Updated July 24, 10:26 pm: A woman who was killed by a grizzly bear near West Yellowstone, Montana on the morning of July 22 has been identified as 48-year-old Amie Adamson of Derby, Kansas, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office confirms in a Facebook post.

Adamson was working in the Yellowstone area at the time and was on the Buttermilk trail when the grizzly attacked her in what GCSO is calling a non-predatory manner. The avid runner was likely jogging at the time of the attack and was only a few hundred yards from the trailhead, ABC News reports. There was no evidence of the offending grizzlies consuming or attempting to consume the victim.

Adamson was a longtime English teacher and published author who quit her job in 2015 to hike across the country. No stranger to spending time outdoors, she wrote the book Walking Out: One Teacher’s Reflections on Walking Out of the Classroom to Walk America. Officials have set bear traps in the area for the third night in a row since the incident in hopes of catching the grizzlies.

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A hiker discovered a woman’s body on the Buttermilk Trail near West Yellowstone on the morning of July 22. Tracks, wounds, and the location of the incident are consistent with a grizzly bear kill, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks reports.

FWP game wardens were notified of the body at around 8 a.m. on Saturday. Wardens, bear specialists, and other investigators found wounds on the body that were typical of a grizzly bear attack. They also found tracks from an adult grizzly bear and at least one cub in the vicinity, but they didn’t see any bears, bedding areas, or animal carcasses nearby.

The woman is believed to have been traveling alone. Investigators didn’t find any bear spray or firearms at the site, indicating that the woman had no way to protect herself from an attack.

The Forest Service immediately closed down the section of Custer Gallatin National Forest where the incident occurred. They also warned nearby residents and visitors of bear activity. Concerns over the proximity of the area to multiple homes, campsites, and high-use areas prompted responders to begin the bear capture process, although no bear has been found yet. Investigators are still searching for the offending bears both on the ground and from the air.

The Buttermilk Trail (or “Buttermilk Creek Trail,” depending on which map you look at) is located within the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. One of six recovery zones for grizzlies in the U.S., the GYE is home to well over 1,000 bears, which is second only to the Northern Continental Divide Ecosystem in terms of overall population.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently reviewing both distinct population segments and the feasibility of removing them from the Endangered Species List. That process began on February 3 and is expected to take a full year.

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Some jaw-dropping details have emerged about a bison goring that occurred in Yellowstone National Park on July 17. Victim Amber Harris of Phoenix took to Facebook to recount the events that led up to the incident and the injuries she suffered as a result. The severity of the damage is shocking.

Harris, 47, fractured her spine in seven places and experienced a bilateral lung collapse after the bison charged her near the north end of Yellowstone Lake. She was staying at the Lake Lodge Cabins with her boyfriend and daughter at the time.

“We woke up our first morning and walked down to the lodge for some coffee then decided take a walk through a field to get to Yellowstone Lake,” Harris wrote in a Facebook post on Tuesday. “There were a few other people and about 20 elk roaming around so we waited for them to clear before walking through the field. About halfway to the water we noticed [two] bison. [One was] on the path we were walking and the other [was] in the opposite direction. We stopped and looked at the massive beast, about 50 yards away on the trail, hidden at first in the shadows of the tress. We watched him drop and roll in the dirt, like a dog would. He got up on his feet and started walking then running towards us.”

When the bison made contact with Harris, it struck her in the chest and back. It missed her major organs but left her with severe bruising in addition to her debilitating injuries.

“I was carried out of the field on a stretcher to an ambulance and then transferred to a helicopter for a life flight to Idaho,” she continues. She was treated at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls, approximately 100 miles as the crow flies from the Lake Lodge Cabins.

A Surprise at the Hospital

What Harris didn’t know was that the vacation was supposed to end with a major surprise. Her boyfriend, Chris Whitehill, had a marriage proposal planned for Yellowstone’s popular natural bridge. With the trip cut short, Whitehill had to recalibrate.

