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.

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.

INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Five people were rescued Saturday in two separate incidents, after being swept out to sea by powerful rip currents at Round Island Park beach.

One of the five was a woman, taken to Indian River Medical Center as a precaution after inhaling water.

“She was in a critical situation,” said 23-year-veteran ocean lifeguard Aaron Levy. “In my opinion, she would have drowned.”

Levy’s partner, lifeguard John Dotsey, pulled her to safety.

A man and woman who had tried to help her also were pulled from the ocean by Levy after being caught in the rip current.

Later Saturday, a 13-year-old girl and her father, a recent Army veteran were rescued by lifeguards, Levy said.

He compared rip currents to a river that pulls people out to sea. Levy said the currents remain strong even though last week’s big waves are subsiding.

He recommended always swimming near a lifeguard.

If caught in a rip current, remain calm and swim parallel to shore to escape it, he added.

via Five rescued from powerful rip currents on Indian River County beach | Treasure Coast Talk.

BILLILNGS, Mt — An investigation into a grizzly bear attack on three campers outside Yellowstone National Park last month reveals the bear was in bad health and was struggling to feed herself and her three cubs.

According to a report compiled by several wildlife agencies, 10- to 15-year-old female grizzly was ridden with parasites.

However, according to experts, this alone does not explain why the bear attacked the campers.

Investigators determined that the adult female grizzly consumed an exclusive plant-based diet in the past two years.

An analysis also showed that she had not consumed human-related foods, like garbage or pet food, and that she was not conditioned to human food. Investigators also determined that the adult female grizzly did not have rabies.

Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Michigan, was killed and two people were hospitalized when the female grizzly attacked them through their tents on the night of July 28.

The bear was captured the day after the attacks at the Soda Butte Campground near Cooke City and later euthanized.

The three yearlings are being cared for at Zoo Montana in Billings.

via Grizzly Bear Attack: Report, Bear Was Sick And Malnourished – ktla.com.

MARRERO, LA (WAFB/WWL) – An LSU graduate student is recovering after an alligator attack in which she almost lost an arm.

The attack happened at Jean Lafitte National Park on the Westbank of New Orleans.

Yu-Hsin Hsueh is an LSU science student. She was at the park doing research on bald cypress trees for her PhD.

She said she leaned over to get a sample of soil and water when the seven-foot alligator, which was hiding underneath the boardwalk, grabbed her arm.

She said she’s still not sure how she got away.

“It was so scary,” she said. “I cannot imagine if I lose my hand at that time.”

The 29-year-old has a long way to go to recovery.

The alligator broke her arm, ripped tendons and crushed a finger joint.

She now has a plate in her arm and has a lot of physical therapy to go through.

via LSU grad student survives vicious gator attack – WAFB Channel 9, Baton Rouge, LA |.

The pain is unbearable. He does not much feel like talking, but Darian Baehler knows he is lucky to have his left foot. A rattlesnake bit his leg not once, but twice. He has had two surgeries, so far, to relieve pressure from the swelling. He was moved from intensive care to intermediate care at University Medical Center Brackenridge Tuesday afternoon.

Darian’s father, Todd Baehler, said, “It’s just unbelievable. I could not believe a snake bite could do this much damage. He’s going to be in the hospital another week or so. He’s going to have physical therapy, he’s going to have plastic surgery, he’s going to have a lot of problems.”

It happened Friday, when Baehler and a group of kids were headed home down a wooded path near Southwest Regional Park in Williamson County. His sister Nicole says it got dark all of the sudden. One of their friends unknowingly stepped over a rattlesnake. Soon they all knew.

“It was really loud,” Nicole Baehler said. “Like, you know, like moraccas or whatever, that’s what it sounded like.

Game warden Turk Jones says dusk and dark in the summer are prime time for snakes.

“They’re gonna be out in the evening, 9 o’clock, 10 o’clock, the time those kids were walking through here,” Jones said.

Six-year-old Carson Perreault was also in the group. “I wouldn’t have survived it,” Perrault said

Doctors agree, which strikes a chord with Todd Baehler.

“That was scary to me because people walk their dogs back there. People ride their bikes back there,” Baehler said.

Doctors at UMC Brackenridge say they see 40-50 snake bites a year, mostly during the summer months. They say rattlesnake anti-venom runs about $2,000 a vial. Baehler had to have 33 vials. Doctors say that the anti-venom can mean the difference between keeping and losing a limb, and in some cases, life and death. That is why they say anyone who is the victim of a snake bite, no matter how minor, should seek emergency medical treatment.

via Teenager fighting to keep his foot after rattlesnake bites | kvue.com | KVUE News | Austin, TX | Breaking News.

A teenaged girl was attacked by a coyote while sleeping at a campground in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park early Monday, Parks Canada says.

Cape Breton RCMP said a 911 call was received around 4:30 a.m. and was attended to by Parks Canada.

The girl suffered two bite wounds to her scalp. She was treated at a nearby hospital and released later in the morning.

“It’s difficult for us to say exactly what happened. It doesn’t appear that the bite was provoked by anything the person did,” said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. “It’s important to mention that she was in a sleeping bag outside of her tent, close to the tent, when this occurred.”

Parks Canada considers this a “serious incident,” Quann said.

The agency is working to increase awareness among visitors about coyote behaviour and how to stay safe in the event of an attack. Efforts are also being made to attract the animals into an area where they can be safely and humanely trapped, Quann said.

The Department of Natural Resources said it has received a record number of calls from the public about coyotes since last fall, when Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto, died after being attacked in the national park by two of the animals.

Mitchell’s death triggered warnings about coyote safety in the park. Parks Canada organized open houses to inform hikers about coyote behaviour to try to prevent future attacks.

This spring, the province announced that it would keep 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive animals. Coyotes found near communities would be captured and killed, the province said.

The government also announced in May it would start paying trappers $20 per coyote pelt when the trapping season begins on Oct. 15.

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Provincial officials say as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

via CBC News – Nova Scotia – Coyote attacks girl in N.S. national park.

A teenaged girl was attacked by a coyote while sleeping at a campground in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park early Monday, Parks Canada says.

Cape Breton RCMP said a 911 call was received around 4:30 a.m. and was attended to by Parks Canada.

The girl suffered two bite wounds to her scalp. She was treated at a nearby hospital and released later in the morning.

“It’s difficult for us to say exactly what happened. It doesn’t appear that the bite was provoked by anything the person did,” said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. “It’s important to mention that she was in a sleeping bag outside of her tent, close to the tent, when this occurred.”

Parks Canada considers this a “serious incident,” Quann said.

The agency is working to increase awareness among visitors about coyote behaviour and how to stay safe in the event of an attack. Efforts are also being made to attract the animals into an area where they can be safely and humanely trapped, Quann said.

The Department of Natural Resources said it has received a record number of calls from the public about coyotes since last fall, when Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto, died after being attacked in the national park by two of the animals.

Mitchell’s death triggered warnings about coyote safety in the park. Parks Canada organized open houses to inform hikers about coyote behaviour to try to prevent future attacks.

This spring, the province announced that it would keep 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive animals. Coyotes found near communities would be captured and killed, the province said.

The government also announced in May it would start paying trappers $20 per coyote pelt when the trapping season begins on Oct. 15.

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Provincial officials say as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

via CBC News – Nova Scotia – Coyote attacks girl in N.S. national park.

A teenaged girl was attacked by a coyote while sleeping at a campground in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park early Monday, Parks Canada says.

