#black-bear-sightings

#black-bear-sightings

"For the first time, we can truly see how popular and meaningful the Appalachian Trail and its landscape are to millions of people," says Cinda Waldbuesser, president and CEO of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, in an official March 2026 statement.

The fireflies were most likely to change their own flashing rhythm in response when the LED blinked almost, but not quite, at the same time as the fireflies. The males would speed up their next flash if the LED blinked just before and waited a bit longer for their next flash when the LED blinked right after.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park was the most popular park in the country last year, drawing more than 11.5 million visitors, according to data from the National Park Service. In fact, the park, which straddles North Carolina and Tennessee, accounted for 12.3 percent of all national park visits.

Tell your peeps to watch for sheep! Share the range with the Tetons' original mountaineers. Bighorn sheep have worked hard to survive the winter at high elevation. By late winter, their fat reserves are running thin and every bit of energy counts. Giving them space will help them make it through the final weeks of winter.

An unnamed tourist saw it and told Aidan Moore, who works for Alcatraz City Cruises. Moore told SFGATE that he was initially skeptical, but the guest's iPhone footage left little room for doubt. The video shows, not a sea lion or an otter, but an actual Canis latrans, doggedly dogpaddling, then clambering out of the water, noticeably shaky and struggling to settle tired paws on the craggy rocks.

A woman walking her dog on the 700 block of Oakglade Drive was approached by the bear at 9:20 a.m. It "kind of charged" the woman, said Lt. Kevin Oberon, before swiping the back of her knee. She was treated for non-life-threatening and non-serious injuries.

Longer days, blooming flowers, and increasing temperatures make spring the perfect time for an escape to one of the 63 major US national parks. After traveling solo to all of them, there are a few I think are especially worth seeing between the months of March and June.

Most residents don't see many bobcats because the animal is "naturally elusive" and has adapted to avoid humans. However, bobcats do take advantage of the food and shelter that people create, said local officials. Animal control officers said that, like coyotes, raccoons, foxes, and skunks, it is also bobcat mating season, which means bobcats will be active and more likely to be seen walking around.

As soon as he moved in, he started hearing babies crying under his floorboards. The renter called the group to help check on the noises he was hearing, and they soon confirmed it was Rose and her new cubs. The renter is now gearing up to spend the rest of the winter with his four furry roommates.

Welcome back to Atlantic Trivia! Are you hungry for more? I hope that while I've been away, you have been enjoying plenty of food for thought-literally. Research shows that berries help improve memory and that a walnut-heavy diet is associated with higher cognitive performance. Fatty fish and leafy greens are linked to slower cognitive decline. Caffeine is a brain boost too.

Despite its lurid poster art, as an ursine rampage film this falls closer to the serious Grizzly Man/Timothy Treadwell end of the scale, rather than the Cocaine Bear one. Based on a freak August 1967 tragedy in which two women were separately mauled to death by grizzlies in Montana's Glacier National Park (described here as a trillion to one occurrence), Burke Doeren's debut grips in tooth'n'claw terms, but is considerably less sure-footed when it comes to people.

The work suggested that resistance arises from a relatively large number of sites, each with relatively minor effects. For example, the sites in the genome identified by quantitative trait analysis typically boosted resistance by about 10 points on the researchers' 100-point scale. In the genome-wide analysis, 17 individual genetic differences were associated with about a quarter of the heritable resistance traits.

I was five years old when I had my first encounter with a black bear. In the spring of 1990, my father, a wildlife biologist, brought home an orphaned three-month-old cub in a cardboard box. The cub's mother, having burrowed beneath the roots of an old tree, had been killed in the den by a logging excavator, but the cub, weighing barely more than a bag of apples, survived. Forestry workers caught the young bear and dropped it off at the Fish and Wildlife office in Peace River, Alberta, where my dad worked, and he called my mom with the news.

I trekked it in December 2023 with plans and a permit to camp at Bright Angel Campground, a scenic cottonwood-shaded hideaway just near the famed Phantom Ranch (the only lodging on the world wonder's floor). Then, two days before my trip, a miracle happened: One last-minute reservation became available for Phantom Ranch. The ranch digs typically book out over a year in advance, but if you're lucky, you can either get in via the lottery or a last-minute opening. This made the grueling but gorgeous hike down and up the steep South Kaibab Trail even more memorable.

In many ways, western North Carolina destinations-like Asheville, Highlands, Hot Springs, and Waynesville, to name just a few-are quite similar. There's typically a genuine appreciation of art, music, food, and craft beer, and life tends to revolve around the great outdoors. And why shouldn't it? The Appalachian Mountains have created a lush, green paradise in this region, complete with stunning views, amazing hikes, and plenty of fresh air.

Many of them were built for purposes that no longer exist - cattle drives, mining prospecting, early U.S. Forest Service fire patrols - while others were packed by the footprints of the Chumash people well before the colonization of North America. Sections of trail cling to steep slopes that seem to barely resist gravity, shedding soil and stone with each winter storm.

The wolves arrived in May of last year, just days after Paul Roen had driven his cattle back up to their summer pasture in Northern California's Sierra Valley. He started finding the bleeding bodies of calves-some still alive, so badly paralyzed that they'd need to be shot. After weeks of this, Roen finally saw a kill himself. "One wolf grabbed a cow and spun her around, while another grabbed a calf," he told me. "He tore it into three pieces in 30 seconds."

AllTrails, a hiking app with trail maps and reviews, dug into insights from their 90 million-plus members and team of trail experts to spotlight lesser-known places where the trail alone is worth planning a trip around. Their guide, Travel-Worthy Trails for 2026, spotlights eight unexpected destinations around the world where the trail is the destination.