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Wildlife officials: Cougar wasn't ill
NEW ORLEANS — A young male cougar shot by police in a Bossier City neighborhood didn't appear ill, a state wildlife official said Wednesday. A preliminary examination Monday did not find obvious medical problems, said Maria Davidson, large carnivore program manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. It may be weeks before final test results are in for rabies and other diseases.
Read complete story from shreveporttimes.com

Philip Morris wetlands filter wastewater
CHESTER, Va. — It started with the gnats. Then came the dragonflies and mice. Eventually the birds, foxes, turtles and deer stumbled upon a man-made wetlands that naturally filters wastewater from the nation's biggest tobacco maker.
Read complete story from The Assiciated Press

Dog frozen to Wis. sidewalk; fat helped it survive
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. — A dog weighing more than 120 pounds survived being frozen to a sidewalk overnight, probably because he was insulated by layers of fat, authorities said. The Sheboygan County Humane Society says the "morbidly obese" dog, an aging border collie mix named Jiffy, froze to the sidewalk when he was left out overnight Wednesday. Shelter manager Carey Payne says few dogs could survive the single-digit temperatures, and it was probably the fat that made the difference.
Read complete story from The Buffalo News

Proposed fee on smelly cows, hogs angers farmers
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — For farmers, this stinks: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law. Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution.
Read complete story from The Associated Press

Penn State fraternity bonded by thrill of the hunt
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Pictures of former fraternity brothers line a wall, and empty soda and beer cartons are stacked near the back door. It's like any other college fraternity house - except for the deer carcass hanging in the front hall.
Read complete story from The Associated Press

Hunter nabbed by card in deer belly
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. — University of New Hampshire public works supervisor David Howard shot and killed a deer on posted property in Lee, hauled it away from a UNH gravel pit, lied about the kill on a registration form in Greenland, then moved the deer's "gut pile" to Stratham in an attempt to avoid prosecution, according to the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.
Read complete story from Seacoastonline.com

Game warden struck and dragged by truck in Newton County
A game warden is recovering Friday morning after he was struck and dragged 100 feet by a pickup truck in Newton County, and despite his injuries, Ellis Powell was still able to fire several shots at the suspect's truck.
Read complete story from KFDM News

R.I. man bags mutant, 4-clawed lady lobster
A lady lobster with four claws was pulled from the deep this week in the waters off Newport. With a large crusher claw and three pincher claws — instead of the usual one — the crustacean was unlike anything 39-year-old lobsterman Patrick Marks had ever seen in his 14 years catching the creatures.
Read complete story from Vermont's Burlington Free Press

Mont. ranch family untangles deer
The chores at the neighbors' ranch went way beyond the usual last Friday for the Walleweins of north Toole County. The family had to gang up to separate two trophy whitetail bucks that had locked horns while fighting during the rut.
Read complete story from Montana's Great Falls Tribune

Customer spots cook butchering deer in pizzeria
A Pennsylvania pizzeria insists venison is not on the menu — despite the impression a customer may have gotten when she saw one of the cooks butchering a deer in the shop's kitchen.
Read complete story from California's Daily Press

Camels found wandering in Mexican border city
It may have seemed like a mirage: Two camels nibbling on a pine tree along a street in this desert metropolis on the Texas border. Police tried lassoing the animals, which lunged at the officers with snapping teeth as onlookers chuckled.
Read complete story from California's Daily Press

Message in bottle tossed off N.J. in '69 found in N.C.
A message in a bottle tossed into the ocean off Barnegat Bay has turned up in North Carolina — 39 years later. The note was sealed in a Schaefer beer bottle. It was dated Aug. 17, 1969 and read: "If found notify the North Haledon Fire Co. 2."
Read complete story from The Associated Press

Angler finds class ring 21 years later in bass
The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
Read complete story from Vermont's Burlington Free Press

Successful trip doesn't always need technology
Hunters are consumers, and we're not talking here about the kind involving chicken-fried venison backstrap or charcoal-grilled dove breasts. We buy a lot of stuff. A lot. Just check the sporting goods stores this weekend or the garage of any hunter.
Read complete story from Houston's Chron.com

Conservation group sues for walrus protection
A conservation group is going to court to force the federal government to consider adding the Pacific walrus to the list of threatened species.
Read complete story from Alabama's Anniston Star

Bacteria found to fight invasive mussels
Researchers seeking to slow the spread of invasive zebra and quagga mussels in American lakes and rivers have found a bacterium that appears to be fatal to the problematic species without affecting native mussels or freshwater fish.
Read complete story from the Chicago Tribune

Hundreds flee raided Dallas cockfight; 3 arrested
DALLAS — Police say they raided a cockfight in a rural part of Dallas, arresting three organizers and sending hundreds of spectators fleeing into the woods.
Read complete story from the Associated Press

