WALPOLE ISLAND, Ontario – Police are investigating the death of a Northeast Ohio man, who they suspect was killed by lightning.

The 41-year-old Ravenna resident was out on his boat with friends and family on the south end Bassett Channel Friday afternoon.

Walpole Island Police say when the storm moved in, people on the boat tried to seek shelter in some reeds.

According to witnesses on the boat, they heard a loud crack and saw a bright flash.

Immediately after lightning struck, they found the victim lying on the deck unresponsive.

Shortly after 2:00 p.m. Friday, a 911 call was made and the Coast Guard was able to locate the boat and get it to shore.

An autopsy is scheduled for later today. The name of the victim is not being released until family is notified.

via Northeast Ohio Man Killed by Lightning in Canada – WJW.

A newborn baby is dead after being attacked by a dog, Quebec provincial police say.

The attack happened in Saint-Barnabé-Sud, Que., on Monday afternoon.

Police said they received a call about the three-week-old girl around 3:30 p.m. ET.

Neighbours said the baby was in the home on Rang Bas-Saint-Amable with a pair of huskies — a male and a female.

The dogs did not belong to the family, but to a couple visiting the home, they said.

For an unknown reason, one of the dogs, believed to be the male, attacked the baby, said police.

A baby died in a dog attack in Saint-Barnabé-Sud, 60 kilometres east of Montreal. (CBC)”The investigation is just starting. What happened exactly, we will learn more over the coming hours,” said provincial police Sgt. Claude Denis.

The incident has shocked members of the small community and many people gathered outside the home where it happened, Radio-Canada's Jean-Philippe Cipriani reported from the scene.

Both of the dogs were taken away by humane society officials, who said tests would be done to confirm which of the animals was responsible for the attack and whether it was suffering from any problems, such as rabies.

“They are not aggressive dogs,” said Claude Dionne of the St-Hyacinthe SPCA. “They are just territorial dogs.”

Dionne said it was likely the dog responsible for the attack would be euthanized.

Since 1990, there have been 28 fatalities related to dog attacks in Canada, according to Statistics Canada. Of those killed, 85 per cent were children under 12 years of age.

Saint-Barnabé-Sud is about 60 kilometres east of Montreal.

via CBC News – Montreal – Dog kills Quebec newborn.

NELSON – A recent bear attack on a four-year-old girl and her grandmother in their yard has prompted a call for diligence.

Conservation officer Len Butler killed the mature male black bear after it clawed Nine Mile resident Jane Tillotson and visiting granddaughter Megan Chapple.

The young girl required six to eight stitches on her leg following the Aug. 24 attack.

“I was babysitting my granddaughters, who are four and six, and we went out to work in my vegetable garden,” Tillotson said.

“We'd been there for maybe 15 or 20 minutes making lots of noise. My littlest granddaughter just yelled for me and I turned and looked at her and a big bear was right behind her.

“The bear swiped at her and cut the back of her calf so she fell. It looked like that bear was going to bite her.”

Tillotson said she scooped up Megan and slowly backed away from the bear with her other granddaughter right behind her.

The bear swiped at the child again, scratching Megan's belly and — though she didn't feel it at the time — Tillotson's thigh.

“I was just shrieking hysterically at the top of my lungs,” said Tillotson. “It was probably no more than a few seconds but it seemed like forever to me [before] it stopped and ambled out of the garden.”

Butler said he doesn't think the attack was predatory in nature.

“Basically the bear was there to get something to eat and these people were in the way,” he said. ” If the bear wanted to kill the little girl, [it] could have.”

When he arrived at the home, Butler said he found a “fairly large” black bear in the neighbour's compost. He had his dog chase the bear into a tree where it was shot.

Garth Mowat, the B.C. Environment Ministry's senior wildlife biologist for the Kootenay region, said it's rare for a black bear to attack and knew of only one other human-related attack by a bear in the past 18 months. “I've not heard of black bears attacking people over food very often,” he said. “There might have been something else going on.”

Mowat suggested the bear may have been afraid or it took the child for a dog that was bothering it.

A few days after the attack, Nelson police shot a black bear hunkered down in a residential area along a road frequented by school children.

Part of the problem, say wildlife experts, is people leaving garbage and compost accessible to bears.

Butler said conservation officers will be issuing more wildlife protection orders to clear garbage, compost and fallen fruit. People who don't comply could be fined $345.

via Public warned after bear attacks girl, woman.

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Sounds just terrible. Surprising to see a black bear involved in such a ferocious attack.

Gerald Marois heard the bear before he saw it.

“I turned around and he was about 50 feet away — one of the biggest bears I had ever seen in my life.

“He looked at me and moved sideways a bit, I start backing up and he just charged me. He came full blast, man.”

Marois, 47, a retired steelworker and experienced hunter from Waubaushene, was mauled by a large black bear last Tuesday evening in a remote wooded area about 30 km northwest of Orillia.

He was airlifted to Sunnybrook hospital, where he gave the Star an exclusive and terrifying account of his near-death encounter.

Marois was planting a food plot in a small clearing about 150 feet inside the bush line, where he planned to hunt deer in the fall — “My Dad taught me that’s where you get the big buck” — when the bear came up from behind him.

“His head was huge, his eyes were really far apart from each other and he had tiny, tiny ears, which is the sign of a huge boar — probably 600 pounds.”

When the bear charged, Marois said he turned around and ran toward a nearby oak tree — “The one I wanted to put my tree-stand in” — and climbed three-quarters of the way up.

The bear followed him up.

Marois shakes as he tells the story from his hospital bed, his arms, legs and face covered in deep gashes.

Marois said he tried to fight the bear off from the trees upper branches, but it kept coming up after him.

“I was hitting him on the nose and on the head, trying to hurt him, and every time I hit him he was scraping me and just pulling on my boots.”

The bear pulled one of his boots off and started biting the bottom of his feet.

“Then he dragged me almost to the ground.”

Marois tried and tried to get away from the bear by climbing farther up the tree, but the bear repeatedly dragged him down.

“I was kicking him with the other boot and he grabbed that boot and he ripped it right off.”

The bear then tried to rip off Marois’s chest waders.

“That was messing him up, because they were coming back like an elastic, eh? And it was hard for him to rip them off.”

But the bear eventually got them.

“Then he started eating my flesh.”

Marois said he watched as the bear started eating into his right calf.

“He was eating my meat and he was licking the blood and licking himself and just enjoying every bite of it.

Marois suffered his worst injuries to his legs, which required a skin graft to repair. They look torn apart and scrawny when he lifts up his hospital gown.

“He ate my whole calf.”

Marois says he made at least 10 attempts to climb away from the bear and it kept coming after him.

“I was trying to get away from him in every direction that I could in that oak tree, but he kept on dragging me down; he wanted me down on the ground.”

Marois, who said he forgot his bear spray at home, then turned to the only weapon he had.

“I got my lighter out” — a regular cigarette lighter — “and I started burning his face.”

Marois said when he shoved the lighter in the bear’s face it clawed him in the head.

“And that was it with the lighter, eh? No more lighters.”

Proof of the bear’s swipe comes in the two long rows of stitches on the top and side of Marois’s head.

“I got really weak from that hit. I had barely nothing left, so I told God I was putting my life in his hands.”

He said he prayed to God to send his guardian angel to protect him, because he couldn’t fight the bear off any longer.

At that moment, the bear threw Marois from the tree — Marois figures about 20 feet — and he landed with a thud and a loud groan.

When he looked up he watched the bear dive out of the tree in the opposite direction.

“It seemed like God scare him, man. People don’t believe in God, but I’m telling you, man, something scare him. Because he got scared, he jumped in the rough and he took off.”

Marois said the attack definitely lasted more than 15 minutes, though he says it “felt like forever.”

But he knew he still wasn’t safe.

He heard the bear roaming around him, gnashing his teeth and making a guttural barking noise Marois called a “bawl” — the same noise it made before charging at him.

“I was sure I was dead. I told God, ‘Keep your hand over me, protect me.’”

Marois called his wife and then 911, but the rescue team and emergency crews couldn’t find him in the thick bush.

It took rescuers — with the help of Marois’ wife, Louise Beauchamp — more than an hour to find him. All the while Marois could hear the bear nearby.

Eventually the rescuers found him, and with Marois’s legs ripped to shreds, they moved him to a clearing where the air ambulance helicopter could land.

“That’s when I finally could breathe.”

The next thing Marois remembers is waking up in the hospital.

Marois’ health has been improving every day, but doctors tell him he may need plastic surgery to fix his legs. He says he has nightmares about the attack every time he sleeps.“It’s extremely hard for me to rest.”

Though he sometimes struggles to tell the story, Marois speaks angrily about the cancellation of the spring bear hunt in Ontario more than 10 years ago.

“I want (Premier Dalton McGuinty) to reconsider the spring bear hunt, so this doesn’t happen no more.”

Mike Harris’s provincial government ended the spring bear hunt in 1999 after it had been in place for 30 years. Critics called the spring hunt “barbaric” because it often left behind thousands of orphaned cubs. All other Canadian provinces with bears have spring hunts except Nova Scotia. Ontario still has a fall bear hunt, which starts in September.

A spokesman for Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources said Friday that they thought the bear may have mistaken Marois — bent over and wearing chest waders — as a deer.

But Marois believes the bear was tracking him.

“He didn’t mistake me for nothing. That bear wanted to maul me; he was hungry and he came to get me.”

The ministry says bear encounters are not on the rise in the province, but Marois says he and his neighbours have seen different.

“We live up north, the bear are coming in our town, in our kids’ schoolyard. They walk the streets with their babies.

“I want the population of Toronto to be aware that they’re not scared of us. They roam the forest and if they’re hungry, they’ll get you, man. There’s nothing you can do about it.”

Marois said his rescuers — a combination of OPP officers, paramedics and Port Severn firefighters — risked their lives entering the bush the way they did, not knowing if the bear was still in the area.

“I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart.”

Marois, who has been living in the Waubaushene area for more than 20 years, comes from a hunting family in rural Quebec.

“I was born with a rabbit snare and a pellet gun in my hands.”

But now he says he may never hunt again.

“It will be really hard to go back in the bush after this.”

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The Golden Retriever was covered in blood after saving it’s 11-year-old owner from a cougar attack in Boston Bar, B.C.

A faithful White Retriever saved an 11-year-old boy from a vicious cougar attack in Boston Bar, B.C. Friday.

RCMP say that the boy, named Austin, and dog were in their family’s backyard when a cougar started advancing on the child.

Sgt. Peter Thiessen said the boy was spared from the encounter when the White Retriever jumped in the way and took the brunt of the attack.

The two animals began attacking each other, giving the boy time to run home and call 9-1-1.

A Boston Bar RCMP officer was near the area and arrived minutes later to find the dog in a brutal fight for survival against the larger predator under the home’s porch.

As the cougar bit down on the retriever’s neck, the RCMP officer advanced on the wild animal and fired two shots into the cat’s rear end.

The cougar continued its attack, so the officer walked up to the cat and fired again, this time killing the animal.

Police say the dog survived with minor injuries and the boy was completely unharmed.

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A Miracle Beach man is taking a bear mauling in stride this week after a black bear swiped the top of his head and sent him flying 10 feet.

Today, Ed Claydon says the whole experience should serve as a public reminder that bears are feeding and should be treated with respect.

Claydon was going out to the car shortly around 7:45 Thursday evening with a flashlight when he heard a growling sound.

