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Cradling a loaded shotgun, Daniel Castillo stood in the bow of the airboat when a dark form burst from a clump of reeds. As the wildlife biologist shouldered his weapon, he had only an instant to decide: does it fly like a duck, but look like a long-legged, iridescent chicken?

NEAR BAXTER STATE PARK, Maine -The hunters discovered the first prey of the evening in a wide pond lined with spruce trees. After creeping down a rocky path, members of the group stood motionless. Then, they took aim. Click. Click. Click. Startled, the gangly moose reared its head to take in five women pointing cameras and binoculars. Then it continued munching on the pond's vegetation. The delighted group, part of a $50-a-head moose safari, climbed back into the air-conditioned Maine-ly Photos moose tour van and began searching for more of the creatures.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no objection to anyone choosing to be a vegetarian, a Vegan, or pro-Ana for that matter. Short of cannibalism by murder, everyone should eat — and not eat — whatever they want to.I was married to a vegetarian and was a vegetarian, myself for five years — after my divorce. I even wrote an article in 1986 regarding my ignored suggestions to McDonalds and Burger King that they could get customers like me in — who wasn’t frequenting their fine establishments because nothing was offered for my wife — by putting veggie patties...

WILLIAMSBURG, Va., June 27, 2008 – On Aug. 19, 2006, the life of Army Capt. James Barclay IV changed forever. Army Capt. James Barclay IV bonds with his hunting dog, Bryant. A Williamsburg, Va., trainer donated his services to train Bryant for Barclay, who was wounded in an Afghanistan roadside-bomb attack. U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Joe Laws   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. He was in the lead vehicle of a convoy in a remote area of Afghanistan when a roadside bomb tore through his vehicle. Barclay survived, but suffered burns over 40 percent of...

Bob McLeod is all in favour of protecting Arctic polar bears. But he thinks the Bush administration is being "hypocritical" by trying to do it at the expense of American big game hunters, who spend millions each year seeking polar bear trophies in Canada's North. McLeod, the Northwest Territories' minister of human resources, on Monday opened a four-day trip in Washington to protest a Department of the Interior decision in May that prohibits the import of polar bear hides from Canada. The import ban was automatically triggered when the U.S. listed polar bears as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act,...

Saying their son was "silenced" by his teacher for talking about hunting in the classroom, the parents of a fourth-grade student at North Bennington Graded School took their son out of school and have taken their case to the local school board. Jared Harrington's mother, Wendy Bordwell, and his father, Martin Harrington, removed their son from school with 10 days left in the school year and home-schooled the 10-year-old boy. "We are aggressively pursuing Jared's right to free speech," Bordwell said. The couple addressed the local school board Monday night to air their grievance. Bordwell said in a telephone interview...

This animation is to reveal how demoralizing it must be to wildlife in hunting season’s first day.

Wyoming officials confirm fifth case of plague found in mountain lions Friday, June 6, 2008 4:51 PM MDT Mountain lion hunters, the owners of domestic cats and others who may come in contact with mountain lions in Wyoming and other Western states are urged to protect themselves and their animals against plague. “Plague was confirmed in a mountain lion found dead in mid-April by a landowner in rural Johnson County,” said Todd Cornish, an associate professor in the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture's Department of Veterinary Sciences. Cornish said this is the fifth case of plague confirmed in mountain...

Bird populations are down due to harsh winters, drought. Biologists say spring weather and nesting success are crucial for them to recover.and they may take years to rise Southwest Idaho's chukar population has taken a dive in the last two years due to harsh winters and drought, and it might take that many years for populations to recover even under improved weather and nesting conditions. That's the word from Idaho Department of Fish and Game biologist Andy Ogden. This could be a pivotal year for chukars because they typically live only two years. A high proportion of Idaho's chukars are...

"Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing," said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. "They just seem to lose their fear of humans." Since the 1970s, more than 100 coyote attacks on humans in Southern California have been recorded, with half the incidents involving children age 10 and younger. "If they see a young child and they have a chance, yeah they'll take it," said Kevin Brennan, a state wildlife biologist. Game wardens don't normally hunt coyotes unless they pose a threat to people. After attacks, they trap and then shoot coyotes....

Agencies, expert unite in an attempt to control nuisance animals in the Brooks community in Estero; attack was fourth on dogs since March. “For the past three months, I thought: ‘Coyotes in Florida. Yeah, right,’” Love said. “I had never seen a coyote, not even in any zoo in Florida and I’ve been here 27 years.” But, with the newfound respect for the wild animal, she was quick to add, “We’re on their territory.” And, she says people didn’t start noticing coyotes in the area until alligators were removed from a lake on the property. She believes the alligators snagged...

As I sit here behind this laptop, I now realize that this definitely wasn’t the brightest idea I have ever had. I was going to rope a deer, put it in a stall, feed it up on corn for a couple of weeks, then kill it and eat it. The first step in this adventure was getting a deer. I figured that, since they congregate at my cattle feeder and do not seem to have much fear of me when we are there (a bold one will sometimes come right up and sniff at the bags of feed while I...

Remember the lone, wandering cougar that was shot and killed by Chicago police?Some wildlife experts say it may not have been alone and may not have wandered so far. Are government officials in the Midwest covering up a dangerous and growing cougar population? In some places, they're called mountain lions. Around here, they're known as cougars. There are questions about whether government officials here in the Midwest are waging "the great cougar cover-up" by ignoring evidence and disavowing the wild cats' existence. We know how one cougar's journey ended in the back yard of a Roscoe Village home. But Illinois...

GREEN RIVER -- The prairie dog rises above its burrow on the high plains of southern Wyoming and takes a casual look around. Seconds later, the animal disappears in an explosion of blood and dirt. The self-described "shortgrass sniper" dressed in camouflage and orange chuckles for the camera and gets ready to fire again. With thousands of hits on YouTube, this popular prairie dog video by Colorado hunter Jim Bowman advises hunters to get ready for the upcoming prairie dog killing contest in southern Wyoming's Carbon County. The controversial, fifth annual, three-day "There Goes the Neighborhood" prairie dog killing contest...

Texas businessman Jeff Hawn was charged May 8 in the March slaying of 32 bison near Hartsel and faces one count of class 3 felony theft, one count of class 3 felony criminal mischief and 32 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, each a class 6 felony. Hawn turned himself in to the Park County Jail on May 12 and bonded out... Kobe Bryant's attorney The arrest warrant affidavit indicates that the bison had been killed over the course of a number of weeks. For instance, it states that on April 1 officers "retrieved a spent bullet from one of...

Hundreds of North Dakotans can help solve a health mystery by participating in a study that will investigate possible risks associated with eating wild game killed by lead bullets. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the North Dakota Department of Health will test the blood-lead levels of 680 people in the state. The study, which starts Friday, will compare blood lead levels of people who eat venison with the levels of those who don’t.

Pictured: The moment a huge elephant crushes safari couple's car roof Last updated at 15:32pm on 13th May 2008 This couple had a holiday moment they'll never forget when a huge elephant took an disconcertingly close interest in their car. The Swiss tourists were driving through South Africa's Hluhluwe game park when the gigantic animal strolled into the dirt road. Dwarfing their car, the African elephant lifted its trunk and fearsome tusks – then brought them down squarely on the vehicle's roof. Scroll down for more... Trunk route: The African elephant dwarfs the tourists' car in Hluhluwe game park It's...