“My love got down on one knee beside my hospital bed last night and formally asked me to be his wife,” Harris wrote. “Without any hesitation I said yes!”

Whitehill also organized a GoFundMe for Harris’ medical expenses. He confirmed in a recent update that Harris’ injuries did not require any surgery, but that she is wearing an immobilizing back brace to heal the fractures.

Watch: Bison Charges Family, Gores Man at Yellowstone National Park

“Amber is a fighter and she is battling hard,” he wrote. “Making little progressions daily.”

The National Park Service recommends keeping a distance of 25 yards from bison, elk, and other wildlife at all times. (This recommendation extends to 100 yards for bears and wolves.) Harris estimated she and Whitehill were double that distance from the bison that charged her. But as the NPS points out, the bison rut occurs from mid-July to mid-August, and they can be much more aggressive than usual this time of year.

The post Woman Gored by Yellowstone Bison Suffers 2 Collapsed Lungs, 7 Spinal Fractures appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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On December 13, 2021, Logan Harlan carried a late-season buck tag onto New Mexico public land in hopes of finding a good-sized whitetail. After a few unsuccessful days with his dad Larry and sister-in-law Lorri, the group eventually eyed a large 6-by-6 on public land—a rarity in the heavily checkerboarded region they were hunting. Logan watched the buck for a grueling five and a half hours and belly-crawled a few hundred yards before eventually firing a shot with his 6.5 Creedmor. The buck went down instantly. This perseverance and grit shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows the Harlan family. They own a taxidermy studio and booking agency and, according to their Instagram and Facebook profiles, they live to hunt.

Whitetail deer aren’t exactly a top game species in New Mexico. Coues’ whitetails and Eastern whitetails, which New Mexico Game and Fish refers to as “Texas whitetails”, comprise roughly five percent of the annual deer harvest statewide. Mule deer make up the other 95 percent. This skewed ratio lends to a rather jarring statistic: Only two New Mexico whitetail deer have ever graced the Boone & Crockett record book. 

Or, at least, that was the case until Harlan took his shot in late 2021. After the requisite 60-day drying period, his typical 6-by-6 scored 176 ⅞ inches. This score would have been even higher had the buck not broken off its left main beam, but it was still enough to edge out the previous record holder, Samuel Beatty, by a half-inch. (The scarcity of New Mexico whitetails is so extreme that B&C doesn’t maintain non-typical records in the state even though the first two record-book whitetails were 6-by-5s.) 

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This is usually the moment where the hunting media frenzy hoists Harlan in the air and celebrates his success. But that didn’t happen in February 2022, when the drying period would have ended and the record would have changed hands. In fact, not many people really knew about the buck until North American Whitetails published the first known article about Harlan’s hunt on July 17, roughly 17 months after the drying period ended.

It’s unclear why it took so long for the story of Harlan’s buck to surface. As of right now, NMGF hasn’t updated the record book on its website. (NMGF didn’t immediately respond to OL’s requests for comment.) But Harlan’s name and scoresheet now reside in the B&C book at the top of the New Mexico records, right where they belong.

The post The Record Whitetail That No One Heard About…Until Now appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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Discussions about the U.S.-Mexico border wall usually revolve around people, which makes sense given the wall’s core purpose. But a handful of biologists, politicians, and conservationists recognized early on that the wall would have some seriously detrimental effects on wildlife by separating distinct populations, splitting core habitat, and interrupting migration routes. Still, the Trump administration built an additional 458 miles of border wall, using already-earmarked military and defense dollars to do so.

Soon after construction began, a coalition of 18 states and two environmental organizations sued then-President Trump and his administration for diverting federal funds toward the controversial project without Congressional approval. Now, four years later, a settlement has been reached. And it contains a lot of wins for wildlife, officials say.

