Polis Responds To Resident Concerned About Wolverines Killing Her Pets: ‘Put Up Fencing’
Gov. Jared Polis replied to the resident's concerns about wolverines with a smug post about 'the realities of living in the west.'Gov. Jared Polis replied to the resident's concerns about wolverines with a smug post about 'the realities of living in the west.''I could feel the bones crushing': Cyclists valiantly fight off cougar that had their friend down for the count
A group of seasoned female cyclists were ripping through the forested Tokul Creek trail northeast of Fall City, Washington, when they came across a pair of cougars. The female cat took off running. The young male cougar, however, stuck around for a fight and a feast.
Owing to the perseverance and grit of the five cyclists — all in their 50s and 60s — the cougar ultimately lost the fight and became a feast for worms.
KUOW-FM reported that the cyclists met at the Tokul Creek trail on Feb. 17, then ventured some 19 miles in before encountering the cats. The group comprised Keri Bergere, 60; Annie Bilotta, 64; Auna Tietz, 59; Tisch Williams, 59; and Erica Wolf, 51.
The cats burst from the brush, dividing the riding team.
Tietz shouted, "Cougar! Cougar!"
The yelling was apparently enough to prompt the first cat to flee the scene, but not the other. The male lion, evidently unfazed, lunged at Bergere.
"Looking to my right, I saw the cougar's face," Bergere told KUOW. "It was just a split second, and he tackled me off my bike."
The cougar pulled the rider into the ditch that runs alongside the trail and clamped down on her jaw.
"I thought my teeth were coming loose, and I was gonna swallow my teeth," Bergere recalled. "I could feel the bones crushing, and I could feel it tearing back."
The beast, which the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated was roughly a 1-year-old 75-pound cougar, had Bergere pinned and down for the count.
"I felt like it was suffocating me," said Bergere. "I could taste the blood in my mouth."
As the cyclist breathed what could have been her last, she reportedly heard the roar of her fellow riders and some choice language.
"These ladies are not big, and they were killing this cougar," said Bergere. "They were not going to let it get me."
"I immediately tried to choke the cougar, which was like trying to choke a rock," Bilotta told KING-TV. "Then, Erica and Tisch come over with sticks and a rock and we're hand-to-hand combat battling this thing."
While the riders thwacked at the beast with rocks, sticks, and an almost useless 2-inch knife, Bergere desperately attempted to unhinge its jaw, stabbing her fingers into its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.
Bilotta reportedly joined Bergere in digging into the cougar's mouth while Tietz yanked on the beast's leg.
"The cougar had his claws pretty much around her, in attack mode," Tietz told KUOW. "Like, 'I will have my prey now, and within a couple minutes I will eat her.'"
Looking to adopt the "most drastic measure," Tietz found a 25-pound melon-sized rock. She hoisted it between her legs about a foot off the ground, got the thumbs-up from Bergere, whose head was just next to the cougar's, then dropped the rock. Once was not enough, so Tietz dropped it on the cougar another four or five times.
This drastic measure was not, however, enough.
"I was sitting down, and I actually said, 'I can't do this any more,'" said Tietz. "But then I saw all the other girls doing their thing and helping, and I of course regained strength, and I saw, 'Okay, I can do this.'"
The riders refused to relent, and their fighting paid off: After fifteen minutes in the grips of the cougar, Bergere finally was able to break free of its jaws.
Bergere, bloodied but still alive, crawled over to the trail while her fellow riders struggled to keep the cougar down.
The riders reportedly grabbed Wolf's $6,000 bicycle and used it to pin down the cat until help arrived.
"I know for a fact I would be dead if they didn't come back in, I would just be gone," Bergere told KING. "That cougar had me."
WDFW Officer Chris Moszeter arrived on the scene and put a bullet between the cougar's shoulders while the women held it down, bringing the battle to a close.
