Archive for the 'Animals' Category

This picture was taken today near my home.

News from Idaho:

When various far-left ecology and animal rights groups such as the Sierra Club, the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, submitted a petition, calling for the manditory carry of bear spray by hunters, it made national news. The petition was submitted to the Idaho Fish and Game Commission and others. The petition claimed that “Studies show that bear spray is far more effective than firearms.”

That claim is not correct.

The petition was written about in several Idaho outlets, and nationally.

The Commission turned down the request that the carry of bear spray by hunters be mandatory.  From lmtribune.com:

The commission turned down a request from environmental groups that it create a rule that would require hunters in grizzly bear habitat near Yellowstone National Park to carry bear spray. Commissioners said the rule would be overbearing and difficult to enforce, and agreed with agency officials who said education about recreating in grizzly bear country would be more effective.[ … ]

Bear Spray Hoax: IFGD Betrays Hunters

I’m pleased the Commission recommends denying a petition that would require hunters in grizzly country to carry bear spray. But the petition is not being denied for the right reason: When a grizzly charges a hunter with a rifle after a classic surprise encounter at close range, bear spray will not keep a hunter safe. IDFG must prepare hunters to use an adequate rifle quickly and effectively.

In 1991, a Hunter/Grizzly Bear Interactions Task Team (that included U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery coordinator Chris Servheen) told the Yellowstone Ecosystem Subcommittee that bear spray has “minimal usefulness in trail encounters with bears at close range due to the difficulty of effective use.”

Bob Wharff, executive director of Wyoming Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, told the Jackson Hole News & Guide that bear “spray isn’t the answer for every encounter, especially when it requires hunters to drop their guns when there’s little time to react. You’re talking milliseconds. It’s illogical that you’re going to set your gun down and get your pepper spray.”

Trina Jo Bradley, vice-president of the Marias River Livestock Association, said “Let’s just think about how we carry ourselves when we’re hunting. I carry a large caliber rifle in my hands, usually with a bullet in the chamber and the safety on. I can easily raise my rifle and fire if I see the game I am hunting, or if a bear attacks. Why in the world would I put down the firearm that I’ve used over and over to grab a can of bear spray?

It’s clear a hunter carrying a rifle cannot use bear spray in a safe or timely manner during a surprise encounter with a grizzly. IDFG and other agencies acknowledged this in 1991. But on September 1, 1999, these agencies did an about face on bear spray when U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service news release announced: “Outfitters And Guides Develop Safety Class To Prevent Bear Attacks.”

The news release said, “During the past year, over 200 outfitters and guides in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Colorado have been trained to safely share the backcountry with bears.”

Were the outfitters and guides taught to use an adequate firearm effectively? No. “Course presenters discourage the use of firearms to mitigate bear attacks, because the practice has resulted in much greater frequency and severity of injuries to people involved [than bear spray]. The reliability and safety of pepper spray over other methods of deterrence has also been promoted by the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee.”

No data or references were provided to substantiate this claim. Nevertheless, these agencies adopted a de facto policy of discouraging firearm use, and promoting bear spray. The results have been disastrous. As the environmentalists’ bear spray petition notes, the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team found that “54% of all injuries inflicted on humans by grizzly bears [in the Yellowstone region] involved hunters.”

In response to the environmentalists’ petition, Toby Broudreau said, “the Department already has a Bear Education Program within grizzly range in Idaho. That program helps inform hunters on bear spray use and benefits.”

That program does not teach hunters how to use bear spray with each of the six field carries for long guns. That program does not provide hunters with accurate, meaningful information about bear spray and firearms research. If you keep hyping bear spray—and use that as an excuse for not teaching hunters how to use an adequate rifle quickly for self-defense—you guarantee the carnage inflicted on hunters since 1999 will continue.

A 2008 study on the Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska said, “In 96% (69 of 72) of bear spray incidents, the person’s activity at the time of was use reported. The largest category involved hikers (35%), followed by persons engaged in bear management activities (30%), people at their home or cabin (15%), campers in their tents (9%), people working on various jobs outdoors (4%), sport fishers (4%), a hunter stalking a wounded bear (1%), and a photographer (1%).”

