Coyote gangs

A 51-year-old woman was attacked by coyotes as she walked her dog in southeast Denver, wildlife officials said.

- Denver Post (link here)

Roving gangs of murderous coyotes?

Ferrets and flu virus

In a discovery that could radically change how the world fights influenza, researchers have engineered antibodies that protect against many strains, including the 1918 Spanish flu and the H5N1 bird flu.

The work is so promising that Fauci's institute will offer the researchers grants and access to its ferrets, which can catch human flu.

- Denver Post/NY Times (link here)

La Brea tar pits

Scientists are studying a huge cache of Ice Age fossil deposits recovered near the famous La Brea Tar Pits in the heart of the nation's second-largest city.

Among the finds is a near-intact mammoth skeleton, a skull of an American lion and bones of saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, bison, horses, ground sloths and other mammals.

- AP/azcentral (link here)

Exciting finds. Those were the good old days.

Mercury in walleye and northern pike

The concentration of mercury in walleye and northern pike has shown an unexpected long-term rise in lakes throughout Minnesota, and scientists believe the problem has global causes and consequences.

- Star Tribune (link here)

Very interesting article.

I like the part about blaming it on India and China.

Whitetail deer

I saw three deer at Wehr today.

One was a buck who had already dropped one side of his antlers.

I sure would like to find those dropped antlers.

Lake Winnebago sturgeon

http://www.jsonline.com/sports/outdoors/39695442.html

Interesting story about Lake Winnebago sturgeon.

Are there sturgeon like this in Mullett Lake?

Minnesota saber-tooth

Scientists say the fossils are the first of their kind discovered in Minnesota, meaning that both ice-age mammals, long extinct, ventured farther north than previously thought.

- Star Tribune (link here)

Can't we all just get along?

Two leading animal-rights groups are concerned that Greenwood Village has decided to shoot and trap coyotes, saying that the better strategy is to learn how to live with them.

- Denver Post (link here)

Snakes vs. infants

Police on Tuesday arrested the parents of a 3-year-old boy who last month was bitten and squeezed to the point of unconsciousness by an 18-foot python.

- Las Vegas Review-Journal (link here)

Hawks vs. Squirrels

Thomas Shepler, a hand surgeon, shot a hawk to death in his backyard when he said the bird was eyeing a young squirrel that he and his wife had helped raise.

- Washington Post/Miami Herald (link here)

Denver metro area vs. coyotes

A war against coyotes in the Denver metro area has begun with Greenwood Village firing the first shots.

Greenwood Village's City Council, in a special session Thursday, approved limited shooting of coyotes in public areas of the city, including parks, greenbelts and watersheds.

- Denver Post (link here)

Global warming vs. Fish

Federal fisheries managers have voted to bar all commercial fishing in U.S. waters from north of the Bering Strait and east to the Canadian border in light of the rapid climate changes that are transforming the Arctic.

- Washington Post (link here)

Pity the poor fish (to borrow from the title one of my favorite books).

Wisconsin lion

My dad and brother both sent me this picture of a cougar shot in Wisconsin.

San Diego mammoth

Workers digging at a downtown San Diego construction site have uncovered the prehistoric remains of an 8-foot-long mammoth.

A backhoe operator working at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law site unearthed a 20-foot-long tusk Wednesday.

- AP/Miami Herald (link here)

Seems like a long tusk to body ratio.

Maybe the tusk was from a different animal.

Giant snake

Never mind the 40-foot snake that menaced Jennifer Lopez in the 1997 movie "Anaconda." Not even Hollywood could match a new discovery from the ancient world.

Fossils from northeastern Colombia reveal the biggest snake ever discovered: a behemoth that stretched 42 to 45 feet long, reaching more than 2,500 pounds.

- azcentral (link here)