3-Year-Old Accidentally Shoots Two Hunters in Turkey Hunt Mishap 🦃

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

THANKFULLY EVERYONE IS OK
3-YEAR-OLD ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS TWO OTHER HUNTERS IN RARE WISCONSIN TURKEY HUNT MISHAP

A 3-year-old child who was being mentored by a 34-year-old hunter, accidentally wounded two other turkey hunters on Sunday during Wisconsin’s two-day youth-only spring turkey season. The mishap occurred on state forest lands in western Racine County, when the young shooter and mentor mistook movement about 35 yards away for a gobbler’s fanned tail.

Keeping their focus on the movement, the mentor knelt beside the child to help hold, aim, and fire a 12-gauge semi-automatic shotgun. Following the shots, pellets struck a 7-year-old child in the head and a 40-year-old man (that child’s mentor) in the left hand, shoulder, and backside…

⛑️ Minnesota Wildlife Officer Airlifted After 20-Foot Fall While Removing Illegal Tree Stand. Late last month, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources wildlife officer Annette Schlag fell approximately 20 feet from a tree while working alone to dismantle and remove an illegal permanent tree stand in the remote, steep, and heavily wooded Whitewater Wildlife Management Area.

She had climbed the tree as part of routine enforcement as many hunters leave deer stands up year-round in violation of regulations that require them to be removed at the end of each hunting day. After hitting the forest floor, Schlag realized she was seriously injured and immediately called dispatch for help. Local officers and firefighters responded quickly, but the rugged terrain made ground extraction impossible. As such, the Minnesota Air Rescue Team was called in and a rescuer who was lowered more than 130 feet via helicopter winch in a rescue basket, secured Schlag in a specialized ARES bag, and both were hoisted back up. She was then airlifted to a nearby field, transferred to an ambulance, and taken to the hospital.

The officer is expected to make a full recovery. 

🚁 Coast Guard Rescues Family Including Child After Ice Floe Traps Them During Alaska Seal Hunt. And in the event that one rescue wasn’t enough for your Thursday, here’s another daring airlift, this time in Alaska. This past weekend, a family of four found themselves stranded on a moving ice floe in the Bering Sea while on a subsistence seal hunting expedition. Their 18-foot vessel was trapped approximately 10 miles west of the remote village of Chefornak after the group had been on the ice for more than 24 hours. Moving ice prevented them from reaching shore despite freeing the boat overnight. Alaska State Troopers notified the Coast Guard at 4:24 p.m. Saturday, and the group was able to communicate thanks to three devices on board, including satellite-based equipment.

An MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew from Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak arrived on scene around 5 p.m. Sunday and safely hoisted all four people aboard in a dramatic rescue. The individuals were transported back to Chefornak with no injuries reported. The pilot-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Alexis Chavarria-Aguilar, described it as one of the most challenging missions the crew had ever flown, citing near-zero visibility, mountainous terrain, blowing snow, icing conditions, 28-degree temperatures, and 29 mph winds over an 800-mile flight.

🐈‍⬛ Indiana Moves to Expand Bobcat Hunting by Raising Quota and Adding Firearms. Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources is proposing to significantly expand bobcat hunting for the 2026-2027 season. The plan would raise the statewide harvest quota from 250 to 400 bobcats, marking a nearly 60% increase while opening up new hunting methods beyond the current trapping-only rule. Hunters would be allowed to take bobcats with bows, crossbows, shotguns, rifles, handguns, muzzleloaders, and air guns during the season running from November 8 to January 31, or until the quota is reached.

Bobcats were listed as endangered in Indiana for more than 50 years before being delisted in 2005. The state’s first legal bobcat trapping season began in late 2025 after a 2024 law pushed by lawmakers, and the initial quota of 250 was filled in just four weeks. The DNR cites rising human-bobcat conflicts, increased nuisance permits, and higher roadkill numbers as signs of a recovering population that needs active management. Public comments on the proposal are open until May 19th, with a hearing scheduled the same day.

🦍 Don’t mess with baboons on the beach. I don’t know much about large, aggressive beach-going primates but according to this video they can be an absolute nuisance.

It was about time that dude with the paddle showed up…

🕰️ The Patina Economy: We used to earn wear. Now we buy it pre-scuffed. Walk through almost any boutique today and you’ll find it: denim already faded at the knees, leather pre-distressed, furniture sanded down to suggest a century of use it never saw. “Heritage” labels hang from factory-aged canvas. Artificial rust blooms evenly across decorative metal.

We are surrounded by imitation history.

Patina once meant something specific. It was the visual record of time — the darkening of leather where hands had held it, the smoothing of wood where elbows had rested, the silvering of metal where friction had done its slow work. Patina was not decoration. It was biography. Now it is branding. Read the full story.

🌾 Wheatfields to Wildlands: Hunting Among the Ruins: One of my favorite places to hunt quail lies within a 3,500-acre block of BLM land tucked into a flat, meandering river plain. Long ago, this was productive farmland.

Today, the ghosts of that era remain: derelict irrigation pivots rust into the soil, and old equipment lies half-sunken in bunchgrass. But these edges—where cultivated land once met native habitat—are where the birds still gather. Nearly five miles of huntable ground winds through this valley, and every walk brings with it the possibility of both a flush and a discovery. Read the full story.

🇵🇪 En Peligro De Extinción : We didn’t grow up in the sticks, necessarily—the street that ran in front of our house was paved, even if the one that ran beside it wasn’t—but there was a section of woods just a block south of the house that offered all manner of adventure, and our childhoods were spent in the outdoors. My brother left the simplicity of that life for sprawling, stinking Lima, Peru, where some 11 million people elbow each other for personal space. 

Which meant that he was constantly on the lookout for ways to escape the city’s clutches. It was at an appointment with the attorney that was handling his visa application that the subject of hunting came up. Stories were swapped, photos were shared, and soon after, my brother was invited to the attorney’s home to admire his trophy room. In the center of that room was the full body mount of what my brother described as a very whitetail-looking deer. Lining the walls were the taxidermied rear ends of the same. My brother’s good graces and his limited Spanish vocabulary prevented him from asking why.

The two got along famously and by the end of the night, a hunting trip to the Peruvian Andes had been planned. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…