Here’s some odds and ends for your email inbox.
I guess you could call this “Meals on Rotors” as The Great Falls Tribune features a story profiling an operation in Canada that airlifts roadkill into the Rocky Mountains in order to feed grizzly bears.
Grizzlies, high in the Alberta Rockies and now emerging from hibernation, are on the receiving end of an airlifted smorgasbord.
Helicopters shuttle roadkill carcasses to denning areas still blanketed in deep snow. And with an average of one big game animal run over every day along nearby highways, a fair-share of hefty elk and moose are mixed among dozens of dead deer to make up a varied menu.
Collected by highway maintenance crews and held in cold storage by the Alberta fish and wildlife branch, the partially frozen bodies are slung below choppers and dropped near denning areas along the Eastern Slope between the Montana border and the Crowsnest Pass.
And, take a whiff out of another great story from the Trib– no that wasn’t a gas leak…just some Scratch n Sniff cards.
Reports of a natural gas smell sparked the evacuation of several buildings in downtown Great Falls on Wednesday morning, but it turns out scratch-and-sniff cards were to blame and not a widespread gas leak.
Nick Bohr, general manager at Energy West, said workers at the company were cleaning out some storage areas and discarded several boxes of scratch-and-sniff cards that it sent out to customers in the past to educate them on what natural gas smells like.
And, The USA Today features this question: “A new study shows that dogs and cats have a better chance at a long, healthy life in some states than in others. How does your state rank?”
Louisiana and Mississippi have the shortest lifespan for dogs and cats, while pets in Colorado and Montana live longer, according to the 2013 State of Pet Health Report released by Banfield Pet Hospital, the world’s largest veterinary practice.
Why the difference? Experts say states with the healthiest and longest living pets also have the highest neutering and spaying rates, more pets living inside and fewer regional infectious diseases.
Take that PETA.