Director resigns from state Fish and Wildlife
Jeff Koenings resigned Monday as director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, a position he has held since 1999.
Read complete story from the News Tribune

West Park boy, 15, fatally shot by brother in hunting accident
A West Park 15-year-old has died after his younger brother accidentally shot him in the head while duck hunting, authorities said.
Read complete story from the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Duck hunter shot in apparent accident, dies
A Placer County man died Saturday after he was shot in the back in an apparent hunting accident in southern Glenn County, investigators said.
Read complete story from the Associated Press

Mistake results in officer injury
SAVANNAH — A state Department of Natural Resources officer who was shot Thursday night by a hunter in Port Wentworth was listed in good condition at an area hospital, officials said.
Read complete story from the Athens Banner-Herald

Court weighs power plant costs vs. protecting fish
WASHINGTON — Environmentalists and electricity producers square off Tuesday at the Supreme Court over the use of billions of gallons of water to cool power plants and whether enough is being done to protect fish and aquatic organisms.
Read complete story from the Associated Press

UN officials launch "Year of the Gorilla"
ROME — The "Year of the Gorilla" began Monday, a U.N. effort to raise money for primates threatened with extinction from disease, hunting and deforestation.
Read complete story from the Associated Press

Slain mountain lion to undergo DNA testing
The remains of an aggressive young male mountain lion killed Sunday afternoon in a Bossier City residential area was being transported Monday to Baton Rouge to undergo an ecropsy and DNA tests, officials said.
Read complete story from the Shreveport Times

Buck strikes back: Deer hunter injured
Waking up before the sun, layering on the camouflage and sitting still and quiet in the woods for hours can become a headache for some hunters, but for one Sedalia man his hunting season turned out to be more than just a headache.
Read complete story from The Sedalia Democrat

Search for ivory-billed woodpecker to begin anew
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Last year, Allan Mueller thinks he saw the elusive ivory-billed woodpecker. The wildlife biologist wants to make sure of it this winter.
Read complete story from the Associated Press

Tame deer at Houston sanctuary beheaded
A tame deer known as Mr. Buck has been found beheaded at a wildlife sanctuary in Houston.
Read complete story from The Associated Press

N.D. farmer defies government by draining wetlands
Armed with a tractor or a backhoe, Alvin Peterson moves dirt to drain prairie potholes on his land, saying he's putting the land back to the way God intended.
Read complete story from The Associated Press

N.H. hunter bags burglary suspects
He didn't get a deer, but a hunter in Effingham, N.H., stopped two burglars in their tracks.
Read complete story from Massachusetts' BostonHerald.com

Man convicted in eagle deaths grateful for pardon
Leslie Owen Collier was surrounded by cattle at a livestock auction when his cell phone rang. It was the White House. Twelve years after pleading guilty to federal charges in the deaths of three bald eagles, Collier learned his name was cleared: He was pardoned by President George W. Bush.
Read complete story from The Associated Press

Refill of vanished Wis. lake about to begin
The road is back. The shoreline is reinforced. The dam is stronger. And maybe the dollar signs won't be far behind. The three dozen or so resort and restaurant owners that ring this south-central Wisconsin tourist village's namesake lake have been wringing their hands since heavy rains blew out a section of shoreline in June. The lake rushed through the breach and vanished, taking their livelihoods with it. Now, after nearly six months of hurry-up engineering and construction work, state officials say they're ready to start refilling the lake — perhaps as early as this week.
Read complete story from Vermont's Brattleboro Reformer

Wash. biologist hazes swans away from deadly lead
Years of collecting dead carcasses and examining lead-poisoned livers have convinced Mike Smith of this: to save Pacific Coast trumpeter swans, he has to haze them. His mission is to scare the swans off a local lake, away from the shotgun pellets that litter the lake bottom and have killed hundreds of the birds.
Read complete story from Texas' ValleyMorningStar.com

150 whales die in stranding in Australia
A group of whales that became stranded on a remote coastline in southern Australia were battered to death on rocks before rescuers could save them.
Read complete story from Texas' ValleyMorningStar.com

Mandates driving surge to the river for hydropower
A new generation of low-impact hydroelectric plants is expected to light up the Ohio River Valley. Along the Mississippi River, a city and a small startup firm have separate hopes of harnessing that artery's energy potential either through a few big turbines or thousands of tiny, submerged ones.
Read complete story from Texas' ValleyMorningStar.com

5 deer die jumping onto Ind. highway
Police in Indiana say five deer that wandered onto a highway overpass have jumped to their deaths on Interstate 69, one of them crashing through a tractor-trailer's windshield.
Read complete story from The Associated Press