By Chad Love

The state of Indiana is proposing new limits on catfish in response to what it sees as increased pressure on big cats from both commercial and sport anglers.

From this story in the Evansville Courier and Press:
Indiana is proposing to increase the size limit on all catfish (channel, flathead, blue) from 10 to 15 inches in inland rivers (but not the Ohio) and to limit sport anglers and commercial fisherman to a daily limit of one large catfish of each of those three species, which makes the possession limit two. The DNR's release tsaid the proposals are in response to public concerns regarding increasing harvest pressure on catfish, recently completed catfish research in the Wabash River and "fish management discussions with other Ohio River states."

By David Maccar

by David Maccar

The University of Iowa Department of Public Safety has developed a training program for students and staff to prepare them to survive violent incidents on campus and teach alternatives to helplessness.

The program is designed to teach students available options during a dangerous incident, such as the Virginia Tech shootings in 2007.

About 1,000 faculty, staff and students have already gone through the two-hour class, learning five steps: alert, lockdown, inform, counter and evacuate.

The students learn how to improvise and adapt in a given situation by using objects at hand, like tying a door closed with a belt to prevent a gunman from entering,

The students are also taught a technique called “the swarm,” in which, upon the entry of a gunman into a classroom, the students immediately pelt the person with anything at hand, books, bags, laptops (they use Styrofoam balls and rubber guns during the training course) to block his vision as much as possible and maybe injure the attacker, causing him to lower his gun for a moment. Then the group collectively brings the person to the ground while gaining control of the weapon.

By Chad Love

--Chad Love

Anglers may bemoan poor salmon runs, but for wildlife that depend on them, it's a matter of life and death. Bald eagles in British Columbia are starving, and in some cases literally falling from the sky, due to poor fall-chum-salmon runs.

From this story in the Globe & Mail:
When David Hancock saw the bald-eagle count on the Chehalis River drop from more than 7,000 to fewer than 400 over a few days in December, he knew a crisis was coming. Earlier this week, news reports that starving eagles were “falling out of the sky” in the Comox Valley, on Vancouver Island, confirmed his fears. Wildlife rescue centres on the Island have reported birds growing so weak from hunger that they fall out of trees, or fly so clumsily they hit things. One crashed into a roof. Mr. Hancock said a collapse of chum salmon runs has left British Columbia’s bald-eagle population without enough food to make it through the winter, leaving them weak from hunger and forcing thousands of birds to scavenge at garbage dumps.

By Chad Love

President Obama last week announced his "America's Great Outdoors Report," which seeks to strengthen the nation's conservation efforts.

From this story in the Baltimore Sun:
The America's Great Outdoors report, introduced by President Barack Obama last week, is a bold promise to strengthen Americans' connection to their greatest treasure: their waterways, forests, fields and urban parks. The plan would better target conservation dollars; coordinate federal, state and local programs; and fully fund the nation's primary source for conservation, the Land and Water Conservation Fund, with $900 million from gas and oil drilling royalties. It would use that fund not just for the conservation of grand natural features such as Yellowstone National Park, but for the development of new urban green spaces, the conservation of working ranches, farms and forests; the expansion of public access to the nation's rivers and new watertrails called blueways; and the restoration of major ecological systems.