By Chad Love

If you plan on traveling to Austria any time soon, I'd advise you to leave your fishing gear and your sense of humor at the border. One German tourist didn't, and now he's facing prison time for fake-catching a frozen trout he had previously bought in a store.

From this story on Huffingtonpost.com:

(Alexander) Donniger, 42, of Kiefersfelden, Germany, was on vacation in Kufstein, Austria, when he and his wife decided to play a prank on their 7-year-old twins, Enya and Arthur, by buying two frozen trout and taking them to a lake with the family. Unbeknownst to the kids, he tied the store-bought fish to the end of the poles and dangled them in the pond until they were thawed enough to appear freshly-caught, according to German website The Local.

--Chad Love

A new study by Delta Waterfowl seems to confirm what many waterfowlers have long suspected: More and more of our ducks are being shot later and later in the season.
 
From this press release from Delta Waterfowl:

The Delta Duck Migration Study, commissioned by the Bipartisan Policy Center, was written by science director Dr. Frank Rohwer, Louisiana State University graduate student Bruce Davis and senior director of U.S. policy John Devney. The study examined data from the annual Parts Collection Survey. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has collected comprehensive harvest data from hunters since 1961.

By Chad Love

You know that "Animal Face-Off" Animal Planet show where scientists, engineers and animal experts use sophisticated forensic science to determine the winner of epic but purely hypothetical battles between various large and toothsome megafauna?

Bear versus tiger, croc versus hippo and that kind of stuff. Well, it appears the mountain lions of Montana are rendering the question of "mountain lion versus wolf" completely moot.
 
From this story on nbcmontana.com:
 
A state wolf specialist in Montana says mountain lions have killed two radio-collared wolves in the Bitterroot Valley since January. Liz Bradley of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said she found a dead wolf last week with skull puncture wounds that are a trademark of a mountain lion.

By Chad Love

For those of us who grew up in the B.D. epoch (before digital), reading was the primary way to stoke our young imaginations. There were few books that fired my pre-adult synapses more thoroughly than Jean Craighead George's "My Side of the Mountain."

This classic adventure/survival/nature tale about a boy named Sam, a falcon and their woodland adventures spurred many a childhood fantasy of mine. There were two people I wanted to be in 1979: Luke Skywalker and Sam Gribley. I knew, even at that tender age, that I'd never be able to make it into the cockpit of an X-wing, but Sam's world was wondrously real, tangible and right outside my back door. Reading "My Side of the Mountain" was a huge factor in sparking my lifelong interest in hunting, fishing and the natural world.
 
So it was sad to read (via Stephen Bodio's always awesome Querencia blog) of George's passing.
 
From Bodio's blog:
Old friends and heroes are dying faster than I can write about them. Jean Craighead George, author of one of my favorite childhood books*, My Side of the Mountain, and sister to the even better- known conservationists and falconers , the twin brothers Frank and John, died last week at 92. NYT here, Wiki here, her own home site here.