Telegraph:

The Russian prime minister was visiting the Ussuri reserve in Siberia, observing how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild, when a trapped beast escaped and charged towards a nearby camera crew.

Mr Putin apparently quickly shot the beast and sedated it with a tranquilizer gun.

“Vladimir Putin not only managed to see the giant predator up close but also saved our television crew too,” a presenter on Rossiya television said at the start of the main evening news.

Footage of the former KGB spy, who cultivated a macho image during his eight years as the Kremlin chief, showed him striding through the taiga in camouflage and desert boots before grappling with the tiger.

Mr Putin helped measure the Amur tiger‘s incisors before placing a satellite transmitter around the neck of the beast, which can weigh up to 450 kg.(990 lbs.)

2:01 video

The story comes from Russian media. It might be a contrived propaganda piece. The Russians have a tradition of that sort of thing. But Vladimir Putin is a real student of the martial arts, who has written a serious book on Judo in which he holds an advanced rank. He’s not a complete fake personally, so it is not impossible that this story is legitimate.

The Wall Street Journal describes how policies imposed by environmentalist outsiders are making it difficult for human residents of Eastern Indonesia to co-exist with Varanus komodoensis.

These locals have long viewed the dragons as a reincarnation of fellow kinsfolk, to be treated with reverence. But now, villagers say, the once-friendly dragons have turned into vicious man-eaters. And they blame policies drafted by American-funded environmentalists for this frightening turn of events.

“When I was growing up, I felt the dragons were my family,” says 55-year-old Hajji Faisal. “But today the dragons are angry with us, and see us as enemies.” The reason, he and many other villagers believe, is that environmentalists, in the name of preserving nature, have destroyed Komodo’s age-old symbiosis between dragon and man.

For centuries, local tradition required feeding the dragons — which live more than 50 years, can recognize individual humans and usually stick to fairly small areas. Locals say they always left deer parts for the dragons after a hunt, and often tied goats to a post as sacrifice. Island taboos strictly prohibited hurting the giant reptiles, a possible reason why the dragons have survived in the Komodo area despite becoming extinct everywhere else.

For us, giving food to the dragons is an obligation, our sacred duty,” says Hajji Adam, headman of the park’s biggest village, Kampung Komodo.

Indonesia invited the Nature Conservancy, a Virginia-based environment protection group, to help manage the park in 1995. An Indonesian subsidiary of the group, called Putri Naga Komodo, gained a tourism concession for the park in 2005 and is investing in the conservation effort some $10 million of its own money and matching financing from international donors.

With this funding and advice, park authorities put an end to villagers’ traditional deer hunting, enforcing a prohibition that had been widely disregarded. They declared canines an alien species, and outlawed the villagers’ dogs, which used to keep dragons away from homes. Park authorities banned the goat sacrifices, previously staged on Komodo for the benefit of picture-snapping tourists.

“We don’t want the Komodo dragon to be domesticated. It’s against natural balance,” says Widodo Ramono, policy director of the Nature Conservancy’s Indonesian branch and a former director of the country’s national park service. “We have to keep this conservation area for the purpose of wildlife. It is not for human beings.”

When people hunt deer, it poses a mortal threat to the dragons, which disappeared from a small island near Komodo after poachers decimated deer stocks there, officials say. “If we let the locals hunt again, the dragons will be gone,” says Vinsensius Latief, the national park’s chief for Komodo island. “If we are not strict in enforcing the ban, everything here will be destroyed.”

But, while the deer population remains stable in the park, many dragons these days prefer to seek easier prey in the vicinity of humans. They frequently descend from the hills to the villages, hiding under stilt houses and waiting for a chance to snap at passing chicken or goats. Much to the fury of villagers, park authorities, while endorsing the idea in principle, so far haven’t acted on repeated requests to build dragon-proof fences around the park’s inhabited areas. The measure is estimated to cost about $5,000 per village.

“People are scared because, every day, the dragons come down and eat our goats,” complains Ibrahim Hamso, secretary of the Kampung Rinca village. “Today it’s a goat, and tomorrow it can be our child.”

A year ago, a 9-year-old named Mansur was one such victim. The boy went to answer the call of nature behind a bush near his home in Kampung Komodo. In broad daylight, as terrified relatives looked on, a dragon lunged from his hideout, took a bite of the boy’s stomach and chest, and started crushing his skull.

