The mountain goat that fatally gored a man in Olympic National Park several weeks ago wasn’t diseased or disabled, but it was in breeding condition, or the rut.

Preliminary necropsy results show the mountain goat, an adult male, did not have viruses such as rabies, encephalitis, plague or tularemia, according to a news release from Olympic National Park.

The animal was killed after its Oct. 16 attack on Robert Boardman, 63. Boardman was hiking in the area with his wife and a friend.

Barb Maynes, a spokeswoman for Olympic National Park, said the rut “may have been a contributing factor,” but said that hikers have been around goats during breeding season before and it hasn’t been a problem.

“It’s unprecedented,” she said.

During the rut, she said male mountain goats are typically known to “keep an eye on their females,” and can be aggressive toward other males.

Rangers and wildlife biologists began monitoring daily goat behavior Oct. 18 but stopped Sunday because of recent snowfall. There were no observations of aggressive mountain-goat behavior.

Park biologists have put out a call for more information about mountain goat-human interactions from across the animals’ range. This winter, they will review the reports in detail, Maynes said.

Additional test results on the mountain goat are still awaiting completion, including one for Listeria, a chronic wasting disease. Maynes said those results should be released in another week.

via Local News | Goat that killed Olympic National Park hiker was in ‘rut’ | Seattle Times Newspaper.

Williamsburg, MO (KSDK) — Even if there are a few scrapes between them, John Reynolds insist his dogs are friendly. All 17 of them. All pit bulls.

“They were like best buddies,” Reynolds says of his father the 84 year old Rev. John Reynolds and one of the pit bulls. “My dad would sit there and feed him off his spoon. They slept together.”

Reynolds says no one knew his dogs’ nature more than his father who owned the home and property where John raises the dogs.

Which makes what he found on Wednesday night, October 13th, even harder to understand.

“I could see that he’d been attacked by something,” Reynolds recalls.

He came home that night and found his father on the ground in the pen with severe bite marks. He did not survive the attack.

The sheriff’s department says the dogs were on the loose but, with the exception of one dog who was wounded, showed few signs of an attack given the severity of Rev. Reynolds’ injuries.

“They think that my dad might have been out here and they might have been playing or rough-housing and it got out of control,” Reynolds says of his conversations with investigators. “But I just can’t, I don’t believe it.”

He admits it’s only speculation, but Reynolds believes stray dogs or possibly even a mountain lion may have attacked his father and his pit bulls.

While extremely rare, the Sheriff says deputies have taken reports on, and had sightings of, mountain lions in Callaway County. The official report on Rev. Reynolds’ death only says his injuries were consistent with an animal attack.

“I know that there [are] a lot of people out there that are dead set against pit bulls and I’m sure they’re going to try to use this to get their point across,” says Reynolds, defending his dogs. “I know he wouldn’t like it,” he says of his late father.

The investigation is ongoing, but the Sheriff says there won’t be any charges since the property owner has passed away. The dogs won’t be seized because the county doesn’t have the resources to handle that

via Rev. John Reynolds found dead with severe bite marks | ksdk.com | St. Louis, MO.

In a rare and gruesome attack, an angry mountain goat mauled a hiker to death this weekend in Olympic National Park.

Robert Boardman, 63, had stopped for lunch during a day hike with his wife, Susan Chadd, and their friend, Pat Willits, when an aggressive mountain goat approached the group, ABC News reports.

According to Jessica Baccus, a hiker and longtime friend of Willits who arrived on the scene shortly after the attack, Boardman had instructed the two women to get away from the goat while he tried to wave it off.

But when Boardman himself tried to escape, the animal attacked, goring him in the thigh.

“Nobody saw what actually happened. They heard Bob yell,” Baccus told KOMO-TV.

The angry goat then stood guard over Boardman as he lay bleeding on the ground.

Jessica’s husband Bill Baccus, an off-duty park ranger, tried to scare the goat away by throwing rocks and waving a blanket, and was finally able to get the animal to move a short distance, though it remained nearby.