Given that the purpose of stalking a wounded bear is to kill it, non-lethal bear spray was the wrong tool for the job. The study did not provide additional information about this mysterious incident. A 1998 bear spray study did not provide any information about the activity of people who used bear spray. So research tells us hunters carrying a rifle don’t use bear spray, and common sense tells us why: Hunters can’t use bear spray because they’re already carrying a rifle.

Bear spray advocates focus on the overall success rate from Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska: 3 people were injured during 75 incidents. Of 175 people present during 72 incidents, just 3 were injured. Bear spray advocates never inform hunters that 3 of 9 people who sprayed charging grizzly bears were injured.

Bear spray advocates have repeatedly made the indefensible claim that research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm. One, they’re claiming that research on bear spray use by non-hunters (who are not carrying a firearm) proves hunters (who are carrying a firearm) should use bear spray. That does not make sense.

Two, there have been two interrelated studies on bear spray, and two studies on guns vs. bears. Bear spray advocates are really saying, if you compare the results of one bear spray study to the results of one dissimilar study on guns, bear spray wins. But Field Use of Capsicum Spray As a Bear Deterrent/Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska used different methodologies than Efficacy of Firearms For Bear Deterrence in Alaska. It is unethical to compare the two studies, because of the different dynamics involved.

In addition, you’ve got to be totally unprincipled to pretend a 1999 study on the Characteristics of Nonsport Mortalities to Brown and Black Bears and Human Injuries from Bears in Alaska does not exist. After reviewing 1,036 incidents from 1986 to 1996 when people killed bears in defense of life or property (DLP), the authors of the 1999 study wrote, “Most of the persons shooting brown bears or black bears in DLP circumstances indicated that no human injury occurred (98.5% for brown bears and 99.2% for black bears).”

Bear spray advocates deny the existence of the 1999 study because it does not advance their cause. “Research proves bear spray is more effective than a firearm” is not a factual statement based on research; it’s a baseless propaganda slogan. To provide for the safety of big-game hunters in grizzly country, IDFG must teach hunters how to use an adequate firearm quickly and effectively.

This report dovetails nicely with the analysis conducted by Dean Weingarten.  It’s nice to see some sanity from Idaho.  It’s also nice to see the human-hating, creation-worshipping environmentalists put in their place.

Yes, you read that right.  In Nevada, maybe.

But you can kill as many human babies as you want as long as they are a sacrifice to Baal.

And in New Mexico, certainly.

Well Betsy, let’s call them what they are – they’re not Coyotes.  Coyotes don’t exist any more.  They are Coywolves or Coydogs.  They aren’t the “shy, curious canines” you’re making them out to be in your rainbow world of dreams of pixie-dust unicorns.  They’re just not.  Just make sure you don’t let your pet out unguarded, or go anywhere they could be, or let your children loose when they could be around.  You’ll see what I’m talking about.

Dean Weingarten:

These are all the cases I and associates have found where both bear spray and firearms were used. Tom Sommers is the only case where the firearms were of uncertain efficacy. The bear was moving away when the single shot was fired; Sommers was blinded by bear spray and blood. There are cases where only bear spray was used when firearms were present. There are cases where only firearms were used when bear spray was present.  Those cases are not included in this article.

This is a good followup to his piece on Pistols or Handguns 95% Effective When Used to Defend Against Bear Attacks, 63 Cases.

I would never say not to carry bear spray.  I just wouldn’t use it myself.  And I would never be caught in the bush without a gun.

Somewhat amusingly (and I missed this when it came out), Wes Siler, who was once of the school of thought that bear spray is most effective against bears, now carries guns in the bush when he might be around a bear.  The dispositive and determinative element?  Funny you should ask.  ” … the salubrious effect of moving into grizzly bear territory in Bozeman, Montana.”

Just yesterday, this instance of a bear attack thwarted by bear spray occurred in Montana.