“President Trump’s border wall … was highly destructive, damaging private property and sensitive desert ecosystems, and blocking important wildlife corridors,” Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) tells Outdoor Life. “This settlement agreement is a step forward in restoring these watersheds and landscapes and protecting the future for species such as the Mexican gray wolves, jaguars, and Sonoran pronghorn.”

These measures include numerous on-the-ground mitigation projects, namely the construction of 24 wildlife passages and opening of nine stormwater gates along the wall. Such passages will benefit a variety of wildlife species in addition to the ones Heinrich mentions, including federally endangered Peninsular bighorn sheep, ocelots, Coues, whitetail, and mule deer. The Department of Homeland Security will also put $25 million toward acquiring a 1,300-acre chunk of critical wildlife habitat east of San Diego, and millions more will go toward endangered and threatened wildlife conservation research, according to the settlement document.

Holes in the Wall

The document outlines plans for 20 small wildlife passages that can be no smaller than 8.5 by 11 inches—big enough to allow ocelots, coyotes, foxes, rodents, and other small critters through the wall to the other side. In addition, four large passages will interrupt the wall—two in Arizona and two in New Mexico. The exact locations of the four new passages, which will measure roughly seven feet by five feet, remain redacted in the document. But they will be in remote, unfrequented areas where surveillance and other security measures will be feasible, Sierra Club borderland coordinator Erick Meza told the Arizona Daily Star. 

“We selected these openings in areas … where we have historically seen not so many migrants moving through these spaces,” Meza said. “[Border Patrol] will be monitoring [the areas] with the use of technology … the technology is already there in some of these cases.” 

These crossing locations were also selected with Mexican gray wolves, black bears, bison, Chihuahuan pronghorn, and jaguars in mind. But countless other wildlife species will also benefit from greater freedom of movement. In a study on border wildlife conducted by environmental organization Sky Island Alliance, 65 trail cameras scattered along 30 miles of the border recorded more than 43,000 wildlife detections in three years. Photographed species varied from birds and rodents to javelina, mountain lions, and one particularly good-looking whitetail still in velvet.

In addition to the new passages, nine stormwater gates will remain open full-time. As the document reads: “DHS reserves the right to close the gates if exigent circumstances or border security operations warrant temporary closure” and “place alternative forms of wildlife-friendly infrastructure near the gates and install barrier system attributes near the gates to detect unauthorized entry into the United States.”

Similarly, DHS will install gates on the four new large passages to close in emergency situations. Nearby barbed wire fencing—strung specifically to not hinder wildlife movement—will contain cattle.  

Buying Dirt

Another portion of the settlement involves DHS putting $25 million toward a 1,291-acre property acquisition east of San Diego. If the deal goes through, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife would take over what is currently known as Otay Ranch Village 14 and Project Areas 16 and 19. These parcels of land, which were at one point destined for real estate development, would remain untouched and receive “conservation status,” according to the document. 

The Otay Ranch Village 14 site was originally slated for the construction of over 1,100 homes. But the project hit snags during the environmental review process and the development never came to fruition. Now, it could help build the connectivity of other nearby habitat areas, namely the San Diego National Wildlife Refuge to the north, the Otay Mountain Wilderness to the south, and state lands to the east. The border sits about six miles south of the property.

DHS’ $25 million infusion would still come up short of the roughly $60 million the property is valued at. Non-profit funding would need to cover the remaining $35 million. If this money doesn’t materialize, the DHS’ $25 million will go toward other environmental remediation and mitigation efforts. 

Critters on the Border

As an additional wildlife conservation measure, DHS will put $1.1 million toward research monitoring Peninsular bighorn sheep, Sonoran desert pronghorn, Mexican gray wolves, jaguars, and ocelots in the borderlands. As the plan is currently written, $500,000 of that money will go toward a pre-existing Peninsular bighorn sheep study conducted by CDFW. These sheep are federally endangered, and the last range-wide population survey conducted in 2020 counted 884 sheep across 1,238 square miles of southern California. 

