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Bears have mauled and eaten a wealthy couple and a pilot after their helicopter crashed in the Russian wilderness. The helicopter was flown by well-known Russian biathlete Igor Malinovsky, with business people Zoya Kaygorodova and Sergey Kolesnyak on board. On July 16, the helicopter lost communication due to bad weather, Euro Weekly News reported. The next day, the helicopter wreckage was discovered by rescuers in Kamchatka. Three hours later, remains of the trio were found near the Semyachkov Pass, just 13 kilometers from the Uzon volcano. It is believed the corpses were dragged away, mauled and eaten by wild bears...

Chefs and home cooks alike are renewing their passion for humanity’s oldest culinary pursuit.Danny Childs is offering pawpaws to a surprised couple in a park on an early afternoon in suburban New Jersey. "They're like a mix between a banana and a mango," he explains. "You just rip the skin open and eat the flesh." He demonstrates how by slurping the tender insides and handing each person one of the peanut-shaped fruits from his basket. They take them, dubious at first, their hesitancy quickly melting away as they take a taste, emboldened by his enthusiasm. Childs is used to this...

In May 1864, Confederate forces clashed with the advancing Union Army in the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, which lasted for the better part of two weeks and included some of the bloodiest fighting of the Civil War. After an indecisive battle in the dense Virginia woods known as the Wilderness ended on May 7, Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army of the Potomac marched southward, meeting Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia once again at the crossroads town of Spotsylvania Court House the next day. Over the 12 days that followed, Union troops briefly broke the...

A 1940s-era bus where a 24-year-old adventurer starved to death in the Alaskan wilderness has been removed after tourists died while trying to reach it. A US Army helicopter airlifted the vehicle from the spot just west of the Teklanika River, where it had been left to rust for more than half a century. The bus was made famous by Into The Wild, a book and film that told the story of Chris McCandless' death after he lived inside it for 114 days during the summer of 1992.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska — A newlywed woman from Belarus who was swept away by a river in Alaska was trying to reach an abandoned bus made famous by the book and film “Into the Wild.” Veramika Maikamava, 24, and her husband, Piotr Markielau, also 24, on Thursday were heading for the bus where hiker Christopher McCandless met his death in 1992, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. The bus has been the source of multiple rescues since it was made famous, first by Jon Krakauer’s book published in 1996 and then by Sean Penn’s 2007 film. Both chronicled the life and death...

ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - A Belarusian woman who was trying to hike to an abandoned bus at the edge of Denali National Park in Alaska made famous in the book and movie “Into the Wild” died after being swept away in a river, state troopers said on Friday. Veramika Maikamava, 24, was pulled underwater when she tried to cross the Teklanika River with her husband Piotr Markielau, also 24, in their journey to the site where hiker Christopher McCandless perished in 1992, the troopers said.

In an effort to prevent another lapse in federal funding, U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall on Thursday introduced three proposals aimed at addressing needs in remote areas of the southern border region and bolstering economic development in border communities. One bill would provide Border Patrol agents with increased medical training and EMT certification, as well as deliver enhanced language interpretation services and voice access to physicians or health care providers at all Customs and Border Protection remote stations and southern land-based ports of entry. A second proposal would increase commercial hours of operation at some of the...

Boise, Idaho - More than half a century after a group of beavers parachuted into the Idaho backcountry, officials have uncovered footage of the quirky wildlife management moment. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game was struggling with an overpopulation of beavers in some regions in the 1940s when wildlife managers settled on a novel idea. They captured beavers and other furry rodents, packed them into special travel boxes, attached parachutes and dropped them from a plane into..."

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is boosting protection of Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and will ask Congress to designate more than 12 million acres as a wilderness area, including its potentially oil-rich Coastal Plain. The designation would seal off the area in Alaska's northeast corner from oil exploration and give it the highest degree of federal protection available to public lands. Obama and the Interior Department announced the effort Sunday.

SAN DIEGO (AP) - A car belonging to the suspect in the disappearance of a teenage girl in California has been found in Idaho, authorities said on Friday. San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore also said that horseback riders reported seeing two people matching the description of the suspect and girl in the Cascade area 70 miles northeast of Boise on Wednesday.

Mandatory registration coming to state’s largest wilderness area . Visitors to the Weminuche Wilderness are going to be required to register before entering the almost 500,000 acres that stretch from Silverton to Wolf Creek Pass. Use and abuse of the pristine mountains, valleys and waterways through the years now require switching from voluntary to mandatory registration at trailheads, the San Juan National Forest said in a news release. “During the first two to three years of the new requirement, we’re going to educate the public on the reasons,” Forest Service spokeswoman Ann Bond said Saturday. “After that, rangers can issue...

