CALIFORNIA
If you’re planning on scamming your auto insurance by claiming that furry-ocious bruins went full-throttle Cocaine Bear on several very expensive cars, it’s probably not a good idea to leave the bear suit you wore for the occasion — complete with meat shredders for claws — lying around your apartment. Four suspects were arrested and charged with conspiracy and insurance fraud for staging and filming bear break-ins involving two different Mercedes-Benz vehicles and a Rolls Royce. The scammers’ videos were submitted to the insurance companies with claims for $142,000, the Los Angeles Times reported. Unfortunately for the felonious furries, sharp-eyed investigators at the California Department of Insurance’s Fraud Division swiftly determined “that there was something fishy going on” — the kind of fishy that, unlike with real bears, did not involve going after salmon. A biologist from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife concurred, concluding that the video was “clearly a human in a bear suit,” perhaps a budget remake of the classic James Dean film Rebel Without Any Claws. Besides, everyone knows that bears prefer Furraris to Bearcedes.
WASHINGTON
Talk about having bats in your belfry! Imagine buying your dream house, only to discover that it’s already occupied by bats. And not just one or two, but thousands of them, accompanied by the vast amounts of guano they produce, according to fox13seattle.com. Guano — the “accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats” — makes great fertilizer; you can buy bags of it at most retail outlets. Despite its usefulness, however, guano was not what Tom Riecken and Mackenzie Powell had hoped to find when they bought their Whidbey Island home. “It was December of last year and instead of wrapping Christmas presents, we were unwrapping our walls, and instead of glitter and sugar plum fairies, it was bat poop,” Riecken said. Solving a problem this complex is guano be expensive — various roofers, restoration companies and “bat exclusionists” wanted up to $200,000 for the job — so the homeowners took matters into their own hands, literally, and tore down the walls and drywall themselves. The couple’s son, who was just 6 months old when they bought the house, is now almost 2. Guess what one of his first words was? No, not “shit”; it was “bat.”
NEVADA
Multiple coyotes have commandeered a wall along a flood wash and made a den inside it, coming and going through holes and using the Las Vegas Valley neighborhood as their personal hunting grounds, fox5vegas.com reported. Residents are not pleased, with some complaining that small pets have gone missing. “They” — the coyotes, not the residents — “have no fear. They’ll come out, they’ll stand 10 yards away while I’m working out here. I’ll throw rocks at them; they come closer,” Doug Swift said. The wall, he said, is a “perfect den for them,” because it’s well protected in the wash, “which is a ‘superhighway’ through the whole city.” A county spokesman said that the wall is on private property, so the property owners or homeowners association are responsible for fixing the holes, but the HOA said the outer wall — there appear to be two, a few feet apart — is county property, according to the county assessor’s website. Residents asked the Nevada Department of Wildlife to relocate the coyotes, but that’s never an option unless someone gets attacked — and in that case, the coyote gets euthanized, according to the agency. So, what’s the next step toward a solution? Where’s the Warner Bros. Road Runner when you need him? Maybe volunteers dressed as apex predators could patrol the neighborhood. California’s Insurance Fraud Division might even have some slightly used bear costumes for sale. …
OREGON
Gary Kristensen of Happy Valley, Oregon, holds the Guinness World Record for “longest journey by pumpkin boat (paddling),” The Columbian reported. Kristensen, who grew the giant pumpkin himself, launched his vegetable vessel at the Hamilton Island Boat Ramp on the Washington side of the Columbia River near Bonneville Dam. Paddling a nearly thousand-pound hollowed-out pumpkin in 35 mph winds proved a challenge, especially after the wires for the lighting on his support boat caught fire, leaving Kristensen in near-darkness. Still, the paddling pumpkineer persevered, completing the 46-mile journey in 34 hours and 35 minutes, at an average 1 mile per hour. It’s a feat well worth celebrating with a rousing chorus: For he’s a jolly gourd fellow, which nobody can deny!
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This article appeared in the January 2025 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
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