"The people on the scene took immediate action to render aid, and one of our officers was able to arrive within minutes to continue medical aid and coordinate transport," said WDFW Lt. Erik Olson. "We may have had a very different outcome without their heroic efforts."
According to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help Bergere with her recovery, she suffered severe trauma to the face and permanent nerve damage.
Bergere was released from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Feb. 22 and reunited with an earring the beast had torn out and consumed.
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Mississippi gator hunters bag a record-setting leviathan after a 7-hour battle: 'It was pandemonium. It was chaos.'
A record was set and certified in August 2017 for the longest alligator bagged in Mississippi. The beast weighed 766.5 pounds and measured 14 feet and 3/4 inches tail to snout.
It turns out there was yet a greater monster still lurking in the murk.
With an inkling of where a "particularly territorial" alligator at least 12 feet long could be found out on the Yazoo River, Will Thomas, Don Woods, Tanner White, and Joey Clark ventured out Friday in search of their gator and glory, reported the Washington Post.
Woods, among those to receive a tag by lottery for this year's 10-day hunting season, told the Clarion Ledger, "We got on the water right at dark. ... It was a calm night. We saw a lot of 8-footers, 10-footers, but that's not what we were after."
Around 9 p.m., they saw their prize.
"We knew he was wide," said Woods. "His back was humongous. It was like we were following a jon boat."
The hunters managed to hook the beast, but it would not go gentle into that good night. Rather, the beast shredded lines, broke rods, and tested the men's endurance for several hours.
"We held onto him awhile — until 10 or so," Woods told the Ledger. "He broke my rod at that point."
Woods and his crew hooked the beast several more times, but again and again it managed to break off.
"He would go down, sit and then take off. He kept going under logs. He knew what he was doing," Woods recalled. "The crazy thing is he stayed in that same spot."
The more the alligator thrashed, the better sense the hunters got of exactly what they were dealing with.
Thomas told the Post, "It was pandemonium. It was chaos. ... When you have an 800-pound animal on the end of a fishing rod, and he's coming up and he looks like a beast, everybody is kind of going crazy, and your adrenaline is pumping."
"We probably didn't have top-of-the-line equipment because he broke everything we had," said Thomas. "By the end of the night, I didn't think we could catch him because our equipment was shot."
"He dictated everything we did. It was exhausting," Woods told the Ledger. "It was more mentally exhausting than anything because he kept getting off."
Although tested, the crew would not be bested.
Taking on water and working feverishly to close the deal before the oppressive Mississippi heat returned along with the sunshine, the men put their last two good rods to use and slayed the beast around 3:30 a.m..
Thomas told NewsNation, "It was a team effort. Everybody kind of had a job and we fought him hard."
The Post indicated that after noosing the gator in accordance with state law, the hunters rendered the beast the inert stuff of legend with a shotgun blast.
In the 30 minutes it took to get the gator on board, the men began to comprehend the full heft of their prize.
"We just knew we had a big alligator," said Woods. "We were just amazed at how wide his back was and how big the head was. It was surreal, to tell you the truth."
Andrew Arnett, Alligator Program coordinator with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks, later measured it and discovered the hunters had a state record for "longest male alligator taken by a permitted hunter" on their hands. It weighed in at 802.5 lbs, measured 14 feet and 3 inches long, and sported a belly girth of 66 inches.
Arnett told the Post, "I was actually shocked. ... It's not every year you get something of this magnitude."
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves congratulated the hunters on "harvesting the biggest alligator in state history," adding "#TastesLikeChicken."
— (@)
NewsNation indicated that the team donated an estimated 380 pounds of the gator's meat to a program in the state that feeds the hungry.
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Video: Diver receives 'octopus hickey' in 'once in a lifetime' encounter with a giant Pacific octopus
Turns out you don't have to go 20,000 leagues under the sea to find yourself face to beak with an eight-legged spectacle. Last month, Canadian recreational diver and schoolteacher Andrea Humphreys encountered a giant North Pacific octopus in three-meter deep water off Campbell River on the east coast of Vancouver Island.
