Just weeks after the months-long oil spill from the BP disaster was finally staunched, another rig off the coast of Louisiana has reportedly exploded.

From this story on ABC News:
An offshore oil rig has exploded and burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico just west of the infamous BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Initial reports said that the 13 workers on the rig were accounted for but were floating in the water near the rig. Twelve of the workers are reportedly wearing immersion suits, and one worker is reportedly injured. The U.S. Coast Guard has seven helicopters, two fixed-wing planes and a number of watercraft on the way to the scene. The rig, positioned 80 miles south of Vermillion Bay in Louisiana, is owned by Mariner Energy. It was not immediately known what caused the explosion, but the rig reportedly remained on fire after the explosion. Initial reports suggest that the rig was not actively drilling oil at the time of the incident, but it is unclear whether oil is leaking into the water.

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Environmental and animal-rights groups have grown very adept at using lawsuits to further their agenda. Now a pro-hunting group is taking a page from that playbook in the latest chapter in the ongoing, never-ending wolf controversy saga.

From this story in the Duluth News-Tribune:
The U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation and five other groups gave notice this week they will sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service if the federal agency doesn’t move quickly to remove Great Lakes wolves from the endangered species list. In a letter to the Secretary of the Interior, which oversees Fish and Wildlife, the pro-hunting groups say the agency has not responded to their May 18 petition seeking fast action on delisting wolves in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.“No one wants to engage in litigation on this issue,” said Bill Horn, U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation director of federal affairs, in a statement. “However, the law is the law and it is high time that (the federal government) move forward with giving states back their rightful ability to manage their wolf populations.”

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My oldest brother likes to joke that as soon as Jenny and I have a kid Pritch “will be kicked out to the porch.” And a new study I recently saw on MSNBC proves that he may be right. According to data compiled by a researcher at Indiana University South Bend:

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Dogs are truly wondrous creatures, aren't they? Not only do they provide us with unquestioning loyalty and unwavering friendship, as hunting companions they will willingly, even joyfully retrieve, in any weather conditions anything we care to send them after, be it ducks, geese, quail, pheasants, bedbugs...

Wait a second. Bedbugs? Uh, yes, according to this story in the Philadelphia Inquirer (the rest of the story is extremely creepy, but worth a read).

The other important new weapon against bedbugs is adorable: dogs. Specially trained canines can detect a single live bug or egg with 96 percent accuracy, according to the entomology researchers at Florida Canine Academy. The cost of a typical "integrated" treatment? [ Read Full Post ]

The next week or so will see the kick-off to many state's upland bird hunting seasons, and perhaps none are as eagerly anticipated as the dove opener. Tomorrow will find yours truly and thousands of like-minded hunters sweating on a dove field or stock tank. And while mourning dove will make up the overwhelming bulk of the bag, there's a new bird on the block that's slowly muscling its considerable bulk into the equation, the Eurasian Collared Dove.

Long considered primarily a suburban dweller, collared dove are spreading quickly enough that most game departments now mention collared dove in their hunting regulations. The physical differences between mourning and collared dove are easy to spot, most noticeably the sheer size of the brutes. They dwarf a mourning dove. I live five miles out of town, and last year I had no collared dove at my feeder. This year I have at least two breeding pairs. Not only are they large, but apparently they like to get busy. I have yet to actually shoot one while hunting, but judging by how many I'm seeing, this might be the year. ... [ Read Full Post ]

 From this story in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune:
It was not too long ago that Florida was desperate to save the black bear. The species lost so much habitat and became so heavily hunted in the 1950s the animals were almost never seen. Decades later, it looks like the state may have done too good a job. The black bear population has exploded, forcing the animals out of the wilderness and increasingly into contact with humans.

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