WAYNEDALE OUTDOORS Q & A

OUTDOOR INDIANA MAGAZINE LAUNCHES STATE PARK INSERTS

Outdoor Indiana magazine’s May-June issue is the first to include an eight-page collectible full-color insert on a state park or reservoir property. McCormick’s Creek State Park, Indiana’s oldest, is the first featured. The magazine will continue profiling one property each issue, until the centennial of Indiana state parks in 2016.

The same issue also debuts what may become an annual feature on Indiana’s best combination of small town/big outdoors, with the lake town of North Webster in Kosciusko County leading off.

Find these and other full-color articles you’ll get nowhere else in the latest issue of the Department of Natural Resource’s 48-page bi-monthly magazine.

Subscriptions are $12 for a year (six issues) or $20 for two years. You can also ask for Outdoor Indiana magazine at most Borders, Barnes & Noble stores in the state, and at DNR properties. Single copies sell for $3. To ensure you get this keepsake issue, subscribe by May 10 at (317) 233-3046 or OutdoorIndiana.org.

If you love the outdoors, you’ll love Outdoor Indiana magazine.

 

MOUNTAIN LION SPOTTED IN RURAL GREEN COUNTY

A mountain lion has been confirmed in part of Greene County east of Bloomfield. Its presence was verified by Scott Johnson, the DNR’s non-game mammal biologist. He is a member of the DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife’s team that assists in reviewing reports having credible evidence.

Johnson made the determination from photographs taken by motion-sensitive game cameras placed in the area after a preliminary investigation found evidence consistent with mountain lion behavior, including an eviscerated deer carcass buried under a pile of leaves. Different published reports cite the last documented case of a wild mountain lion in Indiana as somewhere between 1850 and 1865.

The chance of encountering a mountain lion today in Indiana is almost non-existent, but people should be alert to their surroundings. If an encounter does happen, the MLRT points to advice from authorities in Western states, where mountain lions are more common:

Do not approach a mountain lion. Give it a way to escape.

Do not run from a mountain lion. Instead, stand and face the animal. Make eye contact.

Do not crouch or bend over. Do all you can to appear larger. Raise your arms, open your jacket or shirt. Wave your arms slowly and speak firmly in a loud voice.

Hold children and pets near you.

Fight back if attacked using big sticks, stones, or any other available items.

Mountain lions are a protected species in Indiana, but state law allows a resident landowner or tenant to kill a mountain lion while it is causing damage to property owned or leased by the landowner/tenant. If the landowner/tenant wishes to have someone else take the mountain lion, that person is required to secure a permit from the DNR Division of Fish & Wildlife.