He took another step and heard another growl.

He stopped under an apple tree and, thinking it was a raccoon or something, he looked down at the ground.

Little did he know a black bear was sitting in the tree directly above him. It took a swipe, and sent him flying.

When he landed, Claydon shone the flashlight at the apple tree and met his adversary.

He quickly skirted away from the bear, back toward the house and let himself in the back door.

“When I saw him I couldn’t even comprehend what had happened,” said his wife, Joy. “His face was dripping in blood. I thought maybe he’d caught his face on a tree branch but he said no, a bear just attacked me.” She took him to the hospital, where the deep gash on the top of his head was stitched up and released.

Aside from the stitches he also sustained injuries to his shoulder – which took the brunt of his fall.

But his pain could have been a lot worse.

If he hadn’t looked down the gash could have been across the side of his face.

The Claydons live about 500 yards from Black Creek, where bears hang out and gorge themselves on salmon.

Though they pick and use most of their apples, they leave the very high ones – too high to reach with a ladder – for the wind and eventually, the deer to enjoy.

“I guess when we were attracting the deer we were also attracting the bears,” Joy Claydon said. “I guess he moral of the story is don’t leave any fruit on the ground.” Even after the attack Ed Claydon, says he doesn’t feel the bear meant him any particular harm.

He didn’t even ask the conservation officers to attend.

Conservation officer Ben York advises people to let his office investigate and decide whether a bear is dangerous or not.

He says in most cases, if a bear was acting defensively, people will be educated about bear attractants and the bear will be left alone.

If a bear is acting aggressively or in a predatory manner it will be investigated, tracked down and removed.

But the Claydons said the bear definitely fell into the first category.

“The bear meant him no malice,” said Joy Claydon. “It was just a swat to say get away from my tree. It was not a rogue bear.” The last bear complaint conservation officers had from the Miracle Beach area was in August.

“It’s been extraordinarily quiet,” said York. “It’s been one of the quietest years across B.C. we’ve had in years.

“We haven’t even set a trap yet and usually at this time of year we have all of our traps going.” He suspects good berry crop, abundant pink salmon stocks in the rivers, and more bear awareness mean bears don’t need to depend on human garbage as much as they have in the past.

“It might even be because people are starting to learn,” said York.

Though bears usually hibernate by late November or mid December, bear sightings can occur on the coast year round.

© Copyright (c) The Victoria Times Colonist

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Young folk singer dead after attack by coyotes in Nova Scotia park

HALIFAX, N.S. — A young Canadian folk singer who had just set off on a solo tour to boost a promising musical career died Wednesday after being mauled by two coyotes in what is believed to be one of the country’s first fatal attacks by the animals.

Taylor Mitchell was hiking alone in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park on Tuesday afternoon when a pair of coyotes attacked her, leaving her critically injured with bite wounds covering most of her body.

The 19-year-old singer’s screams for help were heard by at least two other hikers, who rushed to the Skyline Trail and called 911 at around 3 p.m. as the animals continued their brutal attack on the young Toronto woman.

Mitchell, who was on a three-week tour of the region to promote her debut CD, was to play in Sydney, N.S., on Wednesday night when she decided to go for a hike in the scenic park.

“She loved going into the woods and hiking,” Lisa Weitz, her manager in Toronto, said through tears. “She was absolutely pumped about her first tour on the East Coast and to take her songwriting craft to new audiences…

“She just had a wonderful joy of life and sharing music.”

Mitchell, who had about a dozen concert dates in the Maritimes, was rushed to a local hospital and then airlifted to Halifax. She died at about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday, police said.

Paul Maynard of Emergency Health Services said she was already in critical condition when paramedics arrived on the scene and was bleeding heavily from multiple bite wounds.

“She was losing a considerable amount of blood from the wounds,” he said.

“This was really out of the ordinary – the first I’ve heard of something like this.”

RCMP Sgt. Brigdit Leger said officers shot one of the two animals, apparently wounding it, but both managed to get away.

An official with Parks Canada said they barricaded the entrance to the trail where Mitchell was attacked and were trying to find the animals to determine what prompted such an unusual attack.

Helene Robichaud, the park’s superintendent, said there have been a handful of reports of aggressive coyotes over the last 15 years, but they have not seen any attacks on people.

“There’s been some reports of aggressive animals, so it’s not unknown,” she said. “But we certainly never have had anything so dramatic and tragic.”

Officials shot a coyote late Tuesday, but Robichaud doubted that it was one of the two involved in the attack.

The provincial Natural Resources Department said there is no other record of a fatal coyote attack on a human in Nova Scotia since the animals were first discovered in the province in the ’70s.

In 2003, a teenage girl was bitten on the arm by a coyote while walking on the same trail as Mitchell, said Germaine LeMoine of Parks Canada. The girl’s parents managed to scare the animal away.

Biologists said it’s unlikely the coyotes involved had contracted rabies or were protecting young animals.

Bob Bancroft, a Nova Scotia wildlife biologist, said coyotes shy away from humans. But not all animals – particularly young, inexperienced coyotes in parks – view humans as predators.

“This is probably just a couple of coyotes that saw something vulnerable and went for it,” he said. “It’s horrible. It’s not something you would expect at all.”

Coyotes in the region are larger and behave somewhat differently than their counterparts in Western Canada, he said. Large males in Nova Scotia can weigh up to 60 pounds.

Simon Gadbois, a professor at Dalhousie University who studies animal behaviour, said hikers should always be vigilant and aware of their surroundings.

Should a hiker unintentionally surprise a coyote or other animal, Gadbois has simple, potentially life-saving advice: Never act like prey.”The worst thing you can do is start running away,” he said. “Wave your arms, shout, just show that you mean business basically and most animals will think twice.”

Ethel Merry, who manages a motel 10 kilometres from the park in Cheticamp, said people in the area have been seeing more coyotes in the last three years and are calling for controls on their numbers.

Merry said she and her family have seen packs of up to seven coyotes wandering around people’s yards and attacking pets.

“I’m not surprised at all that this happened,” she said. “The coyotes are all around us. … I am so afraid to walk my road.”

Mitchell, who graduated from the Etobicoke School of the Arts, had recently been nominated for a Canadian Folk Music Award and was being roundly praised for her songwriting talent.

Mitchell’s MySpace site shows the singer standing in the woods with her guitar and a suitcase at her side, along with the cover photo of her album, “For Your Consideration.”

Weitz said the singer had just gotten her licence and a new car, which she loaded with her CDs before setting off alone on the tour.

“She was a beautiful, dynamic, young, talented woman and we’re all so saddened and shocked,” Weitz said.

“She was such a young and old soul at the same time. She just knew how to beautifully craft a song.”

Singer Suzie Vinnick met the performer about three years ago and acted as a mentor, teaching her guitar as Mitchell played bars in Ontario and started to garner attention.

“She was really keen and hungry in a really positive way,” she said in an interview. “She was a great lyricist and held a lot of promise. I mean, she was at it for two years and already managed to get a Canadian Folk Music nomination.”

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Nursing bite wounds inflicted by a grizzly bear, two B.C. hunters are thankful to have survived a harrowing attack inside their tent.

Jeff Hebert and Ken Scown, both of Nelson, B.C., were camping overnight Wednesday in the East Kootenays when the grizzly bear attacked about 10:20 p.m.

Scown, 36, was asleep but Hebert, 32, was reading and heard the bear charge their tent.

“There was no warning, there was no other sound other than the sound of something very heavy running towards the tent and huffing — just a deep, guttural huff and it was getting closer very fast,” said Hebert.

He woke Scown and grabbed his rifle beside him, which didn’t have a round in the chamber as a safety precaution.

“She came so fast I didn’t even have time to cycle the bolt — she hit us in the tent and collapsed the tent over top of us and started mauling my partner,” said Hebert.

“She was just trashing and tossing us both around.”

The grizzly mauled the men from outside the tent and they couldn’t see the animal, but the tracks in the snow later proved it was a bear.

“It was absolutely terrifying — pretty much every tenter’s worst nightmare to get attacked in your tent at night,” said Scown, a forester.

While the bear mauled Scown, Hebert used his right hand to prepare his rifle to fire and attempted to push the grizzly off his friend with his left hand.

“That’s when she turned and bit me in the arm,” he said, adding he then stuck the gun underneath the bear and pulled the trigger, but it didn’t fire because the round wasn’t properly in the chamber.

After attacking the pair for about a minute, the bear gave up and wandered away.

“Thank God, I guess we fought back hard enough that she decided we weren’t an easy meal and left,” said Hebert, nursing a pair of two-inch deep bite wounds to his left forearm.

Scown had been wearing more layers and amazingly suffered only three puncture wounds that aren’t as deep.

They hiked 5 km to their truck and drove 1 1/2 hours to Cranbrook Hospital for treatment.

The experienced outdoorsmen both intend to continue hunting.

Scown said he disagrees with the decision of local conservation officers, who ruled the bear wasn’t behaving in a predatory manner and shouldn’t be tracked and killed.

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This is really tragically bad luck.

MONTREAL – A man fought off a bear to save his wife on an isolated forest trail in La Tuque only to have a car accident rushing her to the hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

The man, in his 40s, is in a state of shock, police said.

The husband was clearing brush near a forest road about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday when his wife was attacked by a bear. The man managed to pull his wife from the bear’s clutches and was driving to the nearest hospital, a 90-minute drive, when he lost control of the car and headed into a ditch.

Nearby residents found the couple and contacted police.

The couple was rushed to the hospital, but the woman did not survive.

The exact cause of her death has yet to be determined.

Quebec wildlife officials are heading today to La Tuque, about 270 kilometres north of Montreal, to capture the bear, Sûreté du Québec Sgt. Claude Denis said.

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A family photo of Caleigh Cunning, 5, who survived an attack by a seal.

Photograph by: Handout, …

METRO VANCOUVER — Minutes after she escaped from a harbour seal that had pulled her into the water off West Vancouver’s Thunderbird Marina, Caleigh Cunning had a few questions for her father.

“She said, ‘Daddy, why did the seal drag me in the water?’” her father, North Vancouver resident Mike Cunning, said Wednesday.

“I said, ‘I think the seal wanted you to go for a swim.’

“She said, ‘Well, the seal wasn’t very nice.’”

At about 6 p.m. Tuesday, Cunning, Caleigh and some friends were standing at a dockside fish-cleaning table, washing the day’s catch.

Cunning turned from his daughter for a moment and heard a splash.

“I looked over and couldn’t see my daughter anywhere.”

Caleigh, who’d been wearing a life jacket, popped up about two metres away.

“I said, ‘Caleigh, swim to me, swim to me Caleigh!’”

Cunning said his friend, who had seen the incident, told him the seal had jumped four feet out of the water, took Caleigh by the arm and dragged her into the water.

The incident — from the moment the seal grabbed Caleigh to her recovery back on the dock — took about 10 to 15 seconds, he said.

“It just happened so quickly. It was instantaneous.”

Caleigh treaded water back to the dock. When Cunning pulled his crying, shocked daughter out of the water, he saw her hand was swollen and covered in blood.

Caleigh was treated at Lions Gate Hospital for five puncture wounds to her wrist and placed on antibiotics to ward off infection.

Conflicts between humans and harbour seals are rare, said Paul Cottrell, marine mammal coordinator for the federal department of fisheries and oceans’ Pacific region.