“We threw branches and stones to drive him away, but the dragon was crazed with blood, and just wouldn’t let go,” says the boy’s father, Jamain, who, like many Indonesians, goes by only one name.

Unlike in the U.S. and many other Western countries, park rangers here don’t routinely put down animals that develop a taste for human flesh.

A few months later, Jamain’s neighbor Mustaming Kiswanto, a 38-year-old who makes a living selling dragon woodcarvings to tourists, and whose son had been bitten by a dragon, was attacked by another giant lizard after falling asleep. In June, five European divers, stranded in an isolated part of the park, said they successfully fended off an aggressive dragon by throwing their weight belts at it. …

To the villagers in Komodo, the recent incidents provide clear evidence of an ominous change in reptile behavior. “I don’t blame the dragons for my boy’s death. I blame those who forbade us from following custom and feeding them,” says Jamain. “If it weren’t for them, my boy would still be alive.”

Officials at the Nature Conservancy’s Indonesian headquarters in Bali dismiss such widespread belief about a connection between the attacks and the ban on feeding the dragons as “superstition.” The group and its Komodo subsidiary reject any responsibility for Mansur’s death.

The boy “shouldn’t have crouched like a prey species in a place where dragons live,” says Marcus Matthews-Sawyer, tourism, marketing and communications director at Putri Naga Komodo. “You’ve got to be very careful about extrapolating and drawing any conclusions.”

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Reuters:

A mountain lion attacked, killed and partially ate a New Mexico man, authorities said on Tuesday.

A search party found the body of Robert Nawojski, 55, in a wooded area near his mobile home in Pinos Altos, New Mexico, late last week, the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said.

Investigators concluded that Nawojski had been attacked and killed by a mountain lion, or cougar, at a spot close to his home, where he lived alone and was known to bathe and shave outdoors.

Spokesman Dan Williams said the lion subsequently dragged the man’s body a short distance into nearby woodland and ate and buried parts of it.

Nawojski was reported missing by his brother last week. A search party found a mountain lion lurking near his home, and reported it to the Department of Game and Fish, who shot and wounded the animal.

AP reports that the recent wave of coyote attacks on small children in the Greater Los Angeles is part of a larger pattern, and is now the subject of academic study.

The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park — but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl’s buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.

Less than a week later, a coyote in a mountain resort town some 35 miles away grabbed a girl by the head and tried to drag her from a front yard until her mother scared it away.

A spate of coyote attacks in the fast-growing suburbs east of Los Angeles have left parents on edge and puzzled wildlife officials.

“Their aggressive behavior seems to be on the upswing,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman with the state Department of Fish and Game. “They just seem to lose their fear of humans.” …

“We’re not sure what pushes them over the edge,” said Robert Timm, a wildlife specialist with the University of California system. “There may be no single explanation for it.” …

Since last year, there have been seven coyote attacks in the Chino Hills area, including four in which children were bitten. State wildlife officials have killed 23 coyotes to protect the public.

Timm, the University of California scientist, said coyotes behave in predictable ways when they turn aggressive such as snatching pets during the daytime or chasing joggers and bicyclists.

If people recognize these signs, they may be able to thwart an attack, he said.

Timm has created a Web site, CoyoteBytes.org, where residents in Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties can report coyote bites or sightings. Scientists use the information to study the scope of the problem.

It isn’t really terribly confusing, actually. Today’s America, in the West, frequently features the close proximity of Nature in the wild with dense urban areas. Nobody in California’s cities and suburbs has the old-fashioned 12 gauge shotgun propped up behind the kitchen door ready for invading predators. Without hunting pressure to make Western predators fearful of human beings, they will inevitably grow bolder over time and sooner or later incidents of human predation will occur.

Hat tip to Frank Dobbs.

Earlier postings.

Fox News reports two more attacks on toddlers by opportunistic coyotes in the Los Angeles area in the same week as the prior Chino Hills park attack.

A coyote grabbed a 2-year-old girl by the head and tried to drag her from the front yard of her mountain home in the third incident of a coyote threatening a small child in Southern California in five days, authorities said.