Cape Breton RCMP said a 911 call was received around 4:30 a.m. and was attended to by Parks Canada.

The girl suffered two bite wounds to her scalp. She was treated at a nearby hospital and released later in the morning.

“It’s difficult for us to say exactly what happened. It doesn’t appear that the bite was provoked by anything the person did,” said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. “It’s important to mention that she was in a sleeping bag outside of her tent, close to the tent, when this occurred.”

Parks Canada considers this a “serious incident,” Quann said.

The agency is working to increase awareness among visitors about coyote behaviour and how to stay safe in the event of an attack. Efforts are also being made to attract the animals into an area where they can be safely and humanely trapped, Quann said.

The Department of Natural Resources said it has received a record number of calls from the public about coyotes since last fall, when Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto, died after being attacked in the national park by two of the animals.

Mitchell’s death triggered warnings about coyote safety in the park. Parks Canada organized open houses to inform hikers about coyote behaviour to try to prevent future attacks.

This spring, the province announced that it would keep 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive animals. Coyotes found near communities would be captured and killed, the province said.

The government also announced in May it would start paying trappers $20 per coyote pelt when the trapping season begins on Oct. 15.

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Provincial officials say as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

via CBC News – Nova Scotia – Coyote attacks girl in N.S. national park.

A teenaged girl was attacked by a coyote while sleeping at a campground in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park early Monday, Parks Canada says.

Cape Breton RCMP said a 911 call was received around 4:30 a.m. and was attended to by Parks Canada.

The girl suffered two bite wounds to her scalp. She was treated at a nearby hospital and released later in the morning.

“It’s difficult for us to say exactly what happened. It doesn’t appear that the bite was provoked by anything the person did,” said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. “It’s important to mention that she was in a sleeping bag outside of her tent, close to the tent, when this occurred.”

Parks Canada considers this a “serious incident,” Quann said.

The agency is working to increase awareness among visitors about coyote behaviour and how to stay safe in the event of an attack. Efforts are also being made to attract the animals into an area where they can be safely and humanely trapped, Quann said.

The Department of Natural Resources said it has received a record number of calls from the public about coyotes since last fall, when Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto, died after being attacked in the national park by two of the animals.

Mitchell’s death triggered warnings about coyote safety in the park. Parks Canada organized open houses to inform hikers about coyote behaviour to try to prevent future attacks.

This spring, the province announced that it would keep 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive animals. Coyotes found near communities would be captured and killed, the province said.

The government also announced in May it would start paying trappers $20 per coyote pelt when the trapping season begins on Oct. 15.

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Provincial officials say as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

via CBC News – Nova Scotia – Coyote attacks girl in N.S. national park.

A teenaged girl was attacked by a coyote while sleeping at a campground in Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Highlands National Park early Monday, Parks Canada says.

Cape Breton RCMP said a 911 call was received around 4:30 a.m. and was attended to by Parks Canada.

The girl suffered two bite wounds to her scalp. She was treated at a nearby hospital and released later in the morning.

“It’s difficult for us to say exactly what happened. It doesn’t appear that the bite was provoked by anything the person did,” said Derek Quann, resource conservation manager with Parks Canada. “It’s important to mention that she was in a sleeping bag outside of her tent, close to the tent, when this occurred.”

Parks Canada considers this a “serious incident,” Quann said.

The agency is working to increase awareness among visitors about coyote behaviour and how to stay safe in the event of an attack. Efforts are also being made to attract the animals into an area where they can be safely and humanely trapped, Quann said.

The Department of Natural Resources said it has received a record number of calls from the public about coyotes since last fall, when Taylor Mitchell, a 19-year-old folk singer from Toronto, died after being attacked in the national park by two of the animals.

Mitchell’s death triggered warnings about coyote safety in the park. Parks Canada organized open houses to inform hikers about coyote behaviour to try to prevent future attacks.

This spring, the province announced that it would keep 15 trappers on call to deal with complaints about aggressive animals. Coyotes found near communities would be captured and killed, the province said.

The government also announced in May it would start paying trappers $20 per coyote pelt when the trapping season begins on Oct. 15.

There are an estimated 8,000 coyotes in Nova Scotia. Provincial officials say as many as 4,000 could be killed by next spring.

via CBC News – Nova Scotia – Coyote attacks girl in N.S. national park.

BILLINGS, Mont. — Wildlife officials say a grizzly bear that preyed on campers outside Yellowstone National Park weighed less than average but was in an area with ample food supplies and did not appear to be starving.

Montana officials said Monday that a necropsy has been completed on the female grizzly. The results still are being analyzed.

One person was killed and two were injured during separate attacks by the bear Wednesday at the Soda Butte Campground.

Female grizzlies on average weigh 300 to 400 pounds, but the attacking bear weighed 221 pounds. Her three cubs also were underweight.

Grizzly expert Chris Servheen with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says the weight of the bears does not explain the attacks by itself, and the investigation is continuing.

via The Associated Press: Grizzly in triple mauling was light, not starving.

BILLINGS, Mont. — Three grizzly bear cubs whose mother killed one person and mauled two others in a late-night attack at a Montana campground were malnourished and still in their winter coats.

This image provided by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department on Friday July 30, 2010, shows a captured grizzly sow believed to be responsible for the mauling death of one camper and injuring two others near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. The fate of the bear will be determined after DNA tests confirm whether it was responsible for the attacks. (AP Photo/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department)

Deb Freele, 58, of London, Ontario, Canada recovers at West Park Hospital in Cody, Wyo. on Thursday, July 29, 2010. Freele was attacked by a bear at Soda Butte Campground near Cooke City, Mont., early Wednesday morning. Freele and her husband, Bill, had spent nearly the previous two weeks camping before the incident. (AP Photo/Cody Enterprise, Scott Salisbury) MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PAPER AND PHOTOGRAPHER

This image provided by the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department on Friday July 30, 2010, shows a captured grizzly sow believed to be responsible for the mauling death of one camper and injuring two others near Yellowstone National Park in Montana. The fate of the bear will be determined after DNA tests confirm whether it was responsible for the attacks. (AP Photo/Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department)

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The cubs have arrived at their new home at ZooMontana in Billings. Zoo executive director Jackie Worstell said Sunday the two female cubs and one male cub were underweight, possibly explaining their mother’s unusually aggressive behavior.

“It may be an indication of what happened,” Worstell said. “There’s obvious signs of stress and malnourishment. Maybe (the sow) was desperate.”

The year-old cubs each weighed only between 60 and 70 pounds, versus a normal range of 80 to 130 pounds. Wildlife officials are investigating what caused the cubs to be malnourished. Grizzlies are omnivores and eat everything from berries and ants to fish and elk.

Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed and two people were seriously injured when the adult bear ripped into several tents Wednesday at the Soda Creek Campground near Cooke City, an old mining town just outside Yellowstone National Park.

The 300- to 400-pound sow was euthanized Friday after DNA tests linked it to the attacks. Wildlife officials have said she appeared to be healthy, but they intend to further study the body in hopes of explaining her behavior.

Worstell said the cubs will remain in quarantine for at least 30 days to make sure they are disease-free.

The zoo has one other grizzly, a year-old male obtained from Yellowstone National Park that had been seeking food from park visitors. The zoo also has a 10-year-old Eurasian brown bear.

The three cubs aren’t expected to be available for public viewing until fall.

Wildlife officials say the cubs likely participated in the attack on Kammer, and so cannot be released back into the wild having probably learned from their mother’s behavior.

via Grizzly cubs from deadly mauling were malnourished  | ajc.com.