Dean Weingarten at Ammoland.

In January 2018, I published some original research on the efficacy of pistols in stopping bear attacks. It started with this observation, on the Internet, and in print, many people claim that pistols lack efficacy in defending against bear attacks. Here is an example that occurred on freerepublic.com:

“Actually, there are legions of people who have been badly mauled after using a handgun on a bear. Even some of the vaunted magnums.”

OK, give us a few examples. As you claim “legions”, it should not be too hard.

I never received a response. I believe the claim was made in good faith. There has been much conjecture about the lack of efficacy of pistols for defense against bears. A little searching will find a plethora of fantasy, fiction, mythology, and electrons sprayed about the supposed lack.

In the original article, there were 37 instances of bear attacks where people attempted to defend themselves or others from a bear or bears, with a pistol.

Of the 37 attacks, there was only one failure, giving a success rate of 97%.

The criteria for inclusion in this study is a pistol had to be fired to defend against a bear or bears. If a pistol was not fired, the incident was not included. If the use of the pistol stopped the attack, it was a success whether the bear was killed immediately, or left the scene, as long as it stopped attacking.

All methods of defense against bears have similar problems of access. A handgun or bear spray in a pack, or a rifle slung over the shoulder without a round in the chamber, should not be counted as a use of the method to defend against bears.  All of the methods can be carried for easy access. It is not a fault of the method if the user did not have them available for use, or if the attack was too quick to allow use.

I and colleagues have searched for instances where  pistols were used to defend against bears.  By the time of the original article I and my associates found 37 instances which were fairly easily confirmed.

Our renewed efforts have found another 26 instances. The earliest happened in 1936, the latest mere months ago. The incidents are heavily weighted toward the present.  The ability to publish and search for these incidents has increased over the years. In addition to the pistol defenses, there are two new instances where pistols were used in combination with rifles, 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.

Both bear and human populations have increased.  Reliable and powerful pistols have become more popular, legal, and commonly carried.

The 63 cases include three that meet the criteria for failure. That translates to a success rate of 95%. You need not rely on my judgement or that of my colleagues. Read of the successes and failures for yourself. Make your own judgements. Some links may not work. Sources on the Internet often go dead after a few years.

What a great article and stellar research.  Make sure to go look at his data.  It includes cartridges all the way from .22LR to the big bore rounds.

Houston Chronicle:

If you have noticed more feral hogs in your Houston-area neighborhood recently, you are not alone. Neighbors across the Greater Houston report the wild animals are more frequently making their way into their subdivisions and streets, leaving properties destroyed in their wake.

The Houston area is not unfamiliar with the battle between feral hogs and residents; last year the Chronicle reported hogs were disrupting neighbors in Liberty and San Jacinto counties; taking over  Spring, Tomball and Cypress areas and driving neighbors in the Woodlands insane. 

The hog epidemic is a problem particularly in Texas; the state’s estimated feral hog populations are in excess of 1.5 million, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

In 2017, feral hogs created an estimated economic toll exceeding $1.5 billion in the U.S. In Texas, it is estimated they cause $52 million in agricultural damages every year, according to the Texas A&M Natural Resources Institute.

Steven Horelica, co-owner of Deep South Trapping, a Texas-based hog trapping business, said the Houston area has seen a significant increase in feral hog sightings. He has trapped pigs all over suburban areas in Houston, including Kingwood, Missouri City, Cypress and Liberty.

Over the last few years, the number of hogs he has trapped has increased significantly, from 742 in all of 2016 to 1387 in 2018. So far in 2019, he has already caught 306 hogs.

“Instead of being out in rural agricultural land, they are starting to move into subdivisions and cities,” Horelica said.  “It is starting to affect everybody, not just farmers or ranchers.”

The biggest negative impact these animals have is the destruction they cause to property due to their feeding habits, Horelica said. The pigs use their snouts to root up ground in search of insects or food.

” They can tear up a golf course or a park or someone’s yard that has been well maintained and watered and… in one night they can destroy acres and acres of property and cropland,” Horelica said.