Jessica attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation as the group waited for the Coast Guard, which arrived by helicopter and first tried administering electric shock to Boardman to revive him.

He had no pulse.

Boardman was taken to a local hospital by helicopter, but his injuries proved fatal.

“I am deeply saddened by this tragedy,” Karen Gustin, Olympic National Park superintendent, told KOMO-TV. “My thoughts are with his family and friends.”

Rangers have found and killed the animal, which will be studied by a veterinary pathologist.

This is the only known fatal attack by a mountain goat in the park’s history, according to officials.

Approximately 3000 goats live in the park.

Barb Maynes, a spokeswoman for the park, said the goat was known by rangers for acting aggressive, and had been monitored by park staff for “the last several years.”

Family and friends told KOMO-TV that Boardman was an experienced hiker, nurse and musician who loved the mountains.

via Hiker gored to death by angry mountain goat: Robert Boardman, 63, was attacked while eating lunch.

Solvang officials are urging the public to be aware of their surroundings after a mountain lion was seen in and around Hans Christian Anderson Park on Sunday and Monday, according to Parks and Recreation Director Fred Lageman.

“We have three permanent signs in the park warning of mountain lions, however we put two more in the road to make sure the public sees them and knows what to do if they spot one,” Lageman said.

State Fish and Game officials were called to the park Monday but weren’t able to find the animal, which was reported to be about the size of a Labrador retriever, Lageman said.

Lt. Julie McCammon of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Department said the easiest way to report a wild animal sighting is to call 9-1-1 so deputies can contact Fish and Game or county Animal Control if necessary.

Although wild animals are Fish and Game’s responsibility, it’s possible that deputies “can corner him and keep him calm until they get there,” McCammon said.

According to Fish and Game, more than half of California is mountain lion habitat, and they generally live wherever deer are found. They are solitary and elusive, and their nature is to avoid humans.

Mountain lions prefer to eat deer but sometimes they also eat pets and livestock. Mountain lions that threaten people are killed immediately. Those that prey on pets or livestock can be killed by a property owner after the owner gets the required depredation permit from Fish and Game.

Mountain lion attacks on humans are extremely rare, the agency says, but conflicts are increasing as California’s human population expands into mountain lion habitat.

Fish and Game advises anyone who encounters a mountain lion not to run, but instead to face the animal, make noise and try to look bigger by waving arms, and even throwing rocks or other objects. If attacked, people are encouraged to fight back.

For more information on mountain lions and other wild animals, visit www.dfg.ca.gov.

via Mountain lion seen in Solvang park.

Depending on where you are in the Rockies this year, the annual summer bear season could mean black-bear sightings in your front yard or a near-death experience while looking through the jaws of a hungry bear.

Already, the list of bear attacks across the Rockies this summer is beginning to mount.

On Saturday morning, a bear attacked a homeless man sleeping in Durango near the Animas River. The man survived, but the bear didn’t after Colorado Division of Wildlife officials turned their guns on it after the attack. A necropsy of the bear’s carcass was completed at CSU.

Last Thursday, a bear broke into a home in Bailey, southwest of Denver, biting a man.

Other bears have been sighted plundering porches and backyards in Livermore and Rist Canyon.

In the past month, bears have turned outright hostile in New Mexico, where they’ve developed an affinity for tents and a taste for the people sleeping in them.

“They’re coming down and acting kind of aggressive right now,” said Dan Williams, spokesman for the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.

New Mexico wildlife officials killed a bear at the end of June after it jumped on a tent and took a swipe at the man sleeping in it at Philmont Boy Scout Ranch, a 137,000-acre camping and backpacking ranch just south of the Colorado state line west of Raton.

There were two more incidents there: The same day, another bear was found with a goat in its mouth, and a Philmont staffer killed it. On Wednesday, a bear bit a 14-year-old Boy Scout through his tent, leaving a deep gash in his head.

