Backcasts archive: Through April 20, 2007
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Poaching even after the fact doesn't pay for Australian trophy hunter
We've heard of folks going to great lengths to get a trophy mount for their wall, but this is ridiculous.
The Associated Press is reporting the sad case of a man who today received a seven-year prison term for heisting more than 2,000 animal skins, skeletons and skulls from his employer, Sydney's prestigious Australian Museum.
His creature comforts of choice included the clouded leopard, the Ganges River dolphin and the rare Bulmer's fruit bat.
Van Leeuwen began collecting bird and animal specimens, including road kill, as a boy in Holland, the court was told. But his interest became an obsession, costing him his job and, ultimately, his freedom, according to the AP.
That the culprit is an exterminator adds a wild dimension to the story.
Soon after he was hired in 1996, van Leeuwen began stealing specimens from Australia's oldest natural history collection. He was fired in 2003 after police found more than 2,000 exhibits at his home.
Renowned scientist and author Tim Flannery told the court it was "the largest theft of museum holdings every perpetrated in Australia."
Judge Peter Berman rejected van Leeuwen's claim he took the exhibits — valued at more than $730,000 — to protect them, finding he was "obsessed" with possessing them. Some items were irreparably damaged.
"Through his selfish actions, he has cost the Australian Museum not only a great deal of money, but damaged its reputation," Berman said in passing judgment.
The series of thefts is tantamount to poaching after the fact; we're stoked the wrongdoer's seven-year itch has been exterminated, and we applaud the severity of his sentence.
Van Leeuwen had pleaded guilty to stealing from his employer. He must serve five years before he is eligible for parole.
Harnessing energy from elephants
Good news: Reuters reports that scientists in the Netherlands think elephant poop may be used to make biofuel.
Bad news: The cost of acquiring, feeding and caring for a pachyderm for your backyard biofuel station may be prohibitively expensive.
Seriously, though, researchers have discovered a fungus in elephant dung that will help them produce yeast to break down fibers and wood into biofuel.
A commercially viable product using wheat residue is perhaps five years out, business development manager Mark Woldberg from Royal Nedalco, a Dutch alcohol maker, told a biofuels conference this week, according to Reuters.
"Converting wood into ethanol will take some more time," Nedalco added.
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Strange goings-on in the woods of northeast Ohio
Lions and tigers and bear, oh, my. Lions and tigers and bear, oh, my. Lions and tigers and bear, oh, my.
All right, Dorothy, why am I writing, lions and tigers and bear?
When I should be writing goats and sheep and half-deer.
Oh, my, the good folks of Ohio's Chester Township don't know what it is they have wandering around the woods nearby.
State wildlife officials are stumped, according to the Associated Press, as to what local residents have spotted three times in recent months near their homes, some 20 miles east of Cleveland.
"We're not exactly sure what they are," said Allen Lea of the Ohio Division of Wildlife. "But they're definitely not a native species. They're not where they belong."
Area police have received calls offering various descriptions, including those of a bighorn sheep and a wild goat. State wildlife officials have even reviewed photos taken by a resident, the AP reports.
Still, the mystery mammals remain unidentified.
Cleveland Metroparks Zoo representatives have poured over images of the critters and conclude they may be tahrs (a wild goat indigenous to Asia) or mouflons (a wild sheep found in Europe and Asia).
While township police have received no "missing-animal reports," Chief Mark Purchase said, officials here maintain the unknown roamers may have been released or escaped from captivity.
If this all seems a bit like the premise to the 2004 M. Night Shyamalan thriller "The Village," worry not. There is no word of unusual community alliances with the creatures, and they seem to be harmless enough. There are no plans to trap the beasts, Purchase explained.
"We're not looking to run them out," he said. "But we would like to know what they are."
Canadian vessels returning from seal hunt get stuck in ice
The antis must be going nuts over this one.
