Archive for the 'Animals' Category

News from Texas, but it could be virtually anywhere in the lower 48.

FRISCO – Frisco police are warning residents to beware of aggressive coyotes after a jogger was attacked in the third coyote-related incident in the city this month.

It’s only abnormal if you don’t know anything about Coyotes.  When you’re out and about in or near the bush (and yes, a park is near the bush or at least similar enough), you’re carrying a gun, right?  You’re watching your six, right?

From several of you, news from Canada:

A Yukon woman and her 10-month-old daughter are dead after a bear attack at a remote cabin, the territory’s coroner said.

In a news release, Yukon’s coroner said the bodies of 37-year-old Valé​rie Thé​orêt, and her daughter Adele Roesholt were discovered by the child’s father at around 3 p.m. on Monday.

According to coroner Heather Jones, the two had been alone at the cabin when the attack happened.

“It appears they had been out for a walk when the incident occurred, sometime between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m.,” the coroner’s news release said.

Thé​orêt, originally from Quebec, was on maternity leave from her job teaching Grade 6 French immersion at Whitehorse Elementary School. She and her partner, Gjermund Roesholt, and their daughter had been trapping at Einarson Lake for the last three months, the coroner said.

Einarson Lake is located more than 400 km northeast of Whitehorse, near the border between Yukon and the Northwest Territories.

Roesholt was away from the cabin on the family’s trapline when the attack occurred, Jones said. He came back just before 3 p.m. and was immediately charged by a grizzly bear, about 100 metres from the cabin.

Roesholt managed to shoot the bear, killing it. He then went to the cabin, where he found the bodies of his partner and child outside.

He used an emergency beacon device to call for help.

That call went to RCMP in Mayo, a village of 200 people and the closest settlement to the cabin. It also went to friends of the couple.

[ … ]

Beaupré said the couple bought their remote trapline about three years ago, and tried to spend as much time as they could in the wilderness. They were avid outdoors people with lots of experience, he said.

“They were, I’m 100 per cent sure, well-prepared for anything that could have happened. But, you never know.”

This sounds like a horrible and messy affair.  Either the bear caught them near the cabin with the woman unarmed, or actually invaded the cabin and took them out.

Just horrible.

I guess the moral of the story is that being prepared in this neck of the woods means always having a firearm on your person.  Not ten feet away, or in the next room, or in the safe.  But on your person at the ready.

Dean Weingarten:

With no round in the chamber and no magazine in the pistol, the Glock was rendered useless, if Mark Uptain ever got to it.

Uptain had bear spray holstered on his hip. Chubon did not recall Uptain using the bear spray to the point where Chubon fled to get help. Uptain emptied the bear spray at some point during the fight. The 250-pound grizzly sow had evidence of bear spray on her. Mark Uptain was killed in spite of the bear spray.

Carrying a semi-automatic pistol with an empty chamber is known as carrying in condition three, terminology used by the renowned gun writer, instructor, and competitor Col. Jeff Cooper.   It is also known as “Israeli Carry”, because it is how Israeli soldiers are trained to carry semi-automatic pistols.

It can work well if the user trains to always load a round from the magazine when the pistol is drawn from the holster.  As a safety feature, if an untrained person accesses the pistol and tries to fire it, they may not know how to load a round into the chamber and can be stymied in their effort to fire the pistol.

First, use guns, don’t rely on bear spray.  Second, a gun is of no use to you if it isn’t on your person and ready to use.  Finally, whatever you may think about having a round chambered, this is one reason I carry 1911s and use the safety.  In one motion I can sweep the safety down as I’m gaining purchase on the gun.

Dogs being attacked by Coyotes has become a routine occurrence throughout the country.  But remember, it can happen to humans as well.

The child had just gotten off her school bus and was walking toward her house, located in a wooded area, when the coyote approached her and bit her on the leg, the television station reported.

Multnomah County Animal Services spokesman Jay LeVitre said the girl was taken to a hospital and treated in case the animal was rabid, KATU reported.

Michelle Dennehy, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman, told KATU that in general, coyote attacks are extremely rare.

“With any animal, and coyotes are no exception, we see more problems when, for example, they’re being fed and they become habituated to an area,” Denehy told the television station.

What he said is a load of crap.  Ask any Raccoon hunter in the South who’s killing the ‘Coons and destroying his hunting?  Or go out in the field to a deer stand just before dawn or walk into any field around me just after dusk and shine a flashlight around you.  Tell me who has all those eyes?

As for deer hunting, one commenter told you why there are so few of them now.

Why are there more coyote sightings ___________ (fill in the blanks.

Deer and coyotes have expanded their ranges since the White man. They love the landforms and uses we create. Had three or four setting on the golf course in Snotsdale by my office for years. Kept the rabbit population in check, Bobcats galore too.

Hunters don’t hunt them anymore also helps. We have a standing order in my hunt club that every hunter must shoot a coyote whenever they see one. If you get caught NOT doing that, your out!