DanburyNewsTimesArticle Last Updated: 05/12/2008 04:14:20 AM EDT Lyme disease care under fire Medical groups differ on courses of treatmentConnecticutBy Robert Miller Staff Writer In the battle over how best to treat Lyme disease, a new settlement between Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and a major medical group might seem to offer at least a little hope of expanded treatment for those with the tick-borne disease. That, however, would involve a change in the lines of debate over the disease, and it's not clear there will be any yielding. The settlement, reached this month between Blumenthal and the Infectious Diseases Society of...

t's low in fat, low in food miles and completely free range. In fact, some claim that Sciurus carolinensis - the grey squirrel - is about as ethical a dish as it is possible to serve on a dinner plate. The grey squirrel, the American cousin of Britain's endangered red variety, is flying off the shelves faster than hunters can shoot them, with game butchers struggling to keep up with demand. 'We put it on the shelf and it sells. It can be a dozen squirrels a day - and they all go,' said David Simpson, the director of Kingsley...

Israeli hikers claimed two Palestinians opened fire at them north of Ramallah, say they fired back, killing one of the shooters. IDF investigating incident. Palestinians: Man was a hunter Efrat Weiss Published: 05.09.08, 17:32 / Israel News One Palestinian was killed and another was arrested following a gunfight with two settlers north of Ramallah Friday afternoon. The settlers claimed that the two Palestinians opened fire at them while they were hiking in the area, and that they fired back in response. According to the settlers, the Palestinians were found to be in the possession of a shotgun. There were no...

Deficient forecasting methodology casts doubt on threat to polar bear population, say authors in Interfaces studyHANOVER, MD, May 8, 2008 – Research done by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine if global warming threatens the polar bear population is so flawed that it cannot be used to justify listing the polar bear as an endangered species, according to a study being published later this year in Interfaces, a journal of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS®). On April 30, U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken ordered the Interior Department to decide by May 15 whether...

An arrest warrant has been issued for Austin, Texas, businessman Jeffrey Scott Hawn in connection with the shooting of 32 bison in Park County in March. The warrant says Hawn is wanted on one count of felony theft, one count of felony criminal mischief and 32 counts of aggravated cruelty to animals, a Class 6 felony. The bison were shot and killed on private ranches and state and federal lands about 15 miles southeast of Hartsel. At the time of the shootings, Park County Sheriff Fred Wegener said his deputies had never seen anything like it. "There are just hundreds...

LAKE ARROWHEAD, Calif. — A coyote grabbed a 2-year-old girl by the head and tried to drag her from the front yard of her mountain home in the third incident of a coyote threatening a small child in Southern California in five days, authorities said. The coyote attacked the girl around noon Tuesday when her mother, Melissa Rowley, went inside the home for a moment to put away a camera, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department said in an incident report. Rowley came out of the house and saw the coyote dragging her daughter towards a street. She ran towards...

State and federal authorities said they are investigating the deaths of six sea lions found dead at the Columbia River traps. They appeared to have been shot. The bodies of four California sea lions and two Steller sea lions were found at the traps early Sunday afternoon. There were two California sea lions and one Steller sea lion at each of two traps just below the Bonneville Dam. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and federal investigators are treating the area as a crime scene. Both species of sea lion are federally protected but Oregon and Washington state are...

McClatchy Newspapers State legislators are stepping into the arena of reproductive law again in a bid to regulate the use of birth control - on deer. The House passed a bill Wednesday that makes it illegal to use fertility control agents or chemical substances on deer and other wildlife without a permit from the S.C. Department of Natural Resources. Violators could face a fine of up to $2,500 and two years in prison. The bill must pass the Senate and be signed by governor to become law. Permits would be eligible for scientific research or for wildlife management as approved...

Police want to speak with people who may have been in the area. St. ALBANS -- Police in Kanawha County were investigating Tuesday after a teenager was shot and killed during a hunting trip in a wooded area off Kanawha Street. The victim, identified as 16-year-old Nicholas Caldwell, left his home about 6:30 a.m., according to police. He was supposed to return by noon, but when he failed to show up a family member went searching for him. "A family member went out looking and found the young man deceased in the woods," said Lt. Sean Crosier of the Kanawha...