Lawyers for the Drakes Bay Oyster Co. and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will square off Friday before a federal judge in Oakland in the first round of a legal battle to continue the commercial oyster operation in the Point Reyes National Seashore. At stake is Salazar's decision in November not to renew a 40-year lease that gave oyster farm operator Kevin Lunny the right to commercial operations in 2,500-acre Drakes Estero, a five-fingered estuary that features extensive eelgrass beds and a harbor seal colony. The decision, hailed by wilderness advocates, gave Lunny's company 90 days to shut down a business...

Shame on the Interior Department for trying to drum a family-owned enterprise out of business. After a seaside area has been designated as wilderness, when is it considered pristine enough by Washington's standards? Is it after airplanes have been banned from flying over it? After electricity pylons and telephone cables have been removed, cars and bikers prohibited, the roads torn up? When hikers are forbidden access to trails, and kayakers, sailors and snorkelers banished from the water? When eucalyptus trees and other foreign species are eradicated? Or only after Miwok Indians' arrowheads have been excavated and placed in a museum?...

Welcome to the Wild West, 2012 style. The Feds to Tombstone: “If you want to fix your water line, better lawyer up and talk to President Obama.”... Obama, is truly the out of touch candidate. The U.S. Forest Service — of which the president is ultimate boss — is preventing, on the flimsiest of excuses, Tombstone Arizona from rebuilding its water pipeline. Obama, conniving, is putting Tombstone, a fixture of American history, in mortal danger. ... A massive forest fire in 2011 wiped out the vegetation in Coronado National Park, wherein lies Tombstone’s waterworks — which were destroyed by the...

Two wilderness groups have sued the U.S. Forest Service over its decision to allow an irrigation company to use a helicopter to fly in materials needed to repair a dam in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Wilderness Watch and Friends of the Clearwater filed suit in U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy’s court in Missoula last week. The groups say the agency’s decision to allow the irrigation company up to two helicopter flights to the Fred Burr Dam site violates the Wilderness Act and other environmental laws. The irrigation company wants to replace a deteriorating catwalk and log boom on the nearly century-old...

The Southwest Area Type 1 Incident Management Team, under the direction of Incident Commander Tony Sciacca, assumed command of the fire at 6:00 a.m. Saturday 5/26. Mandatory evacuations are in place for the community of Mogollon and the Willow Creek Subdivision. Road/Trail/Area closures and Catwalk National Rec Trail Closure are in place on the Gila National Forest. Visit the Gila NF website at www.fs.usda.gov/gila for details. Smoke advisories are in effect. View the Smoke Advisory article under "Announcements" for further information. Smoke projection models are posted in "Photographs." Areas around Albuquerque, Belen, Socorro, Magdalena and Carrizozo will see smoke during...

This is an incredible story showing how far the federal government is from rational thought. Here’s what happened in Tombstone: Between May and July 2011, the Monument Fire engulfed a large part of the eastern portion of the Huachuca Mountains. Record-breaking monsoon rains followed. With no vegetation to absorb the runoff, huge mudslides forced boulders to tumble down the mountain sides, crushing Tombstone’s mountain spring waterlines, destroying reservoirs and shutting off Tombstone’s main source of water. In some areas, Tombstone’s pipeline is under 12 feet of mud, rocks and other debris; while in other places, it is hanging in mid-air...

Excerpt: Authorities on Thursday were searching southwestern Oregon's rugged forests for three missing mushroom pickers who disappeared almost five days ago. Belinda and Daniel Conne, both 47, and their 25-year-old son, Michael, were last seen Sunday at a campground, where they had left behind their camp trailer and two dogs, Curry County sheriff's office said. Deputies found their SUV off a logging road on the western edge of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest on Wednesday, and clothing and mushroom-picking gear were found some distance away. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/02/02/3-mushroom-pickers-missing-in-oregon-forest/#ixzz1lH2LgXNc

Wilderness Society cuts staff, citing weak economyBy Bettina Boxall - Los Angeles Times Updated: 11/19/2011 05:48:14 PM PST The weak economy has taken a big bite out of the Wilderness Society, which last week laid off 17 percent of its staff. Headquartered in Washington, the organization is one of the nation's most venerable land preservation groups and has been a major force behind the creation and expansion of the federal wilderness system. After increasing its staff and spending in recent years, the group is retrenching. "The Wilderness Society, like so many other organizations, has been feeling the effects of a...

A grizzly bear sow with a cub attacked a group of teenagers on a month-long survival-skills course Saturday night in the Talkeetna Mountains, causing severe injuries to two of the hikers, according to Alaska State Troopers. (snip) The group was on the 24th day of a 30-day backpacking trip, school spokesman Bruce Palmer said by phone from Wyoming. It was the group's first day unaccompanied by adult instructors, Palmer said. "For the last bit of the course, we would have them travel as a student group without the instructors, utilizing the skills that they've learned over time," Palmer said. (snip)...