In a large maritime rescue effort in Newfoundland, Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers are attempting to free some 100 seal hunt vessels in danger of being smashed by thick, expansive, moving ice, the Associated Press reports.
"There's an onshore wind that is compacting the ice," said Department of Fisheries and Oceans spokesman Phil Jenkins. "These boats are on their way back from sealing and then got stuck in the ice. One crew had to abandon their vessel and got picked up by the coast guard."
Fishermen say it is very usual when the ice becomes this daunting to navigate around, according to the AP.
"Ice conditions are some of the most severe we've seen in 25 to 30 years," said Frank Pinhorn, executive director of the Canadian Sealers Association. "I've talked to a lot of sealers and they've got holes punched in their new boats and they're taking on water."
The coast guard is trying to get supplies to those vessels that are "in most dire straits," said Brian Penney, a superintendent with the Coast Guard in Newfoundland and Labrador, who added that fuel and supplies are running low.
Many of the crews are reluctant to abandon their vessels as most sealers consider that option a last resort, Penney explained.
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Flash: A bear does hit in the woods
Bear in mind, when one griz has been hunted down there may be another lying in wait.
That's the painful lesson Lynn Keogh will take with him after a successful Alaska grizzly hunt turned potentially deadly when a second humpback bear attacked the Anchorage hunter.
Keogh, a 42-year-old hunting and fishing guide, shot the first bear as it emerged from a brushy den on the side of a snowy mountain in the Oshetna River valley, according to the Anchorage Daily News.
He was admiring the perfect spring pelt when, after he and his hunting partner, Ray Bendixen, pulled the bear clear of its winter den, he heard the unmistakable deep growl of another bear.
It wasn't seconds later that the bear charged from the den and was on Keogh, biting his body from his leg to his scalp. He was able to get off a single shot before the attack, but soon the griz was chewing on his head.
Fortunately, the quick-thinking Bendixen squeezed off three rounds from his small-caliber rifle into the grizzly's skull and killed the beast.
"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ray saved my life," Keogh said yesterday in a phone interview from his Anchorage home, where he is recuperating.
Keogh was out for a casual day hunt Friday with his longtime friend when the mauling occurred. The pair were on snowmobiles and were in familiar territory.
After Keogh and Bendixen spotted the den and the animal, they watched through binoculars for close to five hours before they moved in closer to shoot it, they said. Both men say they only saw the one bear. Tracks also seemed to show one bear, the Daily News reports
Keogh snowshoed closer to the animal, and when he was about 100 yards away killed it with his rifle.
They estimated the male to be about 3 years old and 6 feet tall, weighing about 400 pounds.
"At this point, that there was a second bear wasn't even a consideration," said Keogh, who grew up in Alaska and has a fair amount of experience hunting bears.
"That's when we heard the growl," said Bendixen, whose rifle was packed about 20 feet away on his snowmobile.
When the second animal emerged, the hunters acted quickly. But the bear, likely the dead bear's mother, was quicker.
Keogh grabbed his rifle and shot it once — a round that went in the left shoulder and through to its left hind leg. The bear, which the hunters said was larger than the dead one, went for Keogh. He tried to reload, but he wasn't quick enough, the Daily News reports.
"Somewhere pretty quick I lost that rifle out of my hand," Keogh said. "At that point, there was nothing I could do."
Bendixen had run back to the snowmobile to recover his gun. He took what Alaska Wildlife Trooper Jon Simeon would later describe as "three awesome, well-placed shots," at the bear's head.
The hunters knew they would need help and headed to an abandoned cabin about five miles away, Bendixen said.
Keogh used his satellite phone to call his son in Anchorage. His son called for help, and a LifeGuard Air Ambulance helicopter rescued Keogh.
He was treated for his wounds and released from the hospital.
Material from the Anchorage Daily News was distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.
Down on the "Bear Farm" is all fun and games (and danger) for grizzly tamer
The hunter above certainly wasn't asking for it, but this next guy might be.
