UpdatedFeb. 28, 20237:48PM ET/PublishedFeb. 28, 20237:47PM ET
A self-styled Montana huntress is well and truly poached after being sentenced for killing, skinning, and posing with a Siberian Husky, according to a Tuesday report from TMZ.Amber Rose Barnespled no contest to a misdemeanor citation of animal cruelty months after her Facebook post last September about having “smoked a wolf pup” ignited a criminal investigation and an avalanche of online hate. The judge, according to TMZ, slapped her on the wrist with a six-month deferred sentence, mandating that she take an online hunter safety class. Barnes will also be barred from using her hunting rifles for the next half-year. The latter aspect of her punishment barely applies, the outlet correctly pointed out, as the Montana hunting season doesn’t open until September.
A mountain lion isn’t happy to be treed in a photo by Wyoming large carnivore biologist Luke Ellsbury. A new law will allow resident hunters to train their dogs longer during the big cat season.
Legislation allowing mountain lion hunters to continue to train their dogs afield after harvest limits are met was signed Monday by Gov. Mark Gordon.
The bill, Senate File 178, authorizes the Wyoming Game and Fish Department to offer permits to mountain lion hunters to pursue lions until the department’s published last day of the season — as long as the lion is not killed.
Previously, once harvest limits were met, all pursuits of the species were immediately halted. The new law, which takes effect July 1, will allow hunters to continue chasing lions for the duration of published season dates, regardless of harvest limits being…
An Italian tourist who shot and killed his lifelong friend during a pigeon-hunting trip to Scotland has been cleared of culpable homicide.
Franco Moroni bowed to the jury and said ‘grazie’ after they took just 30 minutes to find him unanimously not guilty at the end of a week-long trial.
Moroni – who admitted killing Marco Cavola by blasting a shotgun at his head at point-blank range – wept and embraced a supporter after the jury ruled it was a catastrophic accident.
FILE – This undated file photo provided by The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration shows a vaquita porpoise. Mexico announced in the first week of March 2023, that it is seeking to avoid potential trade sanctions for failing to stop the near-extinction of the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise and most endangered marine mammal. Studies estimate there may be as few as eight vaquitas remaining in the Gulf of California, the only place they exist and where they often become entangled in illegal gill nets and drown. (Paula Olson/NOAA via AP File)(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico is seeking to avoid potential trade sanctions this week for failing to stop the near-extinction of the vaquita, the world’s smallest porpoise and most endangered marine mammal.
Studies estimate there may be as few as eight vaquitas remaining…
LEONARD, Texas (KXII) – A Fannin County man has been indicted, related to a fatal hunting trip shooting in Oct.2021.
According to court documents, Jeromy Joe Spearman, 47, of Leonard was charged with manslaughter and tampering with evidence.
Spearman and Christopher Wrinkle, 31, were hunting when Wrinkle was shot in the chest.
Fannin County deputies said when they responded to the scene, Spearman gave inconsistent statements and evidence did not line up with how he said the shooting happened.
Spearman faces up to 20 years in prison, if convicted.
A Miami-Dade police officer has been caught on video wrangling an alligator insouthern Florida.
Thenuisance alligatorwas brought under control by officer Manuel Orol in the Kendall area on Feb. 21, according to TMX News.
“My concern was that the gator needed to be contained so that it wouldn’t leave the area and possibly harm a child or someone walking their dog,” Orol told WSVN after Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers arrived to take the reptile away. “They were saying, ‘Wow, I can’t believe you did that,’ you know, ‘Good job,’ ‘You’re crazy.'”
This tree standis in woods on the outskirts of Altamont. Four hunters in New York State died after falling from tree stands. The Department of Environmental Conservation says it is not always notified when falls occur.
The 2022 hunting seasons tied with 2021 for the safest year, with the lowest number of hunting-related shooting incidents since record-keeping began, according to a Monday release from the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
The DEC’s environmental conservation police officers investigated nine hunting-related shooting incidents in 2022, including one fatality.
However, four hunters died in 2022 after falling from tree stands.
For the past several years, the DEC has tracked and investigated elevated hunting incidents, formerly called tree-stand incidents. These incidents are underreported, the release said, and the DEC is not always notified when falls occur.
A gentleman out hunting for deer in Connecticut killed two German shepherds with a crossbow instead, mistaking the dogs for coyotes. (As if killing coyotes is okay.)
The inept hunter – 61-year-old Michael Konschak – then texted photos of the dead dogs to a taxidermist in hopes of tanning their hides,according to the Miami Herald. To get a head start, he skinned the dogs at his home in New York before realizing he did a crappy job and tossing the pelts in the trash.
Meanwhile, the taxidermist was skeptical as to whether these canines were really coyotes or actually a couple of dogs, and shared the texted photos with others who might be able to better identify the animals. Someone then forwarded the…
The high and damaging winds in parts of the southern U.S. unfolded as mountainous areas of Southern California remained buried under several feet of snow that has left people trapped.
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March 2, 2023, 7:49 PM PST / Updated March 3, 2023, 3:18 AM PST
Thousands across Texas are waking up Friday morning without power following a night of tornado sirens and heavy winds, as a “potent” winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow from the Upper Midwest through New England this weekend.