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.

Wardens in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park were setting traps for coyotes Monday after one of the animals repeatedly bit a young woman in the head as she slept outdoors.

The attack occurred at a campground about 30 kilometres from the site where two coyotes mauled 19-year-old Toronto singer Taylor Mitchell last fall – causing wounds that led to her death in a Halifax hospital.

In the latest attack, a 16-year-old girl from Nova Scotia was fast asleep in her sleeping bag outdoors when she awoke at 4 a.m. with a searing pain at the top of her head.

Derek Quann, the park’s resource conservation manager, said that her screaming and swinging arms drove the coyote off after the animal had bitten her twice in the head.

“She was awakened by a sharp pain and something odd going on. She realized she was being bitten by a wild animal,” he said. “All the indications are that it was a single coyote. One coyote was seen by other people leaving the area.”

The girl’s parents were sleeping in a tent about three metres away in the popular camping area on the park’s eastern coast.

The teenager was sent to a nearby medical clinic where her head wounds were stitched and she received rabies shots. She was released early in the morning, and she and her parents departed the campground, said Mr. Quann.

“We’ve had incidents since last fall’s attack that involve coyotes chasing joggers and cyclists,” he said, estimating there were between six to 10 incidents since Ms. Mitchell’s death. He said there’s little indication the animals are starving or deprived of prey. Rather, said Mr. Quann, some animals appeared to have learned not to fear humans.

Park wardens are setting traps in an attempt to kill the coyote involved in the campground attack. It’s part of a strategy to trap and kill coyotes considered aggressive to humans. Mr. Quann estimated about eight to 10 animals have been killed since Ms. Mitchell’s death.

“Coyotes are intelligent animals. They lean and they pass on that learning, and we have to be careful that there isn’t an unacceptable level of aggression … towards humans,” Mr. Quann said.

via Park staff hunt for coyote that bit sleeping teen on head – The Globe and Mail.

A week after a rampaging grizzly mauled a Michigan man to death and injured two other campers near Yellowstone National Park – and amid news that a black bear has been euthanized in another part of the park – officials are investigating allegations that a photographer had been baiting wildlife with food.

Forty-eight-year-old Kevin Kammer of Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed, and two other people — Deb Freele from London, Ontario, and Ronald Singer of Alamosa, Colo. — were injured in last Wednesday’s attacks at the Soda Butte Campground near Cooke City, Mont. The female grizzly was euthanized, and her three cubs were moved to a zoo in Billings.

According to TV station KTVQ in Billings, a viewer said the host of a campground near Cooke City raised concerns that someone may have been baiting bears two weeks earlier. At the same time, says KTVQ, similar information was posted on an unofficial Yellowstone National Park Facebook page. A spokesman for Montana’s Fish Wildlife & Parks department told the station his agency is investigating.

“The key here is that these are just allegations,” notes the Yellowstone Insider. ” Baiting animals for the purpose of close-up photography and videography is a serious matter; it’s illegal and is usually bad news for the animal, who becomes accustomed to human food and handouts. When the handouts end, the animals are left to figure out why – and that’s when bad things happen. The baiting would explain why the bear kept coming back to Soda Butte Campground, seven miles outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone, even after the killing.”

Tuesday, reports the Billings Gazette, an aggressive black bear habituated to human food was euthanized in Yellowstone. The adult female had frequented a campsite in the Slough Creek region in the north-central portion of the park, which is popular with anglers, horseback riders and hikers. Since the bear had learned to associate people with food, rangers determined it posed a threat to the safety of park visitors.

Meanwhile, reader Steve Gager passed along a good backcountry safety video from the Yellowstone Park Foundation. It emphasizes that although attacks like last week’s are extremely rare – most hikers, it notes, will never even see a bear – “the park is home to both black and grizzly bears, who provide a crucial part of a healthy ecosytem as both predator and scavenger.”

via Did photographer bait grizzly in Yellowstone attack? – USATODAY.com.

MEMPHIS, TN (WMC-TV) – In the front row of Lake Grove Missionary Baptist Church Saturday morning, relatives held each other and wept as 71-year-old William Parker was memorialized.

“I just don’t want to see them close the casket,” said Parker’s daughter, Gardenia. “I don’t want them to close the casket.”

Gardenia Parker was overcome by emotional and physical pain after losing her father.  She was among the injured on July 20th, when two lose pit bulls attacked her, her father and two paramedics.

Gardenia survived, but William Parker went into heart failure and died.

Days after the attack, city officials moved controlling vicious and stray animals to the top of their priority list.

“Clearly we think it’s a problem,” city CAO George little said earlier this week. “It’s a problem we’d like to move forward on.”

City government is considering a number of animal control ordinances, including mandatory spay and neutering, and a finder’s fee for citizens who capture stray animals.

But changing animal control laws won’t reverse the Parker’s family tragedy.  Still, family members said knowing that William Parker didn’t die in vain will help them heal.

If you want to help William Parker’s family, you can make a contribution at any Bank of America branch. The official name of the account is “The William Alvin Parker Memorial Fund.”

via Family says goodbye to father killed in pit bull attack – WLBT 3 – Jackson, MS:.

Reporting from Cooke City, Mont. — A mother grizzly and two of her three cubs have been captured after a bear killed a Michigan man and injured two other people during an overnight rampage in a campground near Yellowstone National Park.

The sow, estimated to weigh 300 to 400 pounds, was lured Wednesday evening into a trap fashioned from culvert pipe covered by the dead victim’s tent. The bear tore down the tent and was caught in the trap, said Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim.

By Thursday morning, two of the year-old bears had been caught and the third could be heard nearby, calling out to its mother.

Montana wildlife officials on Thursday identified the man killed in the mauling as Kevin Kammer, 48, of Grand Rapids, Mich. The bear pulled Kammer out his tent and dragged him 25 feet to where his body was found, Aasheim said.

The other victims, Deb Freele of Ontario, Canada, and an unidentified man, have been hospitalized in Cody, Wyo.

Parks warden Capt. Sam Sheppard described the rampage — in which campers in three different tents were mauled as they slept — as highly unusual.

“She basically targeted the three people and went after them,” Sheppard said. “It wasn’t like an archery hunter who gets between a sow and her cubs and she responds to protect them.”

Freele said Thursday that she was bitten on her arm and leg before she instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone.

Appearing on network morning shows from a Wyoming hospital, Freele said she woke up just before the bear bit her arm.

“I screamed, he bit harder. I screamed harder, he continued to bite,” she said, adding that she could hear her bones breaking. “I told myself, play dead,” she said. “I went totally limp. As soon as I went limp, I could feel his jaws get loose and then he let me go.”

Freele said the bear was silent.

“This, to me, was just an absolutely freaky thing,” she said. “I have to believe that the bear was not normal. It was very quiet; it never made any noise. I felt like it was hunting me.”

The male survivor suffered puncture wounds on his calf.

The bear attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s, wildlife officials said.

via Grizzlies captured after fatal attack near Yellowstone National Park – latimes.com.

COOKE CITY, Mont. — A woman who was attacked by a bear at a Montana campground says she was bit on her arm and leg before she instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone.

At least one bear rampaged through a heavily occupied campground Wednesday near Yellowstone National Park in the middle of the night, killing one man and injuring Deb Freele of Ontario and another man.

Freele said on Thursday’s network morning talk shows that she wants to thank the people in the next campground who helped rescue her after the bear left the area.

Freele is a frequent camper who says she’s ready to go camping again despite the trauma.

