Free Republic

SHERIDAN, Wyo. – Retired orthopedic surgeon Chris Smith thought his hunt was over when he bagged a white tail deer with a bow and arrow near Sheridan. Because the light was fading, he decided to return the next day to recover the deer. But when he returned Wednesday morning, the carcass had been covered by grass and bush — which is what mountain lions typically do. Smith, who was unarmed, then saw the big cat about 25 yards away.....

> A new report from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates sea lions ate 4,960 salmon and steelhead during the spring of 2009 — 2.4 percent of the fish passing the dam located near Cascade Locks, Ore. That compares to an adjusted estimate of 4,927, or 2.9 percent of the run, in 2008. And while the number of California sea lions was down — 54 this year compared to 82 in 2008 — the average number of salmon eaten by each one was up, along with the number of Stellar sea lions — 26 this year compared to 17...

CHICAGO - The Federal Aviation Administration said it is investigating the origin of a falling ice chunk that damaged the roof and gutters of a Chicago home. The FAA said it is looking into whether any of the planes approaching O'Hare International Airport, which is located about 10 miles from the home, Wednesday night had water leakage problems, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday. Homeowner Paul Dowd said the large ice chunk hit the roof of the house at about 7:52 p.m. He said a police report was filed and he contacted his insurance company. The home is under a flight...

This is how one would imagine mother nature would express her sentiments about our inability to reduce global warming.

A CROC show presenter from Cairns could be the next Steve Irwin. With the launch of his new wildlife adventure series on DVD, his good looks and his Irwinesque charm, Cairns conservationist Corey Wild is being touted as the new wildlife warrior. "Steve and I share similar interests and passions and he was a great inspiration to me," said Mr Wild, who works as a presenter for a crocodile attack show at the Johnstone River Crocodile Park and as a snake catcher. While Mr Wild has received what he calls "love bites" from crocodiles over the years, he said he...

This moving six-minute clip goes way beyond softball to touch the heart.

"Managing unauthorized access to firearms, particularly KIDS. Just some basic tips about securing firearms so that only YOU have access to them. Not a comprehensive safety video" A few easy to apply common sense tips to secure your firearms from little ones and ideas on dealing with their curiosity about guns.

Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Whitney Isleib has inadvertently stepped into a Halloween controversy by reportedly dressing up as soon-to-be incarcerated rapper Lil' Wayne in black-face. Photos of the blonde-haired cheerleader turned hip-hop impresario were posted to Facebook and eventually made their way to sports blog Deadspin.com. Offensive or just plain fun? Dallas fans are split. (CBS/KTVT) Photo: Dallas Cheerleader Whitney Isleib. "If she wasn't a Dallas cheerleader would it really matter? It's Halloween, you know. You get to go how you want to go" Cowboys fan Laura Pyhrr told CBS 11 Dallas at Sunday's game. Another fan was less sure. "I'm...

Sea lions and other ocean-going animals are proving to the Navy that they’re worth their salt. The Navy has enlisted the natural talents of sea lions, seals and dolphins to help in the recovery of underwater objects and provide security in the water, much as military working dogs do on land. Outfitted with a special harness, sea lions carry cameras that help researchers get a better view of the ocean floor or perhaps catch divers attempting to gain unauthorized access to ports or vessels. The animals also can carry tools such as tow lines to attach to underwater objects. Four...

Sunshine today! The Royal Terns are coming in in large flocks, ahead of cold weather. The Grackles were pleased to see me, as usual. The males are getting over their fear of me. Grackles may be pests in urban areas, but around here they stay in the marshes and on the beach.

Dressing to impress The amazing mating display of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird has been filmed in full for the first time. The spatuletail hummingbird is among the most rare and striking of birds. By using a high speed camera, a BBC natural history film crew was the first to capture the mating sequence in super slow motion. The crew also filmed a male advertising in front of a female, and solved a mystery of how the male birds make a snapping sound during the display. The mating display of the marvellous spatuletail hummingbird (Loddigesia mirabilis) is captured for the BBC...

(CBS) No other object is shaped quite like it. Unique yet ubiquitous, it was the tool upon which all other tools were made for centuries. It is the common anvil. "How do you feel when you're surrounded by anvils?" CBS News correspondent Steve Hartman asked anvil enthusiast Gay Wilkerson. "I'm happy," Wilkerson said. Although Wilkerson's garage in Farmington, Mo., is lined with anvils, this story is about a lot more than just a collection. "Can we call it an obsession?" Hartman asked. "I think so," Wilkerson said. "I think it is. I think it is, yeah." About 20 years ago,...

