By Chad Love

Is it just me, or is it a bad week to be a coyote? Either you're getting shot by elected officials or you're being run down by airport workers in trucks. It's enough to make a coyote say to hell with it and go find some celebrity's purse dog to snatch.
 
First, Texas Governor claims he shot a coyote while out jogging, with a laser-sighted .380, no less. From the story:
Perry told The Associated Press on Tuesday that he needed just one shot from the laser-sighted pistol he sometimes carries while jogging to take down a coyote that menaced his puppy during February run in an undeveloped area near Austin. Perry said he will carry his .380 Ruger pistol — loaded with hollow-point bullets — when jogging on trails because he is afraid of snakes. He'd also seen coyotes in the area. When one came out of the brush toward his daughter's Labrador retriever, Perry charged. "Don't attack my dog or you might get shot ... if you're a coyote," he said Tuesday.

By Chad Love

From the story on MSNBC:
A coalition of hunters and anglers says a protest of proposed federal oil and gas leases in a wildlife-rich part of north-central Colorado is an opportunity for the Obama administration to follow through on a pledge for greater scrutiny of leasing on public land. The groups have filed a protest with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management over the plan to take bids on about 11,400 acres in its May 13 auction in Denver.

By Philip Bourjaily

The last split of our turkey season opened this morning.  As always, I dropped my son at school and got to the woods around 8:00. By 8:30 I had already missed a gobbler.*  No big deal: I got to keep hunting, the turkey got  to keep breathing. We were both okay with it.

What upset me more than missing a turkey was seeing two young guys toting shotguns, a bag of three or four decoys, and a popup blind into the woods. These two kids are part of a whole generation of hunters  (plenty of their elders around here hunt this way now too) who think sitting inside a folding nylon cube is how you hunt turkeys.

By Dave Hurteau

Wisconsin’s New Season Structure Eases Pressure On Does
Officers Not Charged For Mistaking Woman's Body for Dead Deer
Pennsylvania Lowers Antlerless License Allocation