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Research will also focus on federally-listed jaguars, which are thought to be nearly extirpated from the U.S. The elusive cats once thrived in the American Southwest before habitat loss, poaching, and human conflict decimated the population. As rumblings of reintroducing jaguars to the region radiate through wildlife conservation circles, habitat fragmentation as a result of the border wall and sprawling suburban developments like the Otay Ranch Villages remain a concern.

Getting to Work  

The settlement includes countless other detailed instructions for remediation work (i.e. building materials that need cleaning up) and restrictions on future development (i.e. no wildlife-unfriendly wall or fence construction along specified stretches of the border) that DHS will need to adhere to going forward. The document also sets deadlines for the cash payments DHS must dish out for wildlife research and the Otay Ranch Village 14 acquisition.

Aside from the environmental remediation and mitigation demands of the settlement, DHS must reinvest roughly $427.3 million into the 15 military construction projects across nine states that the money was originally earmarked for.

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After a two-year investigation that involved Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers driving four and a half hours to Oakley, Kansas, a poacher has been brought to justice for illegally killing a bull moose in Teller County, Colorado and then leaving the animal to rot in the woods.   

Oakley resident Steven Samuelson, 33, entered a guilty plea in Teller County District Court on July 10, according to a CPW press release. Charges included felony willful destruction of wildlife, as well as hunting without a proper and valid big game license, aggravated illegal possession of wildlife, failure to prepare wildlife for human consumption, hunting in a careless manner, and illegal take of wildlife, which are all misdemeanors.

Samuelson illegally arrowed the bull moose in September 2021 in a wooded area north of Divide, Colorado, near Pike National Forest. He might have gotten away with it, too, if it wasn’t for the trail cameras that other hunters had hung in the area. The cameras captured photographs of both Samuelson and the moose, and they helped pinpoint the time when the moose was killed.

After seeing these images, the parties reported the crime to CPW and led officers to the dead bull. They found evidence that Samuelson had tried but failed to remove the head. He’d also covered the moose in branches in an effort to hide the crime.

Samuelson illegally arrowed the bull moose in September 2021 in a wooded area north of Divide, Colorado, which lies northwest of Colorado Springs near Pike National Forest. The people who reported the incident to CPW had game cameras hung in the area. These cameras caught both Samuelson and the moose on film. 

When the reporting parties led CPW officers to the location of the moose, they found a large bull that showed evidence of Samuelson’s attempts at removing the head. Samuelson also tried to cover the moose in tree branches to hide the crime.

“This moose was treated unethically and that is something we take very seriously,” said CPW officer and assistant area wildlife manager Travis Sauder. “We are fortunate members of the public share our passion for wildlife and helped us catch the poacher. We rely on honest sportspeople to help us solve these types of cases.”

Finding Samuelson was less easy. Officers used what CPW calls “old-fashioned police work” to eventually track him down. In coordination with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks, two CPW officers drove to Kansas to confront Samuelson at his workplace. They also executed a search warrant on his home. They seized his bow, his cell phone, and other belongings thought to contain evidence. 

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For the felony charge, Samuelson received a two-year deferred jail sentence. That means he won’t have to serve the sentence if he meets all the terms of his plea agreement. He also has to pay a $20,000 fine and lost 65 points against his hunting license. Only 20 points were necessary to suspend his hunting privileges, which means he’s now 45 points in the hole. 

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Brian L. Tidwell of Clarkston, Washington, is being held in Idaho’s Nez Perce County Jail on $25,000 bond after what can only be described as a whirlwind 24 hours on the run. Tidwell currently faces three Class C felony charges: two counts of eluding a pursuing police officer and one count of first-degree reckless burning. He led officers on a high-speed chase across multiple counties. Tidwell was also suspected of poaching a bull elk at one point, though officials later realized the head, neck, and antlers seen sticking out of his truck bed were actually a part of a shoulder mount.

