Beverly Hammersmith loves horses. "Horses are the reason I get up in the morning," said Hammersmith.
That's true for her horses Fern and Lore. It was also true for her horse, Zip. A few weeks ago Hammersmith was woken up by a series of yips and then something that sounded like a scream. It was Zip.
"I looked out the window and I could see him trying to walk. And he was laying on his back," said Hammersmith.
The horse was trying to fight off what Hammersmith says was a pack of coyotes. Zip caught and broke his leg on a wire fence. There were bite marks on the horse. Within the hour, a veterinarian humanely euthanized the horse.
Kelsi Butt, 4, of Blackfoot, Idaho shows some of the wounds she suffered when a mountain lion grabbed her and tried to drag her away.
Little Kelsi Butt is now "more or less 100 percent back to normal," her dad says, four days after the 4-year-old's Aug. 12 encounter with a mountain lion.
The Butt family — dad Israel, mom Kera and their three children, son Kegan, 8, and daughters Maylie, 7, and Kelsi — were at a family reunion, camping with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, near Green Canyon Hot Springs, east of Rexburg, Idaho.
The weekend of outdoor fun took an unexpected turn Friday night, when Kelsi was attacked by a 90-pound, young male mountain lion that had been lurking in the wooded area.
"We usually have family reunions up there, camping at Hot Springs Campground," Israel Butt told Gephardt Daily, "but this year we decided to go higher up."
The area was a little more remote, with fewer people around than at the campground. Kelsi's mom thought she saw the cat earlier in the day and mentioned it to other family members. But the woods are full of wildlife, no one else had seen the animal, and cats generally avoid human beings anyway, so there seemed to be no cause for concern.
Imagine having to wait a century to have sex. Such is the life of the Greenland shark—a 5-meter-long predator that may live more than 400 years, according to a new study, making it the longest lived vertebrate by at least a century. So it should come as no surprise that the females are not ready to reproduce until after they hit their 156th birthday.
The longevity of these sharks is "astonishing," says Michael Oellermann, a cold-water physiologist at Loligo Systems in Viborg, Denmark, who was not involved with the work. That's particularly true because oceans are quite dangerous places, he notes, where predators, food scarcity, and disease can strike at any time.
Greenland sharks (Somniosus microcephalus) had been rumored to be long-lived. In the 1930s, a fisheries biologist in Greenland tagged more than 400, only to discover that the sharks grow only about 1 centimeter a year—a sure sign that they're in it for the long haul given how large they get. Yet scientists had been unable to figure out just how many years the sharks last.
There is a dead whale floating off the coast of Elliston that was mistaken for an overturned boat earlier today.
In a press release issued this afternoon, Bonavista RCMP say they were called to Elliston after a report of a possible overturned boat off the coast.
According to RCMP, the Joint Rescue Coordination Centre was contacted and they dispatched a cormorant helicopter from Gander to investigate.
Once the helicopter arrived on the scene, they determined the object was not a boat but a dead whale.
Bonavista RCMP are advising the public to be cautious while boating in the area of Elliston, as the whale is floating at the surface of the water and may be difficult to see.
Vicki Schwarz had friends in from out of state, so they decided to float down the Yellowstone River on Sunday afternoon. They put in at Mayor's Landing near Livingston, six people on the raft. But as the Livingston schoolteacher rowed them along, it became clear something strange was going on.
"I noticed as I was paddling that like every 5 feet I could see a belly-up whitefish," Schwarz said. "It was really sad. I didn't know what to tell anyone."
State officials aren't yet sure what to tell anyone either. Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has now counted more than 1,000 dead mountain whitefish in the Yellowstone River. Dead fish have been seen as far upstream as the Point of Rocks Fishing Access Site south of Emigrant and as far downstream as one east of Springdale. But they can't point to a cause just yet.
A 52-year-old man has died after being attacked by a dog which had been returned to its owner despite concerns that it was dangerous.
West Yorkshire Police said David Ellam was out walking with his Yorkshire terrier in Huddersfield on Monday when he was attacked by another dog . He died later in hospital.
The incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) because the dog involved in the attack was seized by officers earlier this month but returned to its owner a week ago after it was determined it was not a banned breed.
A woman who said she was Mr Ellam's cousin wrote on Facebook: "There was nothing accidental about this, it was a tragic incident that should never have happened and correct measures were not taken to ensure this situation wouldn't arise.
"We hope that in the coming days, a true representation of what happened yesterday will come to light and end all speculation. At this point, there is nothing to gain from finger pointing or blaming of dangerous dogs or their owners - a man has died in one of the most horrific ways possible, and we should focus on making sure this never happens again rather than playing the blame game."
A jogger was stalked and chased by a bear on a popular trail in West Vancouver on Monday, leaving him with a few scrapes and bruises and an incredible tale of survival.
North Shore resident Christopher Lubell says he's "fortunate I'm still in one piece" after coming within metres of a large black bear while out for his morning jog in Capilano River Regional Park Monday morning. Lubell said the animal approached and chased him for more than a kilometre.
"That's a pretty intimidating sight when you see a bear, it's like 400 lbs., and it's running after you," Lubell told CTV Vancouver.
His first instinct was to run, but Lubell says the animal pursued him and came so close, it started to sniff around him.
That's when Lubell changed his tactic. "I just kept on yelling, every time it came close to me and eventually it wouldn't come as close to me," he said. "It would just stop in the middle of the trail and kind of look off to the side."
Donna Littlejohn Daily Breeze Sun, 14 Aug 2016 18:09 UTC
Wildlife experts trying to calm fears about coyote attacks in urban areas of Southern California often cite this statistic: coyote bites on humans are rare.
But are they becoming less rare?
"I'd characterize it as less rare than it used to be, definitely," said Niamh Quinn, an ecologist with the UC Cooperative Extension/Agricultural who is studying coyote interactions in Southern California. "We're seeing an increased frequency in bites (in Southern California) this year and last year."
Los Angeles County Public Health statistics also show a rise in coyote bites on humans countywide during the first seven months of 2016. Most recently, coyote attacks on three people forced a popular Montebello park and petting zoo to close down Tuesday.
It's said that elephants never forget -- and one Indian mammoth swept by flood waters all the way to Bangladesh should have no trouble remembering this dramatic adventure.
The four-ton female was separated from its herd in floods in northeast India in late June. It is thought to have traveled around 620 miles, a journey that included crossing the mighty Brahmaputra River, on its way to northern Bangladesh. The animal first became separated from the herd in Assam, India. The weak and exhausted beast spent several weeks stranded in a flooded area and nearly drowned in a rescue attempt Thursday. But Friday -- World Elephant Day -- the pachyderm finally set its feet back on dry land.
A 10-year-old girl is in hospital with critical injuries after a bear attack in Port Coquitlam, B.C., Saturday.
Conservation Office inspector Murray Smith said the girl was attacked by a female black bear with her cub.
The incident took place near Shaughnessy Street and Lincoln Avenue at about 5 p.m. PT., according to B.C. Ambulance, not far from a popular trail along the Coquitlam River that leads to a nearby watershed and wilderness area.
Smith said conservation officers killed the sow when they found her.
"The bear wouldn't leave the location with a lot of human presence at that spot, and so the bear was destroyed," he said.
The cub is still at large, he said, and people are being asked to stay away from the area for the time being.
Comment: See also this other recent report: Jogger uses rock to battle cougar in attack on Vancouver Island, Canada