Catching hogs.  Catching them.  To do what, release them later?  Pretty soon they’ll be hiring super-duper SWAT cops to run around Houston suburbs with bolt action sniper rifles to kill them because no one can be trusted with a gun except cops.  Lethal removal.  But still not enough.

In order to keep up with the rapid propagating hog population in the South, everyone with a gun would have to be shooting hogs day and night.  But they don’t want to do that, so instead, feral hogs will chase and gore little children, threaten adults, destroy crops, make back yards nasty with feces and cause massive health problems, and cause more erosion than can be imagined in a horror movie.

As reader and commenter The Alaskan says:

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!

Lethal control works, but only if that tactic is actually used – enough.

Via Eastern correspondent Fred, this report is bracing:

A Colorado trail runner is lucky to be alive after he was attacked by a mountain lion on the West Ridge Trail at Horsetooth Mountain Open Space near Fort Collins earlier this week. The man, who has not been identified, killed the mountain lion, which Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW) said was a “juvenile” and weighed 80 lbs, according to The Washington Post.

“The runner did everything he could to save his life,” Mark Leslie, northeast region manager for CPW. “In the event of a lion attack, you need to do anything in your power to fight back just as this gentleman did.”

According to NBC News, the mountain lion, whose body was found “within a few feet of some of the man’s possessions” attacked the runner, “biting his face and wrist and causing serious but non-life-threatening injuries.” A necropsy found that the man had suffocated the animal in order to get away, according to The Washington Post.

While mountain lion attacks are rare, they do occur, which means it’s important to stay vigilant if you’re in their territory.

Since I don’t believe in luck, I’d rather put it that God blessed him that day.  Nick comments, dryly, “I think he could’ve outrun the cat but his massive stones slowed him down.”  Perhaps, and this guy is quite brave and quick-thinking, but it could have gone the other way.

Mountain lion attacks are rare.  I guess they are.  That’s what they say every time this happens, whether to a hiker, mountain bikers in Washington, or to a mountain biker in California trying to fix a broken chain.

Okay.  Rare.  And often deadly to humans.  Carry a gun wherever you are, whatever you’re doing.

In a startling discovery, this Idaho woman found herself grabbing a mountain lion (via Glenn Reynolds).

An Idaho woman was shocked to discover she was holding onto a male mountain lion when she yanked the creature off her dog last week.

The woman, who has not been identified, believed she was breaking up a “dog fight” between her pup and another pet outside her Mackay home when she suddenly realized she was actually grabbing a wild animal.

After realizing what she had in her hand, the shocked woman — who suffered scratches during the attack — called her husband for backup.

“The woman restrained both her dog and the mountain lion while yelling for her husband, who was still inside the house, to grab a gun. Her husband responded and quickly dispatched the mountain lion as she held on to it,” the Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) described in a news release Monday.

Local police officers and a wildlife official arrived on the scene roughly 30 minutes later. The responding officer from the IDFG recovered the roughly 35-pound juvenile mountain lion’s body and confirmed the carcass would be sent to a nearby lab for testing.

I don’t know who’s tougher – him or her.  But remember, mountain lion attacks are rare.  They say that every time it happens.  It must be true, so no need to worry.

Or carry a gun.  Or maybe that’s bad advice.

Via Kenny and WiscoDave, this:

There aren’t many places in the U.S. where coyotes aren’t breeding pups, including Central Park in New York City, Scotten said. The canines’ native habitat was once the dry, open expanses of the western United States. But like humans, coyotes have slowly expanded their territory across the nation by quickly adapting to disturbances in their natural habitats.

Coyotes have learned to thrive in the same urban development that has caused other predator populations to decline. They can cross bridges, swim canals, and navigate sidewalks while hunting for food, Scotten said.

A coyote’s dream home, though, would be in a suburb like Bloomingdale, where densely packed developments are surrounded by farms and pastureland — a small taste of the open range prairies they used to roam.

