WILDLIFE NEWS OF THE DAY - 050609

First up in wildlife news today, Sam Gowen of the Orange County Register sent along an item about a cougar attack in Southern California; followed by an update on both the dog and the cougar in the next OCR item. Even the mention of a cougar in the neighborhood can cause a panic, as happened in Mountain Home, Idaho, where the false report of a prowling puma forced school officials to invoke a lockdown! The trials and tribulations of a cat that was attacked by a cougar in Corvallis, Oregon, is recounted in the next article. A heroic chow saved his master from the onslaught of a black bear in Toronto, Canada; while California Department of Fish and Game had a wayward 300-pound bear to remove from a Camarillo apartment complex. An innovative and relatively inexpensive mosquito-killing device could help reduce numbers of these tiny wildlife in disease-prone areas of the world (or your backyard, for that matter!) After a wildfire burned 400 acres of the Scott M. Matheson Wetlands Preserve near Moab, Utah, the facility is finally poised to reopen. North Dakota's mule deer population appears not to have suffered from winter snows; but police sharpshooters in a Virginia community culled almost three dozen deer from the burgeoning population. A testament to the growing aggressiveness of coyotes in Florida is provided by the next item; and a coyote is getting the blame for attacking a miniature pinscher in Virginia. A western denizen on an eastern runway caused some headaches for officials at Boston's Logan Airport; while the story of another clash between coyotes and people (and their pets) comes to us from New Jersey. In an interesting (and to wildlife officials, somewhat bothersome) turnabout, a pack of wolves has moved nearer to people in Yellowstone National Park for protection from other wolves! In Arizona, a bald eagle has earned the name 'Supermom' after single-handedly raising a fledgling eaglet after the father disappeared, something very rare in nature. The odyssey of a golden eagle who was found caught in a coyote trap, then collared and released, is covered by the next article; and a rehabilitated bald eagle, the victim of bad food, has been released back into the wild in Wisconsin. Two Vietnamese smugglers are singing the blues after being caught smuggling exotic songbirds into the US. A trio of rabies stories today: a rabid bat caused New Mexican animal control officials to euthanize two cats that it had bitten before it died, and a man is undergoing rabies inoculations as a precaution; Guilford County, North Carolina, chalked up another case of rabies; and rabid wildlife has reached the decade mark in Hall County, Georgia. And finally, imagine picking up the newspaper and realizing that a cat which attacked you nine days ago turned out to be rabid!

Perils of hiking with dogs: Mountain lions

Hunt for mountain lion that injured dog called off

False cougar report keys lockdown

Cougar mauling leaves marks on housecat

Hero pet saved owner from bear attack

Bear wanders into Camarillo apartment complex

Device targets mosquitoes with deadly nectar

Nature preserve near Moab reopens after 2008 wildfire

North Dakota Spring Mule Deer Survey Complete

Staunton police cut deer herd with off-season hunt

Coyotes on the prowl in Lake County attack dogs, disappear with 20-pound Pekingese

Chomped dog: Coyote blamed in pet mauling

Roaming coyote forces Logan Airport runway closures

White Township woman recalls coyote attack against her Chihuahua


Wolves denning right outside Yellowstone headquarters

Bald eagle Supermom defies odds

Golden eagle tracked from Wisconsin to Ontario

Healed bald eagle soars back into the wild

Calif. men accused of smuggling songbirds

Bat in Las Cruces tests positive for rabies

Raccoon marks county's fifth case of rabies this year

Hall County confirms year's 10th rabies case

Rabid cat attacked a fourth resident