Free Republic

An owl flew into a Covington police officer's cruiser early Thursday (Dec. 24), pecking and scratching the officer and leading him to drive into a ditch, Chief Tim Lentz said. Officer Lance Benjamin received only minor scratches from the odd Christmas Eve encounter and was able to finish his shift. Lentz said he thought someone was playing a joke on him when he received a 1:45 a.m. text message that Benjamin had been in an accident involving a nocturnal bird of prey. "Surely nothing as outrageous as an owl flying into a police car could happen. I imagined the next...

Garry Olson Jr., the man who recorded the video was fishing at Lady Bird Lake in Austin, Texas early Saturday morning when the owl swooped down and snatched his lure out of the water, which then caught on to its talon causing it to fall into the water.

The Interior Department said Tuesday that the greater sage grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose vast range spans 11 Western states, does not need federal protections ... The fight over whether to list the bird as endangered or threatened recalled the battle over the spotted owl 25 years ago, where federal protection greatly impeded the logging economy. ... could help defuse a potential political liability for Democrats heading into the 2016 election; ... House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Rob Bishop said Tuesday's announcement was a "cynical ploy" intended to mask the fact that the Obama administration has imposed limits on development...

Iconographic studies of Teotihuacan murals confirm the extension of the lineage of a ruler of the ancient city of Tikal, Guatemala, already revealed by epigraphists of the Maya area. The aforementioned investigation sums up to interpretations of Stele 31 of Tikal that relate to the dynastic line of Atlatl-Cauac ("Dart-thrower Owl"), possible ruler of Teotihuacan between 374 and 439 AD, and whose son, Yax Nuun Ayiin I, was seignior of Tikal. The emblem of this lineage would be represented by the image of a bird with a shield, observed in Teotihuacan murals, declared Dr. Raul Garcia Chavez, researcher at the...

Sales of leases on 8.1 million acres of federal oil and gas parcels — an area larger than Massachusetts and Rhode Island combined — are on hold because of worries that drilling could harm greater sage grouse... the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s delay on the parcels underscores just how much is at stake for an industry that finds its future inextricably intertwined with a bird once known primarily for its elaborate mating display. The grouse’s huge range, covering portions of 11 states and an area more than four times as big as New England, includes vast oil, gas and...

American taxpayers will be tremendously relieved to know that the U.S. government is hard at work trying to get official endangered status for ... the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse and the feds want to designate it a critical habitat protected under the Endangered Species Act, the 1973 law signed by President Richard Nixon to protect species from extinction as a “consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation.” The federal government’s list of more than 1,300 threatened or endangered species ... The Service is proposing to designate around 14,561 acres of critical habitat along streams...

Sally Jewell on Thursday breezed through a committee vote to lead the Interior Department but the agency’s proposal to list the sage grouse as an endangered species threatens to block her nomination from reaching the full Senate. ... some Republican lawmakers were not satisfied with Jewell’s responses to written and oral questions about her past association with the National Park Association’s lawsuits against the government and future plans to list the sage grouse as an endangered species. Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) threatened to put a hold on Jewell’s nomination before it goes to a floor vote unless the agency commits...

Whenever birds fly in front of moving vehicles, usually the bird is the one that loses. But a great horned owl can teach other birds a thing about surviving those situations. Sonji Coney-Williams was driving Feb. 7 on Florida's Turnpike through Yeehaw Junction when she saw something fly in front of her SUV and heard a smack, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. She continued driving for 150 miles to Plantation, not thinking about the incident, until the next day when someone told her she had a bird trapped in the grill of the sport utility vehicle....

An owl has been freed after it was found trapped behind the grille of a sport utility vehicle. When Sonji Coney Williams looked into the grille of her SUV, she noticed huge yellow eyes staring back at her. "I was about to faint," said Williams. She found an owl stuck inside. On Thursday, she was heading south on the Florida Turnpike. "I was driving about 60 miles per hour, and he never moved, and so I said, 'Oh, my God, I hit a bird,' and I felt so bad, but it was very dark," she said.... ...It was not until...

Christopher Weaver was one of thousands of prisoners released from Oregon jails last year until his “get-out-of-jail-free” card quickly turned into a round-trip ticket and he was arrested a few hours later for robbing a bank. Local officials blamed the purge of 5,500 jailbirds including Weaver on dwindling federal funds marked for prison operations, but that revenue source was intended to be only a temporary economic fix. Those funds backfilled local tax revenue losses following the Oregon timber industry’s sharp decline in production after the 1990 spotted owl controversy. “The release of these inmates from the Lane County Jail is...

