Alaska wildlife photographer killed by moose while on the job 🙏

The weekend might not be here yet, but your favorite dispatch from the great outdoors is. 

So grab your coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and let's get caught up on the outdoor news and views from the past few days and kick off the Memorial Day weekend. 🇺🇸

Here's what caught our eye this week...

• Pushing the envelope - Photographer dies doing what he loved 🙏

• The whitest black duck - DNA confirms first of it’s kind 🦆

• A culinary lesson - Family learns the hard way how to cook bear meat 🥘

• Fractured skull - 10-year-old suffers injuries in deer incident at school 🤕

• Skunks mowing down deer - Yup. Someone found a skunk feasting on a fawn 🦨

ONE UNFORTUNATELY BAD DECISION
ALASKA WILDLIFE PHOTOGRAPHER KILLED BY MOOSE WHILE ON THE JOB

While we may not all put our lives on the line doing what we love, there are some that do. Outside of the obvious vocations such as law enforcement or firefighting, there are many others that put themselves in harm’s way to get the job done, or in this case, to get the perfect shot.

Dale Chorman, 70, of Homer, AK was best known for his feathered subjects, but when he learned of a cow moose giving birth on his property, he couldn’t resist the opportunity to photograph the rare opportunity. According to reports, Chorman had already been in close to the cow moose and her calves that same morning, but called a friend to help accompany him back to the scene to gather more photos.

In what some would deem as pushing the envelope, Chorman and his friend did eventually head back into the woods to find the cow and her calves. 

“They were going down to see how close they could get to see if they could get any pictures of the newborn twins, but it was a really thick, real dense part of the woods,” Chorman’s friend and local journalist Tim Kizzia told Alaska Public Media on Tuesday. “It was thick alder and elderberry, like we know around here, and suddenly out of nowhere, that moose was coming at them. They hadn’t seen it.”

HEADLINES // ^{_{DIGESTIBLE SNIPPETS}}

🦆 A white black duck - A December duck hunting trip has turned partly historic for one Massachusetts man after he shot what he at first believed to be a leucistic mallard or game-farm mallard duck. With feathers as blonde as 45’s comb-over, hunter Mike Wec was puzzled as to what exactly it was that he shot out of the sky on that frigid morning. After knocking down the now famous blonde duck along with a black duck, a pair of drake mallards and a wood duck, he headed back home to share the morning’s take with his wife.

Immediately intrigued by the pale feathers of the mysterious duck, Wec’s wife landed on Ducks Unlimited (DU) and the University of Texas at El Paso's (UTEP) duckDNA project after a quick Google search. She provided a quick tissue sample and sent it on in for analysis as the pair waited patiently for the results to come back. A few months later, the Wec’s received the results from the lab that show that the duck was a 100 percent pure American black duck female and the first genetically documented leucistic individual of its species.

Dr. Phil Lavretsky, leading the duckDNA program at UTEP, remarked on the significance of this discovery: "This is a huge showcase of what duckDNA provides both to hunters and scientists in cooperation together at a level we've never had before. No more assumptions and biases—there is no hiding DNA."

🥘 Cook your damn bear meat - A family reunion turned sour after the head chef, who was serving some recently acquired Canadian black bear, undercooked the meat. Gathering in South Dakota for a summer reunion, family members traveled from Arizona, Minnesota and South Dakota for a special get together. Looking to share the bounty from a recent hunt in Saskatchewan, one of the family members prepared a number of bear meat kabobs to share with the family. If you ask me, bear meat on a stick is a welcome addition to any family reunion, but always ensure you have a meat thermometer on hand. Without one, as this family soon learned, you run the risk of contracting trichinellosis and infection of Trichinella nematodes (roundworms).

This family, as you might have guessed, was without a thermometer and accidentally served the first round of kabobs slightly undercooked. Noticing the mistake, the chef put them back on the grill, but not before a few family members had sampled the goods. After traveling back home, one Minnesota-based family member sought care for a mysterious illness marked by fever, severe muscle pains, swelling around his eyes (periorbital edema), high levels of infection-fighting white blood cells (eosinophilia, a common response to parasites), and other laboratory anomalies. Doctors later learned about the bear meat incident and six infected family members were eventually treated and have since recovered.

☣️ Foiled by the spray - Like scoring on your own net (we see you, Rangers), one grizzly mama’s attack was foiled when she activated her victim’s canister of bear spray as she mounted her attack. Yes, a Massachusetts man was hiking solo in Grand Teton National Park when he encountered a grizzly bear cub. Swift thinking caused him to reach for his bear spray, but the female bear was on top of him before he could fully handle it. Fortunately for him, momma’s first bite was directly into the pressurized canister which subsequently blew up in her face causing her and her youngins to retreat. The man was treated for minor injuries and officials announced that they would not be pursuing the bear as she was defending her cubs during the incident.

Serious injuries for girl in deer incident - A 10-year-old girl is recovering after being trampled by a scared deer in the school yard last month. According to reports, a deer ended up on the grounds of the Sierra Elementary school in Placerville, CA and a number of students started to harass the animal. 

“It was a freak accident,” the girl’s grandmother said. “I guess one of the kids was teasing with it and kicked it. So, when the deer got kicked, it just bolted.” 

The scared deer took off and sent the 10-year-old flying. When she landed, she had suffered numerous injuries. According to reports, the girl suffered from a fractured skull, inner ear issues and an injury to her eye and has since been released from hospital.

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🐕 That dog'll fish  - Watch as trail camera footage captures a female wolf lying quietly on an island in the middle of a river to wait-in-ambush for a fish. Looking to feed her new pups, this momma is raising up right on this pescatarian-leaning newborn diet. 

🦨 Skunks are eating our deer - Well, if you were looking for more things to add to the list of ‘sh*t I never expected to see’ (which is growing by the day), add this video of a skunk gnawing down on a baby fawn in South Carolina. Hearing the bleats from his yard, the homeowner sprung into action and somehow managed to get the skunk off the deer without being sprayed.

WEEKEND MEME // ^{_{MEMORIAL DAY SPEECH PREP}}

WANDERINGS // ^{_{A SFW GLIMPSE OF OUR BROWSER HISTORY}}

Spy slang - here’s 24 words you ought to know. How to become a motorcycle outlaw. Yes, you can still fly with a pocket knife. Here’s how. How the Airstream hit the open road. My eyes hurt…this airplane/helicopter hybrid just successfully completed its first flight.

EYE CANDY // ^{_{PICTURES > WORDS}}

Thank you to those that gave everything for this great country 🙏 🇺🇸

📸 by @shortstache