Last week we told you about two very rare black buffalos that were born on Edwin Tuccio’s farm on Long Island, New York. You asked for photos, and we have delivered. Click here to check out the gallery.

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From the Green Bay Press-Gazette:

Advocates for protecting wolves have reached a court-ordered settlement with the federal government that restores protections for gray wolves in the Great Lakes area.

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In 1988 I got a varmint rifle from Ultra Light Arms in .22/250 with a stainless barrel. I shot it at groundhogs, and prairie dogs, and tested ammo with it, and I noticed recently that it was not grouping as it had. My best loads when the gun was new went into .365 (five-shot groups at 100 yards) and now about the best it would do was .650 and change. [ Read Full Post ]

In 2006 12.5 million people who were at least 16 years old said they enjoyed hunting in America. They hunted a combined 220 million days that year and took 185 million trips, spending a whopping $22.9 billion.

For our amigos down south, it’s a completely different story. It’s tough to get a gun, let alone hunt. Only 7,000 to 8,000 weapons are sold legally in Mexico each year and that includes sales to private security firms. [ Read Full Post ]

From the Nova Scotia Chronicle Herald:

Tuesday’s luckiest winner of a moose-hunting license is now among the more than 10,000 losers in Nova Scotia who won’t hunt this year.

Glen Marchand of Louisdale picked his own name and was declared a winner by provincial Natural Resources Department staff during a public draw in Sydney Forks, but he was told Wednesday that he had actually picked his similarly named neighbor as a winner. [ Read Full Post ]

From the Redding Record-Searchlight:

A rural stretch of Highway 3 in Siskiyou County [in northern California] is about to go high-tech in an effort to keep deer, mountain lions, bears and elk out of the path of oncoming traffic.

This summer, highway crews will begin work installing a series of cameras, radar sensors and signs over a one-mile stretch of the highway near Fort Jones. [ Read Full Post ]

From North Carolina’s The Fayetteville Observer via iStockAnalyst:

Don Talbot thinks it should be a crime to shoot an animal with a bullet too small to kill it quickly.

Talbot tried to get state legislators to pass a law to ensure that hunters use appropriately sized bullets when hunting big game. On Thursday, the Senate shot it down, 30-15. [ Read Full Post ]

It’s a tough question. On one hand, prosecuting hunting accidents might force the irresponsible few to take safety more seriously--perhaps even encourage responsible hunters to be extra-cautious. On the other hand, how can you punish a man who’s just accidentally killed his own son?

From the Associated Press:

By the time the game warden arrived, Kevin Kadamus was sitting down and holding his 17-year-old son in his lap, a blanket covering the boy's bloodied body. [ Read Full Post ]

Yesterday we linked to a report about how encounters between humans and black bears are way up in the eastern U.S. And as if you needed an example:

From the Ashville Citizen-Times:

Gaynell Lumsden was in her garage at Great Aspen Lane when [a mother bear and two cubs] came into her yard about 8:30 p.m. Her small dog went after the bears, and when Lumsden tried to get her dog away, she was swatted by the mother bear.

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With black bear numbers exploding in the East, encounters with humans are up significantly, according to the latest survey. But there’s an upside: This is a heck of a time to take up bear hunting (if your state allows it—sorry New Jersey).

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In an effort to get kids outdoors and bolster the state’s sagging hunter numbers, the Wisconsin Senate has passed legislation to lower the legal hunting age from 12 to 10, allowing additional youths to hunt within arms-length of an adult.

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It may not happen after all—of course.

From the Associated Press:

A pair of federal judges will decide which states in the Northern Rockies have enough gray wolves to allow public hunting, as the bitter debate over the region's wolves heads to courts in Wyoming and Montana.

Environmentalists filed a lawsuit in Missoula on Tuesday seeking to restore protections for more than 1,300 wolves in Montana and Idaho. . . . The lawsuit could block regulated wolf hunts slated to begin this fall and scuttle a plan to remove all the predators from part of north central Idaho.

Gray wolves remain on the endangered species list in Wyoming, but in another lawsuit, Wyoming attorney General Bruce Salzburg on Tuesday asked a federal judge in Cheyenne to clear the way for hunts in his state. Salzburg rejected claims by federal officials that local laws were too weak to protect Wyoming's 300 wolves.

Don’t tell me you didn’t see this coming.

So what’s your hunch, will there be any western wolf hunts this fall?

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