Wildlife officials were trying to capture the bear late Wednesday.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

COOKE CITY, Mont. (AP) — When he heard the first scream in a campground outside Yellowstone National Park, Don Wilhelm thought it was just teenagers, maybe a domestic dispute in the middlle of the night.

The wildlife biologist from Texas tried to go back to sleep, stifling thoughts that a beast might be lurking outside his family’s tent.

Minutes later, another scream — this one coming from the next campsite over, where a bear had torn through a tent and sunk its teeth into the arm of the middle-aged Canadian woman inside.

“First she said, “No!’ Then we heard her say, ‘It’s a bear! I’ve been attacked by a bear!” said Wilhelm’s wife, Paige.

By that point, the bear already had ripped into another tent a few campsites away, chomping into the leg of a teenager who had been sleeping with his family. Wilhelm later would find out that a solo camper at the other end of the heavily occupied Soda Butte Campground had been killed in a rampage Wednesday that one wildlife officials described as the most brazen bear attack in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s.

But in the pitch-black wilderness, the Wilhelms had only sounds to go on: The yells from the teenager and his sister, the Canadian woman’s screaming of “No!” as she was attacked, the snorting and huffing noises from the bear as it sniffed around thickly forested campground.

And then, finally, quiet.

After a quick parental back-and-forth over whether to shield their 9- and 12-year-old sons with their bodies or make a break for it, the Wilhelms took advantage of the silence and darted to their SUV.

They drove around the campground, honking their horns and yelling out the windows to alert other campers. Along the way, the met with a truck leaving the campground with the second victim — a teenager who apparently tried in vain to fight off the bear by punching it in the nose.

“It was like a nightmare, couldn’t possibly happen,” Paige Wilhelm said later. Added Don Wilhelm: “Words cannot describe what it’s like to hear someone attacked by a bear.”

Wildlife officials still were attempting to capture the bear — or bears — late Wednesday evening, with five baited traps set up at the scene of the maulings.

Two were set in the campsite used by the dead victim. From the roadside, a large tear could be seen in the side of his small brown tent, which was left up.

The campground, also the site of the historic Cooke City cemetery, was closed.

“We don’t know if it was one bear, two bears, a black bear or grizzly bear,” Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim said. “Obviously, the bear’s gone now. Will it come back tonight? That’s the question.”

Authorities were collecting bear hair and saliva and measuring the bite wounds of victims to determine the type and number of bears involved.

If a bear is caught and tied to the attack by DNA or other evidence, it will be killed.

Names and ages of the victims had not been released.

The woman identified by the Wilhelms as Canadian suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. The male survivor suffered puncture wounds on his calf.

The nature of the dead victim’s wounds were not revealed.

Both survivors initially were taken to the Super 8 Motel in nearby Cooke City — a tourist town just outside Yellowstone — and later via ambulance to a hospital in Cody, Wyo.

The same campground was the site of a 2008 attack in which a grizzly bear bit and injured a man sleeping in a tent. A young adult female grizzly was captured in a trap four days later and transported to a bear research center at Washington State University in Pullman.

The latest attack left residents and visitors to this national park satellite community on edge. Many people were carrying bear spray — a pepper-based deterrent more commonly seen in Yellowstone’s backcountry than on the streets of Cooke City.

“The suspicion among a lot of the residents is that the bear they caught (in 2008) was not the right one,” said Gary Vincelette, who has a cabin in nearby Silver Gate.

Last year, another grizzly broke into three cabins in the nearby community of Silver Gate, said Vincelette. That bear was shot and killed by a Silver Gate resident when it returned to the area.

“Three attacks in three years — we haven’t ever had anything like that and I’ve been coming up here since I was a kid,” Vincelette said.

About 600 grizzly bears and hundreds of less-aggressive black bears live in the Yellowstone area.

The region is pasted with hundreds of signs warning visitors to keep food out of the bruins’ reach. Experts say that bears who eat human food quickly become habituated to people, increasing the danger of an attack.

Yet in the case of the Soda Butte Campground attack, all the victims had put their food into metal food canisters installed at campsite, Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard said.

“They were doing things right,” Sheppard said. “It was random. I have no idea why this bear picked these three tents out of all the tents there.”

Wildlife officials were inspecting the campground to determine what happened.

Park County dispatchers took a 911 call early Wednesday from a male reporting that a bear had bitten his ankle and was tearing up tents, Aasheim said. Dispatchers got two more calls, including one from a man who said a bear bit the leg of his daughter’s boyfriend.

At 3:50 a.m., park officials went through the campground to advise campers to get into their cars. A half-hour later, the dead male was discovered at a campsite. Authorities evacuated the campground, sending campers to nearby hotels.

The 10-acre Soda Butte campground has 27 sites and is located in Gallatin National Forest, just off the mountainous Beartooth Highway about 125 miles southwest of Billings.

Sparsely populated and hemmed in by the Beartooth and Absaroka mountains, the Yellowstone wilderness surrounding Cooke City is home to numerous bears. A creek that passes through the Soda Butte Campground is frequently used as a travel corridor by area wildlife, Sheppard said.

The campground, which is run by the U.S. Forest Service, was one of three closed Wednesday while the attacking bear or bears remained at large. Forest Service officials said they would consider closing more campgrounds after consulting with state wildlife officials leading the investigation.

via The Associated Press: Survivor of Mont. bear attack says she played dead.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: A man who survived a crocodile attack in Broome says he was curious about the animals because they came to him in his dreams.

Michael Newman nearly had his right leg taken off after he climbed into a crocodile enclosure at a wildlife park on Monday night.

The 36-year-old said he wanted to experience something he’d never done before.

David Weber reports.

DAVID WEBER: Michael Newman says that over the past few weeks he’s been having a lot of dreams about crocodiles.

MICHAEL NEWMAN: And the last dream I had was about a crocodile in the water, inside of my dream and he was in the water. He would’ve been like a two-and-a-half metre crocodile in my dream. And I picked up a big stone and a sound come out of the water and said ‘Where do you come from?’ and I threw the stone in the water and the crocodile swum off.

And ever since then I’ve had, um… I’ve had a way of trying to see a real crocodile because I hadn’t ever seen a real crocodile in my lifetime.

DAVID WEBER: Mr Newman says he decided on Monday night after he’d had a few beers that he might go into the wildlife park.

He says he was looking for two crocodiles he’d seen before.

MICHAEL NEWMAN: So I kept on walking around and I seen this really big alligator – the five metre one -over the fence, and he wasn’t far from the fence and I tried putting my hand through the fence to just feel it, the skin, what the skin feels like. So I couldn’t reach it and I thought to myself ‘Well, I’ll jump the fence and go from behind its tail and pat it and sit on its back’.

DAVID WEBER: That decision nearly cost him his life.

Fatso the Crocodile weighs about 800 kilograms.

He did not react well to having a strange man in his pen, as Mr Newman explains.

MICHAEL NEWMAN: Before I even just slightly touched its back, it already had me. It grabbed my leg here. Yeah I got a bandage on and it’s really like severe bites – all the skin here was ripped off and um, put a big hole through the sides of my leg here and I think they stitched it up.

DAVID WEBER: Michael Newman says the crocodile lost interest in him and went for his torch, and this gave him time to climb out of the enclosure.

MICHAEL NEWMAN: Then I’ve jumped the fence, and I kept on walking around in circles trying to get out.

Then I went to another fence and as I grabbed onto the other fence I’m thinking ‘If I climb this one, I’m out of here’, another croc’s come out and gone “ROAR” and I thought ‘Shit, that’s the wrong way out of here’.

