Everyone knows to not disturb a bird’s nest. In fact, many folks enforce the myth that birds abandon every egg or fledgling touched by humans. Why, then, must wildlife agencies remind the masses each May and June to keep their mitts off “abandoned” fawns curled beneath shrubs, backyard decks, and...

Adam Crockett lay death-still and unblinking as a doctor pushed a needle into his right eyeball and withdrew built-up fluid. With that task complete, the doctor at the Cole Eye Institute in Cleveland pushed a second needle deep into the back of Crockett’s eye, all the way to the retina. Stopping...

If you bought crappie fillets online last year, you likely paid over $20 per pound. That’s assuming you found a supplier with crappies in stock. If not, you likely bought something cheaper, such as lake trout, $10.90; catfish, $11; or even walleye, $16.30. In stock or out, most—if not all—wild...

Arnold J. Magoon, 47, was a fit, lean, well-liked, experienced Vermont game warden who stood 6-foot-6 and feared no one. Magoon was nicknamed “the Jolly Green Giant” by fellow wardens. He, his wife, and two sons lived near Brandon in central Vermont. His colleagues described him as a calm...

The Boone and Crockett Club defines “fair chase” as hunting wild game in a lawful, ethical, and sportsmanlike way that doesn’t give hunters unfair or improper advantage. On the opposite extreme are killers who eagerly and brutally attack animals that have little or no chance of escaping. Such...

Tomorrow’s anthropologists will have files an inch deep and a mile wide when they try cataloging and explaining the traditions and post-kill rituals of today’s North American hunters. That’s to be expected, given that Canada, the United States, and our hunting traditions are relatively young and...

Overnight winds had swept the oaks below, blowing fresh snow into drifts higher than a whitetail’s brisket. I knew the snow’s depth because a doe crossing the woods below me was plowing a furrow in the fluffy blanket as she approached. The doe paused occasionally in her midmorning stroll to browse...

Thievery has its tools of the trade. Muggers wield handguns; burglars, glass-cutters; and cattle rustlers, wire-cutters. And timber thieves? Chainsaws, of course. Big-time timber thieves—those who rustle lodgepole pines, or oak or maple saw-logs—also require a serious truck to haul their bounty. It...

If your knees don’t knock and your pulse doesn’t pound as a buck slips into range, maybe it’s time you quit deer hunting. As Aldo Leopold wrote: “The love of hunting is almost a physiological characteristic. I should not like to own the boy whose hair does not lift his hat when he sees his first...

Whether you’re counting the Great Lakes’ lost souls or sunken ships, you’ll find no month more cruel or destructive than November. Of the 11 deadliest storms to strike the Great Lakes during the past two centuries, seven swept the region in November, and two others struck during the second half of...