Seals are most likely to appear where they have easy access to food, and that includes marinas, he said.

He said Caleigh had been throwing fish guts and bits to seals earlier that evening, a common but discouraged practice, which may have left fish slime on her hands.

The slime’s scent most likely attracted the seal because it was accustomed to eating thrown fish scraps.

“This is a case of a harbour seal misinterpreting this girl’s hand, thinking that it was a piece of fish.”

Cottrell said the DFO encourages marinas to supply containers for fish remnants near cleaning tables.

Though the incident was a harrowing one, it could have been worse, Cunning said.

Caleigh is taking swimming lessons and she’s confident around the water, said Cunning, an avid fisherman.

“She loves fishing and reeling in fish. She’s been around the ocean all her life.”

Many years ago, a member of Cunning’s extended family drowned when she was five years old, so he is very sensitive and safety-conscious around water, he said.

“Her life jacket gets on in the parking lot, and it doesn’t come off until we get back to the car.”

Thunderbird Marina manager Fred McDonald said though seals are a common sight at the marina, this is the first incident he’s heard of involving an aggressive seal.

Cunning said he was concerned low fish stocks have resulted in an abundance of seals gathering around marinas, which could pose a threat to humans.

But Cottrell said the seal population “has flattened out and stabilized. It’s hit a natural balance.”

About 40,000 seals populate the Strait of Georgia, and about 110,000 seals live along the B.C. coast, Cottrell said.

He said interaction with seals could be pursued as a violation of the Fisheries Act. The regulations apply to people who initiate feeding, touching or swimming with a marine mammal.

Cottrell knew of one similar incident: a B.C. sport fisherman was bitten by a harbour seal as he tried to release a juvenile salmon into the water.

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ONTARIO, Canada -

Judy Brown admitted she was still in shock and mourning as she remembered her good friend, Bernie Jackson, a retired Neosho Junior High School principal who was one of two men killed by a tornado that hit their campsite in Ontario, Canada, Thursday night.

Brown said Jackson was “Mr. Education. Mr. Wonderful. Mr. People Person.”

Bernie Jackson, 65, who served as Neosho Junior High School principal for nine years, retired in the summer of 2006. Jackson, of Ponca City, Okla., and Stan Hollis, 79, were killed by a tornado that hit about 9 p.m. Thursday and destroyed two cabins in the camp area. The tornado was rated an EF2, with wind speeds between 113 and 157 miles per hour, according to Environment Canada, the Canadian equivalent to the National Weather Service.

Dennis Kinkaid, 66, was still missing as of Friday evening, the Associated Press reports. The incident happened at a fishing resort next to Lac Seul in northwestern Ontario.

According to the Tulsa World, this is the 23rd year for the men to go on a summer camping trip.
Jackson retired from the Ponca City School District in Ponca City, Okla., before coming to the Neosho School District in 1997.

It was then that Brown, long-time junior high school secretary, found herself working for Jackson. It was that year that Jackson and Brown became friends, as well as colleagues.

“I just can’t imagine this world without Bernie Jackson,” said Brown, who has worked for the Neosho R-5 School District for 27 years with the junior high school. “Bernie loves people, and I am saying that in the present tense because it is still hard for me to grasp. He loved his faculty. He was always taking good care of people. You could go to him as a sounding board for your thoughts. You could go to him for advice, and he would help you think things through. He loved the kids, and always had wonderful stories to tell.”

Brown said Jackson was a family man, as well as a man of education. He is survived by his wife, Marilyn, two children, and four grandchildren.

“He would always talk about his grandchildren, because they were always so special to him,” Brown said. “Bernie was always doing things for other people. He would be working late in the evening to make a big, huge pot of soup for the entire faculty. He was so fun. He very seldom got angry, and when he did, he controlled it very well.”

Brown said everyone was excited for Jackson when he retired in 2006, because they knew he would be able to do the things he enjoyed like hunt, fish and golf.

“He was also a wonderful cook, and he had a big garden every year,” Brown said. “He would bring food in the office and share them. He was just always thinking of other people. I have never worked for anybody who was more giving and gracious, and compassionate. We were a part of his family, and he loved us. I didn’t know anyone who didn’t respect him. I can’t say enough about how much I respected him, and loved him.”

Shirley Cummins, a current member of the Neosho R-5 School Board and a retired R-5 administrator who worked alongside Jackson, said he was one of the most “positive and compassionate educators I think I have ever worked with. He always had a smile on his face, and he always had something good to say about people. He has been a counselor, an educator, in human resources and he was excellent in dealing with people. He had many strong suits, but I think those positive people skills were his best.”

Cummins said she and her husband, Sonny, and Jackson and his wife, Marilyn, went on a cruise together the summer Jackson retired.

“We just had the best time,” Cummins said.

Cummins said Jackson was good for Neosho and the district, and Darren Cook, current principal at Neosho High School, echoed that statement.

“Bernie was a kind man, and he had a big heart,” Cook said. “He was always thinking of others. Why he came back after retiring in Oklahoma to be principal in Neosho is because he loved working with kids. He had a great love for students.”

Dr. Richard Page, superintendent of Neosho R-5 Schools, said he was shocked to hear of the news of Jackson’s death.

“Bernie was a good person and a good friend, and he always remembered us here in Neosho,” Page said. “We are sure sad to hear of the loss. He was a great educator and a great person, and this is a sad loss to all of us.”

* * *
The Associated Press and the Tulsa World contributed to this report.

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Conservation officials in B.C.’s central Interior are praising a mother who saved her young son from a cougar attack in a popular hiking area.

At approximately 4 p.m. Saturday, a mother and her two children were enjoying an afternoon hike near Pinnacles Provincial Park, just outside the city of Quesnel.

Officials say the cougar pounced suddenly on a seven-year-old boy, who was walking just ahead of his mother and little brother.

“He turned to look back at his mother and the cougar jumped on his back [and] knocked him to the ground,” said conservation officer Mike Krause.

“[The] mother, of course, immediately rushed in. The cougar saw the mother coming and immediately broke off the attack and … ran off.”

Another hiker stepped in and helped the family get away.

The little boy needed stitches for scratches to his cheek, ear and back, Krause said, adding, “Anybody that gets attacked by a cougar is lucky to come away with minor injuries.”

Rare incident

The park, approximately 120 kilometres south of Prince George, remained closed Wednesday while officials worked to track and capture the animal with snares and traps.

The attack and response happened so quickly, Krause said, the mother wasn’t able to give any details about the cougar, such as size or age.

Krause said officials don’t know why this cougar attacked, but they are praising the mother of the victim.

“She did what mothers will do and that’s protect their children … without hesitation,” Krause said.

Cougars are common in the area, he said, but attacks are rare.

“Particularly in the Quesnel area, this is the first recorded cougar attack on a human. It’s very rare.”

The family has asked that their name not be released.

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Conservation officers are warning British Columbians of the dangers of feeding wildlife following an attack on a Lower Mainland toddler by a coyote that had lost its fear of humans.

The girl, 2, suffered bites to the head and ear and minor scratches to her back during Monday’s attack at a playground in a Port Coquitlam school yard, before her parents were able to scare the animal away.

Provincial conservation officer Terry Myroniuk said agents later tracked and killed the animal. The contents of its stomach — chicken and mashed potatoes — confirmed it had been getting fed.

“What typically will happen is the animals will quite often lose their fear of humans and… approach humans in seeking out food — and this can sometimes result in unfortunate incidents,” Myroniuk said.

Feeding wild animals is an offence under the provincial Wildlife Act, Myroniuk pointed out, and the law is there for a reason.

“People who feed wildlife intend to help, but the practice instead puts the animals and the public in danger,” Myroniuk said.

“It’s not unusual for us to have coyotes existing in the Lower Mainland. But the behaviour that was exhibited by this animal — again, the lack of fear of humans, the lack of fear in actually approaching humans — is an indication that it had certainly been fed.”

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Officials advise caution in wake of rattlesnake bites

Health authorities in the sun-baked Interior are advising caution after three incidents of rattlesnake bites near Penticton in the last month.

Last week an Okanagan man was bitten on the ankle after stepping on a rattler in his backyard. After four days in intensive care and 40 vials of anti-venom, costing $1,000 each, his condition has stabilized.

Another person was bitten on the hand while out on a trail, and the other was bitten on the finger in a backyard.

On average there are five rattlesnake bites a year in B.C., and there have been two deaths in the province’s recorded history.

Rattlers reside on grassy hillsides in territory ranging from the southern Okanagan to the northern outskirts of Kamloops, and have come into increasing contact with humans owing to residential development.

Here are some tips from Interior doctors familiar with rattlesnake bites:

Keep in mind that the striking distance of a snake is about two-thirds its length. Do not pick up or handle snakes. Even a dead snake can bite and release venom through reflexes for 90 minutes after it dies.

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Mom pulls three-year-old daughter from cougar’s grasp in Squamish

BY REBECCA TEBRAKE AND DARAH HANSEN, VANCOUVER SUNJUNE 17, 2009 9:08 PM

METRO VANCOUVER — When Maureen Lee took her three-year-old daughter Maya salmonberry-picking along the Squamish River, she thought it would be a peaceful break from a day of packing for her family’s move to Mexico this weekend.

They were on a trail in Fisherman’s Park — about five minutes from their home in Squamish’s Brackendale neighbourhood — when Lee noticed movement in the bushes.

She thought it was a dog, but quickly realized it was a cougar.

The cat jumped onto Maya, pinned her in a fetal position and gripped her head with its claws, Lee said Wednesday, recounting the Tuesday evening attack.

“I just knew I had to get between them.”

Lee somehow wedged her slight frame between her daughter and the 80-pound male cougar, pushing him off Maya as she stood up. She grabbed Maya and ran.

“It was pure adrenalin and instinct,” Lee said. “I don’t think it was until I started running that the fear kicked in.”

As they ran, Maya, bleeding from her head and arm, kept repeating, “A bear got me. A bear got me.”

Lee didn’t turn back until she reached the safety of her neighbour’s house, who helped her stop Maya’s bleeding.

“Amazing,” Maya’s father, Pablo Espinosa, said of his wife’s actions. “I don’t know what I would have done.”

An ambulance took Maya to Squamish General Hospital where cuts on the right side of her head and her upper left arm were stitched up.

She appeared in good spirits Wednesday, even asking her mom to take her back down to the site of the attack.

“She’s very brave, but I can tell she was a bit shaken,” Lee said of Maya’s reaction to the visit. “I don’t want her to be afraid of the forest. I don’t want her to be afraid of picking berries. I want her to understand that this was a unique situation.”

The cougar drama will not change the family’s plans to relocate to Mexico on the weekend, she said.

Around 10 p.m. Tuesday, five conservation officers aided by five dogs found and killed the 18-month-old adult male cat that is suspected in the attack.

Squamish conservation officer Chris Doyle said from the animal’s outward appearance it appeared to be in good condition. However, a full necropsy has been ordered to help determine why the animal acted as it did.

Conservation officers continued to scout the neighbourhood with dog teams on Wednesday.

B.C. is home to about 4,000 to 6,000 cougars, but sightings of the elusive wild cat are “really, really unusual,” said Kyle Knopff, a PhD student at the University of Alberta who studies cougar behaviour. “In general they avoid people,” he said.

But Squamish has recently recorded an alarming spike in the number of encounters. In the past week and a half, Doyle said, 30 cougar sightings have been reported in the district, up from an average of two sightings over such a period.