“It kind of peeled back the scalp there,” Williams said.

Both campers who were attacked were carefully following strict bear-safety protocols in place at Philmont, he said.

Those incidents followed another in June when a bear swatted a man tent-camping in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque.

But all the ursine nastiness in some parts of the West doesn’t mean there’s anything unusual going on this year, particularly in Colorado and Wyoming.

Bear activity is quite normal throughout Colorado, DOW spokesman Tyler Baskfield said.

The bears’ habitat is normal and healthy, he said, and there is no sign of increased bear sightings or attacks in any localized area, he said.

“We haven’t noticed anything that is different than we’ve seen in years when there’s decent, natural food,” said Ken Wilson, a professor of wildlife and conservation biology at Colorado State University.

“A bear has been into some trash cans in Rist Canyon,” he said. “One bear can decide it’s going to get into something, (but) it’s not all of them.”

Few bears have been seen at all in southern Wyoming, where wildlife officials consider black-bear habitat and natural food supply excellent, said Al Langston, spokesman for the Wyoming Department of Game and Fish.

In New Mexico, dry weather hurt the bears’ food supply and dried out the forbs and grass that usually get black bears through the spring.

The lack of food there is so dire that this year’s number of bear attacks hasn’t been seen in New Mexico for almost a decade, Williams said.

There are plenty of things homeowners and backcountry adventurers can do to keep bears away.

For people camping in the mountains, store food in bear-resistant containers away from your sleeping area, Wilson said.

The best way to keep plundering bears away from homes is to keep birdseed, trash and other potential food sources inside where bears can’t have easy access to them, Baskfield said.

“There’s no reason to feed birds this time of year” because natural bird food is plentiful, he said.

And, he warned city dwellers, just because you might live in Fort Collins doesn’t mean you shouldn’t keep your home bear resistant.

“We get bears who wander into Fort Collins on a regular basis,” he said.

via List of bear attacks this summer grows | coloradoan.com | The Coloradoan.

The Santa Monica Mountains are home to some great local hiking, but we also share this territory with some of the most urban mountain lions in the country. Since 2002, researchers have been tracking and monitoring 19 mountain lions in the mountains, and over the past month they were witness to the birth of three new mountain lion kittens – the first documented births in the Santa Monica Mountains since 2004.

I know mountain lions tend to scare the bejeezus out of hikers, but attacks on humans are exceedingly rare. Here in L.A., you’re in much more danger driving to the trailhead than you are on the trail, generally speaking … and also, LOOK HOW CUTE THIS KITTEN IS:

The three kittens – two females and a male – will provide Park Service biologists an unprecedented opportunity to study the movement and range of the litter. And the kittens are also unique in that their father, a collared lion named P12, was the first recorded mountain lion to successfully cross the 101 freeway to enter the area, potentially bringing new genetic material into the isolated and slightly inbred lions in the Santa Monica Mountains.

the ranges of known lions in the Santa Monicas

The study has also located and tracked a lion known as P16, the first tracked lion in the Santa Susana Mountains since 2004.

P16 – the only tracked lion in the Santa Susana Mountains

The movement of all of the lions will be monitored to provide data for future preservation efforts, including proposed wilderness corridors to help the lions cross the area’s freeways. If you’re interested in more info, the full NPS press release can be read here(PDF). Otherwise, here are some more pictures of the kittens. Check out those claws!

All images courtesy of the National Park Service.

via New Mountain Lion Kittens in the Santa Monicas | Modern Hiker.

The Santa Monica Mountains welcomed a litter of three mountain lions, officials announced today.

According to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the kittens were discovered on May 26 near Peter Strauss Ranch. Two are female and one is male, according to a news release.