Despite having her camera at one stage engulfed in the kraken's body, Humphreys was nevertheless able to capture striking footage of some of her rare and "epic" 40-minute long engagement.
Eight handshakes and a hickey
Humphreys, a teacher in the town of Campbell River, noted in an Instagram post that on Oct. 15, she and another local diver took friends from the east coast out in search of an octopus. Just three minutes into the dive, they chanced across one such beast.
Humphreys has been on nearly 700 dives over the past 12 years. She told the Canadian Press, "It was just mind-blowing."
"It first crawled onto the friend and all over his mask, and then as I began to take photos and videos from a distance, it crawled to me and all over my camera and eventually onto my body!" said Humphreys.
According to Humphreys, the octopus was at least three meters tentacle to tentacle and boasted a body bigger than a basketball.
Although it hatches from an egg the size of a rice grain, the giant North Pacific octopus (enteroctopus dofleini) eventually grows to sport an arm span of 9.75 to 16 feet and to weigh between 22 to 110 pounds.
The largest of its kind, as recorded by Guinness World Records, weighed in at 300 lbs with a tentacle span of 31.4 feet.
ThoughtCo reported that the reddish-brown creature — the most intelligent invertebrate — has special pigment cells in its skin that enable it to change its skin texture and color as camouflage. Given that it is a carnivore, its ability to disguise itself as coral, plants, and rocks comes in handy.
The octopus that Humphreys met was neither stealthy nor bashful. Instead, wearing a fearless, nonaggressive red, it crawled toward and then onto her.
Octopus Encounter, Campbell River youtu.be
Humphreys said, "Its tentacles were reaching through the camera to feel my face and then at some point, it had crawled on my body, on my hips, and was giving me a hug."
Once the creature attended to these initial salutations, it proceeded to put its tentacles up and around Humphrey's mouth.
"It was sucking on my lip, which is the only exposed part of my body," she said.
Humphreys wrote on Instagram that she wound up with "an octopus hickey!!"
Over the course of 40 minutes, the octopus reportedly inspected the divers' equipment, taking special interest in Humphrey's camera.
In an interview with CKLW, Humphreys said she had been "screaming ... underwater because I was so excited."
"A once in a lifetime moment," said the diver. "I feel so blessed that this amazing creature gave me the opportunity to have this encounter."Octopus Encounter Part 2 youtu.be
The giant Pacific octopus lives off the coasts of Alaska, British Columbia, California, Japan, Korea, Oregon, and Washington in cool, oxygenated water, its preferred depth ranging anywhere from the surface to 6,600 feet below.
This particular type of octopus is an opportunistic eater, consuming a variety of similarly-sized creatures including fish, small sharks, other octopuses, and even birds.
In 2020, fishermen off Vancouver Island intervened when they found one giant Pacific octopus trying to munch down on a bald eagle:
Octopus captures eagle that tried to attack it youtu.be
Although Humphrey's encounter was cordial, the giant Pacific octopus can be fairly pugnacious. This video shows that the creature is willing to throw down with others of its kind:
Giant Pacific Octopus Fight! | JONATHAN BIRD'S BLUE WORLD Excerpt youtu.be
Biden Threatens Conservation Efforts By Appointing Gun Control Activist To Hunting And Wildlife Council
Ryan Busse claims to be a gun industry insider, but he has no interest in advocating for America's hunters and riflemen.'It's a turkey, not a tiger!' Bodycam footage shows police response to wild break-in call
Bodycam footage shows police officers in Wausau, Wisconsin, responding to a wild break-in at an apartment complex on Friday.
Doris Madden, a resident at City Walk Apartments in Wausau, became suspicious after she noticed a broken window. She alerted management that someone appeared to have smashed through a second-story window and broken into an apartment.
“We had no idea what had caused it, or if anybody was even home,” Madden told WSAW-TV.