Two dogs were attacked in separate incidents along the popular Chief Trail earlier this month. One of the dogs was killed when the cougar dragged it from its leash and carried it up a tree. The second dog was rescued by its owner.

In that case, conservation officers shot and killed a young female cougar, also about a year to 18 months old.

According to Doyle, that animal was in very poor health.

“It appeared she hadn’t fed for a while,” he said.

It’s not unusual for conservation officers to kill a cougar if the animal’s behaviour is deemed significantly abnormal or if the encounters reach a “high level of conflict,” Doyle said.

“If they are not in conflict, they are fairly secretive,” he added.

The high number of sightings has raised concern among Squamish residents, who’ve been told to stay alert on wooded trails and paths, and use particular caution when out with young children and pets.

Lee said she had heard about the cougar attacks on dogs and her mom had called her Tuesday morning to warn her — a warning that came back to haunt her as she ran to safety cradling Maya in her arms.

“As I was running, I thought of that. My mom’s going to kill me,” Lee said.

Neighbour Kelsey Wright said residents were walking around carrying cans and sticks to make noise with after the attack Tuesday night.

“It definitely makes you feel a little uneasy, but you can’t live your life in fear because of a cougar attack,” Wright said.

Kris Mazzotti, who lives a few doors down from Lee and Espinosa, taught her four-year-old son Joel what a cougar is and how to act if he sees one.

Mazzotti told Joel to be calm and not to run away, but she admits she would probably pick up her kids and run.

Some residents blame Olympics-related residential development in the area for the recent cougar problems.

“What is happening here was so predictable,” said Brian Vincent, a Squamish resident and communications director for an Oregon-based wildlife advocacy group, Big Wildlife.

“This was a sleepy little town for the longest time and didn’t have this problem. But because of the Olympics and all the construction for the Sea to Sky Highway and the rampant and uncontrolled housing development into wildlife habitat, these animals have become stressed,” he said.

Vincent urged local authorities and residents to avoid whipping up hysteria about the big cats.

However, Doyle said there are a number of reasons for the increase in cougar sightings, none of which have to do with development.

He said the cougars may be reacting to variations in the location and abundance of prey species, or it might be simple population dynamics.

The sightings and attacks may also be the result of young cougars leaving their mothers, he said.

He noted the recent sightings have all occurred in established residential or recreational areas, not in newly developed areas.

Knopff speculated that the two cougars that were killed were possibly siblings who came into the town limits in search of easy food. Young cougars, he said, “are definitely less effective predators. There is a learning curve, for sure.”

Knopff said spotting a cougar in its natural habitat is not cause for alarm, even if the animal is seen repeatedly.

However, a cougar that repeatedly approaches people in a threatening way, attacks pets while people are present, or attacks people is “certainly a problem.” “Such cougars must be dealt with,” he said.

According to Knopff, if you are attacked by a cougar, the best way to deter the animal is to aggressively fight back.

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Girl attacked by cougar in Brackendale, B.C.

Source: CBC News

Posted: 06/16/09 10:40PM

Filed Under: Canada

A three-year-old girl was attacked by a cougar in Brackendale, a community in the northern part of Squamish, B.C., early Tuesday evening.

Squamish is 60 kilometres north of Vancouver.

A helicopter evacuation to a Vancouver hospital was initiated, but later it was decided her injuries could be treated at the local hospital in Squamish.

RCMP Cpl. Dave Ritchie said the girl, who was attacked in Fisherman’s Park at 7 p.m. PT., is expected to recover.

The attack comes after conservation officers in the Squamish area warned hikers to keep an eye out for the large cats.

There were six attacks last Friday alone, including two on dogs. One dog was killed by a cougar, which was later destroyed by conservation officers.

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Lightning strike kills Mankota-area man, 28

REGINA — A 28-year-old man is dead and a 22-year-old woman is in hospital following a freak lightning strike on the weekend.

On Saturday about 5 p.m., the RCMP from the Ponteix detachment were called to a sudden death in an area about six kilometres south of Fir Mountain, located inside the Rural Municipality of Waverly in the southern part of Saskatchewan.

The male and the female, both from the the village of Mankota area, had been working on a barbed-wire fence.

Lightning had struck a point on the fence about 30 metres down the fence line from where the pair had been working, RCMP Cpl. Perry Pelletier said.

The electricity was conducted through the fence and down the line to the pair. The male is believed to have been killed instantly and was dead upon the RCMP’s arrival, while the female suffered injuries that required her to be transported first to hospital in Assiniboia and later to hospital in Moose Jaw.

“In this case, the weather wasn’t too bad and it could have been anybody down there,” Pelletier said. “So it was just one of those freak-type things, in my opinion. From what we gather, there was a thunderclap heard around the same time. There may have been a very light rain just around the same time.”

Pelletier said the RCMP’s ongoing investigation will include consultation with Environment Canada as to weather conditions at the time of the incident.

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‘It was so unreal:’ Grande Cache man feels lucky to be alive after encounter with grizzly

CHRISTOPHER MILLS – Herald-Tribune staff

Posted 3 days ago

James Wanyandie, who suffered a broken arm and deep scratches to his leg as the result of a bear attack near Grande Cache last weekend, and his wife, Carol, speak with reporters in a waiting room at the QEII Hospital yesterday. Christopher Mills

A northern Alberta man is thankful to be alive after being attacked by a grizzly bear on Saturday.

“I didn’t know what to think. I just think of God in a time like that, for sure,” James Wanyandie said from his bed at the QEII Hospital in Grande Prairie yesterday.

“Nobody usually survives grizzly attacks anymore. There are survivors, but they have really bad injuries. I thought ‘were we going to make it back to the vehicle to get some help?’ It was hard.”

The 39-year-old Cree man from north of Grande Cache was out with his 77-year-old father, Tom, on Saturday in the bush looking for moose antlers.

He uses them for carvings, furniture and decorations around his home.

While they were out walking, Wanyandie said he heard a noise above him and looked up to see a grizzly cub climbing in a tree.

Shortly after, he heard more noise and found himself looking at the mother as she charged at him.

“I saw a bear, a small cub climbing a tree and then I said to my dad ‘bear,’ and started loading the gun up right away,” he said.

“I looked to the side and I saw the (mother) bear, right under where the small bear was on the tree; I saw the bear coming full speed at me.”

Wanyandie quickly aimed his weapon and fired, but the bullet appeared to miss and the noise of the shot didn’t faze the bear at all. It pounced on the man, clamping its huge jaws on his arm, snapping it right through.

“For a moment I thought she was going to stop; that’s what they usually do,” he said. “She swung me around like nothing.”

Seeing his son being tossed around, the elderly Wanyandie ran at the bear, yelling and cursing, brandishing a walking stick.

He managed to shove the stick in the bear’s mouth, doing enough damage to get the sow off his son.

Wanyandie said the bear then turned on his father. Lying on the ground, his arm snapped in two, he attempted to reload his gun with one arm but it wouldn’t work.

“I don’t know what I did. I just grabbed the gun and poked at the bear because it’s on my dad now,” he said.

“Then it got the attention back on me. That’s when it grabbed my leg and came after me again. I was almost kind of knocked out. It was so unreal.”

Tom Wanyandie continued to beat the bear on the head and nose with his walking stick and it eventually ran off.

After the bear left, Wanyandie and his father made the 600-yard (546 metres) trek to their vehicle.

“We kept on looking back, thinking it was going to come after us,” he said.

“We kept straight towards the vehicle. Step by step, my leg kept getting stiffer and stiffer. The blood was not dripping, but I could see either a bite or a big scratch, real deep.”

Wanyandie climbed into the driver’s seat and drove himself and his father back towards the highway.

“My hand was hanging, crunching every time I bounced it,” he said. “I tried not to think about it. There was a lot of pain, but at the same time I was trying to be tough.”

Driving with one arm, he had to drive another 500 or so metres towards Highway 40 before cell reception kicked in. He then called his wife and told her what had happened, asking her to call 911 to meet him somewhere on the highway.

“I didn’t know what to think,” Carol Wanyandie said. “The first thing that popped into my mind, when you hear about a grizzly attack or a bear attack, just the worst picture pops into your head. I didn’t know what to expect.”

The couple has six children – ranging in age from 18 months to 11 years old – who were all crying when their mother left for the hospital.

“Once I came back and explained Dad was going to be okay, they were fine,” Carol said.

The children usually accompany their father into the bush, but this was a rare time when he went without them, Carol said.

“Once he’s healed, but he won’t be taking my boys out anymore,” she said, when asked if she would be okay with her husband going back out into the bush.

The two men met up with an emergency response team and were taken to Grande Cache hospital and James was later transferred to the QEII Hospital in Grande Prairie.

Tom, who James said had a broken hand after being bitten by the bear, was treated for minor injuries and released. James suffered a broken arm and deep wounds to his leg, though he is not sure if they are teeth or scratch marks.

He is being released today after three days in hospital, but doctors say it will be about eight weeks before his bones heal and probably close to October before he can begin physiotherapy.

Both Carol and James said something needs to be done about the grizzly population in northern Alberta.

“For us to get attacked, me and my dad, it shouldn’t have been; we’re experienced, but I guess anybody can get attacked,” he said. “There are too many grizzlies out there. I think something has to be done about it. It can’t continue like that. There are too many attacks every year; some have been killed, some make it but get bad injuries.”

“Within the last two or three years we’ve noticed a big increase, not just in grizzlies but even in cougars,” Carol said. “This past winter, trappers were catching them in their wolf snares.”

The best advice James can give to people out in the bush is to be extremely cautious and prepared. He said this attack would definitely make him more cautious.

“I’m always cautious, but I might have an extra weapon, for sure,” he said.

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Bear attacks Sudbury woman

Posted By The Canadian Press

Posted 2 days ago

SUDBURY — Police in the Sudbury, Ont., area are warning about the possibility of bear attacks.

A 30-year-old woman was on her driveway in the community of Conniston Wednesday just before 2 a.m. when she was attacked.

She didn’t actually see the animal, but the lacerations on the back of her left leg look like a single swipe from a bear.

The animal was scared off by the woman’s dog.

The woman was taken to hospital, treated for her injuries and released.

Police have gone door to door in the area warning residents to be on the look out for bears and passing on tips that could help keep the animals out of the area.

The Ministry of Natural Resources is also trying to track down the bear.

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Feisty hunter, 78, uses walking stick to fend off bear attack

By ALYSSA NOEL, SUN MEDIA

A bear attack near Grande Cache that hospitalized one man could have been deadly if it weren’t for a brave 78-year-old and his walking stick, a friend said.

Tom Wanyandie and his son James, who is in his 30s, were hunting for moose antlers between 7:30 and 8:30 p.m. Friday near an oil and gas service road when they came up over a ridge and came face to face with what they believe was a grizzly.

The aggressive sow began attacking James, then turned its attention to Tom.

“Tom had a walking stick and he jammed it down the bear’s throat,” said Bazil Leonard, who has known the family for more than 30 years.

“When he did that, (the bear) left him and went after James. He took the walking stick and beat (the bear) on the nose and head until it left.”

It’s not the kind of reaction most people would expect from someone who is nearly 80, Leonard quickly added.

“Tom is not your average 78-year-old,” he said.

James, who is an artist and uses the antlers for his work, had a gun on him for protection.

He fired a shot at the bear, but it didn’t hit the animal.