“Each mountain lion kitten has been implanted with a tracking device that will allow researchers to follow the kittens’ movement,” according to the recreation area. “This is the first urban mountain lion study that has had the opportunity to track mountain lion kittens from such a young age. National Park Service researchers will study the new litter to see if the male mountain lion kitten will attempt to disperse to more expansive habitat when he matures, and if the females will have litters of their own in the future.”

Officials say it marks only the second time officials have documented a litter of mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains. The first was in the summer of 2004.

via Rangers welcome some very cute lion kittens at Santa Monica Mountains | L.A. NOW | Los Angeles Times.

Click through on the link to see the picture of one of the cubs. Absolutely adorable.

Three new mountain lion kittens are being tracked in the Santa Monica Mountains west of Malibu Canyon. The National Park Service found the cats — 2 females and one male — on May 26th off Mulholland Highway just south of the Peter Strauss Ranch. They were implanted with tracking devices and now are part of the first urban mountain lion study to follow kittens from such a young age. The father is believed to be the lion that crossed the Ventura Freeway a couple of years ago.

via Three new mountain lion kittens in Santa Monicas – LA Observed.

A fox that attacked a Cottonwood woman Wednesday tested positive for rabies Thursday.

It was the first reported rabid wildlife attack in Yavapai County this year, after several odd incidents in 2009.

The year 2009 saw a record 280 confirmed reports of rabid wildlife. About half were skunks, 69 were bats and 51 were foxes. Fifteen cases occurred in Yavapai County, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Last year's record was a 59 percent increase from the previous record of 176 set in 2008. So far this year, the state has recorded 61 rabies cases in wild animals, two-thirds were skunks.

While state agencies don't track rabid wildlife attacks, at least three occurred last year in the Prescott and Cottonwood areas.

In the latest incident Wednesday evening, a woman who lives along North Willard Streeet in Cottonwood said a fox attacked her and bit her hand.

She had just caught a javelina in a trap in her yard and when it was loaded into her vehicle, she went back into her yard.

Suddenly a grey fox jumped over a retaining wall and bit her hand, then ran away. She suffered minor lacerations and is undergoing rabies shots.

The woman's husband said the fox had been in the area for some time and thought it lived in an abandoned house next door. However, it had just started acting strangely in the last few days.

When the report came into the police, they suspected the fox was rabid because they had received two earlier reports of a fox trying unsuccessfully to attack people in the area, including a UPS driver who fended off the fox with a clipboard, according to state wildlife officials and Cottonwood Sgt. Gareth Braxton.

An officer spotted the fox in the vacant home next to the victim's home, Cottonwood police said. When the fox leaped onto the retaining wall about 15 feet away from the officers, one of the officers shot and killed it.

Arizona Game and Fish Department spokesperson Zen Mocarski warned people to stay away from wild animals and watch for unusual behavior indicative of rabies.

Signs of rabies include lethargy, lack of fear of humans, unusual aggression and activity during the heat of the day, especially from nocturnal animals.

The last reported rabid wildlife attack in Yavapai County took place in April 2009 when a rabid bobcat attacked a family walking along Lynx Creek in Prescott Valley.

In March 2009, a rabid bobcat attacked patrons in a Cottonwood bar, and the saloon's video camera captured the havoc.

And in February 2009 and November 2008, two separate rabid foxes attacked hikers at the Granite Mountain Recreation Area just west of Prescott.

via Rabid fox attacks Cottonwood woman – The Prescott Daily Courier – Prescott, Arizona.

Although a Trafford man was bit by a snake in Fayette County early Thursday morning, a local herpetologist said close encounters with reptiles are rare.

Chad Heasley, 39, was riding an all-terrain vehicle through the woods with friends when his vehicle got stuck in mud. State police said he went to get some rocks to help elevate his tires and a snake bit him. He was flown to Highlands Hospital and Health Center in Connellsville. A report on his condition was not immediately available.

Ken Stairs of Somerset, a field biologist, said trails go through scenic areas of high mountains where snakes live. Police had not confirmed what kind of snake bit Heasley, but there are copperheads and rattlesnakes in the woods near Connellsville, Stairs said.

