Let me start with a caveat. I hate killing snakes — even the venomous species. I can’t count the times I’ve shared a western Kentucky fishing hole with a cottonmouth, or a woodlot of squirrels with a copperhead. As long as I see them first, it’s all good. Still, venomous...
January 8, 2021 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Aggressive squirrels have terrorized a Queens, New York, neighborhood, causing some people to fear leaving their homes. Micheline Frederick is still recovering from bite wounds after she was attacked by a squirrel in December 2020. “You hear someone has been bitten by a squirrel, you’re like ‘Okay, you got a...
December 23, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Last Thursday morning, a Florida woman was awoken to something making noise in her Christmas tree. At first, she thought it was a cat but then realized the furry intruder was actually a raccoon. Fortunately for all of us, she filmed the encounter and the chaos that ensued. According to...
November 30, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
The chubby raccoons in the video above don’t look as though they’ve ever missed a meal, and they have James Blackwood to thank for that. Blackwood, who’s also known as the Raccoon Whisperer to those who watch his YouTube videos, has been feeding wild raccoons for 20 years. He obviously...
August 3, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
A couple of years ago, raccoons wreaked havoc on my screened-in back porch. They tore up cushions, toppled over furniture, and ripped the screen door. So, I set a live trap and waited. Morning after morning, I walked out to discover an empty trap with missing bait. I could never...
May 25, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
As if "murder hornets" aren't scary enough, now Georgia residents have another invasive species to worry about. The tegu lizard, a species native to Argentina, has invaded Georgia and is said to pack a potentially dangerous bite. Mark Mandica, founder and executive director of the Amphibian Foundation in Atlanta, said,...
Most nicknames are earned. They’re worn as a badge of honor, dishonor or plain old mockery. My most notable hunting handle all started on a youth upland bird hunt sponsored by Quail and Pheasants Forever , where I shot a stocked pheasant hen. Of course, while Kentucky does have native...
A 4-year-old Alabama boy is recovering in the hospital after being bitten by a rattlesnake in his own driveway. The encounter was captured on home security footage , and it reveals just how easily a dangerous snake can go undetected. AL.com reports that Spencer Briggs is in a Huntsville Hospital...
March 13, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
The headline for this story sounds like the title of a low-budget horror movie, but believe it: Monkeys — that could be infected with herpes — are spreading across parts of Florida. According to First Coast News , in recent months there have been numbers of sightings of invasive rhesus...
February 14, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Moms will do anything to protect their children, including taking on a crazed otter. According to WisTV.com , a mom came to the rescue when an otter attacked her 17-year-old daughter and her dog in their Lakeland, Florida, home. Just before dawn on Tuesday, Feb. 4, Gwyn Ewert, 17, let...
January 27, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
The idea of an "attack squirrel" is kind of funny. But two women bitten by the squirrel aren't laughing. Residents in Houston's Bridgeland Shores neighborhood said the squirrel started off friendly and playful but has now become aggressive and mean. "We usually don't go outside in the daytime because he...
January 10, 2020 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
An Atlanta couple came home from vacation to discover damage throughout their house. The floors were scratched, the rooms were a mess, the baseboards were chewed up and the kitchen faucet was running. The culprit? A squirrel. Kari and Dustin Drees were visiting family out of town for the holidays...
December 27, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
This time of the year, it's not uncommon for delivered packages to go missing from front porches. It's so common that the thieves have been dubbed Porch Pirates. But those pirates aren't always who you'd expect. A home surveillance camera recently caught footage of a sneaky squirrel grabbing a package...
December 9, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Most of us know that petting a sick wild raccoon is a bad idea, but one 15-year-old had to learn that lesson the hard way. According to Fox13.com , Damien Ransom was skateboarding in the Providence neighborhood in Davenport, Florida, when he saw a raccoon on the road. He said...
December 2, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
One New York hunter experienced an opening day that he won't soon forget. At around 6 a.m., on opening day of firearm season, Tucker Money, a 35-year-old Princeton, Massachusetts, resident, climbed into a stand on his father's property in Ontario County, New York. By about 9 a.m., Money was thinking...
November 4, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Like the country song come to life, a squirrel broke into an Alabama church last week, creating chaos and confusion as parishioners tried to catch it with an offering plate. Similar to the 1984 song “The Mississippi Squirrel Revival” by Ray Stevens, the squirrel scurried amongst those sitting in the...
May 22, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
Preston Boarts of Blairsville, Georgia, thought his three hunting dogs would be safe from a coyote attack. After all, he kept them in caged kennels three feet off the ground. So, he didn't think much about it when he heard commotion and barking early Tuesday morning. But when he went...
April 19, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
A family in Green Township, Ohio, said their pet raccoon had never been aggressive toward their 2-year-old daughter, so they were shocked when the raccoon bit off part of her finger. According to WLWTF , the pet raccoon was euthanized and is being tested for diseases, such as rabies. A...
March 25, 2019 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
A Sarasota, Florida, man was minding his own business when all of a sudden a squirrel ran up his back and attacked him, biting and scratching his arm. It was all caught on a security camera. Turns out Robby Armstrong wasn't the squirrel's only victim. The domesticated squirrel had gone...
December 14, 2018 | The Realblog with Stephanie Mallory
I love the way these two beavers just casually stroll into the Cumberland Farms Store in Fitchburg, Massachusetts. They look like a couple of shoppers who decided to stop in for a quick snack. Surveillance footage shared by the company shows one beaver walk out the door it came in...