James had taken the brunt of the attack after being “thrown around like he was a pillow or something,” Leonard said.

But the pair managed to get into their vehicle and drive to a Grande Cache hospital.

Tom was released, but James was transferred to a Grande Prairie hospital where he is recovering.

The bear doesn’t present a threat to the public and likely won’t be tracked down, said a spokesman for Alberta Sustainable Resource Development.

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Cougar attacks pregnant pit bull on Vancouver Island

 

 

CANWEST NEWS SERVICEMAY 21, 2009COMMENTS (5)

 

 

PORT ALBERNI, B.C. — A Vancouver Island resident drove off a cougar that attacked his dog on a trail near his home on Wednesday night.

Lance Glover was walking his pit bull, Sasha, when he encountered the animal lying in wait.

“I was talking on the phone, and I looked down and saw the cougar sitting beside the trail,” Glover said. “It jumped out and grabbed her, so I kicked at it and yelled at it, and it backed off. It came back twice. It wasn’t scared.”

During the exchange, the big cat grabbed a hold of Sasha’s rear, but Glover was able to kick it away. The American pit bull is pregnant, just a few weeks from giving birth. Glover believes the cougar is either very hungry or has simply become too habituated to people.

“I’m six-four and my dog weighs 70 pounds,” he said. “It didn’t even run away — it just walked. It’s definitely not scared of people.”

At the top of the trail, RCMP constables Jay Patovierta and Dawson McWade waited, shotguns at the ready, for a conservation officer to arrive.

It is believed to be the same cougar that menaced the same neighbourhood last month. Since that time, area residents have lost a number of cats, likely to the cougar. At that time, conservation officer Mike Newton advised that the big cat would be declared dangerous if it attacked a dog on a leash.

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Predatory bear saw northern Albertan teenager as food, expert says

 

Large group of campers didn’t provide usual safety from attack

BY LAURA DRAKE, THE EDMONTON JOURNAL

Experts say a 15-year-old boy mauled on Sunday was the victim of a predatory bear attack.

“In this instance, we’re presuming the bear saw the boy as food,” said Russell Stashko, co-chair of Alberta’s Bear Smart program.

The boy was camping with a large group of people at Roche Lake, a remote site accessible only by a three- to four-hour all-terrain vehicle ride east of Swan Hills.

Stashko said the bear showed up at their campsite Saturday night, but was scared off by a shotgun blast. It returned early the next morning and attacked the boy before being scared off again by the same gun.

Stashko said there is “no rhyme or reason” as to why the bear attacked the 15-year-old out of the group of 25 to 30 people he was with. It is unusual for a bear to even approach such a large group, he added.

“It is uncommon. Usually, there is safety in numbers,” Stashko said.

“Most bears, 99 per cent of the time, would prefer not to be around humans. It is an anomaly.”

However, Stashko said, this is the time of year when bear attacks are the most common, since they are just waking up from their winter sleep.

“The first thing they do when they come out of hibernation is look for food,” he said.

The boy was transported Sunday morning by air ambulance to the University of Alberta Hospital. STARS spokesman Cameron Heke said the air ambulance pilots were easily able to find the victim in a remote wooded area because of a mix of technology and good-old-fashioned smoke signals.

“They had a Global Positioning System … which was very helpful in us being able to find them because they were in a heavily wooded area. They also had a big fire going, so they used smoke as a signal, as well,” Heke said.

The boy was in stable condition when STARS transported him. Heke said one of the crew on the air ambulance told him the 15-year-old victim was very brave.

“He said ‘He was a very brave young lad.’ Those were his exact words.”

Alberta Health Services spokeswoman Holly Budd said the boy was doing well in hospital. His family did not wish to speak to the media.

Stashko said investigators are almost positive that the bear which attacked the boy was killed several hours later.

“We’re certain that the bear involved was shot by some bear hunters,” Stashko said.

To be certain, the investigators have taken bear DNA from the boy’s wounds and will compare it with DNA from the bear carcass.

Stashko said there are two kinds of bear attacks: defensive and predatory. In the case where a bear looks like it may attack a human in defence of itself or its young, the best thing a person can do is to back away and give the animal lots of room.

If a bear seems like it’s attacking for predatory reasons, a person should fight back and make as much noise as possible.

Stashko also recommended using devices such as a portable electric bear fence, which this group did not have.

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B.C. man fends off cougar attack near ski resort

 

By TORBEN ROLFSEN 05-13-2009 COMMENTS(0) LIVE@FIVE

 

Filed under: cougar attack

A 21-year-old man hitchhiking near the Kamloops-area Sun Peaks ski resort was jumped from behind while attempting to run away from a hungry cougar.

He escaped by beating the animal’s head with rocks before being taken to Royal Inland Hospital and then released after reportedly experiencing nothing worse than some minor neck pain.

Bad timing for the resort coming right after the end of ski season; not exactly the kind of off-season activities your marketing department wants to work with.

New slogan? “At least there’s no Swine Flu!”

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Attack dogs still on lam

CALGARY — Animal bylaw officers are still looking for two dogs that launched an unprovoked and savage attack on a senior in northeast Calgary.

Operations co-ordinator Andrew Bissett said the reasons to find the dogs and their owners is twofold – to learn about the health of the dogs and their immunization records, which might have health implications for the victim, and to hold people accountable for letting them run loose.

The dogs sent a terrified and badly hurt Quadam Ali Sultani, 75, to hospital Friday with numerous stitches to his face, as well as bite puncture wounds to his arms and legs after the dogs attacked him outside his home.

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Another sinkhole appears in Calgary

RICHARD GILBERT

staff writer

For the second time in a week, a sinkhole has formed near a Calgary condominium worksite.

The Calgary Fire Department was recently called to a building in downtown Calgary to investigate reports of a sinkhole in the underground parkade of a condo near a construction site.

The problem was discovered when the front wheel of a pickup truck dropped into the sinkhole.

“When crews from Station #2 and heavy rescue specialists arrived, they observed a sizable hole in the floor of the parkade upon which a pick-up truck was parked,” said a City of Calgary press release.

The incident commander evacuated the building because the hole was adjacent to one of the building’s structural support members.

The heavy rescue team and firefighters removed the pick-up truck and examined the sinkhole.

It is four metres wide by three metres deep and there was a visible connection to the large construction site on the east side of the parkade.

Under the direction of engineers from Lake Placid Developments, the company building the Centuria on the Park condominium project nearby, the sinkhole was filled in using gravel material.

The city also directed the engineers to assess and report on the stability of the adjacent building.

Thirteen residents in eight suites were evacuated from the nearby building and were not allowed to return until the city got an engineering report determining the safety of the complex.

Engineers are also investigating whether the Centuria development project caused the sinkhole’s appearance.

“I am not prepared to make a comment until such time as we are fully appraised by our engineer,” said Steve Seal, executive VP of development with Lake Placid Developments.

“We have retained an engineer and we need to have this team move forward. We don’t have a specific time-line because we want to make sure the proper due diligence is carried out.”

A Calgary city alderman said crews are also looking closely at the safety of other excavation sites.

“There is work being done now to find out how long these other sites were open and some risk assessment is being done,” said Ric McIver.

“We know there are a lot more open excavations around, but we don’t know which will manifest in sinkholes.”

The city is monitoring nine abandoned sites in Calgary and three of these sites have already had work done.

“Once problems start popping up, the city must become more aware, especially when projects are pushed back for an uncertain amount of time,” he said.

“It makes the need for due diligence greater.

McIver said the sinkhole problem is starting to become a major public policy issue in the city.

“We probably need to review our policy on open excavations and make sure we are covered in terms of the amount of time it is open, the type of shoring that is used to maintain the integrity of the surrounding area,” he said. “The review will also include what type of due diligence and inspections can be done and who would pay for it.”

Centuria on the Park broke ground a year and a half ago and is still in the excavation phase.

The discovery of the sinkhole marks the third time a hole has been found near the construction site in the past 10 months.

The first sinkhole appeared last July.

The second was found last fall on 2nd Street, between 13th and 14th avenues. It was repaired by the city’s roads department.

So far, no connection has been determined between the holes and the adjacent construction site.

This is the second time in a week that a large sinkhole has developed next to the excavated construction site of a condo development in downtown Calgary.

A massive sinkhole, which was discovered on April 24, developed under a road adjacent the Gateway-Midtown condo project, owned by Pointe of View Developments.

Its cause has not yet been determined.

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Venomous South American spider found in Manitoba grocery store

This venemous Brazilian wandering spider was a stowaway in a bundle of South American bananas that arrived at an IGA store in Manitoba. (Photo courtesy the Russell Banner)Staff at the IGA grocery store in Russell, Man., got a big shock this week when a live venomous spider was discovered in a shipment of bananas from South America.

The large arachnid was captured in a jar and passed on to the local high school biology teacher, Bonnie Morris, at Major Pratt School.

Her students have used the opportunity to research on the internet about the hairy, fanged spider, which is about the size of softball. The class discovered the critter was a Brazilian wandering spider.

Also known as the banana spider, it is considered lethal and aggressive. The Guinness World Records book of 2007 lists it as the world’s most venomous spider, stating they are considered to be responsible for the most human deaths due to spider bite envenomation.

They can grow to have a leg span of up to 13 cm and their body length ranges from 17 to 48 millimetres, according to Wikipedia.

They are called a wandering spider because they roam the jungle floor at night, rather than residing in a lair or web. During the day they hide in dark and moist places in or near human dwellings.

Manitoba Conservation has since taken the spider from the school.

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Emergency declared as wildfires roar through Alberta

BY ELISE STOLTE AND FLORENCE LOYIE, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEMAY 4, 2009

 

 

Pictures of a grass fire out of control north of the city by Bruderheim/Fort Saskatchewan, Sunday May 3. Firefighters continued to struggle to contain the fire on Monday.

Photograph by: Brian J. Gavriloff , Edmonton Journal

EDMONTON — Fire crews were fighting to save several homes threatened by bush fires in central Alberta on Monday.

 

A state of emergency was declared for Lamont County, about 60 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, late Monday afternoon, as winds stoked a brush fire that had temporarily been under control.

 

Threatened residents were being encouraged to seek shelter at a community recreational centre, or another such facility in nearby Josephburg, Alta.

 

Sixteen homes in Strathcona County, just east of Edmonton, were evacuated, said Garnet Munro, captain of fire prevention and investigations for Strathcona County’s fire department.

 

“This fire is not under control at this time,” said Ken Jones, deputy fire chief of Strathcona County Emergency Services.

 

The fire had grown from about 280 hectares of land Monday morning, to about 350 hectares of land in the afternoon.

 

The fire was centred on an area just west of Range Road 211, between township roads 562 and 564, and was burning right near secondary highway 830.

 

“We’re trying to prevent the fire from crossing the highway and threatening another home,” said Jones.

 

Lamont Reeve Wayne Woldanski said he didn’t expect the state of emergency to last more than a day or two.

 

“If the fire continues to travel east, it will eventually come up against Highway 45, and then it gets into a lot of farmland. There are a number of farmers in the area who have (built) their farm lands up for fire guards in that area, so we are not anticipating it to be for a long time,” he said.

 

“We have requested a couple of (bulldozers) from private contractors to be brought in and assist in building fire guards. (The province) has provided a couple of water bombers and they were supposed to bring in a couple of helicopters. We also have some local water trucks that are bringing water to the scene,” Woldanski said.