And I’m walking and walking and I went past this incubating place, where they’re incubating the crocodile eggs. It was all lit up and they’re making babies in the eggs there. Then I looked over to my left and I seen the city, the lights, and then I remembered the way I got in.

So that way I went out and I climbed out that way and I felt the blood splurting out of my leg and as I’m putting pressure on my leg, I can feel on the side of all my kneecap that it’s all cracked and shattered.

DAVID WEBER: Now he’s been through several drips of antibiotics to combat any potential disease.

Malcolm Douglas, who runs the park, says the man’s lucky to be alive.

MALCOLM DOUGLAS: What can you do?

If someone wants to break into something, wouldn’t matter whether you had, we had triple… Well, we had three lots of fencing, he basically got through, it wouldn’t matter what you did. If you were that sort of person, there’s not a lot you can do about it is there?

They want to do something brave, they want to do something stupid, they want to do something to tell their mates. It would’ve been a shocking way to die and it would’ve been incredibly upsetting for me and our staff and family, and especially the whole of Broome. We don’t want things like this to happen.

DAVID WEBER: Fatso the crocodile is seemingly oblivious to his new-found fame.

BRENDAN TREMBATH: David Weber.

via PM – Man narrowly escapes drunken spree in croc pen 14/07/2010.

NAPLES — Beside Alligator Alley in Golden Gate, there is a canal that locals have named “the Crystal.”

Tracy Cusick, 39, and Chris Kight, 49, parked their van and set their white plastic chairs underneath a shade tree beside the Crystal, their favorite swimming hole, to enjoy some “tranquility.”

Cars repeatedly swoosh by on the interstate, but the trees act as a buffer between the couple and civilization.

“Normally when they drive past they, blow their horn at us,” Kight said.

In some places of the canal, the clear water makes it easy to see the bottom. Fish dash by and the surface of the water sometimes ripples as they go. In other parts, which Kight thinks can be as deep as 40 feet, the water is mysterious and dark.

Cusick and Kight have visited the Crystal to swim, fish and meet with friends for about 20 years, but they are worried they may have to fight to keep the swimming hole open after a gruesome alligator attack on Sunday left a young man without a hand.

Tim Delano, 18, was attacked by a 10-foot alligator while swimming in the canal with friends Sunday evening. The gator clamped its mouth around Delano’s left hand and then severed it when the teen got away.

Friends drove Delano a couple of miles to get help. Delano was airlifted to Lee Memorial Hospital, where he is recovering. A tracker, sent by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, later trapped and killed the gator.

Delano wants people to stop swimming at the Crystal. “I hope they shut it down, so no accidents like this will happen again,” he said.

Kight said what happened to Delano was a first.

“It was a freak accident,” Kight said.

Although Cusick and Kight were the only mid-afternoon swimmers at the Crystal Monday, Kight said there were about 75 people there Sunday.

People were listening to music, barbecuing and swimming in the canal, according to the couple.

“It’s just a hangout,” Kight said.

Parents bring their children to swim and fish.

“The kids are never unattended,” Cusick said.

The day of the accident, Kight and Cusick left before it got dark, around 7 p.m., because they won’t swim in the Crystal past sunset.

“A gator feeds at night like a shark does,” Kight said.

Unlike Delano, they have seen gators in the waters before. “Any canal you go in there’s a chance,” Kight said.

Kight learned what happened to Delano from a television news report later that night. He knew it was the Crystal right away.

“I recognized a tree,” Kight said.

There’s still a dried pool of blood where Delano stood after he got out of the water. Kight pointed it out on the dirt road. He said they are glad Delano survived, but they’re worried their favorite swimming hole won’t.

“It would really bother me if they shut it down. There aren’t places to swim,” Cusick said.

She thinks it might be a good idea to post signs warning people about the potential dangers or to let them know what to do to stay safe.

“Everyone knows anyway, but to refresh their memories,” Cusick said.

But if there is a push to ban people from swimming in the Crystal, Kight said he’d start a petition to fight it.

“There will be a lot of people to sign it,” he said. “It’s the last swimming hole we have in Naples.”

via PHOTOS: Alligator attack doesn’t deter locals from swimming in the Crystal » Naples Daily News.

A spate of shark encounters and sightings has led to a flurry of warnings to surfers and swimmers along the Central Coast, including at Santa Barbara Island in Channel Islands National Park.

The Santa Barbara Island Landing Cove was the scene of a recent great white shark attack on a California sea lion.

Despite the heightened awareness, a surfer was bitten by a shark Friday evening near Silver Shoals off Shell Beach. Derek Crane, 19, of San Luis Obispo, was bitten on the foot by what he described as a four-foot brown shark with dark spots. A friend drove him to a nearby hospital for treatment of a laceration.

National park officials last week issued a public notice for those wishing to visit Santa Barbara Island. Great white sharks have been observed in the area attacking California sea lions although there have been no shark attacks on humans there.

There have been three known attacks on sea lions by great white sharks in the past few months, including one at the Santa Barbara Island Landing Cove, the only access point on the one-square-mile isle. Hordes of sea lions enjoy hauling out on the barnacle-encrusted rocks surrounding the cove. Two other attacks occurred off Cat Canyon on the rugged southeast side of the island.

Officials warned the public to enter the water at their own risk until further notice. The windswept island is a popular destination for day hikers, campers, divers and kayakers.

Santa Barbara Island is home to one of the largest California sea lion rookeries in the state — numbering in the thousands — and a smaller northern elephant seal rookery with hundreds of the animals.

via Great White Shark Warnings Issued at Channel Islands National Park – Noozhawk.com.

WEST MILFORD — The female bear hunted by New Jersey wildlife officials since it attacked a West Milford man and his dog on June 24 in Norvin Green State Park was trapped and euthanized Thursday night near where the incident occurred, the state Department of Environmental Protection said today.

The 188-pound, female bruin was caught at about 4:45 p.m. near a West Milford home where it had been causing new problems, said DEP spokesman Lawrence Ragonese, explaining the bear had just ripped into a chicken coop at the house before it ran into the baited, culvert trap set up by wildlife officials days earlier. The bear had three, six-month-old cubs which authorities said should be able to survive on their own.

“We had two previous aggressive incidents with this bear, and when it was caught it was being aggressive again. It was euthanized,” Ragonese said, adding that ten aggressive bears have been put down by wildlife officials and police this year.

The hiker was knocked down, but not seriously injured in the June 24 incident, and his dog is recovering from its wounds. The attack prompted a portion of the park to be closed and the postponement of a local fireworks display as authorities searched for the bruin.

via Bear who attacked West Milford hiker is captured, euthanized | NJ.com.

The National Park Service has announced that three mountain lion kittens were born in the Santa Monica Mountains and a new male lion was fitted with a tracking collar in the Santa Susana Mountains Area. The only other documented litter of mountain lion kittens was born in the summer of 2004.

The kittens were found on May 26 by researchers just south of Peter Strauss Ranch near Mulholland Highway. Kittens P17 and P19 are females, and P18 is a male (P stands for Puma, another name for mountain lion, which is also the species’ genus – Puma concolor).

Wildlife researchers intensively monitored P13, the kittens’ mother, throughout the spring after GPS tracking revealed that she and P12, a collared male mountain lion, spent several days in close proximity in late January. Adult mountain lions rarely interact with each other except to mate and during conflicts over territory.