On June 30, Asotin County Sheriff’s Office deputy James Gibson responded to a call about a fire at a residence in Clarkston, Washington, according to arrest records obtained from the Asotin County Clerk’s office by Outdoor Life. The report shows that Tidwell was living near where the fire occurred, and a friend of Tidwell’s neighbor had made the call. Gibson got in touch with Tidwell’s neighbor, who alleged that Tidwell was burning trash at his residence when the fire got out of control and spread to the neighbor’s residence. Tidwell’s entire trailer home, multiple farm implements, and the back of his neighbor’s barn and outhouse had all been damaged. 

Two weeks later, while Gibson was on patrol at roughly 7:30 p.m., he spotted Tidwell’s truck, an orange and black Dodge, at a local park. Tidwell was still a suspect in the burning incident at the time, so Gibson parked his patrol car in front of Tidwell’s truck and approached the driver’s side of the cab, which appeared to be empty. But as Gibson got closer, Tidwell popped up and immediately turned his truck on, saying he had to go. Gibson opened the truck door and told him he wasn’t free to go, but Tidwell slammed the door shut again and sped away. 

A high-speed pursuit began and another officer got involved, chasing Tidwell down the highway while Gibson stationed himself closer to town. Eventually, Tidwell drove back in front of Gibson again, who observed him run a four-way traffic stop full of cars. The second officer noted that Tidwell was exhibiting signs of driving under the influence. As the chase continued, Tidwell eventually drove the wrong way up a one-way exit ramp, forcing several vehicles to pull off the road. Once he got to the top of the ramp, he fled across the Washington state line (formed by the Snake River) into Lewiston, Idaho. The Asotin County officers communicated with the Lewiston Police Department and Nez Perce County, who eventually called off the chase for the night.

The next day at 6:00 p.m., Gibson received word from the dispatcher that a vehicle matching the description of Tidwell’s truck was fleeing Whitman County. Gibson set up on the Clarkston side of the Red Wolf Bridge and watched as Tidwell’s truck drove across. As soon as he crossed, Gibson turned on his lights and siren and attempted to pull over Tidwell, but Tidwell drove straight into a heavily trafficked area, forcing Gibson to abandon the pursuit again for the safety of pedestrians and other vehicles. Later, Tidwell came back into the county. Officers tried to use spike strips to stop the truck, but just barely missed the tires. Tidwell escaped back into Lewiston again, where he was eventually captured on foot.

A press release from the Whitman County Sheriff’s Office, which was posted to their Facebook page, provides some different insight into what happened on the second day of the pursuit.

“The vehicle in question had been reported to [the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife] earlier in the day of possibly poaching in the area and at that time the vehicle was not located,” the press release reads. “Deputies attempted to stop the vehicle using emergency lights on Steptoe Canyon Road but the driver refused to pull over and drove around the patrol car that was northbound on Steptoe Canyon Road. While following the vehicle an elk head with antlers was observed in the bed of the pickup.”

WDFW communications manager Staci Lehman confirmed with Outdoor Life that WDFW is not conducting a poaching investigation into the incident since the antlers and head in the truck bed turned out to be part of a shoulder mount and not a poached carcass. But Lehman also says that law enforcement is looking into whether the mount could have been stolen. 

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Class C felonies get a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a $10,000 fine. If Tidwell is convicted of all three charges, he could face triple that. But the punishment doesn’t stop there. Because one of his “attempting to elude a pursuing police officer” charges involves endangering countless lives with his reckless escape driving, he will get a mandatory 366-day sentence enhancement to whatever penalties he receives, court documents read.

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As if all the biting bugs that are visible to the naked eye weren’t nuisance enough during the summer, the tiny chigger is nearly impossible to spot and produces giant welts that are maddeningly itchy. The good news is that, unlike ticks and mosquitoes, chiggers don’t usually carry diseases in the U.S. and chigger bite treatment can be administered at home with basic first aid supplies.