 

Gary Muzechka’s cedar log home was evacuated earlier in the day, but the 56-year-old returned later to make sure it was still standing.

 

“The smoke was coming this way earlier so the fire department told us it was best to leave,” he said.

 

Muzechka grabbed some pictures and a welding rig that would explode if it caught fire. He said he was staying with family in Fort Saskatchewan, near Edmonton.

 

Meanwhile, fires in Hobbema, about 90 kilometres south of Edmonton, stayed under control throughout the day Monday, Montana Chief Carolyn Buffalo said.

 

There were concerns the strong wind would re-ignite smouldering embers.

 

Fires there claimed three homes on the Hobbema-area Samson and Louis Bull reserves and in nearby Pigeon Lake, but there were “no reports of any injuries,” she said. “We’re still monitoring the situation.”

 

There were more than 30 fires burning in forest protection areas, which cover about 60 per cent of the province, said Anastasia Drummond, a wildfire information officer with Alberta Sustainable Resources. Only one is out of control, about 100 kilometres northeast of Whitecourt, which is roughly 170 kilometres northwest of Edmonton — it was not threatening any communities.

 

Wildfires are a threat because the snow has melted, but grass and trees haven’t yet greened up, she said. “The winds this weekend were a particular challenge. We still have a couple weeks of this yet.”

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At this point, if I lived in Calgary, I’d be afraid that the whole city might sink into the ground. This is crazy.

Sink hole forces condo evacuation

Updated: Sat May. 02 2009 15:30:00

ctvcalgary.ca

Joan Holmes lives on the main floor of a condo complex located at 313 4th Street SW.

For the second time in less than a year, her family has been evacuated because of a sink hole. Holmes says she’s concerned for their safety.

“It’s scary. You don’t know when something more drastic is going to happen. We’ve got a new vehicle downstairs. We’re on the main floor. What if we start sinking? Yah, it’s scary.”

The sink hole, which is four metres wide and three metres deep, was discovered Friday evening in the underground parkade. A pick-up truck was trapped in it.

Deb Bergeson, a spokesperson with the Calgary Fire Department, says firefighters evacuated the building as a precaution.

“We’re unsure of the structural integrity of the building right now, which is why everyone has been evacuated.”

On Friday night, the 13 occupants of the building were provided temporary shelter in a Calgary Transit Bus until alternate arrangements could be made.

Kevin Griffiths, with the City of Calgary Building Regulations, says City engineers are trying to determine if a nearby construction site is causing the problem.

“There is a concern.”

This is the second sink hole to develop on the property. Last July, a similar incident forced residents out of the same building.

It’s also the second sink hole in the downtown area this spring. Just a few blocks away, police shut down roads after a sink hole was discovered on 4th Street between 10th Avenue and 11th Avenue SW on April 24th.

It’s believed to be caused by a development project located at 517 10th Ave SW. The company responsible for the project at the site of that sink hole has been ordered to find out where it came from.

The City of Calgary ordered the owners of the Gateway Midtown condo project to take scaffolding and offices off the site and rip up the sidewalk in order to do an engineering report on the problem.

The road and sidewalk next to the project will remain closed until the matter is dealt with.

Griffiths says the two most recent sink holes aren’t related, but they’re both located beside construction sites.

“The sooner this project, all projects, can get up to grade and above, we’ll have a level of comfort. Until then, we’re concerned and we’ll be watching very closely.”

For now, residents like Holmes will have to wait to find out when they can return to their homes.

“It’s scary and it’s not pleasant.”

There’s no word yet on when residents will be able to return to their suites.

City engineers are investigating and expect to have a report on the structural integrity of the building ready by Monday night.

Link

Another positive review of Lethal, this time from a Canadian site.

Review: Stay aware with Lethal!

Today I have an application called “Lethal” which uses the GPS location function in your iPhone to assess the area you are in of dangers!

Lethal by Elany Arts Inc.

Lethal measures your surrounding area forthreats using four scales: Wildlife, Crime, Disease, and Disasters. The application locates you via the GPS function of the iPhone and then runs the assessment based on information complied from Government and Academic statistics and research.

Lethal just actually expanded its coverage to Canada, so along with Canadian coverage, the app has over 650 locations covered throughout North America.

When the application is started, Lethal searches for your location and then immediately assess the threats in the area. I have posted an image above of its assessment of Vancouver, BC, Canada (looks like a disaster is coming). Moreover, you can browse locations as well. So for example, if you are about to travel somewhere, you can get an early heads-up of the area. You also have access to a newly added feature called “Rank” which ranks the most dangerous areas to least areas, or vice versa.

Currently, Lethal is available in the iTunes AppStore for $0.99.

Enjoy!

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Bulldogs attack pair

Kids at school playground in danger, says victim

By ROSS ROMANIUK, SUN MEDIA

Two dogs have been impounded while an Elmwood couple is trying to heal from serious bite wounds after the canines attacked them Wednesday evening.

Paul Chard and his wife Wendy were injured while trying to fight off the American bulldogs in a lane behind their house on the 200 block of Johnson Avenue about 7:30 p.m.

“I don’t scare easily, but that scared me,” Chard, 35, said yesterday of the attack, in which he was bitten on his lower left leg and upper rear left thigh after falling down while running from the animals.

Wendy Chard, 32, was bitten near her right knee by at least one of the dogs, which the couple said are owned by a woman living two doors away.

Both victims were treated with tetanus shots and/or stitches at Concordia Hospital, and released hours later.

Police were called when the couple eventually escaped from the dogs — about five minutes after the attack began — by running into their garage as the canines chased them into their yard.

Officers at the scene called the city’s animal services agency, whose dog handlers nabbed and impounded the canines.

Tim Dack, head of animal services, confirmed the bulldogs — larger and heavier than regular bulldogs, with longer legs — will remain locked up at a Logan Avenue pound for a standard 10-day quarantine “just in case the dogs bit because they’re rabid.”

‘Last resort’

But while the city is eyeing possible animal biting and “running at large” charges against the dogs’ owner — with minimum fines of $350 and $100, respectively — the animals stand a good chance of being returned to her.

“Putting down dogs is certainly the last resort,” Dack said.

The dogs’ owner, reportedly named Lisa Davy, could not be reached for comment.

The incident began when Paul Chard saw the canines running loose in the lane and attacking another dog while a woman was walking it. The couple ran to help, and to warn anyone at a nearby school playground to stay away.

The bulldogs then ran toward them while the other woman and her pet walked away.

“They chased us right back to our gate. I didn’t even have time to open it. Then I fell over, and was starting to kick them away. That’s when they bit my leg,” Paul Chard said.

Chard said authorities are asking for trouble if the dogs are returned to their owner.

“They have to be put down,” he said. “There’s a school right there. There’s a playground. If that was a kid, I hate to imagine what would have happened.”

Link

They can’t be happy  to have to do this.

Owners ordered to investigate sink hole

Updated: Thu Apr. 30 2009 16:17:35

ctvcalgary.ca

The company responsible for a project at the site of a large sink hole in downtown Calgary has been ordered to find out where it came from.

The City of Calgary has ordered the owners of the Gateway Midtown condo project to take scaffolding and offices off the site and rip up the sidewalk in order to do an engineering report on the problem.

Police shut down roads in the area on April 24 when the sink hole was first discovered.

The project is located at 517 10th Ave S.W.

The road and sidewalk next to the project will remain closed until the matter is dealt with.

The city’s order comes under the Municipal Government Act.

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A tiny tornado, but a tornado nonetheless

 Eyewitness reports, swath of damage prove small twister

 

BY CASSANDRA DRUDI, THE OTTAWA CITIZEN

 

Path of the tornado.

Photograph by: Dennis Leung, The Ottawa Citizen

OTTAWA — For residents on the city’s west side, that was indeed a tornado — albeit a low-level one — that swept through Saturday night, uprooting trees and lifting the roofs off a house and an apartment building, Environment Canada said Tuesday.

“With eyewitness reports and with a fairly narrow damage swath, we’ll call that a confirmed tornado,” said Peter Kimbell, a warning preparedness meteorologist with Environment Canada.

The tornado, part of a set of fierce storms that struck several Ottawa neighbourhoods, followed a path about five kilometres long from Britannia Park to the Carlington neighbourhood and had maximum winds of about 115 km/h. The swath of damage was about 50 metres wide over the western part and 150 metres wide at the eastern part.

Environment Canada has rated the tornado as an upper-end Fujita scale zero, or F-0, the lowest level of the five-level scale.

A man who lives near the Britannia Yacht Club reported seeing three water spouts over the Ottawa River at Lac des Chênes, said Kimbell.

The man saw one of the water spouts move inland toward Britannia Park, Kimbell said.

From the park, where about a dozen trees were lost during the storm, Environment Canada tracked the narrow path of damage from the tornado to a house on Britannia Road that lost its roof, and then further east, to an apartment building on Morisset Avenue that lost its roof during the storm, Kimbell said. Residents on Morisset Avenue also reported seeing funnel clouds and swirling debris.

From there, the tornado weakened further when it got to the area of the Central Experimental Farm, Kimbell said.

The national weather agency had previously dismissed the idea that the storm’s high winds ever turned into a tornado, describing the event as a series of microbursts, or violent downdrafts of air that occurred in small areas.

But on Monday evening, the agency posted a statement on its website confirming that a tornado briefly occurred in Windsor as part of the line of thunderstorms that tracked across the province Saturday, and said it would look into whether one happened in Ottawa.

The Windsor tornado was the first of the year in the province.

Damage elsewhere in Ottawa was mostly the result of gusts of wind, Kimbell said.

In places where the storm caused particularly intense damage, including in the east end at Beechwood Cemetery and toward Rockcliffe, microbursts were likely involved, he said.

Saturday’s tornado should not be seen as a harbinger of severe weather to come, Kimbell said, stressing weather’s variability.

Still, a tornado in Ottawa at this time of year is not typical.

“It’s unusual weather for Ottawa in April,” he said.

“But weather is always unusual … so there’s nothing alarmist in this at all.”

Saturday’s tornado was not the first to strike the capital region.

In August 1994, a tornado ripped through an Aylmer subdivision with 280-kilometre-an-hour winds, causing $10 million in damage in the Pilon neighbourhood.

More recently, residents in Orléans credited a “mini-tornado” for ripping out fences and toppling patio tables in September 2007.

The most destructive tornado to strike Ontario hit Barrie in May 1985. It annihilated 1,000 buildings, killed eight people, and caused confused horses from the Barrie Race Track to run on the multi-lane Highway 400

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If it’s the first time a dog has displayed any aggression, I have a hard time blaming the owner.

Owner charged after dog attack

By SUN MEDIA

 

CALGARY — Charges have been laid against the owner of a dog that mauled a woman and her two-year-old son and officers want the animal destroyed.

Wiping away tears, Isabella Cortis said she’s horrified about Friday night’s attack outside her northeast Calgary home, adding it’s the first time her boxer pointer-mix, Daisy, has been vicious.

“This is a freak accident – it’s nothing I would ever expect from her,” said Cortis, 18. Added live-in boyfriend Lucas Logan, 25: “I’m so sorry that people got hurt – it’s terrible.”

After arriving home about 8:45 Friday night, Cortis and Logan said they recalled locking the side gate to contain Daisy, 2, and their other dogs in the backyard.

But 15 minutes later the dogs were loose and attacking neighbour Cari Caldwell, 34, and her son, Aengus, who had been playing on the front lawn of their home.