(One area I had hunted Coues for years in had an estimated 97,000 deer in it in 2000. Eight years later it was down to just over 14,000. Fish and Game at their annual meeting said it was ML’s. Tags were no more than 50/year. They eat a deer a week in AZ.) … Trust them at your own risk, they appreciate the flexibility in your love of nature.

Folks, the country is going to have to deal with the notion of the hatred of guns and mankind’s dominion of nature as a moral mandate from God.  If America doesn’t come to terms with that, not only will the wicked humans in the inner city continue to prey upon other humans, but you won’t even be able to allow your own pets or children into the yard or on your porch without being closely supervised with an armed presence.  Perhaps you should ask if you can do that anyway?

As for deer hunting, it will perish as a sport if we don’t cull the Coyote population.

In Western North Carolina:

A Haywood County man says he battled a bear outside his home and he has the scrapes and bruises to prove it, WLOS reported.

Sonny Pumphrey was in his driveway Tuesday afternoon when he says a mother bear and her two cubs showed up. He says the cubs ran off but the mother bear reared up and attacked him.

“She made a charging dead run at me. That sucker was eyeball to eyeball to me,” he said.

Pumphrey says he punched the bear in the nose, but then she dropped down and bit his hip.

She kind of shook me a little bit, and I’m still … I’m hitting her steady on the top of the head just as hard as I could swing, man, for dear life,” he said. “I just continue pounding and pounding and pounding and she’s continuing trying to bite me. And like I said … she got a hold of me and then shook me a little bit, then she let go and she took a swat at me. And when she took a swat at me she knocked me about 8 feet over on the concrete.”

Sonny’s wife Betty heard the screams and rushed to his aid along with their little Yorkie, stunned at the sight of a large black bear in their driveway.

“I saw her stand up and rear her paw back and all I seen (sic) was a mouthful of teeth,” she said. “And I just knew he was going to be gone.”

This happened near Waynesville.

WAYNESVILLE – A Haywood County man says he punched a mother black bear in the nose after she came toward him at his home off Liberty Church Road.

Sonny Pumphrey, 78, was working in his driveway Tuesday afternoon when he said he looked up and found himself eye to eye with a black bear, according to a post on his Facebook page.

I’ve hiked and backpacked near this area many times.  Honestly, I don’t think I’d be working anywhere around there, even in my own driveway, without carrying a legitimate self defense weapon.

I’m glad he survived, but punching a bear in the nose is not a viable strategy.

News from the Northwest:

A Gresham woman killed in a suspected cougar attack near Mount Hood suffered a broken neck and had more than a dozen puncture wounds to the nape of her neck, records released this week show.

Those injuries — as well as wounds on Diana Bober’s hands — “appeared to be consistent with an animal attack,” staff in the Clackamas County medical examiner’s office determined, according to a state police report.

The 5-page report doesn’t list an official cause of death for Bober, 55, and it’s unclear why it’s missing. Her death is the state’s first confirmed fatal wild cougar attack.

Wildlife officials later shot and killed a female cougar they believe mauled Bober, based on all available evidence.

The new details emerged in Oregon State Police documents obtained by The Oregonian/OregonLive through a public records request.

Searchers found Bober, an avid outdoorswoman, on Sept. 10 in the Mount Hood National Forest, three days after out-of-state relatives reported her missing. They said they hadn’t heard from her since Aug. 29.

Her body was discovered about 300 feet off the Hunchback Trail and down a steep incline, the state police report shows. The area was about a mile from the Zigzag Ranger Station, where searchers first found Bober’s car.

State officials said her wounds indicated a wild cougar was responsible.

A hunt for the mountain lion began almost immediately. Officials set up multiple cameras along the Hunchback Trail in the area where Bober was found.

Three days later, on Sept. 14, a trail camera captured an image of a large cougar, state police records show.

“This appears to be a big cat,” Sgt. Todd Hoodenpyl wrote to Capt. Jeff Samuels and Trooper Casey Codding at 9:51 a.m. that day.

About six hours later, search dogs treed the cougar off the Hunchback Trail and it was shot and killed, according to state police.

They’re not warm and cuddly and friendly.  If you backpack or hike or mountain bike like I do, going solo is a risk.  I usually take partners, but sometimes don’t.  If you don’t, watch your six.

Always carry weapons and be prepared to use them with quick-access gear.  And a dog can alert you to things you won’t hear or see.

News from Washington.

“I’ve lived in Tacoma for 20 years. We’re experiencing definitely more activity,” said Sierra.

[ … ]

Fish and Wildlife suggest if people run into an aggressive coyote, make yourself look big, put your hands in the air and throw things at the animal if they get aggressive.

How about shooting them?  Oh, I see, you can’t discharge a firearm within the city limits without being considered a criminal by the cops.  Well, maybe there’s the answer to the question, yes?

NBC:

Here’s a new Rocky matchup for you: It’s Rocky the dog versus the bear!

