Get In Your Fall Camping Vacation
Thursday, October 29th, 2009
It’s nearing that time of year where light jackets are traded in for wool coats and backyard parties are moved indoors. For many hikers and campers, the next few weeks also mark the end of great Fall camping weather. When the rain starts to increase and the temperatures drop below freezing in parts of the country, campers must transition to their winter camping gear or call it a year and wait for spring. So consider this your reminder to use the next couple of weekends to check out the fall colors, get some end of season fresh air and enjoy a fall camping trip. Just do so responsibly:
A Canadian woman, identified as Taylor Mitchell, was attacked by coyotes last week while hiking the Cape Breton Highlands National Park in Nova Scotia. The 19 year old singer/songwriter from Toronto was hiking alone when she was attacked. Nearby hikers heard her screams and called police for help. The police arrived in time to shoot and wound one of the coyotes but both got away. Mitchell was taken to Halifax hospital but died later of her injuries. 
Did you know that reporting on your hunt in Oregon is mandatory? You didn’t? Well, most other hunters don’t either. Oregon requires hunters to contact the Department of Fish and Wildlife after a hunt to record their experience. The goal of this exercise is for the state to get a better gauge of the population year to year so that they can make assessments on the number of tags to issue the next year. However, most hunters neglect to do this. The reasons are twofold: 1.) Many hunters have never had to do this before and don’t know they should do it now and 2.) Though reporting is mandatory, there is no penalty for not doing so. The requirement gets chalked up to being somewhat of an idle threat.