While photographing elk at sunrise in the Cataloochee Valley of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a curious young bull approaches a photographer and sniffs his camera. The photographer hunkers down on the road and waits while the elk gently nudges him.

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This video comes from the Utah Division of Wildlife resources and was shot along the sage brush flats in the Parker Mountain area.

A group of volunteers and wildlife officials captured 236 pronghorn for relocation using a helicopter and the net system explained in the clip. The 236 animals is a small portion of the 2,150 pronghorn estimated on the unit — the management objective for the unit is 1,500, according to Utah Public Radio. The captured pronghorn will be relocated in different states to supplement struggling herds or start new ones.

Of course, the most spectacular part of this conservation effort is the helicopter pilots who buzz the prairie, herding speed goats.

“Pronghorn can run faster than 60 miles per hour,” Teresa Griffin, regional wildlife manager for the DWR told UPR.org. “So, herding them can be very tricky. These pilots have to be the best in the business just to keep up with them.”

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Migration corridors are important for game species all over the world, especially for animals out West like the mule deer. This time-lapse video created by photographers Will and Matt Burrard-Lucas documents the sheer scale of one such phenomenon.

The British duo’s film shows migrating wildebeest crossing the Mara River while moving south into Tanzania from Kenya. Although this event took place over five days, the filmmakers were able to compact it into an unbelievable one-minute video thanks to the magic of time-lapse photography.

The event was documented on the Serengeti, which consists of more than 15,000 square miles and is home to an estimated 1.5 million wildebeest.

For more on this film and the filmmakers, click here.

Want more migration videos? Check out this awesome footage of the longest mule deer migration ever recorded.

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Tawny Tersmette was planning on a hike, but didn’t bargain on encountering these two bull moose fighting the good fight.

Tersmette was driving in Alberta’s Peter Lougheed Provincial Park toward her intended trailhead on Saturday when she encountered the rumble. She told CBC, “We were driving down the highway and rounded the corner to see the moose tumble down the right side of the road. The fight lasted over 20 minutes. The one with the larger antlers won the battle.”

Nothing like a lively fight to get hunters everywhere itching for the rut in their region.

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A Minnesota hunter is lucky to be alive after he was mauled by a 525-pound black bear on Saturday morning.

Craig Lindstrom, of Wyoming, Minn., was bear hunting with several friends in the swamps near Duxbury, Minn., when the attack occurred. The hunt actually took place on the day before when someone in Lindstrom’s party shot the bear with an arrow.

The group initially planned to trail the bear early the next morning, but they thought warm temperatures might spoil the meat. So Lindstrom and two of his buddies began trailing it it in the dark, around 11:30 p.m. They found the bear on the ground about a half hour later, but the bear focused on the group and charged.

“And that’s when they yelled ‘It’s big and it’s coming your way.’ All of the sudden I heard him [Brandon Johnson] screaming—felt like 10 minutes, but was probably two minutes—literally screaming, screaming and you knew he was being mauled,” Lindstrom told KARE 11.

Lindstrom said he began to pray aloud but soon realized that his friend was not dead yet. Rather he was fighting off the bear with a knife.

“He made that thing die because he stabbed it about 20 times while it was chewing on his arm. He kept stabbing it and stabbing it and stabbing it and it was pounding on him, a quarter of a ton—a 525 pound bear pounding on him,” said Lindstrom. “And I’m telling you, he walked out. He walked out.”

Johnson most likely survived thanks to Lindstrom, a Chicago City firefighter, who immediately administered first aid.

“I had two tourniquets on both of his arms. I have a strap, I strapped it around his arms to hold his arms, I put his hands in his pockets and we had a belt and we led him with the belt,” Lindstrom detailed. “I was very emotional all day because I’ve never been a part of anything like this. I cut people out of cars. I’ve hauled people out of bad car accidents on Highway 8. This is just the worst it was. But at the same time, the best there was – because of him.”

It took the party more than three hours to make it out of the woods and to a place where they could call 911 at the Pine County Sheriff’s Office.

“His will to keep going forward, I thought he was dead 10 to 15 times. He would fall down and he told us about telling his parents, his fiancée, his kids—tell them I love them,” said Lindstrom.

Johnson was flown to North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale where he underwent surgery for two broken arms and a dislocated wrist, among other injuries, according to the Star Tribune. He is expected to recover.

The bear, which died about 50 yards from the mauling, was retrieved. “We are going to mount that thing,” said Lindstrom. “So this will be another story. It just happens to be the biggest one.”

