While she was away on Tuesday, a black bear walked into an open door at Mary Beth Parkinson's Laconia, New Hampshire home, ate two pears, some grapes, drank some water from a fishbowl and carried away a stuffed toy bear. Parkinson said the (live) bear evidently fled when she returned home and raised the automatic garage door. The toy bruin was discovered in the backyard, next to a box of Goldfish crackers. The Laconia Citizen, WMUR.
Mike Hart, a well-traveled California-based bass pro, was banned for life from Western Outdoor News BASS tournaments—and likely other fishing circuits—after he weighed his limit of five fish that each held lead sinkers at the US Open on Lake Mead last week. Jim Matthews of OutdoorsNewsService.com reports Hart was caught because he weighed some dead fish on day two of the event, and when a Nevada Division of Wildlife staff member filleted them for a homeless shelter, he decided to look at what the bass had been eating.
The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has filed a joint lawsuit with The Calguns Foundation, the National Rifle Association, the Folsom Shooting Club and two individual truckers to challenge California's ban on interstate shipment of handgun ammunition. The ban, which takes effect February 2011, will criminalize the delivery and transfer of handgun ammunition not done in face-to-face transactions. Heavy Duty Trucking.
With support from the Sierra Club, WildEarth Guardians and other environmental groups, lame duck governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico has ordered a temporary ban on the use of snares and leghold traps in an area where Mexican gray wolves have been reintroduced and ordered the NM Game and Fish Department to determine the risk posed to the predators from traps and trapping. Via AP.
The 1,098-pound shortfin mako shark caught by Sean Carlsen Gizatullin during a tournament off the coast of Oxnard, Calif. this week could be the largest fish caught by an angler off the state's coast, reports KTLA. "It went under the boat a few times, came out twice with its jaws open towards the boat," Gizatullin said. "It didn't lunge out or anything crazy like Jaws but it was still intense."
Maryland Natural Resources Police report that the 63-year-old Annapolis man killed on his jet ski during Sunday's severe thunderstorm was electrocuted by a nearby lightning strike. Police said Warren Douglas Smith was riding about half mile south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge when the storm struck. Baltimore Sun.
A woman who was attacked by a bear in the middle of the night at a busy Cooke City, Mont.-area campground said she was bitten on her arm and leg before she instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone. Investigators say at least one bear rampaged through the campground near Yellowstone National Park, killing one man and injuring Deb Freele of Ontario and another man. Billings Gazette.
An armed and apparently undocumented Hispanic man was shot and killed by a Mendocino County sheriff's deputy early Tuesday morning in a raid on a remote and expansive Mendocino National Forest marijuana growing operation. Deputies and federal agents from the forest service and Bureau of Land Management reported the armed man raised a rifle toward them, and the deputy fired. The Willits News.
Cabela’s Chief Executive Officer Tommy Millner today announced plans for the mega-outdoors retailer to open its second Canadian location, a 70,000 square foot facility, in Edmonton, Alberta late next year. It will join the firm's Winnipeg store, which was converted from the S.I.R. Warehouse Sports Store in May 2008. Business Wire.
In a disturbing trend that continues to afflict a growing number of professionals involved in outdoors communication across the country, word has just reached the Outdoor Pressroom that our friend Rod Kloeckner, longtime sportswriter and hunting/fishing scribe for the Belleville (IL) News-Democrat, was laid off earlier this month. Rod's fate was confirmed yesterday by pal Jeff Lampe, blogger and outdoor writer for the Peoria Journal Star. We wish Rod the very best.
Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. announced after market closing today net sales of $64.4 million and earnings per share of 43¢ for the second quarter of 2010, compared with sales of $72.4 million and earnings per share of 46¢ in the same quarter in 2009. In addition, the Board of Directors declared a dividend of 10.0¢ per share for the second quarter. Business Wire.
Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks is reporting an early-morning bear attack at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Yellowstone National Park today left one person dead and two injured. "We don't know if it was one bear, two bears, a black bear or grizzly bear," said FWP's Ron Aasheim. The campground has been closed and an investigation continues. Ravalli Republic.
With the expanded use of the crossbow for North Carolina's entire bow-and-arrow hunting seasons beginning this year, there has been an understandable increase in the purchase of new "horizontal bows" in the state. However, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission is reminding hunters that state law requires anyone buying or receiving a crossbow to first obtain a pistol permit from their county sheriff’s office or hold a valid CHP.
The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources reports that black bear sightings are becoming increasingly common in southern Wisconsin as bruins find areas previously marginal as habitat suitable for occupancy. "Bear distribution in Wisconsin has shifted further south and southwest, facilitated by the increase in the bear population and areas of suitable habitat available in southern Wisconsin," said bear biologist Linda Olver. Wisc. Ag Connection.
A motorcyclist was hospitalized with non-life threatening injuries Sunday after a leaping buck deer kicked him off his bike as he rode on Glacier National Park’s Going-to-the-Sun Road. “Apparently a buck bounded into the road and attempted to jump the motorcycle,” said a park spokesperson. “A hoof clipped the driver on the helmet and knocked him off the motorcycle into a ditch.” Daily Inter-Lake.