Willard Gore's no stranger to tough fighting. A Vietnam veteran and a career educator with years of experience in labor contract negotiations, he could write a book. But those were long battles, while his most recent struggle was very, very brief, happening at lightning speed. In fact, the terrorizing suddenness was among the enemy's most dangerous weapons. Gore was attacked by a bobcat. It happened Sunday, March 30, about 6:30 a.m. on a farm in the Defeated community of Smith County. He and a friend, Bill Davis, had gone there to hunt wild turkeys. Davis went to one end of...

Competing with the bread-and-butter issues of the economy, jobs, health care and the debate over Iraq in the run-up to Tuesday’s Pennsylvania primary were these high (or low) moments: New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton doing a beer and a shot, Clinton waxing nostalgic over her duck-hunting days as a kid in Arkansas, and the gutter-ball thrown by Illinois Sen. Barack Obama when he went bowling in Altoona, Pa. Now, the numbers are in: aside from showing a 5 point lead for Clinton in the state, a McClatchy/MSNBC/Pittbsurgh Post Gazette poll conducted April 17-18 reveals that Clinton got no traction...

·11250 Waples Mill Road ·   Fairfax, Virginia 22030    ·800-392-8683   Hunting Ban Being Discussed in Colorado!   Friday, April 18, 2008   Please Make Plans to AttendThe Colorado Wildlife Commission will meet to discuss a complete ban on prairie dog hunting in the state of Colorado on May 1-2.  While radical anti-hunting/animal rights groups are targeting prairie dog hunting as cruel, it is a traditional sporting activity and necessary management tool, especially for ranching interests in the state.  Ban proponents like the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have boasted that they seek to ban all hunting in the United States "species by species" and...

Ken Bartelt, principal of Northwestern Middle School in the small town of Poplar, Wisconsin, refuses to bow under PETA pressure for a bulletin board in his school that shows photos of students with the game they have harvested. PETA wrote to Bartelt asking him to remove the bulletin board because it encourages students to have a dangerous mindset of violence. Sangeeta Kumar, who wrote the PETA letter to Bartelt, said hunting and animal abuse leads to abuse of human beings. Bartelt, however, isn't knuckling under to PETA. He was quoted as saying, "Half of our school board are hunters." He...

The captain and first officer of the anti-sealing ship the Farley Mowat were due to appear in court in Sydney, N.S., on Sunday, a day after their arrest off the west coast of Newfoundland. They have been charged with interfering with the seal hunt after a confrontation with a Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker two weeks ago. Their vessel was boarded and seized Saturday in the Gulf of St. Lawrence by RCMP officers, working with officials from the federal Fisheries Department and the coast guard... Paul Watson of the international group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which owns the vessel, said its...

Climate Change And Human Hunting Combine To Drive The Woolly Mammoth ExtinctWoolly mammoths were driven to extinction by climate change and human impacts. (Credit: Mauricio Anton) ScienceDaily (Apr. 1, 2008) — Does the human species have mammoth blood on its hands" Scientists have long debated the relative importance of hunting by our ancestors and change in global climate in consigning the mammoth to the history books. A new paper uses climate models and fossil distribution to establish that the woolly mammoth went extinct primarily because of loss of habitat due to changes in temperature, while human hunting acted as the...

Associated Press Thousands of pounds of venison donated to food pantries this year has become a contentious gift in three states. Officials in North Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa warn that the meat could be contaminated by lead from bullets. Hunting groups are calling it an overreaction. "It's alarmist and not supported by any science," said Lawrence Keane, a vice president and lawyer for the Newton, Conn.-based National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. "High quality protein is now taken out of the mouths of needy, hungry people." North Dakota health officials on Wednesday told...

STOWE, Vt. (AP) - Bob Shannon is an avid hunter, a fishing guide and owns a tackle shop, but he sometimes struggles to get his own son out into Vermont's woods and fields. "He'll be sitting there with the video games," Shannon said of 9-year- old Alexander. "I finally had to lay down the law last summer: 'If it's a nice day, you're outside.'" Shannon's challenge reflects a larger problem plaguing many state governments: Revenue from hunting and fishing license sales is plunging because of waning interest in the outdoors. "We're losing our rural culture," said Steve Wright, a regional...