“Now, especially in areas like Bloomingdale, the coyotes appear to be living in rural environments but coming in to urban areas to get food since its easier,” Scotten said.

Humans likely brought the first coyotes to Florida to train hunting dogs in the 1920s, but many scientists believe they now fill the role in Florida’s ecosystem that red wolves left behind. The animals help keep Florida’s rodent, raccoon and fox populations in check, but are known to prey on cattle, turkeys, chickens or unsuspecting house pets.

And humans too.  Like The Alaskan says:

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!

We’re just not killing them.  If we don’t kill them because of gun laws, then they’ll kill your pets and sometimes hunt you down too.  Make your choice.

First, there is Texas.

Two joggers were attacked by a coyote in Frisco, Texas on Monday morning, police confirmed.

Sheri Devore and Marcia Foster were heading home from their 45-minute run around 5:30 a.m. Monday when the animal allegedly approached the two women and “lunged” at Foster, according to Fox 4.

“It knocked her down. I was like trying to grab her to get up. And the overwhelming thought in my head was: ‘just stay up.’ If you go down, that’s it,” Devore told the news station, adding the coyote didn’t appear to tire and “just kept coming and coming and coming.”

Fortunately, the pair was rescued by a driver, Michael Harvey, who was on his way to work when he witnessed the terrifying scene.

“Right before I got to the Panther Creek there, I [saw] two ladies in the middle the street waving their hands,” Harvey told Fox 4.

“There were like trying to move away from it in the middle of the street. Trying to get it to stop. Trying to make noises and getting it to stop to scare it off, but it wasn’t going,” he continued, adding he was surprised by the animal’s lack of fear “even when I [tried] to pull up on him blowing the horn.”

Next, there is inner city Charlotte.

Proof of Charlotte’s fast growing inner city coyote population showed up Monday on a home’s security cam, when “a pack” of up to four was caught on video walking through a yard.

The sighting was in the Sedgefield area of South End, about 1.5 miles south of uptown.

Donna Ragan, who works with Charlotte’s Second Harvest Food Bank, posted the video of on Facebook, noting the “pack of two to four coyotes” was filmed at 4:40 a.m. Monday outside her mother’s home in Sedgefield.

A 30-second clip shared by Ragan features as many as three of the animals wandering at the edge of the camera’s range, including one that comes up to the porch.

Ragan posted the video as a warning to homeowners to bring their pets inside at night.

She believes the coyotes are hiding during the day in the wooded areas that separate subdivisions.

“They honestly can’t help the situation that they have been put in as neighborhoods are sprouting up everywhere and they don’t have too many places to go,” Ragan told the Charlotte Observer.

How sweet.  The furry hair balls with big ears can’t help it.  I guess they would be warm and cuddly.  Why don’t you take them in and give them a blanket and warm place to sleep?

Actually, the first attack was a lone Coyote, while the second account doesn’t involve an attack, at least, none stated in this report.  But the attacks have happened, or they’re coming.

You carry a gun all of the time, right?  Hey, I wonder if Scott would think this is reason enough for someone other than him to have an AR-15?

And everywhere else.

Amei Francesco-Folsom arrived home on a Thursday afternoon to find blood all over the streets in her Palm Springs neighborhood. Her husband, Greg, informed her the blood was from neighborhood ducks and she subsequently called her town’s maintenance department to have it cleaned.

However, she soon discovered it wasn’t there by accident. The Lakewood residential community is removing ducks — violently.

In late November, men dressed in dark blue, carrying guns and orange buckets started walking through the neighborhood. They work for Allstar Animal Removal, a licensed wildlife removal company contracted by the homeowners association. It is not clear what type of guns were used.

Their job is pretty straightforward: shoot and remove the Muscovy ducks — a nonnative species from Central and South America with black and white feathers and red waddles.

“I came home and saw blood everywhere,” Francesco-Folsom, who has lived in Lakewood since 2003, said. “I’m beyond upset about this situation.”

So I assume that you would rather your children walk around in feces and contract awful diseases?