Ford Motor Co. will haul out piles of arsenic-laced soil found in Ringwood State Park, ending a four-year battle over the source of the waste. The company failed to prove the cancer-causing element was a naturally occurring remnant of mining in the remote mountain in Ringwood, rather than a byproduct of the paint sludge it dumped decades ago. As a result, the federal Environmental Protection Agency is demanding Ford remove the contamination as part of its Superfund cleanup. Plastic tarps now cover several hockey-rink size swaths of the toxic-laden soil. Federal officials say the arsenic isn’t leaching and has not...

Space scientists in the US and UK are planning an incredible mission to go sailing on an alien lake on the far side of the solar system. They are proposing a mission in NASA's low-cost Discovery series to launch an unmanned, nuclear-powered "boat" to Saturn's biggest moon Titan in 2015. It would bob about on a vast sea of liquid methane called Ligeia Mare, radioing home photos and other data for six months.

Carrying the remains of a roughly 30-foot (9-meter) giant squid in her jaws, a female sperm whale, with a calf at her side, swims near the surface off Japan's Bonin Islands (map)in the northwestern Pacific. Taken on October 15, this and other "absolutely sensational" new pictures offer rare proof of the sperm whale's taste for giant squid, said giant squid expert Steve O'Shea of the Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. The pictures may also reveal that adult sperm whales, which grow up to 59 feet (18 meters) long, use pieces of their prizes to teach youngsters how to...

The beauty of the NC Mountains - Fall of 2009.

This is a Revski/o7jimmy classic and an animation that gives one, incite of truth.

Can we reliably, efficiently, and economically store energy to make solar and wind power viable options to replace fossil-fuel or nuclear plants?Few things get our attention more quickly than a loss of electric power. Many of our activities cease the instant energy from a generator many miles away stops supplying the electricity to light our homes or businesses, run our computers, lift our elevators, operate the industrial machinery on which our food supply depends, and countless other labor-saving tasks. While just a slap in the face at first, after a few hours, as food begins to spoil, sewage begins to...

I met another photographer on a forum, turns out he lives not far from the swamp. He rode over today and we went shooting. The tide wasn't really right, had to improvise and go looking for models. There is always something just waiting to be a picture!

Prypiat is an abandoned city in the Zone of alienation in northern Ukraine. It was home to the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant workers, abandoned in 1986 following the Chernobyl disaster. Its population had been around 50,000 prior to the accident.

Animated red-shoulder hawk singing the chorus of the hymn, Until Then, written by; Stuart Hamblen! Home going song!

Vilano Beach begins North of St. Augustine Inlet and runs to South Ponte Vedra. There are large deposits of Coquina clam shells, the main ingredient in Coquina rock, the material used for the Spanish forts here. On the white sand areas there are black streaks of Titanium ore. Ponte Vedra was once home to a Titanium mining operation. The "red shell" has been a traditional place to test beach buggies and 4WD vehicles, it is easy to bury your wheels up to the hubs if you get off the hard pack.

We expect that the next fifteen days will be characterized by average amounts (70-130 percent) of activity relative to climatology. These new 15-day forecasts have replaced the monthly forecasts that we have been issuing in recent years.

Youngsters in Churchill are warned not to dress in furry white costumes, to steer clear of baited traps stuffed with seal meat and to listen for the tell-tale sound of fireworks. That's because these candy-seekers have more to worry about than ghosts and goblins. They need to avoid a different kind of predator on Halloween - the polar bear. School children get a visit from the polar bear patrol team to go over safety tips. On the day of Halloween, several conservation officers take to the sky in a helicopter to see if there are any bears nearby. As dusk...

China’s infatuation with UFOs and UFO sightings really does match that of the US. A week rarely goes past without the media whipping up frenzy over a UFO event somewhere in the country. Many suspect that China’s government is hiding extensive knowledge of extraterrestrial visitors to earth and it is known that the Chinese authorities do collect UFO footage and photographs for the purpose of identification. This video hit the Internet earlier this year but was largely ignored outside of China. Allegedly this UFO sighting occurred in Beijing in 1995 and was held by the Chinese government for top-secret study...

Two solo homers for Chase Utley. The Bronx bombers appear to have wasted their ace as they are down to their final four outs.

SKIES around the far west Queensland town of Boulia are teeming with budgerigars. This year's floods along river systems such as the Diamantina and Georgina sparked prolific breeding by the budgies which have been feasting on an abundance of grass seeds, the Courier-Mail reported. "I have been here since 1983 and never seen anything like it," Boulia grazier Ann Britton said. "The skies are thick with budgies - how they do not collide with each other is a miracle in itself. "My father, who has travelled extensively in the Outback, was with me when we saw a massive flock and...