The parents of the 11-year-old boy killed by a black bear last summer in American Fork Canyon are suing the U.S. Forest Service and Utah Division of Wildlife Resources. They say more should have been done to prevent their son's death. Step-father Tim Mulvey, his wife Rebecca Ives and Sam’s father say they have lived with the horror of that father's day weekend every day since and now they want to make sure it never happens to anyone else's family. It is grief beyond comprehension for most of us; a child ripped away from his family in the middle of...

This is an animated video of a dove that we see in most back yards. As a child, I with a slingshot, 22 rifle and 12 gage shot gun, killed many kinds of birds just to see if I could aim good and bring the little creature to the ground. I didn’t kill for food but in adolescent behavior. It is so cruel and for this reason I created this video to show and teach the cruelty of this kind of behavior.

BYU bear biologist Thomas S. Smith published a study on the effectiveness of bear spray for deterring aggressive bears. Here he is pictured with an unconscious "mother" polar bear - "If she were conscious, she'd be holding me," Smith said. Also found spray residue actually attracts bearsHikers and campers venturing into bear country this spring may be safer armed with 8-ounce cans of bear pepper spray than with guns, according to a new study led by a Brigham Young University bear biologist. Thomas S. Smith, associate professor of wildlife science, has conducted field work among bears for 16 years and...

Now, the predator powerful enough to take down a bull elk is lying helpless under a tent of fir trees while Maletzke replaces the batteries in her radio collar, checks her teeth and measures her girth. Jane is part of a healthy cougar population that lives in relative harmony with its human neighbors in the rapidly growing communities just east of Snoqualmie Pass. In the past six years, Jane has killed deer less than 50 paces from homes — yet residents don't even realize she's there. She has never harmed pets or livestock, nor have any of her offspring. The...

NRA Members' Councils of California << Please cross-post & distribute this CAL-ERT >> << Please cross-post & distribute this CAL-ERT >> << Please cross-post & distribute this CAL-ERT >>  CAL-ERT  03/11/08 --- 3:00 PM  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ CALIFORNIA REGULATORY ALERTThis information is accurate at the time this CAL-ERT was written and originally distributed. The NRA Members' Councils of California will keep you informed as the situation changes in Sacramento.IMMEDIATE ACTION REQUIRED!!!CALIFORNIA FISH & GAME COMMISSION REGULATORY PROPOSALSWEEPING NEW REGULATIONS OVERSTEP EVEN THE EXTREME RESTRICTIONS OF AB821FISH & GAME COMMISSION NEEDS TO HEAR FROM YOU!   NOW!!!  The California Fish and Game Commission...

Life jackets are made for people, not dogs. So, when Randy Earl's small boat capsized while he was fishing with his dog Lacy, a black spaniel mix, he stayed in the water with his life jacket while making sure Lacy was OK. "When the boat flipped over, I put the dog on top of the boat," Earl told The Dominion Post of Morgantown. While waiting for someone to rescue them on Mason Lake in northern West Virginia, Earl clung to the 12-foot boat's hull. The water temperature was about 50 degrees, said J.M. Crawley, a senior conservation officer for the...

Wildlife activists want to put an end to using prairie dogs for "target practice, and amusement" saying the activity has no relation to hunting, involves no fair chase and amounts to animal cruelty. WildEarth Guardians, with help from students at the University of Denver law school, are petitioning the Colorado Wildlife Commission, arguing that the actions of some prairie dog shooters bear no resemblance to those of ethical hunters, calling it an "abomination" and "sadistic." To bolster their case, the groups cite gruesome videos produced by prairie dog shooters celebrating the "carnival of carnage" associated with killing and blowing apart...