More than 170,000 homes and businesses were left without power across Texas on Thursday night after severe weather struck parts of the state and others, the Texas utility Oncor said.
As of early Friday, power had been restored to some, with at least 110,000 utility customers still facing outages.
Tornadoes reported in multiple counties
Tornado sirens sounded in Dallas and other parts of Texas on Thursday, and high winds overturned multiple tractor-trailers, officials said. No deaths had been immediately reported.
Tornadoes were reported in Franklin and Hopkins counties in Texas, which are east of Dallas, and in the Shreveport, Louisiana, area, the National Weather Service said.
Storm surveys are being done to confirm whether reported tornadoes actually occurred.
Tornado watches covered around 3.5 million people in Texas and the South on Thursday night, according to the weather service. The watches stretched from east of Dallas into Arkansas and northern Louisiana.
By early Friday, watches had expired for Texas but tornado watches covered northern Louisiana, large parts of Missouri and into Mississippi. The storm was forecast to move into the Ohio and the Tennessee valleys Friday and then continue northeast, the weather service said.
Louisiana State University Shreveport suffered minor damage after a storm hit around 5:45 p.m. There were no injuries, but the winds were powerful enough that two shipping containers parked in a campus parking lot were moved, university Communications Director Erin Smith said.
The weather service in Shreveport said it would investigate possible damage in the region to see whether tornadoes had developed. Video shared by the agency appeared to show one in Shreveport.
NBC Dallas-Fort Worth reported that its crews spotted five overturned tractor-trailers on highways north and east of Dallas.
Parts of California buried under snow
The high and damaging winds in parts of the southern United States occurred as mountainous areas of Southern California remained buried under several feet of snow that has trapped people, authorities there said.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for 13 counties, and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office said ready-to-eat meals would be flown by helicopter to affected communities. The California National Guard said Thursday that a UH-60 Blackhawk was being sent to help.
“We know that roofs are starting to collapse,” Dawn Rowe, chair of the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, whose district includes some of the hardest-hit areas, said Wednesday.
County Fire Chief Dan Munsey said Wednesday that the fire department had responded to almost 100 calls for rescue.
The weather service said the snow total for Snow Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains was 120 inches, or 10 feet, from Feb. 22 to Wednesday. In Crestline, where a grocery store roof collapsed this week, it was 91 inches.
A man clears snow from a driveway near Donner Lake in Truckee, Calif., on Thursday. Tayfun Coskun / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
‘This storm kind of kept coming’
Andrew Braggins, 43, told The Associated Press that the ceiling in his kitchen in Crestline began to bow from the weight of all the snow, prompting him to shovel his roof — where 5 feet had accumulated.
“I’ve got friends just a few roads away, and they’ve been without power for days,” he said. “You can stock up for a storm. But this storm kind of kept coming.”
Some regions now ‘free of drought’
While the recent severe weather has caused chaos for many, central California’s Sierra Nevada and foothills are now “free of drought and abnormal dryness for the first time since January 2020,” according to a new report released by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
“The rain has improved California soil moisture and streamflow levels, while the snow has increased mountain snowpack to much above-normal levels,” it said. “Abnormal dryness and moderate to severe drought were contracted across much of California to reflect the above-normal precipitation of recent months, above-normal snowpack, and improved reservoir levels.”
Meanwhile, abnormal dryness and moderate to extreme drought were also eased in Montana, New Mexico and Utah, while abnormal dryness and moderate drought were pulled back in Arizona, the report said.
‘Potent’ storm to bring weather hazards
Meanwhile, a “potent system” was forecast to produce a “multitude of weather hazards” throughout the eastern third of the country Friday and Saturday, the weather service said.
The storm was expected to rapidly deepen as it approaches “all-time record low sea level pressure values for portions of the Ohio and Missouri valleys,” it said.
“The ongoing severe weather and flash flood risk associated with the system will continue through the early Friday morning hours across the Lower Mississippi Valley, with the threat shifting northeastward throughout the day as the strengthening low lifts northward into the Ohio Valley,” the weather service warned.
Thunderstorms were also expected to have the potential to produce damaging wind gusts, as well as small hail and the possibility of isolated tornadoes Friday, prompting the weather service’s Storm Prediction Center to issue an enhanced risk of severe thunderstorms warning for eastern parts of the Tennessee Valley.
The weather service also warned of the possibility of flash flooding throughout much of the mid-Mississippi and the Ohio valleys, as well as eastward into the mid-Atlantic. A moderate risk of excessive rainfall was possible in parts of northeastern Arkansas, southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois and southern Indiana, it said.
A hunter is facing criminal charges for killing and skinning two pet German Shepherds he allegedly mistook for wild coyotes in Connecticut.
Accused dog killer Michael Konschak allegedly struck the two canines with a crossbow while he was out hunting last November, according to the arrest warrant application. After the 61-year-old killed the animals, he then allegedly skinned them to keep their pelts.
Konschak, of Putnam County, NY, claimed to authorities he mistook the pups…
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Image: Rita_Kochmarjova / shutterstock.com
Exposing the Big Game 