Dubbed a true bear whisperer by the Anchorage Daily News, Charlie Vandergaw of Alaska's Yentna River Valley has photo evidence of him moseying up to breeding grizzlies and nursing an injured brown bear.
Visitors have witnessed the unfathomable: Vandergaw, 68, petting black and brown bears, clowning around with grizzly cubs while sows watch nearby and, get this, sitting atop bruins and teaching them tricks.
The retired Anchorage science teacher's remote "Bear Farm" attracts bruins aplenty. He has other pictures of gangs of bears around his cabin, of individual bears in his residence, and even close-ups of a grizzly's injured mouth.
It's a fascinating feature that conjures up obvious comparisons of the late Timothy Treadwell, the controversial "environmentalist" whose extraordinary life among Alaska brown bears and eventual death by mauling was the basis of the 2005 flick "Grizzly Man."
Even if Vandergaw has ceased feeding the bears on his property, which he claims to be the case, there is no question he is taking a terrible risk just being around them.
In the conversation with an Anchorage Daily News reporter at his homestead, Vandergaw tearfully admitted what he has been doing likely is wrong.
"Actually, it's a sickness I have," he said from deck of the cabin while eyeing a black bear in his yard.
But, hey, this is Alaska, after all, and, as the Daily News makes plain in the piece, In the absence of serious problems, Bush Alaskans tend to tolerate odd behavior in their neighbors.
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What's that? Noise pollution makes fish deaf?
A scientist suspects Navy sonar and maritime shipping are making fish sitting ducks.
Our finned friends use sound as a directional tool and to listen for predators. But noise pollution in our waters may make fish deaf, the Associated Press reports.
Michael Smith, an assistant biology professor at Western Kentucky University, cites sonar and oceanic shipping as possible sources of manmade noises that make fish hard of hearing.
With assistance from student Reagan Gilley and a $10,000 grant, Smith will study the auditory system of fish.
The experiment will expose locally bought rainbow trout, silver perch and goldfish to various sound combinations at a special sound booth at the Western Kentucky University Complex for Engineering and Biological Sciences.
Afterward, tests will be performed to see whether there has been hearing loss. The fish's brain waves will be recorded through electrodes while the fish listen to tones, according to the AP.
"We give a series of pure tones to fish through an underwater speaker, and we increase the intensity of the tones until we detect brain-wave activity," Smith said.
Since bass feed on trout out West, maybe a predator's unfair advantage in chasing a quarry that can't hear isn't such a bad thing. Gentlemen, start your engines — and rev 'em up — because my olfactory senses seem to be unaffected by all this and I smell a world record coming soon to SoCal.
Nibbles the elephant seal is no ton of fun
"It is scary when he jumps in the water with you. He is huge, like a VW bug or something," surf shop worker Craig Henderson said of Nibbles.
We'd be scared, too, friend, if Nibbles, a 2,000-pound lone male elephant seal, started taking bigger bites and directing his toothy maw at us.
That's apparently the case, the Associated Press reports out of Jenner, Calif., as Nibbles is defying his tame nickname by killing smaller seals, menacing a kayaker and chomping on a surfer and a dog on the northern coast of the Golden State.
The one-ton mammal is seen frequently at the Russian River outlet to the Pacific, and local marine recreational outlets are warning the public about the seal's aggression.
On Easter Sunday, it grabbed an 80-pound pit bull and only let her go after Nibbles was attacked by the dog's owner.
"I was throwing a stick in the water for the dog," Angel Garcia said. The dog "started to shake when this torpedo thing launched itself out of the water and grabbed her."
More recently, Nibbles growled at a kayaker, scaring him out of the water, said Suki Waters of Water Treks, a kayaking tour company.
Brit Horn, a California State Parks lifeguard, said the seal has been seen killing smaller harbor seals, according to the AP. They harbor seals apparently have since moved to other areas along the Sonoma County coast.
