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  • April 26, 2012

    Are Conservation Efforts Affected By How Animals Look?

    --Chad Love

    Here's an interesting philosophical question: Are you more inclined to care about animals that are cute than ones that are ugly? Probably, according to this story in the Montreal Gazette:
     
    For endangered species, it pays to be a large mammal with sad eyes that cuddles its babies. Glamorous animals, big predators and, above all, the extremely cute and fuzzy stand a chance of getting people to protect them and their habitats. Ugly animals - as judged by human eyes - are far more likely to be left aside when humans draw up conservation plans. Anyone care to save Ontario's rattlesnakes? Canadian ecology experts say such thinking means we're in danger of re-shaping nature to beautify it according to human notions of what's pretty, saving the mammals but letting the reptiles and amphibians disappear.
     

  • April 26, 2012

    New Iowa Org Aims to Promote Pro-Hunting Issues

    --Chad Love

    Anyone who follows the news knows that the saga of dove hunting in Iowa has been a long, strange trip (that's still not quite over). But now there's a new state organization with the express goal of promoting and advancing pro-hunting issues and reversing declining hunting interest in the Hawkeye state.
     
    From this story in the Des Moines Register:

    Outdoor enthusiasts and business groups on Wednesday announced the formation of a new organization to promote hunting in Iowa, hoping to reverse years of declining interest in the activity. Hunting Works for Iowa will stress the economic boost hunting provides. The organization estimates that hunters spend more than $288 million in the state annually and create 6,200 jobs, said Jim Henter, president of the Iowa Retail Federation, which is taking part in the effort.

  • April 10, 2012

    EPA Rejects New Petition to Federally Ban Lead Ammo and Fishing Tackle

    --Chad Love

    Remember last month, when the EPA was petitioned (once again) to ban lead ammo and fishing tackle? Well, guess what? The EPA has (once again) rejected the petition...
     
    From this story on infozine.com:
     
    The Environmental Protection Agency today rejected a request for federal regulation of toxic lead in hunting ammunition, again abdicating its responsibility to protect the environment from toxic substances. Earlier this year, 150 organizations in 38 states petitioned the EPA for federal rules requiring use of nontoxic bullets and shot for hunting and shooting sports to protect public health and prevent the lead poisoning of millions of birds, including bald eagles and endangered condors.

  • April 10, 2012

    Turtle Hunting Banned in Alabama

    --Chad Love

    Any Alabama turtle hunters out there? If so, then you are no more, and you can thank the apparently insatiable Asian turtle meat market for that...
     
    From this story on wkrg.com:  

    Hunting wild freshwater turtles is now illegal in Alabama. The new regulations, which went into effect on Sunday, are some of the strictest in the nation - a fact herpetologist and "turtle expert" Dr. David Nelson welcomes. "We want to protect what we have," said Dr. Nelson, a professor at the University of South Alabama. "Because you can't go many places in this world and find nicer habitats or more diverse fauna, and so we've got something really valuable, and we need to keep and protect it." It turns out Asia has a big appetite for turtle meat, for food and medicinal purposes. According to experts, Asia depleted their own supply, and turned to the U.S to feed their hunger.

  • April 10, 2012

    UK Boy Finds Live WWII-Era Grenade on Easter Egg Hunt

    --Chad Love

    When I was a child, I had a really terrifying shopping mall Easter bunny experience. I'd rather not talk about it, but the haunting memory of those few horrifying moments perched atop that giant rodent's lap spurred two things within me: A subsequent intense and cathartic desire to take up rabbit hunting, and the firm belief that the Easter bunny is pure evil. And now I have my proof...
     
    From this story on ABCnews.com
     
    A 3-year-old British boy on an Easter egg hunt Saturday morning discovered a live hand grenade. The device was on the side of a busy road next to the field where families were conducting their Easter ritual in Holford, Somerset. According to reports in the British press, the boy was actually standing on the device when an adult spotted him. “We were beginning to count up the eggs at the end of the hunt and I saw a boy of three standing on an object. ‘It was brown and about four inches high. It looked like an Easter egg, but it was a hand grenade,” Stuart Moffatt told the Daily Mail. ” I was shocked. The boy who was standing on it thought it was a rock.”