Each of the kittens has been implanted with a tracking device that will allow researchers to follow their movement. 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.

The litter of kittens is significant in other ways as well. P12, the unconfirmed father of the kittens, is genetically different from the other mountain lions in the Santa Monica Mountains. He made the only documented successful mountain lion crossing across Highway 101 in spring of 2009 to enter the mountains, and it is possible he came from another region, bringing new genetic material with him.

The kittens will face many challenges as they mature. The habitat in the Santa Monica Mountains is robust, and suitable for hunting and reproduction. However, the limited amount of open space, and lack of wildlife crossings that allow for safe passage to other wild areas to the north and west can create conflicts over territory and result in inbreeding within the confined mountain lion population.

In another important development in the mountain lion study, P16 was also added to the research study in May. P16 lives in the Santa Susana Mountains off of I-5. The study hasn’t followed any mountain lions in the Santa Susana Mountains in six years. P16′s movements will be studied to see if he stays in his current location, or attempts to cross a number of the major and minor highways to move north into national forest land, or south into the Santa Monica Mountains.

Researchers will be particularly interested in a potential crossing of the Santa Clara river valley and Highway 126, potentially less of a barrier to wildlife than freeways like 101 and 118. This connection across Highway 126 is a critical step between the Santa Monica Mountains to the south, and large, healthy mountain lion populations to the north in Los Padres National Forest.

Research in the Santa Monica Mountains reveals that the male mountain lions frequently travel the entire length and breadth of the Santa Monica Mountains from I-405 at the east end of the park, to the agricultural areas in Camarillo to the west, and from the Pacific Ocean and Malibu to the south to the 101 freeway to the north, which acts as a barrier to further travel.

From these borders created by roads or development, they often turn around and head back into the mountains, unwilling to attempt a crossing to other wildlands in the Simi Hills, Santa Susana Mountains, and ultimately in Angeles and Los Padres National Forests.

The National Park Service mountain lion study started eight years ago in July, 2002 with the initial collaring of P1. Since then, researchers have tracked 19 mountain lions. Currently, the study monitors six working GPS collars on adult mountain lions, as well as the three new kittens that are monitored by vehicle or on foot using VHF transmitters.

This is the largest number of mountain lions ever followed at one point in time during the study. The study data has also informed project proposals, currently in progress, to establish a safe and effective wildlife crossing point under Highway 101 in the wildlife corridor near Liberty Canyon road in Agoura Hills.

The study has received a variety of federal, state, grant and donation funding over the past eight years. It last received funding in 2008 and the National Park Service and its partners are actively working to secure additional funding to keep the project going past 2010.

via Good News for Mountain Lions – Topanga Messenger Newspaper.

Is it just me or has there been an awful lot of shark news lately? Hint: it’s not just me.

Not one, but two attacks took place last Friday when a shark bit a 6-year-old girl in South Carolina and another shark bit a 13-year-old from North Carolina. And in early June a shark bit an 18-year-old girl in Georgia. Fortunately, no limbs (or lives!) were lost.

But there have also been several shark sightings in the Hamptons near New York City, and recently and a great white shark was caught and then released in Massachusetts.

Now the U.S. National Park Service has announced that they are issuing an “enter waters at your own risk” warning for the area around Santa Barbara Island in Southern California. The Wednesday warning was due to three great white shark attacks on sea lions in the area and is in effect until further notice.

Holiday weekend, beautiful locations, and great white sharks. This sounds either like a movie plot or one of my worst nightmares.

And in a crazy coincidence, this summer marks the 35th anniversary of the release of Jaws. Which, if you didn’t already know, features one of the creepiest movie scenes ever, where the old fisherman, Quint, recounts the story of the USS Indianapolis. Terrifying!

via Shark Attack 2010: Feds Warn Southern California About Great Whites – TIME NewsFeed.

VENTURA, Calif.—Federal wildlife officials are warning swimmers to enter the water at their own risk after great white sharks were spotted feasting on sea lions around the Channel Islands.

The National Park Service says there have been three attacks on California sea lions in the past few months near Santa Barbara Island.

There have been no attacks on humans but because of the potential risk a warning was instituted Wednesday and will remain in effect until further notice.

Officials say great white sightings in Southern California are rare. Migrating sharks usually pass through without stopping for meals.

via Swimmers warned of sharks off SoCal coast – San Jose Mercury News.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

Standing next to his young daughter in waist-deep water off Fripp Island on Friday afternoon, Craig Morris felt something softly nudge his leg.

Seconds later, something pulled 6-year-old Ella under the water.

That “something” was a shark, he said.

The 37-year-old father of three quickly pulled the child to the surface.

That’s when he saw the blood and the 9-inch gash on the little girl’s leg, said Heidi Morris, Craig’s wife and Ella’s mother.

“He threw the boogie board they had been using (away) and squeezed her leg together,” said Heidi Morris of the 1 p.m. incident near the Fripp Island Beach Club. “Then he carried her up the beach and booked it to the fire house. There was lots of blood. You could see her bone.”

A Beaufort County paramedic and Fripp Island Fire officers treated Ella until an ambulance arrived and took her to Beaufort Memorial Hospital.

It took 22 stitches to close the bite. Ella was released later that day, Heidi Morrris said.

The family, including sons Jackson, 8, and Parker, 9, of Marietta, Ga., were enjoying the final day of a week-long vacation when the incident occurred, she said. It was their first time vacationing on Fripp.

“We just loved it,” she said. “Earlier in the day, I had even posted pictures and a comment on my Facebook page that we were so happy with our experience. Later that day, I had to tell people about the shark.”

A RARE OCCURRENCE

Emergency room doctors told the family the shark was probably small, between four and five feet long, Heidi Morris said.

Mel Bell, director of the Office of Fisheries Management for the S.C. Department of Natural Resources, agreed.

Ella’s wound looked like four smaller bites in a row, probably from a small shark. Typically, a swimmer would see the dorsal fin of a larger animal before it struck, Bell said.

“What you have with sharks is a test bite, to see what it is,” he said. “Then they usually take off, because you’re not a desired food item.”

DNR Sgt. Michael Paul Thomas said Tuesday there is no way to confirm whether the youngster’s wound was inflicted by a shark.

Because shark attacks are so rare, there is no protocol for reporting bites.

In South Carolina, the most recent shark attack that resulted in death was in 1883, Bell said.

“We’re still not sure what kind of shark it was,” he said.

In July 2006, an Ohio man said he was bitten by a shark at Hilton Head Island’s Singleton Beach. The wound required about a dozen stitches on his leg above his ankle. Authorities never confirmed the attack as the work of a shark, but the man said the teeth marks and puncture wounds were evidence enough for him.

In June of that year, a Missouri girl was bitten while playing in about two feet of water near the Breakers resort area of Coligny Beach.

Earlier in the month, a 14-year-old girl was bitten while swimming off Pawleys Island while a 21-year-old woman suffered a foot injury during a shark encounter off Kiawah Island.

Still, shark bites are relatively rare occurrences.

According to statistics compiled by the Florida Museum of Natural History’s International Shark Attack File, people are 30 times more likely to be struck by lightning.

Thomas said tracking the area shark population is not an exact science, but called the number robust.

“We always have a fairly large number of sharks in our waters,” Thomas said.

He attributed that to deep waters, healthy estuaries and plenty of fish to eat.

“Port Royal and St. Helena sounds are two deep areas for them to come into and spawn, and we have an abundance of fish,” Thomas said.

‘I’M NOT SCARED’

While the incident left her parents shaken, Ella was the picture of courage and composure.

