The Buzz: Your Daily Dose of Outdoor News

Rafting and boating accidents have been today’s buzz of the day.

First on the agenda comes some breaking news that authorities have discovered the body of a missing 12-year old that disappeared with his father while out on a recent fishing trip.  The boy’s body was found near Maumee Bay in Ohio.  His father is still missing.  Authorities continue to search the area for the missing father.

A Tacoma man has been killed and his wife seriously injured when his personal watercraft collided with a boat full of passengers on Banks Lake.  The accident ejected four passengers in the boat, all kids, into the water of Banks Lake, luckily, all were wearing floatation devices and suffered little injury.

A third person has become the victim of a nasty underwater rock in the Rogue River.  The death of Kathleen M. Mills represents the third time in two months that someone has drowned on, near, or around this buried rock.  Authorities are speculating that much of this has to do with higher than normal snow run-off.  With the deeper waters, the rock can’t be seen.

With the influx of drownings and deaths in today’s media, there are also a few nice pieces concerning boating safety and awareness.  Here’s a nice piece on Whitewater Rafting Safety, then there is the technique that a local organization has enacted to draw personal flotation device awareness to the masses.  They have started a life-jacket tree.  Every drowning victim’s name is placed on a life-jacket, then strung up in a tree.  This is in full public view and is being used as a means to remind water goers that there is a danger involved if they don’t wear the devices.

Today’s News of the Strange:  A man has accidentally killed himself with his fishing sinker (you heard it right, sinker) after the small piece of lead smacked him in the head, impaled and penetrated his skull, then went in to his brain.  Don’t ask me how this happened, I am only reporting the news…

Conservation Insight:  Missouri’s Department of Conservation is looking for volunteers:

The Missouri Department of Conservation is looking for local volunteers to share their passion for the outdoors.Volunteers can become hunter education instructors; work at the manned shooting ranges at the Jay Henges or Busch Memorial ranges; become instructors and coaches for the department’s GO FISH! program, which teaches children fishing skills; or become Volunteer Naturalists to present programs to the public and school groups on a wide range of topics about plants, animals and the outdoors.

For more information on how you can volunteer, please visit the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.  You will conveniently find the link at the U.S. Outdoors Today ‘State Conservation Directory‘.

Green Tip of The Day: Watering your lawn every day does more harm than good — both to the lawn and the environment. Daily watering produces shallow roots; by watering less, you can make your grass grow roots that are deeper and healthier.

Green Tip Of The Day provided by Care4Nature.org

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