Husband Jody Caldwell ran outside the house when he heard his wife screaming and found several dogs attacking her and his son.

 

Using his son’s plastic toy shovel, he beat them off his wife, who was holding Aengus. Both were taken to hospital where Caldwell received 27 stitches in her arm and Aengus needed sutures for a bite wound on his calf.

Jody said his wife was too distraught to speak about the ordeal yesterday.

“She doesn’t even want to be at home … because being here kind of reminds her of everything that happened,” he said.

Playing on the front lawn again yesterday, Aengus had “bounced back amazingly.”

Bill Bruce, director of animal bylaw services, said Daisy was the only dog that bit the pair and has been taken into custody.

His department has laid several charges against Cortis in connection with the incident, including attack causing severe injury, which could net $2,350 in fines.

Bruce said they will recommend Daisy be destroyed, despite having no previous history of violence.

 

User Review:

LETHAL Response:
All cities in the US and Canada with populations over 100,000 (according to most recent Census numbers) are covered in the latest update. Let us know what town you’re referring to, and we’d be happy to check it out.

None of the cities in the app are listed as 35 times the national average in any crime category. In Violent Crimes certain Canadian Provinces are 12 times. In Rape certain Canadian Provinces are 24.1 times. And in the Murder Category Downtown St. Louis is listed as 13.3 times the national average.

As a basic rule of thumb, if a city is within 10 miles of the ocean, we’ll list the aquatic dangers.

It’s 99 cents now, actually. And we do a lot of research to provide the most accurate information. As always, if you have a problem with any of the data, please contact us directly. We often make updates to make the information as valuable as possible.

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Storm shuts Hwy 402, kills horses By HANK DANISZEWSKI, SUN MEDIA

A severe thunderstorm that rolled through the area this afternoon caused close calls for a trucker on Hwy 402 and a teenaged girl leading two horses in from a field.

Lambton OPP said the line of thunderstorms which struck the Lake Huron shoreline about 3 p.m. caused power lines to fall on Hwy 402 near Modeland Road.

An eastbound transport truck drove on to the downed wires but the driver was able to stop and stayed in the truck until Hydro crews arrive. The driver was not injured but the highway was closed and vehicles detoured to London Line while workers dealt with the downed lines.

The other incident occurred around 3:45 p.m. on Northville Road near Jura Line. OPP said a 15-year old teenager was leading two horses out of a field when they were struck by lightning. The two horses were killed but the girl suffered only minor injuries and was treated in Strathroy Middlesex General Hospital.

OPP in Lambton, Huron and Perth Counties reported numerous downed power lines and road closures as a severe thunderstorm warning as a line of intense thunderstorm approached from the west.

Environment Canada issued a severe thunderstorm warning as the fast-moving storm swept in from the west with hail, lightning, heavy downpours and winds of up to 100 km/h.

It’s ugly out there,” said Sgt. Carson Wilson of the Sarnia Police.

The storm hit the Exeter area around 3:45 p.m. causing damage to some rural buildings.

OPP in Huron and Perth Counties reported that some roads were closed due to downed trees and power lines, including Hwy 4 south of Exeter.

There were also reports of some downed trees in London.

Just as the storm hit, London Police responded to a two-vehicle accident at Oxford Street and Fiddlers Green Road. Police say several people were injured and some of the injuries were severe.

The temperature at the London airport hit 27 C this afternoon but is expected to drop to 14 with light rain forecast overnight.

 

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Evidence mounts for Wisconsin cougars

April 21, 2009 at 02:23 PM

JAMES A. CARLSON

Associated Press Writer

CALEDONIA, Wis. (AP) – Anna Lashley can’t forget her surprise when she looked out her kitchen window three years ago and spotted a big cat.

“I looked up and there’s this lion in the back yard, and I thought it must have gotten away from the zoo,” she said. “I called the zoo, and they said they hadn’t lost one.”

She’s convinced the animal that quickly departed was a cougar, also known as a mountain lion. The animals were wiped out in most of the eastern U.S. a century ago but have recently shown up again, migrating from the Black Hills of South Dakota into places like Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Deer commonly graze on Lashley’s rural property just south of Milwaukee. During the past three years, she has seen cougars from her window several times. Her 47-year-old son, Joel Lashley, said he was there for the most recent sighting on March 28.

“It was a big one,” he said, estimating the cat was bigger than a German shepherd, wi th a tail about half as long as its body.

“It turned to the side and then just leaped right through there,” he said, pointing to the row of pine trees at the edge of the property.

The Lashleys aren’t alone in their encounters with the cats.

State game managers get scores of reported sightings each year. They try to determine which are false, which are other animals, such as bobcats, and which are cougars.

Only two cougars have been confirmed. One was seen and left clear tracks in the snow in the Milton area of Rock County in January 2008. It was killed that April by police in a Chicago alley, some 100 miles away.

Bear hunters treed the second near Spooner in Barron County in March. An attempt to tranquilize it and attach a tracking collar failed, and the animal ran off.

Along with reported sightings have come suspicions mountain lions might have injured two young horses.

Gary and Sandy Kenner of Chippewa Falls suspect a cougar mauled their 3-month-old colt last summer before the mare interceded.

“We came out, and he had a big bite out of his chest and terrible scratches on its legs,” Gary Kenner said. The colt survived.

Jim and Amanda Saxby of rural Watertown had the same suspicions about the death of their yearling quarter horse in January.

In both cases, investigators from the U.S. Department of Agriculture ruled out a cougar and suggested something else, possibly fencing, caused the injuries.

But both couples have their doubts after hearing many people tell of seeing cougars.

“There’s just too many sightings,” Sandy Kenner said. “You can deny it all you want, but when that many people have seen them, they have to be there.”

The stories are familiar to Ken Jonas, a wildlife biologist supervisor with the state Department of Natural Resources in Hayward.

He said the DNR has no interest in trying to conceal how many cougars are in Wisconsin. But the only way to c onfirm sightings is with photos, good tracks or other physical evidence. In the case of the confirmed sightings, blood, hair, urine and droppings were recovered.

Cougars once lived throughout the eastern U.S., but they were eliminated in most areas by hunting and settlement at the same time a favorite prey, whitetail deer, declined in population. Until last year, a wild cougar had not been confirmed in Wisconsin since the early 1900s.

Researchers learned a lot from the cat that roamed the Milton area for three months before being shot, said Eric Anderson, a professor of wildlife ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

“Here’s a cat wandering across the landscape of southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, a fairly heavily populated area, and nobody saw it,” he said.

Male cougars like that have been moving out from the Black Hills. Anderson said an estimated 20 to 25 young males are believed to leave there each year and go looking for fe males, as well as food.

He expects Wisconsin will eventually have resident cougars.

But if the state had a breeding population now, some cougars would be killed on roads and found feeding on livestock and more evidence would be found in areas where the animals spent time, Jonas said.

Still, he said people venturing outdoors should be aware of potential dangers. He noted the state also has black bears and a healthy wolf population, and even a deer in rut can pose a threat.

The Lashleys said they have nothing against cougars, but they want people to be aware of their presence.

Sandy Kenner said she has no doubts the cats are here.

“I’m totally convinced. I wouldn’t jog at night anymore,” she said. “It doesn’t scare me. Just don’t be stupid.”

Cougar facts

Some facts about the cougar, also known as mountain lion, puma, panther and catamount: – The animal once ranged throughout North America, except in the extreme north. It was gradually wiped out in most of the eastern U.S. as land was cleared for agriculture and forests were cut. Hunters also killed the cats. – A favorite prey is deer, an animal whose population in the eastern U.S. dropped extremely low by the early 1900s because of hunting. – Wild cougars probably never lived in Wisconsin in very high density, but they were not uncommon. They are believed to have been eliminated in Wisconsin by about 1910. – Adult male cougars can weigh 115 to 200 pounds and females are 80 to 120 pounds. The cougar is the fourth largest cat in the world and the second largest, behind the jaguar, in North America. – Attacks on humans are rare but have occurred in the western U.S. and Canada as people moved into cougar habitat. – Cougars are a protected wild animal in Wisconsin, meaning a permit from the DNR is required before anyone can kill one.

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New study on mountain lion attacks raises eyebrows

By Jeff DeLong
jdelong@rgj.com

A new study on sometimes fatal encounters between people and mountain lions suggests one conventional wisdom — never to try to run from one of the big cats — might not always be the best advice.

Staying put may make a person more desirable as potential prey and prompt an attack, said researchers at University of California, Davis.

“Immobility may be interpreted by the mountain lion as a sign that you are vulnerable prey, either because you are unaware of its presence, or because you are disabled and not capable of escaping,” said the study’s lead author, psychology professor Richard Coss.

“Even though we found evidence that pumas will indeed chase and capture people who run, we also found that people who stand still are possibly more endangered,” said Coss, an expert on predator-prey relationships. “There are more serious injuries when you’re standing still.”

The study’s findings has raised the eyebrows of some wildlife experts in Nevada and California, who stand by previous recommendations when it comes to encounters with cougars. Among them: Do not run. If attacked, fight back.

“Backing away, yelling and screaming, trying to look bigger. That’s generally considered standard procedure,” said Kevin Lansford, a predator biologist with the Nevada Department of Wildlife. “Turning and fleeing? I don’t know. Turning and running since you really can’t outrun one isn’t really sensible.”

With most lion attacks, Lansford added, people never see trouble coming.

Mountain lion attacks in Nevada are extremely rare but have occurred. Last December, a woman in the Virginia City foothills suffered minor injuries when she was attacked by a cougar when she tried to stop a fight between the cat and her dog. In 1991, another woman suffered minor injuries when attacked by a cougar at the Nevada Test Site north of Las Vegas.

In 1998, a female mountain lion and her two yearlings were shot after being spotted near homes and within a quarter mile of Verdi Elementary School. Experts determined the cougars posed a threat because they were using the area as a hunting ground.

In California, 16 mountain lion attacks on people were recorded between 1890 and 2007, six of them fatal. The closest to occur near Reno happened in 1994, when a woman jogger was fatally mauled in the Sierra foothills of El Dorado County.

Coss examined cougar attacks on 185 people in the U.S. and Canada between 1890 and 2000. His goal was to identify what kinds of activities people were doing during an attack and how those activities were linked to severity of their injuries.

Such information becomes increasingly important as more people move into lion habitat, increasing likelihood of encounters with the potentially deadly predators, Coss said.

Among the study’s conclusions were that chances of a person being killed or injured by a lion are dramatically increased if they are separated from a group. And individuals who remained stationary during an attack were “much more likely to be injured severely,” the study said.

But running might not always be a good idea, Coss said. He said it would likely produce the best results when a person is in a flat area that allows them to run in a sure-footed fashion. That could allow them to move gracefully away as do deer when near a lion, which is a “major discouragement” to attack, Coss said.

“Deer do a very graceful, high-stepping walk, almost like a ballet,” Coss said. “I think that’s done in such a way as to suggest to a mountain lion that, ‘I’m in good health.’”

But a person running in a rocky, muddy or snowy area could be forced to “wobble,” appearing as promising prey to a cougar.

“You’re not going to be moving in a graceful manner. It makes you look vulnerable to them,” Coss said.

Coss said he is not recommending wildlife agencies change their advice to people encountering lions based on his research. Harry Morse, spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Game, said his agency has no intention of doing so.