Noted outdoors writer and television personality Claude H. “Grits” Gresham Jr., who passed away at age 85 Monday after a lengthy illness, will be remembered as one of the best outdoors communicators ever. Gresham hosted The American Sportsman on ABC and Shooting Sports America on ESPN, was shooting editor of Sports Afield magazine for 26 years. He wrote eight books but might be most widely known for his role in a series of commercials for Miller Lite beer. In 2006, he received the only Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which then established, with the Professional Outdoor...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A Major League Baseball pitcher is catching heat from an environmental group because of his off-season passion for hunting animals via helicopter.Logan Kensing, a reliever for the Florida Marlins, is targeted by the Palm Beach County Environmental Coalition."We want the Marlins to make him agree to stop," the group's co-chair, attorney Barry Silver, told the Palm Beach Post.

These two are comparable in price and probably in performance. Looks like the M1 is about 1-1/2 lb. lighter. Suggestions?

Hunting is on the decline across the nation as participation has fallen over the last three decades, and states have begun trying to bolster this rural tradition by attracting new and younger people to the sport. In West Virginia, state lawmakers gave final approval on Friday to a bill that allows hunting education classes in all schools where at least 20 students express interest. The goal is to reverse a 20 percent drop in hunting permits purchased over the last decade, which has caused a loss of more than $1.5 million in state revenue over that period. At least six...

Cameron Vanderzeyde is the 10-year old son of Cary and Michele Vanderzeyde and a 4-grader at Centerton Elementary School in Martinsville. He is an excellent student who loves sports and hunting. The hunting is a family tradition going back to his grandfather, Peter Vanderzeyde from LaGrange. This is the story of Cameron's big buck, told in his own words. Opening day of Indiana's gun season for deer this year was a day I have looked forward to for a long time. I turned 10 years old this year and my Dad always told me that's when I could be a...

What in the world is happening in the Maryland legislature, where some of the people's representatives apparently have nothing better to do than try to pass laws that would keep a parent or other responsible adult from having children accompany them on a hunt? Luckily, good sense prevailed yesterday. HB655, the "Hunting License Minimum Age" bill that was introduced by Del. Barbara Frush, Beltsville Democrat, and Del. Virginia P. Clagett, Annapolis Democrat, and would have prohibited the Department of Natural Resources from issuing a license to children younger than 13, was withdrawn. A great deal of credit must go to...

Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton revealed something about herself on Saturday that she acknowledged might surprise many people: she knows how to hunt. Campaigning ahead of Tuesday's Democratic nominating vote in Wisconsin, a state with a strong tradition of hunting and where many voters strongly support gun ownership rights, Clinton said she firmly backed the right to bear arms. "You know, you may not believe it but I've actually gone hunting," Clinton, 60, said at a question-and-answer session with voters at a crammed bratwurst restaurant in Kenosha. "My father taught me to shoot 100 years ago," she said jokingly. ......

KENOSHA, Wis. (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton revealed something about herself on Saturday that she acknowledged might surprise many people: she knows how to hunt. Campaigning ahead of Tuesday's Democratic nominating vote in Wisconsin, a state with a strong tradition of hunting and where many voters strongly support gun ownership rights, Clinton said she firmly backed the right to bear arms. "You know, you may not believe it but I've actually gone hunting," Clinton, 60, said at a question-and-answer session with voters at a crammed bratwurst restaurant in Kenosha. "My father taught me to shoot 100 years ago,"...

Last summer the six-person regulatory committee of the Missouri Department of Conservation voted unanimously to approve the use of high-caliber air rifles for deer hunting. The weapons, which must be a minimum of .40 caliber, are powered by an external hand pump, or a tank of compressed air. "It was a request from a small group of folks who used these large-caliber air guns," ... "These firearms are not Daisy air rifles. They are high-powered, large-caliber, generally very expensive firearms that carry the foot-pounds of energy necessary to take down large game." air rifles differ from standard gunpowder-propelled weaponry. For...