The National Weather Service says it was a tornado that damaged dozens of homes and injured at least 15 people in western North Carolina. They confirmed the tornado with winds of around 115 miles an hour.
The storm system struck Rutherford and Burke counties Wednesday afternoon. At least 10 people were hurt in the Ellenboro community of Rutherford County, with five injures reported in Burke County.
Meteorologist Doug Outlaw said the storm first struck in Ellenboro in eastern Rutherford County on Wednesday. Emergency personnel had to airlift three people from the area for medical treatment.
Read more here.
On New Years Day, a Westerville woman was struck by a bullet that is believed to have been fired into the sky. New Years Eve night, 2:11 a.m. Jan. 1, Westerville police responded to a report of a gunshot victim. The 36-year-old woman was able to drive herself to Mount Carmel St. Ann’s Hospital after being struck in the left shoulder by the bullet. She was transported for treatment of the gunshot wound to Riverside Methodist Hospital in stable condition, reports said. It is not yet reported where she was when the incident occurred.
In the Westerville Police reports (below), there have been several random gunshots reported for the last few months. It has been an ongoing thing.
The former House speaker has started a website, Pets With Newt 2012, where he discusses his love of animals and zoos. Newt Gingrich visited nearly 100 zoos around the world. He is known for his love of zoos; and has been fascinated with nature and wildlife since he was a boy. As a child he dreamed of becoming “either a zoo director or a vertebrate paleontologist.”
He and his wife Callista want a dog in the White House, and it’s a friendly disagreement between the couple over what kind and size of dog. Callista wants a small dog and Newt wants a large dog, though he says dogs like a Great Dane are a little too large.
Newt Gingrich is wild about zoos
Washington PostEarlier this year, Gingrich took to Twitter to express his sadness at the untimely death of Knut, a polar bear with an eerily familiar name he had visited at the Berlin Zoo. On the campaign trail, he has occasionally relaxed by stealing away to a reptile house or giraffe enclosure to commune with wildlife. Read more here.
On 8 April 2010, David Kuptana, killed the second grizzly-polar bear hybrid ever confirmed in the wild.
The unusual-looking bear caught the attention of biologists. The bear had thick white fur like a polar bear, but it also had a wide head, brown legs and brown paws like a grizzly.
After inspecting the bear and having DNA testing done, it was found that the bear’s mother was a grizzly-polar hybrid and the father was a grizzly bear.
Polar bears and grizzlies have been successfully paired in zoos before and breeding seasons and territory for the two species overlap.
“We’ve known it’s possible, but actually most of us never thought it would happen,” said Ian Stirling, a polar bear biologist with the Canadian Wildlife Service in Edmonton.
Read more here.
“I think it’s definitely a miracle that I survived,” said bungee jumper, Erin Langworthy. Her cord snapped during a 111-metre nosedive into a crocodile infested African river. The 22-year-old Australian bungee jumped from the Victoria Falls Bridge into the Zambezi River on the border of Zimbabwe and Zambia on New Year’s Eve
Langworthy recalls the harrowing experience: “It went black straight away and I felt like I’d been slapped all over.”
After she hurtled into the crocodile-infested water, her bungee cord, still attached to her feet, had gotten caught on debris.
“I actually had to swim down and yank the bungee cord out of whatever it was caught into,” she said.
Langworthy swam to Zimbabwe’s side of the Zambezi, where she met rescuers. She spent a week in a South African hospital with a broken collar bone and bruising, but luckily escaped without any life-threatening injuries, the Telegraph reported.
The tourism company that organized the jump, Safari Par Excellence, calls the jump “111 metres of pure adrenalin.”
State wildlife officials say a river otter turned up in northwest Ohio for the first time in nearly 100 years. This is the first verified report of an otter in Putnam County in recent history. The Ohio Division of Wildlife says the male otter was recently captured by a trapper along the Auglaize River in Putnam County, near the community of Cloverdale. The river otter in was caught in a raccoon snare that doesn’t kill the animals. unfortunately though, it drowned in flooding on the Auglaize.
River otters have been found in two-thirds of the state’s counties, following a program that reintroduced the species to Ohio in the late 1980s and early ’90s. The otters are native to the state but were extinct in Ohio by the early 20th century. River otters were removed from the State’s endangered species list in 2002.
River otters are native to Ohio; however, they were extirpated from the state by the 1900’s. In 1986, the ODNR-Division of Wildlife began a seven year reintroduction program for river otters. In total, 123 river otters were captured and relocated from Arkansas and Louisiana using modern foothold traps. The otters were released in the Grand River, Killbuck Creek, Little Muskingum River, and Stillwater Creek. Since then, otters have been seen in two-thirds of Ohio’s counties.
River otters are very adapted for swimming. They have a long tapered body, webbed feet, and a long, flattened muscular tail that helps them swim. Otters can reach 38 to 58 inches in length, with 50 percent of their length being tail. They average 7 to 10 inches high and adults can weigh 11 to 33 pounds. In the wild, river otters generally live 10 to 15 years.
Otters generally feed on fish, aquatic insects, crayfish, snakes, frogs, and occasionally some waterfowl and small mammals. Otters are usually nocturnal and feed at night; however, they will sometimes feed at twilight as well. Read more here (press release from Ohio Dept of Natural Resources).
The Illinois law that goes by the nickname, the “roadkill bill”, allows anyone with an Illinois furbearer license to salvage pelts or even food from the road. I had no idea this was ever illegal, but that may be because I never had an interest in roadkill. Some folks do, however, make a living from pelts.
A retired state conservation officer said it is a waste to allow animals’ pelts to rot along the roadside. Rep. Norine Hammond agreed, and pushed the bill through. She said it was an opportunity for some people to make a little money and will save the highway crews from the unpleasant work. Sounds good to me. I bet the workers are happy to skip that task. Yuck. The bill was vetoed the first time by Gov. Pat Quinn, who thought it might be dangerous to have motorists pulling over to scrape up roadkill. The second time it went through without a hitch.
It turns out the at least 14 states have roadkill laws. Illonis released safety tips for those taking advantage of the law. Salvagers should wear gloves at all times and don protective glasses to avoid fluids splashing into eyes. Immediately washing hands and any fluid-stained clothing wouldn’t be a bad idea, either.
Game meat must be cooked to an internal temperature of 160 degrees to kill any bacteria, but partake of roadkill at your own peril. “There are some species that are eaten, particularly raccoon,” said Bob Bluett, an Illinois Department of Natural Resources wildlife biologist. “But it depends on what shape its in and how long it’s been there. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop
A man who legally changed his name to Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop on October 2011, was strangly enough arrested for drugs recently. He was most likely high when he decided on his new name. Either that or he just has a very good sense of humor. He was born Jeffrey Drew Wilschke.
On Jan. 5 Mr. Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-Bop-Bop was arrested for alleged possession of a knife, marijuana, and drug paraphernalia. He was found drinking and using drugs in the area of Reynolds Park on Madison’s Near East Side on Thursday afternoon, Madison police said.
