Frightening-looking growths are popping up on Alabama’s white-tailed deer, and state wildlife officials say they have an explanation for the stomach-turning affliction. The Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division acknowledged the issue Tuesday, sharing photos of a buck found southeast of Tuscaloosa with bubble-like clusters on its head, neck and shoulders. The growths are a type of virus known as “deer warts,” and the division explained on its Facebook page: This deer had numerous cutaneous fibromas, or “deer warts”, on its head and neck. Cutaneous fibromas are hairless tumors found on the skin of white-tailed deer. They are caused by a virus and are almost always temporary. Deer may have only one or two of the fibromas, or the growths can be [...]

Last Saturday Mississippi deer hunter Mack Ginn climbed into his tiny box blind around 6 a.m. About 2 hours later he heard a funny rattling sound. Mack had never head a rattlesnake rattle before, but he started thinking, “That’s probably what a rattler would sound like.” He looked down and spotted the thick snake on the blind’s floor inches from his foot! In one giant leap he jumped up and stood on his chair. “My first thought was to get away,” he said. “When I was in that chair, I realized I had nowhere to go.” Mack had no room to escape the small blind. The snake became agitated and started striking at the chair! Only one thing to do. [...]

My buddy Mike steered his truck out of the hills and into a moonscape of picked corn and bean fields that sprawled as far as the eye could see. In the yellowish-gray moon glow, those ice fields looked like the world’s largest outdoor hockey rink. No wonder. The mirror thermometer in Mike’s truck read 5 degrees. He stopped. I stumbled out and trudged toward my cedar blind. Mike grinned and said, “Keep warm.” The sun rose salmon and blue, and the temperature sunk below zero. At noon I ate a ham sandwich, hard as a brick. Two p.m. and the temp topped out at a balmy 9 degrees. Still I shivered and shook. I left at sundown, having seen six [...]