“They are secretive and they like to go undetected and unmolested,” he said. “If you step on one or try to pick it up, you will get bit. The snake feels threatened.”

Snakes are often found around rocks or beside logs.

“Never be afraid to hike, but wear boots or sturdy shoes, not flip-flops,” he said. “Look carefully before sitting on the ground and don’t put your fingers on ledges without looking carefully. Step up on logs and look around the side before stepping over it. A snake may be lying on the ground near the log waiting for a chipmunk. Stay on the trail.”

It isn’t true that snakes travel in pairs. Adults that are hunting will be alone. Gestating females will be in groups — he once saw 46 together at a boulder. It isn’t true that snakes can strike a great distance. They can only strike about half of their body length or a little longer if they are on a rock. Their body length isn’t as long as people think, either.

“Snakes aren’t going to chase anybody,” he said. “They are looking for an escape route. Noise wakes them. If you hear a rattle, stop, look for the snake and sidestep around him.”

Ninety-five percent of snakes are nonpoisonous, Stairs said. Those bites are similar to scratches. Someone who is bitten by a poisonous snake can be treated in most hospitals and should be fine if he doesn’t have any underlying medical problems. It isn’t true that physicians need to know what type of snake bit you before starting treatment, he said. The medication is the same.

“Don’t take the snake to the hospital with you — it causes trauma in the ER,” Stairs said. “Thirty percent of bites are dry bites. Out in the southwest you may be further away from medical facilities and the snakes are bigger and have a higher toxicity. There a snake bite is more dangerous.”

Stairs was bitten by a snake once. He had wild-caught a western diamondback rattlesnake in Texas and brought it back with him. He was measuring the snake and it bit him on the thumb.

“It didn’t like being handled,” he said. “I spent seven days in the hospital.”

Venomous snake bites can cause tissue and nerve death. If you are bitten by a rattlesnake or copperhead snake, immobilize the limb at or above the heart if possible. If you are bit on the hand or arm, put your arm across your stomach and hold it there. If you have a cell phone with you, call 911.

“Remain calm — I know it’s hard, but keep your heart rate from going up,” Stairs said. “Get to the nearest medical facility as soon as you can, but don’t run. That raises the heart rate. If you are bit on the hand, remove any rings you’re wearing because your hand will swell. If you have a constricting band — not a tourniquet — put it above the bite. Don’t drink alcohol or take medications.”

The new antivenin serum is sheep blood based and has fewer side effects than the older one that was horse blood based.

About five years ago, he asked the state Health Department how many people in Pennsylvania died of bites from indigenous snakes. There were no deaths for 10 years prior to that.

Stairs and three other men are catching large male rattlesnakes and copperheads on a mountain in Bedford County where wind turbines are to be placed. Two-inch-long transmitters will be implanted in the snakes to track them to dens. The dens will be mapped so the wind turbines don’t break up the dens. The snakes will be caught again in the spring to remove the implants.

Dave Fox, Somerset County 911 coordinator, said people who hike on the trails or through woods need to be aware of where they are. They’ve had problems before with people having a medical emergency on the trail and because they are calling on an older cell phone or the tree canopy was interfering with reception, the 911 center couldn’t pinpoint their location.

“We asked one person where he parked his car so we’d have a starting point, and he replied ‘In a lot with a sign with a big P on it,’” he said. “You need to be aware of which trail you are on and where you went in. Try to know what direction you walked and about how far you walked. If you have a GPS that can be used while walking and a cell phone, take them along. Some people leave the main trail and are on footpaths. That causes problems. Never go alone. It’s like hunting season: You’re safer if you go in numbers. If you do go alone, tell somebody where you are going. People should also wear proper clothing in case they are stranded outside at night. Carry matches to start a fire. Take any survival gear you have.”

via Man bitten by snake in Fayette County woods – Johnstown’s Community Newspaper.