EUCLID, OH (WTOL) - The Ohio Coast Guard is looking for two pirates on Lake Erie. A man was in his boat on the lake near Cleveland Monday when he says two people pulled up in boat along side him. They robbed him of all his cash, cell phone, keys --and took his fish. The Coast Guard is still searching for the pirates.

"Climate Change" is good. It brings the 4 seasons. "Global Warming" gave us the nothern states and Canada. Now the FACTS are, the Climate has been in a cooling cycle for 12 years now. Here in central California at 7:45 A.M. this morning the air temperature was 5 degrees above freezing or 37 F. Carbon tax that morons.

A butterfly species equipped with tiny ears on its wings can distinguish between high and low pitch sounds, possibly as a way to listen in on nearby birds, new research suggests. Scientists thought butterflies were deaf until 1912 when the first butterfly ears were identified. Only in the past decade or so have researchers examined the anatomy and physiology of butterfly ears, which they are finding to be quite diverse and present in several butterfly species. The latest discovery was made with the blue morpho butterfly (Morpho peleides), which dazzles with its bright-blue wing coloration when it flits about in...

It's the time of the season where the gates open and the nightmares come alive. Where you hear the bumps in the night, the wolves howl, and through the mist, you see the dead come alive. They're coming for treats, but be careful, for they will take your soul.

FRESNO, Calif. — Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon - just in case. In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls. What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty."

Girl, 12, is youngest Minnesotan to kill moose October 23, 2009 Nicollet, Minn (AP) — A Minnesota wildlife official confirms that a 12-year-old girl is the youngest Minnesotan to kill a moose in the modern era. Department of Natural Resources spokesman Lou Cornicelli says Kelly Holmin of Nicollet achieved the distinction earlier this month. The bull moose had a 58-inch antler spread. Kelly bagged it Oct. 13 on the Gunflint Trail. She and her father endured a cold week of wind and snow before they saw the 1,100-pound moose about 75 yards away. Kelly dropped it with a single shot.

My little pond is all dried up, had to go hunting for models. I got a Big Mac and headed for the beach. I was alternating bites of burger and shooting seagulls from the window, looked over and a little femaled Boat Tailed Grackle was sitting in the window watcheng me eat. My camera bag always has a little ziploc full of dry cat food just for these occassions. She ate some from my hand, but I couldn't use a camera that way. I put a handfull on top of my camera bag, and she settled in for lunch. The...

NEW SPECIES PICTURES: 850 Underground Creatures Found The newfound blind cave fish Milyeringa veritas, seen above, inhabits the same Cape Range aquifers as a blind cave eel found during the same survey of Australia's underground habitats. The only blind cave fish known in Australia, the 2-inch-long (5.1-centimeter-long) species is "remarkably versatile," living in freshwater or seawater in underground coastal regions during various stages of its life, researchers say."

Wild dromedary camels, brought to Australia in the mid-19th century to help explore and develop the outback, were left to breed and survive on their own. Now they number a million in the wild and have become pests, officials say. Camels are not usually associated with Australia, but Australia is home to the largest herd of feral camels in the world. About 12,000 dromedary camels were brought to Australia in the mid-19th century to carry people and supplies during the exploration and development of the Interior but after the advent of the automobile, they were abandoned and left to fend...

The fossilised skull of a colossal "sea monster" has been unearthed along the UK's Jurassic Coast. The ferocious predator, which is called a pliosaur, terrorised the oceans 150 million years ago. The skull is 2.4m long, and experts say it could belong to one of the largest pliosaurs ever found: measuring up 16m in length. The fossil, which was found by a local collector, has been purchased by Dorset County Council. It was bought with money from the Heritage Lottery Fund, and it will now be scientifically analysed, prepared and then put on public display at Dorset County Museum. Palaeontologist...

Folks, if you need a break from reading about Obama and other related crap, check this out.It is amazing, funny and a little hair-raising all at the same time!I think it is one of the most remarkable nature videos I have ever seen, because it showed sheer animal athleticism, tenacity, endurance, most hilariously, inventiveness.It showed beyond a doubt that animals have an understanding of their relation to us. Anyone who has owned a dog or cat knows that, but to see it in wild animals that have a one time encounter with these particular humans is completely remarkable.