The coyote attacked the girl around noon Tuesday when her mother, Melissa Rowley, went inside the home for a moment to put away a camera, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in an incident report.

Rowley came out of the house and saw the coyote dragging her daughter towards a street. She ran towards her daughter, and the animal released the girl and ran away, said sheriff’s spokeswoman Arden Wiltshire.

Rowley took her daughter to a hospital where the toddler was treated for several punctures to the head and neck area, and a laceration on her mouth. She was then flown to Loma Linda University Hospital for further treatment, although her injuries were not life-threatening.

State Fish and Game wardens and county animal control authorities set traps for the coyote and were monitoring the neighborhood high in the San Bernardino Mountains about 65 miles miles northeast of Los Angeles.

On Friday, a nanny pulled a 2-year-old girl from the jaws of a coyote at Alterra Park in Chino Hills, a San Bernardino County community about 30 miles east of Los Angeles. The girl suffered puncture wounds to her buttocks and was treated at a hospital.

A coyote came after another toddler in the same park Sunday. The child’s father kicked and chased the coyote away.

First Alterra Park attack.

San Jose Mercury News:

A nanny pulled a 2-year-old girl from the jaws of a coyote Friday when the animal attacked the toddler and tried to carry her away in its mouth, officials said.

The girl was playing in a sandbox at Alterra Park in Chino Hills in San Bernardino County. Around 10:30 a.m., the caretaker heard screaming and saw a coyote trying to carry the child off in its mouth, officials said.

The babysitter grabbed the child and pulled her from the coyote’s grasp, the sheriff’s department said in a statement.

The coyote then ran off into nearby brush.

The child suffered wounds to her buttocks and was taken to Chino Valley Medical Center and was later released…

Miller said there was another attack in the area in October when a coyote bit a 3-year-old girl playing in a cul-de-sac. The girl needed treatment for puncture wounds to the head and thigh, Miller said.

Rocky

AP:

A grizzly bear that appeared in a recent Will Ferrell movie killed a 39-year-old trainer with a bite to his neck Tuesday and had to be subdued with pepper spray.

Three experienced handlers were working with the bear at Randy Miller’s Predators in Action facility when the bear bit 39-year-old Stephan Miller on the neck, said San Bernardino County sheriff’s spokeswoman Cindy Beavers. Stephan Miller is Randy’s cousin, she said.

The center’s staff used pepper spray to subdue and contain the bear and there were no other injuries, she said.

A county Fire Department traumatic injury response unit responded about 3 p.m., but could not revive Miller.

The Department of Fish and Game will decide the bear’s fate after an investigation, Tiffany Swantek, a spokeswoman for the Big Bear Sheriff’s Station, told the San Bernardino Sun Tuesday.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Phelps said the bear was a 5-year-old male named Rocky. The Predators in Action Web site says Rocky is 7 1/2 feet tall, weighs 700 pounds and appeared in a scene in “Semi-Pro” in which Will Ferrell’s character wrestles a bear to promote his basketball team.

Complete story.

Seattle Times:

The man was biking, with his two dogs, in Banner Forest Heritage Park near Olalla around noon when he encountered the bear, said Ron Powers, a battalion chief for South Kitsap Fire and Rescue. The dogs were in front of him on the trail when he heard them barking. He came around a blind corner and was face to face with the bear, Powers said.

The bear charged, and the man picked up his bike to protect himself. But the bear reached through the bike and ripped at the man’s arm, face, back, neck and ear before backing off, Powers said.

“We haven’t had an unprovoked attack like this in a lot of years,” Jackson said. “You’d have to go back 30 or 40 years at least.”

The man was able to get on his bike and ride away. He eventually encountered two other bikers, who called 911. He was transported to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma, where his condition was upgraded Monday from serious to satisfactory.

Authorities set five bear traps Monday at the park, which is expected to remain closed for two weeks. When caught, the bear will be killed. “When it attacks a person, we put it down,” Jackson said.

But some left coast neighbors are defending the bear:

The Department of Fish and Wildlife has set up traps for a bear that attacked a bicyclist on Sunday, and officials say the bear will likely be killed.

But people who live near Banner Forest Heritage Park say the animal did nothing wrong.

Anthony Blasioli, 51, was biking with his two dogs alongside him when he encountered the bear Sunday morning.

