, and run off game species like deer and wild turkeys, and eat food plots planted specially for those animals, and root up the hurricane levee in Bayou Sauvage, Louisiana, that kept Lake Pontchartrain from flooding the eastern part of New Orleans, and chase a woman in Itasca, Texas, and root up lawns of condominiums in Silicon Valley, and kill lambs and calves, and eat them so thoroughly that no evidence of the attack can be found.

And eat red-cheeked salamanders and short-tailed shrews and red-back voles and other dwellers in the leaf litter in the Great Smoky Mountains, and destroy a yard that had previously won two “‘Yard of the Month” awards on Robins Air Force Base, in central Georgia, and knock over glass patio tables in suburban Houston, and muddy pristine brook-trout streams by wallowing in them, and play hell with native flora and fauna in Hawaii, and contribute to the near-extinction of the island fox on Santa Cruz Island off the coast of California, and root up American Indian historic sites and burial grounds, and root up a replanting of native vegetation along the banks of the Sacramento River, and root up peanut fields in Georgia, and root up sweet-potato fields in Texas, and dig big holes by rooting in wheat fields irrigated by motorized central-pivot irrigation pipes, and, as the nine-hundred-foot-long pipe advances automatically on its wheeled supports, one set of wheels hangs up in a hog-rooted hole, and meanwhile the rest of the pipe keeps on going and begins to pivot around the stuck wheels, and it continues and continues on its hog-altered course until the whole seventy-five-thousand-dollar system is hopelessly pretzeled and ruined.

So as to the question of lethal removal, here is your answer.

Lethal control works. Alaska uses aerial wolf control to manage wolf populations as well as long term hunting and trapping seasons with generous bag limits. Wolves will have dramatic impacts on moose and caribou populations if allowed to increase in numbers unchecked. Natives in western Alaska will tell you that there was never any moose in western Alaska until wolf suppression was initiated. Moose in Alaska have been expanding their range because of wolf (lethal) control. State Fish and Wildlife personnel use aircraft to control wolf populations. Abundant moose and caribou populations are the result.

Your pig problems could be managed the same way. Aerial lethal suppression coupled with an open hunting season on pigs until you achieve the numbers, in terms of managed populations, that you want.

If eradication is your goal, then lethal removal is the only option. If the State is serious, your pig problem can be solved.

Remember, countless millions of bison, packs of wolves, plains grizzles and the prairie chickens (extinct,) were removed from the great plains with single shot front-stuffers (in large part.)

The scoped AR seems IMO, to be the best platform for ground based pig control. What fun!

As long as leased hunting property owners make money on hog hunting, as long as the use of firearms in suburban areas is frowned upon, and as long as ignorant people are taught that there is any other method to deal with this invasive species, there will be a feral hog problem.

When people get serious, for example, when there isn’t enough food to go around for urbanites, they will decide that feral hogs need to be killed.  Until then, researchers are tilting at windmills.

This video shows what a scoped AR can do to feral hogs, even in daylight.

Something tells me you’ve never been in the bush before, have you Nina?

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.