Her mother was amazed at the child’s attitude in the emergency room.

“She was fine, acted like there was absolutely nothing wrong,” Heidi Morris said.

Since the encounter, the six-year-old has continued to be upbeat and chatty, her mother said.

“Yesterday (Monday) all day, she wore a shark T-shirt,” she said.

Her parents said they were happy there was no severe nerve or muscle damage. A doctor said Monday the youngster’s wound was healing well and she should be up and walking in a day or two, her mother said.

Minutes before the attack, Ella had been in the water alone, her mother said.

“We were lucky, because her dad came up and put his arms around her right before it happened,” she said. “I think she felt safe because her daddy was right there.”

“I’m not scared,” Ella told her mother after the attack.

She said something else, too.

“I’ll go back in the water.”

via Ga. girl ‘upbeat’ after being bitten by shark off Fripp Island | islandpacket.com.

The wife and daughter of a Park Ridge man fatally mauled by a grizzly bear in Wyoming voiced anger today at a research team that snared and collared the bear involved in last week’s attack.

Countering authorities’ account of the mauling, the family of Erwin Evert says he knew little about what the research team was doing and did not go looking for the team’s trap site during the hike that ended with his death.

“He just knew they were doing some sort of research. He had no idea they were going to be baiting, trapping and collaring bears in our backyard,” said his daughter, Mara Evert Domingue of Louisiana.

“If he had known that, he never would have walked up that trail.”

The danger should have been more clearly marked, his family said.

For weeks before the attack, a yellow ribbon warned about a dangerous bear along the trail Evert walked, his family said. But there were no other warning signs, and Evert and his neighbors were never told specifically about the activities of the Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team, a group of state and federal agencies that monitor the local bears, his family said.

Evert did not go past the warning ribbon before the day of the attack, said his widow, Yolanda Evert. She said she isn’t sure where her husband encountered the bear, but she said she doesn’t think he would have disregarded the warning and walked past the tape.

“He was curious about it, but he wouldn’t go beyond that. He stayed on the trail,” she said.

Authorities have said the research team collared a 430-pound male bear and left the area near Yellowstone National Park about two miles from Evert’s cabin around 1 p.m. June 17. Evert went for a walk just before 1 p.m. and was found dead hours later. A sharpshooter later killed the bear from a helicopter.

Scott Steward, the sheriff of Park County, Wyo., said Evert questioned the bear research team and was “very inquisitive about their work.” Evert told a friend he planned to look for the trap site, Steward said.

“We’re not dealing with a case where someone didn’t know (the trap site) was there,” the sheriff said Wednesday. “The victim definitely knew it was there.”

via Family: Botanist killed by bear not aware of full danger – Chicago Breaking News.

In the heavyweight championship bout of the animal kingdom, a giant crocodile defeated a shark in a TKO – and then enjoyed a victory seafood dinner.

Two boats full of tourists got the photo opportunity of a lifetime after the 16-foot crocodile’s decisive win on a river in Australia’s Kakadu National Park Saturday morning, the country’s Northern Territory News reported.

“Nearly 100 people saw it all…and they were jumping for joy,” tour guide David Cameron told the newspaper. “They said this had made their Kakadu trip.”

The loser, a bull shark that had meandered up the aptly named South Alligator River in search of food, was about 10 feet long before it was bitten in half. The croc had the home-field advantage because the seagoing shark was swimming through fresh water at the time of the attack.

Cameron, a former park ranger, told the newspaper it’s not the first time he’s seen the two species fight for a berth at the top of the food chain.

“With the wildlife here, you just don’t know what you’ll get to see,” he said. “That’s the beauty of it.”

via Giant crocodile eats bull shark in nature’s battle of heavyweights.

SILVER SPRINGS, Fla. –

Authorities released 911 calls Wednesday after a diver was bitten by an alligator in Marion County.

The attack happened at Silver Springs Park in Marion County Tuesday afternoon.

A state wildlife officer said authorities want to know whether the alligator was being fed. The officer said the reptile was well-known to park employees and even had a nickname.

A co-worker talked to 911 operators just minutes after the alligator attacked research diver Peter Butt.

“He was out looking at a little spring, and this gator came and attacked him. He’s got some slashes and cuts,” the caller said.

The attack happened under a boathouse just off Silver Springs property. State wildlife officers questioned why the alligator showed no fear of humans.

“It exhibited characteristics you wouldn’t find from your typical lean-and-mean gator, meaning it didn’t have to work too hard for its meals,” Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Lt. Don McMillan said.

Friends of the victim said Butt was working in a small canal near Silver Springs testing the health of the aquifer. He apparently didn’t see the alligator that is known to employees of the park.

“When I spoke to the staff at Silver Springs, they said his nickname is Floyd and he’s been around 20 years,” McMillan said..

A park spokesman declined to appear on camera but said it’s against park policy to feed the alligators and everyone knows that.

via 911 Calls Released In Alligator Attack – Orlando News Story – WESH Orlando.

SILVER SPRINGS, Fla. –

Authorities released 911 calls Wednesday after a diver was bitten by an alligator in Marion County.

The attack happened at Silver Springs Park in Marion County Tuesday afternoon.

A state wildlife officer said authorities want to know whether the alligator was being fed. The officer said the reptile was well-known to park employees and even had a nickname.

A co-worker talked to 911 operators just minutes after the alligator attacked research diver Peter Butt.

“He was out looking at a little spring, and this gator came and attacked him. He’s got some slashes and cuts,” the caller said.

The attack happened under a boathouse just off Silver Springs property. State wildlife officers questioned why the alligator showed no fear of humans.

“It exhibited characteristics you wouldn’t find from your typical lean-and-mean gator, meaning it didn’t have to work too hard for its meals,” Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission Lt. Don McMillan said.

Friends of the victim said Butt was working in a small canal near Silver Springs testing the health of the aquifer. He apparently didn’t see the alligator that is known to employees of the park.

“When I spoke to the staff at Silver Springs, they said his nickname is Floyd and he’s been around 20 years,” McMillan said..

A park spokesman declined to appear on camera but said it’s against park policy to feed the alligators and everyone knows that.

via 911 Calls Released In Alligator Attack – Orlando News Story – WESH Orlando.

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.

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.

(CNN) — A 55-year-old researcher was attacked by an alligator Tuesday while diving on his job at Silver Springs Amusement Park in Ocala, Florida, authorities said.

The victim, identified as Peter Butt with the St John’s Water Management District, was bitten around the head and neck, and may have suffered a broken jaw, said Miranda Iglesias, a spokeswoman for Marion County Fire Rescue.

Emergency personnel were able to keep him alert and he was transported to Shands Hospital in Gainesville. His condition was not immediately known.

Butt was checking water dye traps in a canal area restricted to the public, according to Joy Hill, a spokeswoman with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

“He was in the water most of the day and was aware of the alligator’s presence,” Iglesias said.

Butt was diving with at least one other person, she added, but he was not in the water at the time of the attack.

The second diver “had gotten out of the water and had walked away. He returned when he heard a yell,” Iglesias said.

Butt was able to get out of the water and away from the alligator, she said.

Authorities said the alligator was 11.5 feet long. Video showed a group of several men with the company Nuisance Alligator Trappers struggling with the weight of the 550-pound alligator as they removed it from the water. The alligator was later destroyed, Hill said.

via Alligator attacks man diving at Florida amusement park – CNN.com.