  • April 6, 2012

    Aussie Pilot Finds Snake on Plane, Makes Emergency Landing

    --Chad Love

    It's one of the eternal coffeehouse debates of earnest naval-gazers everywhere: Does life imitate art, or does art merely imitate life? Who knows, but when it comes to dealing with m***********' snakes on m***********' planes, I think I'll go with the latter, because everybody knows that anything, anything that Samuel L. Jackson appears in is high art. However, I'm not sure the Australian pilot of this airplane would agree...
     
    From this story on msnbc.com:  
     
    A pilot made an emergency landing during a flight in Australia, reportedly telling air traffic controllers, "Look, you're not going to believe this. I've got snakes on a plane." Australia's ABC News reported that Braden Blennerhassett, 26, swiftly put the Air Frontier plane on the ground after making the unusual mayday call during a flight from Darwin to the remote town of Peppimenarti on Tuesday. Air Frontier offers charter and scenic flights throughout Australia’s northern territory.

  • April 6, 2012

    Bloody Wolf Photo Sparks Debate on Idaho's Trapping Regs

    An Idaho trapper's photos that went viral have again stirred up the wolf debate.
     
    From this story in the Idaho Statesman
     
    The trapper’s photograph in front of a living wolf in a leg-hold trap surrounded by bloody snow first appeared on a website for trappers in mid-March. But the furor it has generated in recent weeks has brought new national attention to Idaho’s management of wolves, removed in 2011 from the endangered species list. Trapper Josh Bransford had all the necessary permits and permission from the landowners, and had participated in the mandatory wolf-trapping class, state conservation officers concluded after investigating. “They couldn’t find that he did anything illegal,” said Mike Keckler, spokesman for Idaho Fish and Game. Had the trapper followed guidance provided in the trapping class, however, he would not have photographed himself with the live animal, Keckler said. “We would have preferred that he dispatched the animal before taking the photograph with it,” Keckler said.

  • March 29, 2012

    Invasive Giant Gambian Rats Resurface in the Florida Keys

    By Chad Love

    Remember that one time when you were a kid at the carnival walking down the seedy, sticky midway trying not be creeped out by all the carnival barkers waving you over to their booth. After a little time and a little too much cotton candy and funnel cake you finally got up the nerve to pony up your fifty cents to see the giant, terrible, bloodthirsty man-eating rat contained in an escape-proof cage waiting just beyond the tent flap? And remember when you finally, and with great trepidation, peeked down into the "Cage 'O Doom" expecting to see an animal worthy of your nightmares munching on body parts, and instead all you saw was an overgrown guinea pig nibbling on a lettuce leaf and farting?

    Well, move over sideshow capybaras, there's a new giant rat in town...

  • March 13, 2012

    Bill Would Mean Special Hunting Privileges For Terminally Ill Children in GA

    --Chad Love

    Terminally ill children would receive special hunting privileges if a bill making its way through the Georgia legislature is signed into law.

    From this story in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

  • March 2, 2012

    New Evidence: Ancient Hunters Populated North America Earlier Than We Thought

    --Chad Love

    It's looking more and more like ancient hunters were in North America, earlier -- and sometimes much earlier -- than previously thought.

    From this story on bradenton.com:

    Cut marks found on Ice Age bones indicate that humans in Ohio hunted or scavenged animal meat earlier than previously known. Dr. Brian Redmond, curator of archaeology at The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, was lead author on research published in the February 22, 2012 online edition of World Archaeology. Redmond and researchers analyzed 10 animal bones found in 1998 in the collections of the Firelands Historical Society Museum in Norwalk, Ohio.

    Found by society member and co-author Matthew Burr, the bones were from a Jefferson's Ground Sloth. This large plant-eating animal became extinct at the end of the Ice Age around 10,000 years ago. "This research provides the first scientific evidence for hunting or scavenging of Ice Age sloth in North America," said Redmond. "The significant age of the remains makes them the oldest evidence of prehistoric human activity in Ohio, occurring in the Late Pleistocene period."

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