“At this time, we’re not advocating any changes based on the information that’s been released,” Morse said. “We stand by our recommendation. Stand your ground, make yourself look big and don’t run.”

Additional Facts

Avoiding mountain lion danger* Do not hike, bike, or jog alone. 

* Avoid hiking or jogging when mountain lions are most active — dawn, dusk, and at night. 

* Keep a close watch on small children. 

* Do not approach a mountain lion. 

* If you encounter a mountain lion, do not run. Instead, face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving your arms and throwing rocks or other objects. Pick up small children. 

* If attacked, fight back. 

* If a mountain lion attacks a person, immediately call 911.
Source: California Department of Fish and Game.

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Even though people think earthquakes only occur on the West Coast, they have and will occur in other parts of the United States.

Earthquakes In The Midwestern and Eastern United States?!

Most people think that earthquakes occur only in places like California, Alaska, and Japan. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Several major and numerous minor earthquakes have occurred in the midwestern and eastern United States, as well as eastern Canada. Some of the earthquakes that have caused notable damage in these areas are listed below.

• 1663 & 1870, St. Lawrence River region, Canada
• 1755, Boston/Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Earthquake estimated to be magnitude 6.0; buildings damaged.
• 1811 & 1812 – New Madrid, Missouri, experienced the three largest earthquakes known to have occurred in North America (magnitudes estimated between 7.2 and 8.3) and 203 damaging aftershocks. Soil liquefaction occurred.
• 1886, Charleston, South Carolina. Estimated magnitude 6.8. Soil liquefaction occurred. Extensive damage; 60 people or more died. Over 400 aftershocks over the next 30 years.
• 1895, Charleston, Missouri
• 1897, Giles County, Virginia
• 1884, New York City area
• 1931 — Valentine, Texas, had a magnitude 6.4 earthquake, the largest earthquake to hit Texas in historic times.
• 1935, Timiskaming, Ontario (Canada)
• 1947 — Michigan experienced a magnitude 4.4 earthquake.
• 1979 & 1980 – New York State and the adjacent areas experienced 131 earthquakes of magnitude 1 to 5.
• 1980, 5 earthquakes recorded north of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
• 1980, Kentucky shaken by a magnitude 5.1 earthquake.
• 1982 — New Brunswick, Canada, had a magnitude 5.7 earthquake.
• 1982 — Arkansas earthquake swarm starts. Eighty-eight earthquakes between June 24 and July 5, 1982. Four earthquakes with magnitudes of 4.0 to 4.5 during first 3 months of swarm. Total of about 40,000 earthquakes in the area (most very small or not felt) between 1982 and 1985.
• 1983 – Lake Charles, Louisiana, experienced a magnitude 3.8 earthquake.
• 1983 — Indiana had a magnitude 5.9 earthquake.
• 1986 — Painesville, Ohio, experienced a magnitude 4.9 earthquake and several aftershocks. The earthquake was felt in 11 states.
• 1987 — Southeastern Illinois experienced a magnitude 5.2 earthquake. This area has had 7 earthquakes of magnitude 4.5 or greater since 1892.

You probably noticed that in the list above, the magnitudes of earthquakes that took place in the 1800′s are described as “estimated.” This is because these earthquake events took place before the Richter magnitude scale was put in place. The approximation is made by a study of accounts of the earthquake which are correlated with the damage described in theMercalli intensity scale, which, as you may recall, allows a classification of an earthquake’s magnitude by ordinary people (not just seismologists). The descriptions may come even from personal correspondance of average citizens and include telling details about the damage the earthquake caused.

Over 900,000 earthquakes occur worldwide each year. Fortunately, the vast majority of them are magnitude 2.5 or less, and great earthquakes (magnitude 8.0 or more) only happen about once every 5 to 10 years. Most of these great quakes occur along the plate boundaries, not in the eastern and midwestern U.S.

A few areas of the midwestern and eastern United States are more prone to earthquakes than others. The most earthquake-prone areas include Charleston, South Carolina, eastern Massachusetts, the St. Lawrence River area, and the central Mississippi River Valley. Others sections of this part of the country are prone to earthquakes, but can expect fewer quakes of smaller magnitude. Below is a map showing the risk of damage by earthquakes for the continental United States.

FIGURE 1 (MODIFIED FROM STEARNS & MILLER, 1977)

The central Mississippi River Valley and the Charleston, South Carolina, are more prone to damage during earthquakes than the northern part of the country. These areas have sandy soils that shake more than solid rock, resulting in damage from subsidence during an earthquake. The high water tables along the Mississippi and near the coast also increase the risk of soil liquefaction during strong earthquakes.

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It’s frustrating, because we’d like to think there is a one-size-fits-all solution to a situation like this, but wild animals are wild, and therefore unpredictable.

Mountain Lion! Stand or Run? April 8, 2009   A new UC Davis study of 110 years of mountain-lion attacks on people suggests the conventional wisdom of standing your ground may not always be the right course. “Even though we found evidence that pumas will indeed chase, and capture, people who run, we also found that people who stand still are possibly more endangered,” said the study’s lead author, psychology professor Richard Coss, an expert on the evolution of predator-prey relationships. “Immobility may be interpreted by the mountain lion as a sign that you are vulnerable prey, either because you are unaware of its presence, or because you are disabled and not capable of escaping.” Thus, running might be the smartest move, Coss concluded, if you are in a situation that allows you to run in a surefooted fashion with even strides — for instance, on dry, flat ground rather than uneven, rocky terrain or deep snow. Most state and federal wildlife agencies advise against running. The California Department of Fish and Game says on its Web site, in part: “Do not run from a lion. Running may stimulate a mountain lion’s instinct to chase. Instead, stand and face the animal.” Coss said the new study reviewed personal accounts, news reports and wildlife agency reports of attacks by pumas on 185 people in the U.S. and Canada from 1890 to 2000. His goal was to identify what kinds of activities people were doing during a mountain-lion attack and determine whether these activities predicted the severity of their injuries. “An understanding of how large cats select humans as prey and the situations that promote the greatest likelihood of attack is an important component of wildlife management,” he wrote. Coss’ co-authors are E. Lee Fitzhugh, a University of California Cooperative Extension specialist; Sabine Schmid-Holmes, a UC Davis postdoctoral researcher; Marc Kenyon, a UC Davis undergraduate researcher; and Kathy Etling, a wildlife specialist and author of the 2004 book “Cougar Attacks: Encounters of the Worst Kind.” The study, “The Effects of Human Age, Group Composition, and Behavior on the Likelihood of Being Injured by Attacking Pumas,” is published in the current issue (volume 22, issue 1) of the quarterly journal Anthrozoos: A Multidisciplinary Journal of the Interactions of People & Animals.

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Wolves were reintroduced to Idaho 14 years ago by the Federal Government, and many are not happy with the results of that program.

Anger over wolf management erupts

Foes of Canis lupus threaten ‘grassroots uprising’ if delisting delayed

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By JASON KAUFFMAN
Express Staff WriterAnger over conservationists’ efforts to block the removal of federal protections for wolves boiled over Saturday night during a meeting of hunters and anti-wolf activists in Hailey.

Setting the tone for the night was outspoken anti-wolf activist Ron Gillett of Stanley, director of the Idaho Anti-Wolf Coalition. Gillett predicted that a lawsuit by conservation groups will derail the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s move to delist wolves from the federal Endangered Species Act.

“The wolf lovers will not allow it to happen,” he said. “They are never going to be delisted. They are never going to be hunted.”

Sponsored by the Deer Hunters of Idaho, a regional hunting organization working to maximize deer populations in the state, the meeting at the Hailey Community Campus drew more than a 100 people from the Wood River Valley and surrounding states of Montana and Wyoming. Except for a few wolf supporters, most in the crowd were hunters upset by attempts to block the handover of wolf management to states.

Bumper stickers on pickup trucks outside the event proclaiming messages such as “I Like My Canadian Wolf Fried” and “Wolves: Government Sponsored Terrorists” were an indication of the crowd’s hostility towards the predators. Many in the crowd believe Idaho is on the verge of losing its game herds to wolves.

Several hunters made it clear they don’t believe reports from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game that suggest, except in a few specific cases across the state, that elk populations are at or just a bit below normal. Rather, they claim conservationists and state wildlife officials are complicit in a cover-up about declining game herds.

“We’re going to run out of game in seven to eight years,” said Tony Mayer, co-founder of the Twin Falls-based group Save Our Elk, which calls for aggressive wolf management.

The Fish and Wildlife Service’s delisting rule for the region’s gray wolves was published in the Federal Register on April 1. The move put in motion a 30-day countdown to the removal of wolves from the ESA.

If all goes as planned, wolves will lose their protected status in all of Idaho and Montana and in portions of eastern Washington, eastern Oregon and northern Utah. Because federal officials have deemed Wyoming’s wolf management plan inadequate, the delisting will not extend to wolves in that state.

Distrust of state and federal wildlife biologists and their intentions for wolves and the preservation of big game herds in the region was a theme voiced throughout the evening. Speakers claimed that state wildlife managers are in bed with the same conservation groups that are trying to keep them from taking over management from the federal government.

“The Idaho Fish and Game has people in there that are wolf lovers,” Gillett said.

He joined others in calling for an unspecified type of “civil disobedience” should the delisting not proceed as planned. Legislation that anti-wolf activists are attempting to have introduced into the Idaho Legislature would protect anyone accused of taking part in the “grassroots uprising,” he added without elaborating.

State wildlife managers were invited to the meeting by the organizers. Sitting near the front of the large auditorium as Gillett and others berated the agency were Cal Groen, director of Fish and Game, and Jerome Hansen, the department’s Magic Valley regional supervisor. Later in the meeting, Groen tried to convince the irate crowd that Fish and Game’s goal is to manage wolves in concert with big game herds just like any other predator species in Idaho, including black bears and cougars.

It’s a message the department has voiced over and over in recent years, only to be met with suspicion from both sides of the emotional issue, anti-wolf activists and conservationists alike.

Dave Burke, who lives in eastern Idaho and is a hunting and fishing outfitter both close to home and in Canada and Alaska, angrily denounced the belief that wolves live in balance with game herds. Rather, Burke claimed that wolves are creating “death zones” in Idaho’s backcountry devoid of big game.

“These things are huge—they’re monsters,” he said. “They eat the fetus. It’s like candy for them. They don’t kill to eat, they kill for fun.”

Though present for the meeting, the small contingent of conservationists kept quiet throughout the night. After being pointed to and mentioned repeatedly by Gillett, local pro-wolf activist Lynne Stone left without speaking about midway through the night. Conservationists’ attempts to film the meeting were quickly rebuffed by organizers.

Still, not everyone in the crowd was predicting as dire a scenario as speakers like Gillett. Spending much of his speech discussing why he believes a wolf hunt is needed was Matt Douthit of Bellevue, president of Deer Hunters of Idaho.

“Management of these wolves is long overdue,” he said.

Douthit, who has been filming the valley’s Phantom Hill wolf pack hunting elk near Sun Valley and Greenhorn Gulch, claimed that Fish and Game’s efforts to haze the pack away from homes is only causing them to hunt at night.

“I’m thinking hazing is not the best management tool for these wolves,” he said.

Hunters also allege that many more wolves live in the valley than Fish and Game admits. Bellevue’s Billy Ward, another meeting organizer, said signs of wolves are visible up and down the valley.

“We have five to six wolf packs,” he said.