RENO -- As part of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) National Sage-Grouse Planning Strategy, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are holding interactive social and economic public workshops. ... Interested partners will be guided on how to contribute social and economic information in the development of the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement to amend Land Use Plans throughout the Greater Sage-grouse’s range in Nevada and Northeast California. They will also provide an opportunity for individuals to provide information regarding the use of public lands resources, how public lands influence their quality of life and how the BLM and U.S....

1.) Occupy DC brings social justice through knocking down old ladies — On Friday night, a howling mob of Occupy DC geniuses stormed the Washington Convention Center, blocked traffic, hurt some elderly people, and kept parents with small children and a woman in a wheelchair from leaving. All because there was somebody inside they didn’t like. So where were the cops? TheDC’s Matthew Boyle reports: “Americans For Prosperity staffers told The Daily Caller that Washington, D.C. 911 operators hung up on them four times when they asked for extra police to help them deal with the Occupy DC protesters who...

Way back in 1968, after the riots at the Democratic Convention in Chicago, Mayor Daley declared his forces were there to "preserve disorder." I believe that was one of Hizzoner's famous malapropisms. Forty-three years later Jean Quan, mayor of Oakland, and the Oakland City Council have made "preserving disorder" the official municipal policy. Last Wednesday, the "Occupy Oakland" occupiers rampaged through the city, shutting down the nation's fifth-busiest port, forcing stores to close, terrorizing those residents foolish enough to commit the reactionary crime of "shopping," destroying ATMs, spraying the Christ the Light Cathedral with the insightful observation "F**k", etc. And...

A popular superstition holding that owls are bad luck caused Arab farmers to refuse for quite some time to put up nesting boxes for the birds, even though they are widely used by Jewish farmers as a form of biological pest control. But this attitude has begun to change of late, thanks to the efforts of an ornithologist from the Lower Galilee village of Iksal. Samah Darawshe, of the Israel Ornithology Center, has managed to persuade Arab farmers in the Lower Galilee to put up dozens of nesting boxes over the last year, and dozens more are slated to go...

A woman returned to her Cumbrian home to find a near perfect imprint of an owl on her window. The bird had apparently crashed into the window of Sally Arnold's Kendal home, leaving the bizarre image - complete with eyes, beak and feathers. Experts said the silhouette was left by the bird's "powder down" - a substance protecting growing feathers. Mrs Arnold said she could find no sign of the owl, so assumed it had flown off without serious injury. She said: "Our first concern was for the welfare of what we suspected was an owl and we opened up...

A Colombian soccer team's mascot owl died after being kicked by a rival player, Radio Santa Fe reported Tuesday. The bird landed on the field with an apparent broken wing during Sunday's game between Barranquilla's Atletico Junior and Deportivo Pereira. The visitors' Panamanian striker Luis Moreno kicked the owl off the field, provoking a furious reaction from the Baranquilla crowd, who considered the bird to be a good luck charm. Moreno had to be protected by police when walking off the field. He is facing a possible one to three months in jail and a maximum fine of 50,000 pesos...

First they came for the loggers, destroying 30,000 jobs and countless lives. Now they’re coming for the Barred Owl. Anyone remember the Great Spotted Owl Controversy? Back in the late 80s and early 90s, it was the first major instance of the environmental movement (with the cooperation of Al Gore and the Clinton administration) using the Endangered Species Act to accomplish their stealth goal — in this case driving productive mankind out of millions of acres of federally owned old-growth forest. When a judge ruled that cutting down trees endangered the picky owl’s habitat and had to end, it sparked...

CRYSTAL LAKE, Ill - An Illinois man credited his Chihuahua's winter jacket with saving the small canine from a great horned owl attack. George Kalomiris said he was walking the 4-pound dog, Chico, in the early hours Wednesday in Crystal Lake when the owl swooped out of the darkness and tried to grab the canine, the Chicago Sun-Times reported Tuesday. However, Kalomiris said the owl could not get a good grip on Chico because of the dog's puffy winter jacket. He said the dog suffered scratches to his head and a puncture wound, but quickly recovered from the injuries. Rebecca...

The owl in this video has a set of eyes that will melt your heart, as it acts like a cat or dog when you scratch behind their ears. The type of owl is called a "Forest Eagle" owl, while the scientific name is "Bubo Nipalensis". The owner named the owl Kitty, and just like a cat, it really enjoys getting scratched on the back of the neck. Follow this link to see, The Owl That Likes Human Attention

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/seniors-across-america-host-local-meetings-participate-health-care-tele-town-hall-m Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 07, 2010 Seniors Across America to Host Local Meetings, Participate in Health Care Tele-Town Hall Meeting with President Obama Senior Obama Administration Officials to Attend Local Meetings WASHINGTON—On Tuesday morning, senior citizens across the country will gather at a series of local meetings to participate via phone in a national tele-town hall meeting on the Affordable Care Act with President Barack Obama. Additionally, more than a dozen senior Obama Administration officials will...