What chiggers in the U.S. have historically lacked in disease risk, they more than make up for with itch factor. The bites will drive you crazy if you don’t treat them. If you’ve never even heard of chiggers before, then lucky you. If you’re suffering from chigger bites as you read this, then relief is on the way. We’ll cover everything from where chiggers live to what the tiny bugs look like, how they bite, how to differentiate chigger bites from other bug bites, and how to treat them.

What Are Chiggers?

In order to understand proper chigger bite treatment, it’s helpful to first know what chiggers are and where they live. Chiggers are the larval form of a mite species in the Trombiculidae family. They are technically arachnids, like spiders and ticks, although they are much smaller and often aren’t visible without a magnifying glass or microscope. The larvae are less than 1/150th of an inch, while adults are about 1/60th of an inch. If you do manage to get eyes on one, they can be an orange or bright crimson color, hence the other common nickname: berry bugs.

Humans need only worry about these parasites in their newborn larval stage. After hatching, they require a meal to mature into nymphs and adults. They cling to clothing and eventually make their way to skin, where they inject a special digestive enzyme that breaks down skin cells. They actually spend three to four days feeding on the dead, liquified skin cells that result from their saliva. (Contrary to popular belief, chiggers do not feed on human blood as mosquitos do.) This enzyme is what causes the violent itching. Chiggers may stay attached for multiple days to feed on their hosts, assuming the hosts don’t furiously scratch them off. (We don’t recommend doing this, since it won’t make the bites itch any less and could potentially lead to infection.)

Where Do Chiggers Live?

Chiggers lay waiting for their host in wooded areas in tall grasses and shrubs, especially near water and in shade. They exist globally and across the U.S., but are more common in more humid places since they prefer moisture. For that reason, you are more likely to encounter chiggers in the South, Mid-Atlantic, and Great Lakes regions than you are in the Northeast, Northern Midwest, Mountain West or Southwest.

Chiggers are most active during the late spring to early fall months. If the ground temperature is hovering between 77 and 86 degrees Fahrenheit, they’re certainly on the move and looking for a meal. Any ground temperature drop below 42 degrees spells almost certain death for chiggers.

Chigger Bite Symptoms

Telling symptoms of a chigger bite from other bug bites and rashes can be tricky, but knowing what to look for is helpful. Chigger bites are:

• Red
• Itchy
• Small bumps
• Multiple bites in a small area
• Clustered in areas covered by tight-fitting clothing or waistbands
• In areas with thin or wrinkled skin
• Sometimes accompanied by pustules or whiteheads, similar to ingrown hairs

Because chiggers move from clothing onto skin, places where clothing is in close contact with skin are the most vulnerable, second only to places without any clothing cover. Chigger bites are common on the ankles, backs of knees, groin, belt-line, and armpits.

Some people describe chigger bites as a “chigger rash,” since the bites are small and clustered. They can resemble other types of rashes like sun rash or poison ivy. Look for clusters of irritated, little white pustules resembling ingrown hairs rather than liquid-filled blisters or sprawling patches of red skin.

How to Treat a Chigger Bite

If a strange collection of itchy red bites appear after a hike, early-season hunt, or yard work, there are a series of steps you can take to ward off the worst of the symptoms. Steps for chigger bite treatment include:

1. Taking a shower. Wash the area with soap, warm water, and a washcloth or loofah. This step helps ensure that any remaining chiggers wind up down the drain and don’t stay on your skin, drooling skin-melting enzymes onto your ankles or the backs of your knees. Better yet, take a shower or a bath. Scrub a little harder than usual.
2. Doing a load of laundry. Wash any and all clothes, blankets, and other textiles that you brought outdoors in hot water. They might still have chiggers hanging around and waiting for an opportunity to jump to skin.
3. Applying ointment. Treat the bites and rash with over-the-counter anti-itch cream. For some folks, calamine lotion does the best job. Others prefer a hydrocortisone cream, or maybe a swipe of menthol ointment. Keep applying in the days and weeks that follow to stave off the itchiness. 
4. Taking meds. If creams and ointments aren’t getting the job done, take an antihistamine like Benadryl before going to bed. This will treat the itch systemically rather than topically. You can also apply cold compresses to relieve the fiery irritation.
5. Watching the area closely. If you scratch the bites too much and accidentally break the skin, you run the risk of infection, which could require antibiotics to clear up. You could also react to the bites so severely that you require a steroid shot. If anything extreme arises, contact your doctor. Expect the bites to itch for one to two weeks.

