Outdoor News Daily

A USDA Forest Service Law Enforcement Officer was fatally shot Friday, March 5, at the Ocmulgee Bluff Equestrian Recreation Area on the Oconee Ranger District of the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest in Jasper County.

The officer, Christopher Arby Upton, 37, of Monroe, GA, was on routine patrol in the area about 11 p.m. Two individuals were hunting coyote with a high-powered rifle equipped with night vision and apparently mistook the officer for game. After the shooting, the hunters dialed 911 and reported a hunting incident.

“This is a tragic incident where the loss of a Federal officer’s life could have been avoided,” said Steven Ruppert, Special Agent-in-Charge for the Southern Region of the Forest Service. “This is a devastating loss for Chris’ family, our agency, other law enforcement officers and his friends and neighbors in Monroe.
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Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) officers are searching for a cougar that reportedly attacked a child yesterday in Stevens County.

A 5-year-old Canadian boy reportedly was attacked and injured while he was hiking with his family on the Abercrombie Mountain Trail, along Silver Creek in the Colville National Forest east of Northport.

His parents, of Rossland, British Columbia, reported a cougar suddenly jumped out of a brushy area onto the boy, who was near his mother on the trail. The mother reportedly fought off the cougar and the parents took the child to Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail, B.C., about 25 miles away. The boy’s parents have asked that their names not be made public.
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CONCORD, N.H. – Nineteen-year-old Jason Phair, originally of Gorham, Maine, has died of injuries sustained in an All Terrain Vehicle incident in the early morning hours of August 24, 2009. Family members have been notified.

Phair, who had been living with his girlfriend and her parents in Conway, was attending a party at a house in Freedom, N.H. with several others, most of them younger than 21. At approximately 1:00 a.m., some of the attendees were taking turns riding on a 4-wheeled ATV on a private road. Phair reportedly rode as a passenger on the ATV before taking a ride on his own without a helmet. It appears that Phair lost control of the machine and struck a tree about 200 yards from the house.
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A 17-foot-2-inch Burmese python was caught and destroyed on private property in Okeechobee County Thursday afternoon. The male snake weighed 207 pounds, and measured 26 inches in diameter. Its stomach contents were examined, but nothing identifiable was found inside.

Officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) scanned the python but did not find a microchip. As a Reptile of Concern, Burmese pythons must be licensed by FWC’s Captive Wildlife Section and implanted with a microchip to be kept as a pet.
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