Animal freeloaders aren’t uncommon. Suburban homeowners regularly discover squirrels, bats, and even the occasional opossum enjoying a freeloader's life between the boxes of Christmas ornaments and outgrown baby clothes in the attic or crawl ...
Predator
2 Indiana Hunters Mistaken for Coyotes, Shot After Dark
Want to know why positively identifying your target before you squeeze the trigger is one of the primary tenets of gun safety and why blasting indiscriminately into the night at noises is a bad idea? Ask two coyote hunters who were shot by an as-yet ...
Cocaine Cat: Blitzed African Serval Found on Streets of Cincinnati
Move over, Cocaine Bear; there’s a new cat in town. In the wake of the box office smash going totally wild in theaters, a real-live African wild cat found in Cincinnati with coke in its system was recently released from animal care and is now ...
How to Handle Wolves in Colorado Remains Controversial
In November 2020, Colorado voters passed Proposition 114 as a ballot initiative; the measure requires Colorado Parks & Wildlife (CPW) to reintroduce wolves in northwestern Colorado before the end of 2023. As the deadline for reintroduction closes ...
Full Story: How Derek Wolfe Killed a Dog-Hunting Mountain Lion
Last week, former NFL defensive lineman and Super Bowl 50 champion Derek Wolfe killed his first-ever mountain lion with his bow and some help from a buddy’s hounds — and the cat is absolutely massive. The photo Wolfe posted to Instagram garnered ...
Colorado Mountain Lions Kill at Least 15 Dogs Near Small Town
It’s a cat-eat-dog world in Nederland, Colorado. The small town is facing a big cat problem as Colorado mountain lions seem to have developed a taste for the local canines. Lions have been accused of killing and injuring more than 15 dogs in the area ...
Coyote Attack Roundup: 8 More Reasons to Hate On Yotes
Everybody loves to hate coyotes. Since Lewis and Clark first “discovered” Canis latrans on their trailblazing exploration of the frontier, Americans have had a high-key beef with the animal the explorers dubbed a “prairie wolf.” That beef continues ...
Montana Wolf Hunting Is Back On, District Judge Says
In a major win for Montana wolf hunting, a district court judge declined to extend a temporary restraining order that restricted bag limits within the state in a decision handed down on Nov. 29, ruling that the hunting season would not permanently ...
Major Mountain Lion Hunting and Trapping Fight Boils in Texas
The future of mountain lion hunting and trapping is under debate in Texas after an animal-rights group petitioned to change regulations within the state. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission (TPW) directed staff to form a mountain lion working ...
Hunting Coyotes From Helicopters – Death From Above
My dad was a Green Beret back in the day, and he had some pretty cool experiences jumping out of planes and helicopters. When I told him I was going to be hunting coyotes from a helicopter to manage the predator population on a ranch that was losing ...
Wolf Fight Heats Up As Judge Restores ESA Protections
A Feb. 10 court ruling has overturned the 2020 delisting of wolves in the Lower 48, placing them back on the Endangered Species List and fueling the ongoing wolf fight between animal rights groups and the US Fish and Wildlife Service. In Oct. ...
Wolves in Northern Minnesota Helping Moose, Eating Beavers
When it comes to keeping their friends close and their enemies closer, research shows moose in northern Minnesota are seeing a life-saving benefit by co-existing with wolves. On the other hand, beavers in the north woods are becoming a favorite wolf ...
Anti-Hunting Orgs Targeting Big Cat Seasons, Bear Seasons, and Trapping
Anti-hunting organizations are ramping up their game and could make headway in several states and possibly on the federal level in 2022. Their victories will be measured in the number of hunting and trapping seasons that can be banned or canceled, ...
Colorado Mountain Lion Hunting Ban Is Dying, but It’s Not Dead Yet
Update – Feb. 7: A bill that would have banned the hunting of mountain lions and bobcats in Colorado died in committee last week. The bill was postponed indefinitely by the Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in a 4-1 ...
Predator Calling Contests Under Attack From Virginia Lawmaker
Predator calling competitions are currently under fire in the Commonwealth of Virginia, creating concern among some hunters about the future of their sport after a state delegate labeled such contests as violent, gruesome, and purposeless and said ...
Will New Wolf Hunting Regs Kill Yellowstone-Area Tourism?