Chigger Bite Prevention

Like most other outdoor pests, chigger bites can be prevented with proper care and attention to detail. Insect control is, after all, one of the most important ways to stay safe in the outdoors.

• Wear long, loose-fitting clothing if you’re going to walk through woodlands, tall grass, or brush.
• Before you go outside, douse yourself in an insect repellent of your choosing. Anything you would use as a mosquito repellent for camping should work fine, as long as it has DEET. 
• Consider treating your clothes with permethrin before wearing them outside. Permethrin is considered one of the best tick repellents and can make a big difference in deflecting all types of nasty biting bugs. You can also buy pretreated insect-repellent clothing.
• When you get home, throw your clothes in the wash and take a hot, soapy shower. Scrubbing your skin with lots of soap can help kill chiggers before they get a chance to bite you.

FAQs

Final Thoughts on Chigger Bites

Chiggers can put a damper on an outdoor weekend by leaving you with ferociously itchy skin for the weeks that follow. Having some chigger bite treatment tips memorized can help you avoid the worst of the itchiness, and knowing how to prevent chigger bites in the first place means you probably won’t need to deal with them. As with all bug bites, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.       

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Updated July 17: Mountain lion tracks leading away from Haystack Rock indicate that the mountain lion has left, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife reported in a Facebook post. Cannon Beach has reopened to visitors.

Visitors at Oregon’s Cannon Beach encountered a predator-related beach closure on the morning of July 16, but not for the kind of predator beaches usually close for. Instead of a toothy shark swimming through the surf, photographers glimpsed a mountain lion perched on Haystack Rock at roughly 6:40 a.m.

The sighting prompted local officials with the Oregon State Police, Oregon State Parks, and the City of Cannon Beach Police to close off a section of the iconic beach, which is part of the Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge. They also closed all access roads leading to the area. The beach was still closed as of 9:20 p.m. on July 16 and would remain closed overnight, as the mountain lion was still on the rock, Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuges wrote in a Facebook post.

The beach and road closures were designed to give the cougar an escape route off the rock and back to the coast. It remains unclear whether officials have any plans to try hazing or otherwise encouraging the cougar to climb off the rock.  

The cougar looks wet in photos that were captured the morning before the closure, indicating that it might have swum at least part of the way to the rock. Standing at 235 feet tall and less than 1,000 feet from the shores of Cannon Beach, Haystack Rock is accessible by foot at low tide, and is often surrounded by interesting tidal pools and creatures that draw lots of attention from beachgoers. (Cannon Beach was also a shooting location for movies like The Goonies and Twilight, making it a busy tourist destination.) But low tide on July 16 was at 7:52 a.m., well after when the cougar was first spotted. This means it either walked to the rock during a prior low tide or it swam there during the night. 

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Contrary to popular belief, mountain lions are strong swimmers and will frequently dive into the water to chase prey. Since Haystack Rock provides a major nesting ground for tufted puffins, there’s a chance the cat was attracted by the birds. But now that the cat is on the island, it has yet to climb up to the nesting grounds to feed on any birds, OINWR reports in its Facebook post. Hatchlings are plentiful at the moment, as breeding season began in April. 