The bear charged at the man, cutting his arms, back and neck before he managed to get away. He’s being treated at a Tacoma hospital and was listed in satisfactory condition.

Officials think the bear may have been defending its cubs, and that is what has area residents protesting plans to kill the animal.

“It’s mean, it’s cruel, it’s bad,” said Mike Leathers. “We’re in their territory. The bear and her cubs need to be relocated.”

Fish and Wildlife Sgt. Duane Makoviney it’s very rare for a bear to attack a human, and they have no choice but to euthanize it.

“It could have been worse. We could have a fatality here and we certainly don’t want that to happen,” he said.

Carol Maddux lives just miles from the park and she says bears are seen frequently in the area.

“They’re not aggressive,” she said. “They will back away from you anyone knows that.”

Former Marine Chris Everhart was camping with his three sons, ages 6 to 11, at Low Gap Creek Campgrounds near Helen, Georgia in the Chattahochee National Forest.

Around 9:30 in the evening, a (variously reported as 275 or 300 lb – 125 or 136 kg) female black bear invaded the Everhart campsite, attempting to make off with a food cooler. The overly adventuresome six-year-old Logan Everhart sprang to his family’s defense, seized a shovel and advanced on the bear trying to frighten off the dangerous predator. The bear responded by growling and advancing on the small boy.

Everhart’s knife and pistol were packed away and out of reach, so the desperate father simply grabbed the first weapon that came to hand: a large piece of firewood. Everhart flung the log, striking the bear in the head, fatally. Everhart’s score was one log, one bear.

Everhart was a hero to his sons, but not to the government. The Forest Service promptly gave him a $75 ticket for “failing to secure his campsite.”

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

AP

A black bear (Ursus americanus) made two attacks on campers’ tents in a camping area about two miles above Timpooneke campground in American Fork Canyon, Utah on Sunday.

BYU Newsnet:

The first incident took place before dawn when a bear swatted a tent. The DWR dispatched hunters and hounds to the scene to kill the bear, but conditions were hot and dry and the search was unsuccessful, Karpowitz said.

The second incident took place at about 11 p.m. The boy was alone in a section of the family’s multi-room tent when the bear slashed the tent open and removed the boy in his sleeping bag. …

More than 30 law enforcement officers, four civilians and several bear hounds assisted in the search for the boy, checking nearby campgrounds and vehicles leaving the canyon.

At 1:35 a.m., the boy’s remains were found 300-400 yards from the family’s campsite.

Root said agents from the Division of Wildlife Resources and houndsmen from State Wildlife Resources shot the bear just after noon on Monday.

Deseret News

MSNBC 2:51 video

5-meter-long (16.4-foot-long) anaconda

Washington Post:

A 66-year-old Brazilian saved his grandson from the grip of a 16-foot-long anaconda (probably Eunectes murinus),by beating the snake with rocks and a knife for half an hour, police said Thursday.

“When I saw the snake wrapped around my grandson’s neck I thought it was going to kill him,” Joaquim Pereira told the Agencia Estado news service. “It was agonizing, I pulled it from one side, but it would come back on the other.”

Pereira’s 8-year-old grandson, Mateus, was attacked by the anaconda near a creek on his grandfather’s ranch in the city of Cosmorama, about 250 miles northwest of Sao Paulo.

We almost missed this one. Just found it via a link to NYM.

Associated Press, recently reported (10/12), the case of a spirited and quick-thinking babysitting aunt who saved two nieces and a nephew from an aggressive black bear.

Porthill, Idaho — A northern Idaho babysitter shot and killed a 422-pound black bear that broke into a backyard as three toddlers played.

The woman was watching her sister’s children at their home near the Canadian border early last week when one the kids began screaming, “Bear! Bear”

Becky Henslee says her sister grabbed the youngsters and ran into the house.

As the bear pawed at the screen door, the woman, who did not want to be identified, loaded a hunting rifle.

When the bear looked away, she opened the door a crack and fired twice, killing the animal.

Idaho Fish and Game Conservation Officer Greg Johnson says the bear was likely hungry and drawn to the house by a backyard barbeque.

The shooting was legal — the babysitter had a valid Idaho bear hunting tag.

Bonner County Daily Bee

Hat tip to Traction Control.