Since their reintroduction to Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995, gray wolves have been a blessing and a curse, depending on who you ask. The population's strong recovery and subsequent removal from the endangered species list in ...
Coyote Calling: Match Prey Sounds To Kill More ‘Yotes
When I first started coyote calling some 15 years ago, my go-to was the Superjack distress call on my Johnny Stewart electronic caller, and it was money. I'd turn it on — softly at first — then boost the volume for a few minutes. Then, I'd hit the ...
Wild Hunting Tactics: How 7 Apex Predators Do What They Do Best
As all hunters know, putting meat on the table requires patience, skill, know-how, and a healthy dash of luck. That formula isn’t exclusive to human hunters. All of Nature’s best hunters, the apex predators, possess these same traits. Some ...
‘Alarming’ Wolf Hunting Tallies in Yellowstone Not Alarming At All
Wolf hunting in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho in areas bordering Yellowstone National Park has legally taken 20 gray wolves this season, causing concern for the future of the park’s iconic canines and some alarmist headlines, despite thriving ...
Coyote Hunting: Intense Scouting and Planning Pay Off
There was a time when one could head to the prairie, turn on a fairly low-quality e-caller, and bring in song dogs at full tilt before blasting them in the face. Hell, it didn’t even have to be an e-caller. As a young man on the plains, I got coyotes ...
Grizzly Steals Kill From Yellowstone Wolf Pack – Again
A grizzly stealing a kill from a Yellowstone wolf pack is not particularly new news. It’s actually a pretty common occurrence for a grizz to grab an easy meal from wolves after they’ve done the heavy lifting. The two apex predators have been at odds ...
The 8 Greatest Hunting Dog Breeds of All Time
When it comes to flushing birds, retrieving waterfowl, treeing big cats, or tracking wild game, every hunter has a dog in the fight. Many hunting dog breeds are absolute killers when it comes to the chase that’s coursed through their veins for ...
Here Kitty Kitty: The Delicious Ins and Outs of Mountain Lion Hunting
“Do you want a pulled pork sandwich?” I was sitting in a kitchen waiting for a girl to get ready to go to dinner with me and had mentioned that I was starving, so her roommate asked me the question. I looked at the guy with the questioning look I’d ...
The Current Status of Gray Wolves and Hunting in the US
Just 10 months after delisting gray wolves under the Endangered Species Act and then upholding that decision less than a month ago, the US Fish and Wildlife Service has caved to petitions from animal-rights activists. The agency has kicked off a ...
Mountain Lion Hit by Car in Nebraska, Found Dead Next Day
A mountain lion was hit by a car recently near Fullerton, Nebraska, and the animal was later found dead. The event is so rare for this state or any other that it made national news and received more than 1,200 Facebook shares within just a few days. ...
Unarmed Cali Mom Attacks Mountain Lion To Save Her 5-Year-Old Son
A 65-pound mountain lion thought it grabbed some easy prey last week when it blitzed a 5-year-old boy in his front yard near Calabasas, California — that is until it met the boy’s mother. The mother went completely adrenaline-filled apex predator ...
WATCH: Grizzly Bear Versus Wolves
As far as who-would-win fights go, a scrap between a big-ass grizzly bear and a pack of wolves rates right up there at the top. Except we know the answer to this one. Bears and wolves generally don’t mess with each other unless food forces their ...
6 Crazy Facts About the Man-Eating Lions of Tsavo
The sounds of drilling and blasting amid the big rock cliffs over the Tsavo River for the Kenya-Uganda Railroad didn’t scare off the big cats of Africa — it did just the opposite. At night when the bridge construction stopped, and the laborers ...
No Fences: Hunting Lions in Tanzania
International hunting videographer and photographer Dallas Hemeyer recently sat down with Evan Hafer on the Free Range American podcast to discuss the thrill of hunting lions in Tanzania. While all lion hunting is exciting, Hemeyer explained how ...
Mountain Lion and Other ‘Bad’ Meat is Actually Delicious
In a recent talk on the Free Range American podcast, hunter, biologist, and filmmaker Donnie Vincent talked about a mountain lion he’d arrowed in British Columbia and how much everyone in camp had loved the meat from the big cat. “We’d cook a ...