Washington County Sheriff Admits to Idaho Cougar Hunting Violation 🧑‍⚖️

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of the newsletter. If you’re still with us, that means you’ve made it to the middle of yet another week.

With that said, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey and get this mid-week dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about this morning:

• Coming clean - A Washington county sheriff admits to cougar violation 🧑‍⚖️

• Breaking down barriers - A decades-old fence is coming down in Colorado in order to help elk ⛓️‍💥

• Bobcat data - A Washington group wants to count bobcats to help shape management decisions 🐱

• Wanted: ringtail - Wyoming officials are after a rare ringtail spotting 🦝

• 12K turkeys - Ohio’s early bird numbers surpass three-year average 🦃

• Bear on bear - Watch as a brown bear handsomely handles a challenging black bear 🐻 

IS $500 ENOUGH?
WASHINGTON COUNTY SHERIFF ADMITS TO IDAHO COUGAR HUNTING VIOLATION

Admitting to some wrong doing, a Washington state county Sheriff has come clean about attempting to skirt some laws after shooting a mountain lion off the porch of his Idaho cabin. According to a press release penned by Douglas County Sheriff Kevin Morris last week, the sheriff has admitted that he made a bone-headed mistake and paid a $500 settlement back in March for his actions.

County Sheriff Kevin Morris, 52, of Bridgeport, confessed to a game violation in a press release last week after a local news source inquired about the incident. Latah County court documents in Idaho detail that the situation began on October 10 when Morris, who has served as county sheriff since 2018, shot a cougar from his cabin porch near Lewiston, Idaho.

Although cougar hunting season was open and Morris possessed a deer and elk permit that could have been used to tag the animal, he instead had his son purchase a separate cougar permit to claim the kill…

Colorado issues first-ever permit to remove barbed wire threatening elk in Evergreen: A decades-old, barbed wire fence along Highway 74 near Evergreen is finally coming down — thanks to a first-of-its-kind partnership between a nonprofit and the State of Colorado.  Read the full story. 

Apply for a chance to hunt an Arkansas Elk: Hunters interested in pursuing Arkansas’s largest big game animal can apply for a limited hunting permit draw from 8 a.m. May 1 through 11:59 p.m. June 1.  Read the full story.

Numbers of bobcats unknown in WA, population data impacts hunting and trapping: “There is not a single state out there that has a good understanding of the number of bobcats that live in their state,” said Mark Elbroch, who heads the Olympic Cougar Project for Panthera, an international charitable organization dedicated to studying and preserving wild cats. “There’s seriously questionable science supporting a lot of these estimates of abundance that support management decisions,” he said. Read the full story.

French hunter given suspended sentence for killing protected bear: An 81-year-old hunter in France has been fined and handed a four-month suspended jail sentence for killing an endangered bear in the Pyrenees mountains. The man said he had "no other option" but to open fire on the brown bear when it attacked him during a boar-hunt in 2021.  Read the full story.

Ringtail, Rare In Wyoming, Spotted Near Baggs — And Game And Fish Wants It: Distant relatives of raccoons, ringtails are mostly nocturnal, skilled climbers and many people would say, incredibly cute – with huge eyes and pointy, cat-like ears. They’re also seldom seen in Wyoming and are mostly found in deserts in the Southwest United States. Read the full story.

Ohio Hunter Surpass Three-Year Average With Over 12,000 Turkeys Bagged Early This Season: According to recent data from the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Wildlife, hunters across the state have bagged a grand total of 12,451 wild turkeys as of May 4. While some might squawk at the notion, that's an impressive tally only 16 days into the season for the south zone's 83 counties, and a mere two days for those in the northeast zone's select counties of Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, and Trumbull. Read the full story.

Kentucky Elk Hunt Drawing winners announced May 10: The purpose and highlight of the outdoor fest, the announcement will reveal the names of the 500 randomly selected applicants eligible to purchase a 2025 elk hunt permit. A record 95,743 applications for the Kentucky Elk Hunt Drawing were received by the April 30 deadline. Read the full story.

VIDEO // ^{_{SOME THINGS JUST HAVE TO BE SEEN}}

🙈 Nature is a cruel mother f*cker and this footage filmed in BC is a testament to that statement. Watch as this big ol’ brown bear goes to town on a black bear that was no match for his size or strength.

Watching that bear carry his adversary away is something else…

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