OCALA, Fla. – Emergency responders in Marion County transported a man who received traumatic injuries from an alligator bite.  It happened late Tuesday afternoon near the Silver Springs amusement park just outside of Ocala.  The attack did not happen inside the park but in the Fort King canal, an area which is off limits to the general public and set aside for park storage and research.

The victim, 55-year-old Peter Butt, is a diver with the St. Johns River Water Management District .  He was flown to Shands Hospital in Gainesville .

Witnesses said the man was diving with another individual and taking water samples when he was bitten in the neck by the alligator.

“When we found him, he had lacerations to the neck, and possibly a broken jaw,” said Miranda Iglesias, spokesperson for Marion County Fire and Rescue.

Butt was able to thrash lose from the alligator’s grip and was pulled to safety.  He was conscious when emergency crews arrived, but listed in critical condition.

“If anybody could survive something like this, it’s Pete,” Eric Hutcheson, one of Butt’s colleagues. “Pete’s a big, strong man.”

Hutcheson said the two divers were researching the pollution levels in the springs as it relates to the Floridan aquifer. Butt was tracing dye through the different channels of the spring, to see which ones were connected. The actual attack occurred at a service boat dock, where there are small springs throughout the area.

“My assumption is that this alligator was hiding under one of the old boats that doesn’t move and has been sitting there for years,” said Hutcheson, who indicated that the two divers were aware of the presence of the alligator, which was described as over 10 feet long and over 20 years in age. “Very mature, large, fat, fat, very fat alligator.”

Under the supervision of the Florida Fish and Wildlife and the Marion County Sheriff’s Office, trappers captured the alligator early Tuesday evening. It was measured at just shy of 12 feet in length and weighed approximately 500 to 550 pounds. Joy Hill, spokesperson with FWC, said the alligator will be harvested for meat and hide by the nuisance alligator trapper, as is FWC policy for nuisance gators.

via Man attacked by alligator near Silver Springs amusement park.

Smoke continues to flow from the home of 81-year-old Martha Smith after lightning struck it around 3:00 p.m. Monday afternoon setting it on fire.

“The house was burning and she was still inside. She didn’t know what to do,” said Chief Raymond Parke.

A nearby farm hand witnessed the lightning strike off Lost Fork Road and went to see if he could help.

“By the time he got over there, he went in the house and he couldn’t find her, so he came back around the house and then came back and she was standing by the back doors.”

Relatives say Smith was able to get out without injury. It took fire crews around an hour to put out the flames.

“The whole back side of the house was fully involved with fire and smoke,” said Chief Parke.

Family members say the 81-year-old lived here for around 25 years and they say she’s now staying with relatives.

As fire crews continue to put out hot spots, family members save what they can.

“The house is a total loss there are a few salvageable things in the house.”

Smith’s family says everything that can’t be salvaged can be replaced they are just happy the 81-year-old is safe.

This is the second fire set by lightning in Richmond in the past week.  A week ago today, a house on Highland Avenue was struck by lightning overnight. Firefighters had to cut holes in portions of the roof to put out the flame.

via Lightning Strikes Home, Elderly Woman Escapes Fire.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) – Montana wildlife officials say a Washington man was injured by a black bear that bit through his tent at a primitive campsite in the Lolo National Forest in western Montana.

Fish, Wildlife and Parks wardens say Rob Holmes of Ellensburg, Wash., was awakened at about 4:30 a.m. Monday when he felt an animal bite his ear lobe. It took 21 stitches to close the wound.

Warden Capt. Jeff Darrah says it appears the bear was drawn into the area by food and other attractants that were left at a nearby camp site.

The U.S. Forest Service campground southwest of St. Regis will be closed while officials try to capture the bear. FWP Regional Supervisor Mack Long says if they can find the bear they’ll euthanize it because it has become habituated to human food.

via Daily Record-News – Ellensburg man survives bear attack in Montana.

Food and garbage abandoned at a campsite in Mineral County likely attracted a black bear that bit a Washington man on the head early Monday, according to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Rob Holmes, of Ellensburg, Wash., required 21 stitches on his earlobe after the bear bit him through his tent around 4:30 a.m., as he and a friend slept up Little Joe Road just southwest of St. Regis.

Holmes’ injuries were not life-threatening, and he and his friend had left for home by Monday afternoon.

After the bear bit Holmes, the man screamed. He then grabbed a flashlight and tried to follow it before driving to a Missoula hospital.

“It reacted to people, which is good,” said Mack Long, FWP regional supervisor. “But the downside is that once it is habituated, it’s almost impossible to change.”

Holmes kept a clean camp, Long said, but other campers left behind food and other attractants at the U.S. Forest Service campground, which is “primitive” and not a sanctioned campground.

“He did everything right,” said Jeff Darrah, FWP warden captain in Missoula.

The FWP is currently attempting to track down the bear, which will be euthanized once it’s found. In the meantime, the camping area is closed until further notice.

FWP officials said the radius and patterns of the bite marks on Holmes and in his tent were identical to those found on cans of food and other items at the nearby abandoned campsite.

It is unknown how long that campsite had been abandoned, but the bear likely had visited the site for at least a couple of nights, said Long. It likely was a temporary campsite for transients, he said.

Long put all blame on the campers who abandoned their site and left food and other items behind. He said “attack” is not the correct word for the incident, which will unfortunately lead to a dead bear.

Long said he believes it is the only reported case of a human injury caused by a bear in western Montana this year.

The message is clear, he stressed: Don’t leave food and other attractants open at a campsite, and never leave food behind.

via Black bear bites through tent, into sleeping man’s ear near St. Regis.

Some of you might remember that I have said previously that every year in the Cody, WY area there is one or more human versus grizzly encounters. Here is the current one thanks to KULR 8 News television broadcasting from Billings, MT. This is my “backyard” and part of where I have hunted for the last 30 years.

(Story Updated: Jun 18, 2010 at 1:24 PM MDT )

Press Release from Park County Sheriff’s Department:

At approximately 6:48 PM on June 17th the Park County Sheriff’s Office was notified that a subject had possibly been mauled and killed by a grizzly bear in the Kitty Creek Drainage located in the Shoshone National Forest west of Cody.

The victim, 70 year old Erwin Frank Evert of Cody was reported missing by his wife to Chad Dickinson, a member of the USGS Interagency Grizzly Bear Study Team (IGBST) based out of Bozeman. Dickinson and his team were working within the Kitty Creek Drainage snaring grizzly bears for research. Dickinson rode back up Kitty Creek to an area where earlier they had caught a large adult male grizzly. Once at the capture sight, Dickinson found Evert dead as a result of fatal injuries caused by an encounter with the bear.

At approximately 8:30 PM Wardens of the Wyoming Game and Fish and a Park County Sheriff’s Deputy located Evert approximately 2 miles from the road in a remote rugged area. Park County Sheriff Search and Rescue was called in and Evert’s body was removed while Wardens provided armed security. The recovery was completed at approximately 12:18am on June 18th.

At this time it appears that members of IGBST had captured the bear and tranquilized the bear for research purposes, put a radio collar on the bear and then packed up their equipment and left the area. At some point Evert wandered into the capture area where he was fatally wounded. Evert was not armed nor was he carrying bear spray.

On June 18th The US Forest Service issued a closure order for the Kitty Creek Drainage. Game Wardens, US Fish and Wildlife Agents and USFS Law Enforcement Agents are diligently searching the area for the bear with the aid of an electronic tracking device. If located the fate of the bear will be determined by US Fish and Wildlife Agents.

via Bear attacks again | Field & Stream.