Set in modern-day Nome, Alaska, where--mysteriously since the 1960s--a disproportionate number of the population has been reported missing every year. Despite multiple FBI investigations of the region, the truth has never been discovered. Here in this remote region, psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler began videotaping sessions with traumatized patients and unwittingly discovered some of the most disturbing evidence of alien abduction ever documented.

Overall Winner "The Storybook Wolf" This nighttime shot of a wolf leaping into a farm in northern Spain has been named overall winner of the Veolia Environnement Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2009 competition. The picture, by Spanish photographer Josi Luis Rodrmguez, was selected from more than 43,000 entries. Iberian wolves--a subspecies of the gray wolf--are extremely wary of humans after centuries of persecution. Rodrmguez captured the photograph using motion sensors and an infrared barrier to operate the camera. "This wolf jumping over the farmer's enclosure with the supposed intent of killing his livestock speaks for itself--thousands of years of...

Modern man and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to leading geneticist Professor Svante Paabo.Professor Paabo, who is director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institution for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, made the claim at a conference in the Cold Springs Laboratory in New York. But Prof Paabo said he was unclear if the couplings had led to children, of if they were capable of producing offspring. "What I'm really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?" he said in an article in The Sunday Times....

Meet the newest odd couple of the animal kingdom: the giant female and tiny male of the largest web-spinning spider known to science: Nephila komaci. The female of the species has a leg span of up to 5 inches (12 centimeters), while the male—which spends much of its time clambering on its partner's back—barely reaches an inch (2.5 centimeters), a new study says.Part of a well-known group of golden orb-weaver spiders—which can spin webs up to three feet (one meter) wide—N. komaci was first identified in a South African museum collection in 2000. But it wasn't until a 2007 field...

With an estimated 1,645 gray wolves now on the landscape in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho, their recovery is heralded by many government officials as an amazing success story. Yet it hasn't come cheap. Americans have spent more than $35 million to protect, reintroduce and manage gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains since they were first put on the list of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act in 1974. And since gray wolves are no longer a federally protected species in Montana and Idaho, those states are now in charge of managing them - and footing the bill for...

The tiniest dinosaur in North America weighed less than a teacup Chihuahua, a new study says. Seen above as an artist's reconstruction in front of a Tyrannosaurus rex skull at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California, the agile Fruitadens haagarorum was just 28 inches (70 centimeters) long and weighed less than two pounds (one kilogram). The diminutive dinosaur likely darted among the legs of larger plant-eaters such as Brachiosaurus and predators such as Allosaurus about 150 million years ago, during the late Jurassic period. Parts of the skulls, vertebrae, arms, and legs from four F. haagarorum...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Last month two men and their teenage sons tackled one of the world's most unforgiving summertime hikes: the Grand Canyon's parched and searing Royal Arch Loop. Along with bedrolls and freeze-dried food, the inexperienced backpackers carried a personal locator beacon - just in case. In the span of three days, the group pushed the panic button three times, mobilizing helicopters for dangerous, lifesaving rescues inside the steep canyon walls. What was that emergency? The water they had found to quench their thirst "tasted salty......"

BUENOS AIRES N.W.R., Arizona | Michael M. Hawkes, manager of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, reaches across his desk and pulls out a homemade blue-and-red bumper sticker that reads, "Littering is always a crime." It turns out that here on the U.S.-Mexico border, even that is a controversial statement — because it's aimed at the humanitarian groups that drop gallon jugs of water on public lands to help illegal immigrants crossing the rugged borderlands.

The Ibis was so venerated in ancient Eygpt that they were even mummified and placed in royal tombs. I think there is a reason. If you are trying to grow crops in a river bottom, in a warm climate, you will be plagued with grubs and bugs and other pests, all trying to eat your veggies. The Ibis is eager to help, they love to eat the pests. Egypt owes a major debt to the Ibis clan.

A debate continues to rage between Wisconsin hunters and the Department of Natural Resources over the true number of deer in the state. Hunters have repeatedly argued the deer population is dropping. The DNR counters saying there are too many deer in Wisconsin and the agency is studying a plan to extend the deer hunting season. Now, hunters say they have the proof they need, a study that reportedly shows car-deer crashes in Wisconsin has dropped and has been dropping for years. Joe Terrien of MJ Collision Center in Bellevue has seen the numbers drop first hand. "Six years ago,...

It is the greatest animal battle on the planet, and it has finally been caught on camera. A BBC natural history crew has filmed the "humpback whale heat run", where 15m long, 40 tonne male whales fight it out to mate with even larger females. During the first complete sequence of this behaviour ever captured, the male humpbacks swim at high speed behind the female, violently jostling for access. The collisions between the males can be violent enough to kill.