WILD PIGS Authorities are advising against hunting wild pigs, should you see any, as their removal is only effective if an entire group is eliminated. Any pigs that escape quickly learn to evade humans and become more difficult to eradicate. Ontario is asking you to report any wild pig sightings to wildpigs@ontario.ca or goto the […]
Category: Outdoor DIGEST
MARCH DIGEST 2021
CANADA’S NATIONAL BIRD We may have a number of national animals but as yet no national bird. Researchers such as Dan Strickland, former Algonquin Park naturalist, biologist….have long promoted the Whiskey Jack. Also known as the Grey Jay (Canadian spelling) Strickland was part of a successful campaign that convinced the American Ornithological Society to officially […]
MARCH DIGEST 2021
WHAT BIG TEETH YOU HAVE So said Little Red Riding Hood to the big, bad wolf. Wolves are smart. Ask any trapper. If you want to trap a wolf you have to be smarter. Well a five-year summertime of research has taught some American researchers what trappers already know. But it’s nice to have the […]
FEBRUARY DIGEST 2021
THE PREYING MANTIS Learned some interesting information recently about the Preying Mantis while listening to Bob McDonald on the C.B.C.’s popular Quirks and Quarks radio show. Apparently, and someone has studied this, 35% of the time the females eat the male before breeding and 13% after. The males tend to be smaller in size and […]
FEBRUARY DIGEST 2021
SYRUP TIME On February 15, 2020, the Ides of February, almost to this day of publication, I attended opening day celebrating the beginning of maple syrup season at Bata Maples which was symbolic of course, but not by much, as the sap began running by the end of that month. I don’t know if there […]
FEBRUARY DIGEST 2021
SIGNS OF SPRING Two out of three isn’t bad. Perhaps it’s a Canadian versus American phenomenon. On February 2, 2021, at 8 a.m., Nova Scotia’s Shubenacadie Sam called for an early Spring. Sam, by the way, is short for Samantha. She made her prediction an hour before Wiarton Willie, an albino, and Pennsylvania’s Punxsutawney Phil. […]
JANUARY DIGEST 2021 – Name Change
WHAT’S IN A NAME? Ontario’s Geographic Names Board’s mandate is to approve any new names for unnamed bodies of water within the province. Should you wish to name an unnamed lake all applications are free. Many lakes are named after people. As am aside I recall actor Jim Carey wanted to change the name of […]
JANUARY DIGEST – 2021 Smokey the Bear
FIRE PREVENTION POSTER At one time the then MNR had a Smokey the Bear costume that some poor sole had to wear on occasion during public appearances aimed at educating the public about forest fire prevention. I can identify and commiserate because at one time I had to wear a walrus costume at a springtime […]
JANUARY DIGEST -2021
GHOST MOOSE During the week of October 26, 2020 poachers killed two female moose, one of which was white, northeast of Foleyet on Nova Road near km 18. Under the 1997 Fish & Wildlife Conservation Act it is illegal to kill white moose in Wildlife Management Units 30 and 31. White moose have been protected […]
JANUARY DIGEST – 2021
A BOLT IN THE HEAD Carrot the white-tailed buck, so named by wildlife photographer Lee-Anne Carver, has visited her home in Kenora and befriended the family’s Golden Retriever since being orphaned three years ago. In December of 2020 Carver’s husband discovered that the deer had a black carbon-fibre arrow with bright green fletching sticking through […]