Pictures snapped by the dog’s owner show the tense moments between a pet and the wild animal in Wolcott.

Animal control says they’ve never seen anything like it in town until now.

“Rocky tackled the bear. The bear was on his back, paws up and Rocky was on top of him,” Wolcott resident Laura Canby explained.

Her 60-pound pit bull named Rocky is nursing some wounds after taking on a several hundred pound black bear.

“I was very scared. He wasn’t listening and coming back. He was too busy protecting me and the girls,” Canby said.

Canby said it all began when she heard the garbage cans bang outside her home yesterday. As she walked out all of a sudden Rocky darted through the yard after a nearby bear, just as the school bus arrived to drop off Canby’s older daughter.

“I freaked out and grabbed a shovel and started yelling at the school bus driver to keep the baby on the bus, don’t let her off,” Canby said.

That driver also called animal control.

While the bear could have won the fight if it had gone long term, it looks as if the bear decided it didn’t want to tangle with that dog any more.  No meal from a trash can is worth that.

News from Alaska:

Admiralty Island, Alaska — A female bear and her two cubs mauled and killed a young man working at a remote mine site on a southeast Alaska island with one of the highest bear densities in the state, authorities said Monday.

Anthony David Montoya, 18, a contract worker from Oklahoma, died at a remote drill site accessible only by helicopter, according to Hecla Greens Creek Mine and authorities. Mine officials said workers receive training on how to deal with bears because of the large number in the area.

[ … ]

The silver mine is on Admiralty Island, which is about 18 miles southwest of Juneau and where an estimated 1,500 brown bears roam, said Stephen Bethune, a biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Tours to the island that’s largely uninhabited by people tout bear-viewing possibilities.

[ … ]

Workers are taught, for example, ways to prevent bear encounters, including proper disposal of food. Bear spray is available to carry between buildings and trained personnel use bean bags to scare away bears from established areas.

The mine also has videos on bear behavior. In remote locations, bear spray is among the tools employees generally bring with them in the case of bear encounters, Satre said.

Bear spray.  I don’t think I would work in a place with that kind of bear density and not be allowed to carry a firearm for self defense.

In other news where people are not made in God’s image and animal life is more important than human life, a judge unilaterally decided to protect the bear sleuth.

“We stand behind our scientific finding that the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grizzly bear is biologically recovered and no longer requires protection under the Endangered Species Act,” the FWS said in a statement.

U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen overturned the Service’s decision to delist the bears Sept. 24. He based the ruling, in part, on the FWS failure to consider the impact delisting the bears in the Yellowstone region would have on other, still not recovered, bear populations around the United States, according to the court order.

[ … ]

“There are only a couple grizzly bear populations that are viable in the United States,” said Wendy Keefover, the native carnivore protection manager at the Humane Society of the United States, one of the organizations that sued to stop the delisting. “In 50 years, we’ve not had one individual make it between them. There are just these tiny islands of grizzly bear populations left. They need far more protection, not less.”

I’m wondering if The Alaskan wants to invite them in for dinner?  Or maybe he wants to be dinner for these poor critters?  After all, they need protection and sustenance.

Bad Advice:

Bear spray is a great option outdoors. It will deal with any dangerous animal, two-legged or four. It’s what I carry when I go play in Baja, Mexico. (You can’t take a gun across the border.) Combined with my two dogs, I feel that it satisfactorily handles my safety. You don’t really need to aim bear spray—it hangs in the air as a shield even if you miss your target. It also won’t look out of place or scare people if you carry it around.

But bear spray canisters are too large to carry day-to-day, away from outdoor activities. The nonlethal solution my fiancée (who also carries a handgun, for the same reasons I do) uses is a Kimber Pepper Blaster II. Small, slim, and light, it’s easy to carry in a purse or pocket (there are also plenty of holster options) and employs a unique percussion-fired pepper gel design that gives it a couple unique advantages. Pressurized canisters like bear spray can leak if left in a hot car or just due to age, but this nonpressurized design remains inert until fired. Also, the shotgun-like blast of pepper gel isn’t affected as much by wind and can’t blow back on the shooter, making it more foolproof in action. You get two of those blasts, which stain an attacker’s face bright red for later identification and have a range of up to 13 feet. The wide shot pattern also ups your odds of actually hitting your assailant as much as possible during a highly stressful situation.

The thing with a nonlethal option is that you’re able to take action if you feel threatened, but without risking a life. This is hugely empowering: you get the ability to decisively deal with a threat free from the burden of making a life-or-death call.

Yea, don’t listen to this idiot.

It’s simple, yes?  The decision not to engage in life or death decisions – just use bear spray.  It works great!  Except when it doesn’t work.  Dogs are wonderful, and readers know I recommend that everyone have them.  Have many of them.  They are great protection against men, protection against some predators, great companionship, and significant responsibility.

But dogs can’t stop bears, boy.  The author is purveying dangerous advice.  Always carry means of self defense.  God expects and demands it.  For you are made in His image.