This is a more heartening outcome than that of another recent bear attack in New Jersey, which resulted in the death of a hiker.

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Erick and Lauren Fix’s wedding portrait is truly dear. Er…deer.

That’s because the couple managed to have their portrait taken in front of a herd of about 40 whitetails.

Erick and Lauren were married Saturday at a farm near Stockton, N.J. Their photographer Ian Christmann explained to ABC News how the picture came to be. “During dinner, during sunset, this whole herd of deer came up out of the woods,” Christmann said. “I convinced the bride and groom in the middle of dinner to come with me.”

The end result of that session went viral when Christmann uploaded the pic to social media under the title “Deerly Beloved.” This led to the newly married couple discussing their pic on the Today Show.

“It really is an incredible shot,” the new Mrs. Fix told the morning program. “When we saw it, we said, ‘We really have to frame that.’”

The post Herd of Deer Crash New Jersey Wedding appeared first on Outdoor Life.

camovaccrop

Considering the premise of camouflage is based on stealth and concealment, it’s difficult to imagine a product less appropriate to be clad in a pattern of leaves and twigs than a noisy vacuum cleaner, an appliance that is ostensibly used indoors to clean up things like wayward leaves and twigs. But lo and behold the limited-edition Electrolux Ergorapid, “a 2-in-1 cordless stick vacuum with pop-out hand vac that sports Realtree’s Xtra camo pattern,” according to the press release that landed in my inbox last Friday.

Of course, you could make the argument that this particular vacuum is intended as yet another camo’d gag for hunting camp—alongside the camouflage pillow cases, poker chips, and toilet seat—but how many deer camps have ever actually been vacuumed?

Lord knows there are countless products sold today for which a camo cloaking serves more as fashion than function, but what products would it be most absurd to camouflage? Can the vacuum be topped? Let’s hear your ideas in the comments.

The post Inbox: Cordless Camo Vacuum by Electrolux appeared first on Outdoor Life.

A Canadian angler went above and beyond to rescue a fledgling bald eagle struggling to swim in Nanoose Bay in British Columbia.

And it’s all on video.

The angler, known only by his YouTube account “irsrugby1,” noticed the eagle on September 20 while fishing. After determining the eagle to be incapable of safely reaching land, irsrugby1 let the bird rest on the boat (1:50 minute mark), then gently netted the eagle and brought it aboard (4:16).

It’s a long video with the angler’s thumbs periodically obscuring the lens, but the footage of the bird is pretty incredible. After drying its wings, the fledgling attempts to abandon ship (10:10). It does not go as planned.

After returning to shore, the angler took the waterlogged bird of prey to Wildlife Rescue where it was found to be malnourished. Irsrugby1states in the video that the bird will be transported to the O.W.L. refuge in Delta, BC where it will be taught to hunt before being released.

Irsrugby1 promises to update viewers on the bird’s progress.

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A 22-year-old New Jersey man was attacked and killed by a black bear over the weekend, authorities announced Monday. Darsh Patel of Edison, N.J., was hiking with four friends on Sunday afternoon in the Apshawa Preserve, about 40 miles northwest of New York City, when the attack occurred.

According to Reuters, the group scattered after realizing they were being stalked by a bear. Patel did not join the others when the hikers regrouped. His body was found two hours later.

The West Milford Township police department released a statement that said the evidence indicated he had been mauled by a bear. The four-year-old bear weighed about 300 pounds, and was euthanized at the scene by a West Milford police officer.

This is an extremely rare event as black bears are typically non-aggressive toward humans.

Black bears can be found statewide in New Jersey, with the highest concentration being found north of I-80 and west of I-287 (where the preserve is located).

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Last week the Senate attempted to override Missouri governor Jay Nixon’s veto of Bill 506, which would re-designate captive deer as livestock and transfer their management from the Department of Conservation to the Department of Agriculture.

The bill came down to one vote, narrowly failing to pass when Representative Jeff Roorda of Bamhart changed his vote as the ballot was closing.

The real head-scratcher is how the “yay” votes came so close, actually briefly gaining the two-thirds majority needed to overturn the veto.

Representative T.J. McKenna is just as perplexed as we are. “The Department of Conservation and the Department of Agriculture both testified against this bill,” he told Missourinet.com. “I don’t know why we as a legislature continue to do what the people that take care of things tell us is not the right thing to do.”

Our thoughts exactly.

The bill’s failure comes just after proposed new regulations from the Department of Conservation for deer farmers, aimed at preventing the spread of chronic wasting disease (CWD) to wild populations, according to the Kansas City Star.

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