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A drake mallard and a turtle were spotted in a swampy standoff on a golf course in Arkansas, which ended with the duck succumbing to its injuries and becoming the turtle’s next meal. The footage, which popular social media brand Nature is Metal shared Thursday, starts with a clip of the duck just barely fighting back against the turtle’s tenacious jaws. But the video eventually cuts to a different clip in which the mallard is clearly dead.

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While NIM doesn’t positively identify the turtle as a snapping turtle, the behavior, size, and shape of the turtle are consistent with the species. It’s tough to tell whether the turtle delivered the first blow to the unsuspecting duck or if it came along to finish the work of another predator. Either way, the turtle had already stripped the duck’s neck of all its feathers before the video began. When the video starts, the turtle has the duck’s neck gripped in its jaws, either by a strip of skin or maybe by the windpipe. The turtle is trying to drag the duck underwater while the duck makes a few final, futile attempts to escape.

The next clip opens with the duck doing a dead man’s float in the murky water. The turtle is visible just beyond the duck, its shell imitating the nearby mess of lily pads. The turtle sneaks its head out of the water, its mouth clamped around a scrap of duck, before dipping back down to feed.

Watch: Grizzly Bear Released from Trap Steals Camera

As the video caption points out, snapping turtles are omnivorous. They eat plant matter as well as spiders, insects, amphibians, birds, and small mammals. Judging by the turtle’s size and the texture of its shell, this was likely a common snapping turtle. Common snapping turtles live in waters across the state, and are smaller than their rarer counterparts, alligator snapping turtles. (Alligator snapping turtles can grow much bigger—upwards of 100 pounds—and exist in southern and eastern Arkansas. Their shells have bumps and ridges reminiscent of an alligator’s scutes, hence their name.)

No matter how events unfolded, the encounter certainly spiced up this guy’s golf game. But as NIM points out, the harsh realities of wildlife have a way of popping up in otherwise tame places.

The post Watch: Turtle Attacks, Kills, and Eats Drake Mallard appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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A photo of a cow moose and her triplets bedded in a Utah woman’s backyard stirred some debate over whether the triplets were moose calves or fawn deer. Few things kick up an Internet dialogue quite like the opportunity to tell strangers they’re wrong. So when Park City, Utah, resident Lesly Levy sent in a photo to local news site Town Lift of a cow moose bedded next to three moose calves in her backyard, a parade of commenters charged in to correct her “misidentification.” Clearly, they argued, due to the size, coloration, and legs that weren’t long or knobby enough, the baby cervids in the photo were deer. 

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Just ask the one commenter who sees “deer and moose co-mingle in my pond (and in nature) all the time,” or the guy whose brother “is an avid deer hunter and said those are deer triplets. Tail and head are dead giveaways!”

But throughout all the debate in the comments, Levy insisted that the young triplets were moose. She was rewarded for sticking to her guns. Utah Division of Wildlife Resources species coordinator Rusty Robinson confirmed in a statement published by Park City news outlet TownLift that the animals are, in fact, moose calves.

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“I can see how someone might confuse them for deer,” Robinson said. “But the coloration, neonatal facial structure, dark eye rings and snout, inconspicuous tail and long legs are all indicators of a moose calf.”

The tail and head are dead giveaways, indeed.

It’s true that in this particular photo the calves do display the mule deer-like brow, and the one visible tail nub could also be considered muley-esque. But the dark coloration around the throat, belly, and back, plus the fact that those calves are significantly bigger than an average deer fawn, should make the species identification pretty simple.

Other photos and footage of a cow moose with triplets roaming Park City have popped up recently. KSL 5 TV posted a video of the cow attacking a flag on the Jeremy Ranch Golf Course to their Facebook page on July 2.

In the footage, the cow charges the flag after seemingly mistaking it for a threat to her calves. If the photo from Levy’s backyard raised any question about what species the babies were, this footage (and other photos) confirms it: those long legs and short, brown bodies belong indisputably to moose calves.

The post A Cow Moose Had Triplets. The Internet Thinks They’re Mule Deer Fawns appeared first on Outdoor Life.

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