By Chad Love

The residents of the fishing village of Unalaska, Alaska are probably wishing that Ben Franklin had gotten his way back when he proposed make the wild turkey our national symbol, because our current national symbol is becoming a real pain in the neck. Literally.

From this story on KansasCity.com:
On a recent weekday, Allana Gustafson was pushing an empty mail cart outside the Dutch Harbor post office in Alaska when she heard the beating of wings like heavy breathing behind her. Next came a sharp pain. [ Read Full Post ]

By Chad Love

From this story on Lohud.com:

Two coyotes attacked a 6-year-old girl as she played in her front yard Friday night, police said. The coyotes singled out the girl for the attack ˜ likely because of her small size ˜ as she and other girls played in the yard with the victim's mother close by, police said. The coyotes ran at her, tackled her to the ground and began biting her. The girl suffered bite wounds to her shoulder and right thigh and scratches to her her head, neck, and back. She also might have been bitten on her ear, Rye Police Commissioner William Connors said. She was treated at Greenwich Hospital and released Friday night.

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By Chad Love

From this AP story:

Federal wildlife officials have tracked down and killed a grizzly bear suspected of fatally mauling a man outside Yellowstone National Park. Chris Servheen, grizzly bear coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said the bear was found Saturday by trackers following a signal from a radio collar that had been placed around the bear's neck. [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal

I was put on to this new company by my friend, ace knife designer Bill Harsey. Spartan Blades was formed by two retired Special Forces NCOs and specializes in tactical and survival cutlery. Since these guys are great admirers of the army of Sparta, they’ve given their five knife models the names of ancient Greek gods. The one shown here is called Horkos, after the demon protector of oaths and honor.

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By Chad Love

From the story on CNN International:

Two nine-month-old twin girls were in a serious condition in hospital on Monday after being mauled by a fox as they slept in their London home, according to police. The two girls were attacked in their upstairs bedroom at a house in Hackney, east London, after the fox apparently entered the house through a door left open because of the heat while the twins' parents watched television downstairs, police said. "Officers and the London Ambulance Service attended and found two nine-month-old girls with injuries," a Metropolitan Police spokesman told CNN. "Both babies were taken to an east London hospital where their condition is described as serious but stable." A fox caught in a trap placed at the rear of the property by local environmental officers was destroyed early on Monday, the spokesman said.

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By Hal Herring

You could say that I’m reading it so you won’t have to. The book is The Next Hundred Million: America in 2050 by Joel Kotkin, a professor at Chapman University in California, and a scholar of economics, sociology, and the history of cities.  The Next Hundred Million celebrates what to some of us will be a disturbing fact: the US is one of the only industrialized "First World” countries that is experiencing rapid population growth. By 2050, the US will have a population of 400-450 million people.

According to Joel Kotkin, we are moving into a new golden age, where our economy, based on the needs and the production of so many human beings, and based on the freedoms that our citizens enjoy, will make our country the most competitive and powerful nation on earth.

There are a lot of questions raised with Kotkin’s  view - water supplies, the loss of agricultural lands, and how the new society- which he sees as living mostly in vast suburbs- will be supplied with energy for its homes and cars. Kotkin does note that greenways “could provide a break from the monotony……and ideal sites for the preservation of wildlife.”

Nowhere in the book is hunting or fishing ever mentioned.  That is not Kotkin’s subject. His subject is a US thriving with 400 to 450 million people. [ Read Full Post ]