The apartment manager sent maintenance to investigate, and they found the suspect inside the apartment.
It was a wild turkey.
“When he opened the door, there’s the turkey. And so he thought, ‘I’m not going to try to catch that thing.’ So he called the police station for animal control,” Madden said.
Officers from the Wausau Police Department were called to remove the fowl invader.
“We have one humane officer, so a lot of times the first response in any call including animal calls are our patrol officers. They just have to try to do the best they can with the information that they have and the equipment available to them,” Wausau Police Department Patrol Captain Todd Baeten said.
Bodycam footage released by the department shows officers equipped with gloves and a net preparing to capture the turkey.
"I want the gloves and the net, though, is what I'm saying, because when I go in there I want to be able to, like, get it," one officer tells his partner.
"It's a turkey, not a tiger!" the other scoffs.
"Yeah, it's gonna scratch!" His partner replies. "Have you hunted turkey before?"
The video shows the officers enter the apartment, where the turkey was gobbling around like it owned the place.
"All right, should we just go in at it?" the officer with the camera asks. They attempted to apprehend the bird, which resisted arrest and dodged the officer's net several times before it was cornered.
The officers were able to release the turkey outside unharmed.
"It's a Turkey, Not a Tiger!" | BTS Body Cam youtu.be
Baeten said he was proud of how his officers handled the situation and how they captured the turkey without harming it.
"It really underscores the unpredictable nature of the job that our officers are asked to do at any given time,” Baeten said
This was not the department's first encounter with wildlife.
Last year, officers were called to wrangle a deer that managed to crash through a window at a local nursing home.
Stranded dolphin dies after Texas beach-goers try to 'ride' it, rescuers say
A sick dolphin that washed up alive on a Texas beach died after a crowd of people harassed the animal and tried to "ride" it, officials said.
The female dolphin was stranded on Sunday evening at Quintana Beach County Park, where it washed up from sea. According to the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network, which posted about the incident on Facebook, beach-goers found it and tried to push it back out to sea. Some reportedly "attempted to swim with and ride the sick animal."
Tragically, the dolphin returned to the beach where it was stranded and further harassed by a crowd of people. It died before rescuers could arrive to take care of it, officials said.
"This type of harassment causes undue stress to wild dolphins, is dangerous for the people who interact with them and is illegal — punishable by fines and jail time if convicted," the Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network said.
Dolphins are a protected species under federal law and it is illegal to harass, feed, or disturb the animal in the wild. The National Marine Fisheries Service, also known as NOAA Fisheries, warns that human interactions with dolphins in the wild can be dangerous for its survival.
"Human interactions cause animals to lose their wariness of people and boats, leading to boat strikes, and entanglement in or ingestion of fishing gear," the agency explains.
In a separate incident, NOAA’s Office of Law Enforcement says that a dead dolphin was recently found on Fort Myers Beach, Florida. Medical examiners believe the dolphin was impaled in the head with a spear-like object while alive and are seeking information about its death.
"Based on the shape, size and characteristics of the wound, it is suspected that the dolphin was impaled while in a begging position," NOAA said in a statement.
"Begging is not a natural behavior for dolphins and is frequently associated with illegal feeding. People can help prevent future harm to wild dolphins by not feeding or attempting to feed them. Dolphins fed by people learn to associate people, boats, and fishing gear with food, which puts dolphins and people in harmful situations," the agency said.
According to NOAA, since 2002 there have been at least 27 dolphins stranded on beaches with evidence of being shot by guns or arrows, or impaled with sharp objects.
"Harassing, harming, killing or feeding wild dolphins is prohibited under the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Violations can be prosecuted civilly or criminally and are punishable by up to $100,000 in fines and up to 1 year in jail per violation," officials said.
Wind Power Company Fined Millions After It Pleads Guilty To Killing 150 Eagles
While Democrats continue to vilify big oil, the environmental consequences of wind turbines remain often overlooked.Today's top stories
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