Nibbles is an adolescent who likely hangs out alone at the river mouth because he is too small to compete for females at elephant seal colonies, Horn said. Adults can grow to 14 feet long and 4,500 pounds.
Let's hope this pest moves on before he gets to the size of an SUV.
Global-warming wagerers may be all wet
If you've got a gambling problem, odds are this isn't going to help.
An online gambling service has started taking bets on global warming, including whether it can submerge some of the East Coast's top vacation spots, according to the Associated Press.
BetUs.com has placed odds at 200-to-1 that Virginia's Cape Henry will be under water by 2015; its odds for Cape Hatteras flooding by the same date are 300-to-1.
Don't bet on it, says Phil Roehrs, a coastal engineer for the city of Virginia Beach. Roehrs said although sea levels are rising along the East Coast, scientists are not predicting anywhere near the levels and dates provided by the gambling service, the AP reports.
"No wonder the odds are so good," Roehrs said.
That hasn't stopped bettors from taking a chance. About 3,000 placed bets during the first three days on online booking, said BetUs.com spokesman Reed Richards.
Most gamblers on the site have put down money that Manhattan will be submerged before New Year's Eve 2011.
"Don't ask me why," Richards said.
We think it's safe to wager the bettors will be all wet, not Manhattan.
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Hungary has too many rabbits, Washington not enough
Just when we call out Washington state's woes in reintroducing rare rabbits to the wild comes word an overabundance of bunnies was snarling traffic in Hungary.
As it turns out, some 5,000 rabbits today blocked a highway, tying up traffic after the truck that was carrying them collided with another vehicle and overturned, the Associated Press reports from Budapest.
Neither driver was hurt, but some 500 rabbits were killed, authorities said.
The M1 highway — the main road between the capitals of Hungary and Austria — was closed for hours while authorities gathered up the animals, Highway Patrol Spokeswoman Viktoria Galik said.
By midday, 4,400 bunnies had been rounded up, but 100 were still roaming the fields surrounding the highway.
"Those 100 are free to go. We will not collect them," Galik said.
State wildlife officials in Washington can only wish they hard such trouble. As we blogged Friday, only a half-dozen of the 20 endangered pygmy rabbits have survived after being released amid much hoopla and national interest March 13 in the Sagebrush Flat Wildlife Area north of Ephrata, Wash.
Most of the Evergreen State bunnies have fallen prey to coyotes, hawks and owls.
Likewise, the ending wasn't so happy for the rabbits that were recaptured in Hungary, the AP reports. They were expected to complete the trip to a slaughterhouse, authorities said.
And least we forget about New Zealand, where an anti-rabbit campaign is afoot to urge residents to decide upon an alternative Easter symbol as part of a program to highlight the damage caused by the non-native pest. The Easter Bunny just isn't cool anymore Down Under.
If Cheney can miss a bird, so, too, can a bird miss its mark
Air Force Two carrying Vice President Dick Cheney struck a bird as the plane neared O'Hare International Airport on Friday, according to the Associated Press. The aircraft landed safely.
It only seems fitting, really. I mean if the veep can miss a shot on a bird and hit a man, then a bird can miss its target (read: the air) and hit the vice prez's aircraft.
You'll remember the flap from last year, when Cheney accidentally blasted a 78-year-old quail hunting companion with birdshot from a 28-gauge shotgun in Texas.
Meanwhile, mechanics checked the plane while Cheney spoke at the Heritage Foundation's annual leadership conference. But the incident did not delay his departure from the airport to return to Washington.
"A bird hit the right engine of the plane upon landing," said Megan McGinn, a spokeswoman for Cheney. "He was told after he delivered his remarks."
About the author: Brett Pauly spent nearly six years editing and publishing ESPNOutdoors.com before moving on to produce the ESPN.com Sports Travel site.
He is a national award-winning writer and editor with 14 years of experience in the newspaper trade. The Evergreen State of Washington is where he makes his home. Click here to email him.
