Hunting accident leaves Washington man dead • Truck driver has joyful reunion with his lapdog • PETA gets sassy to save the turkeys • One of the biggest superfund sites is about to get bigger • Man gets heat for cougar killing • Time to ski at Grand Targhee

Hunting accident leaves Washington man dead

A Dalton Gardens, Idaho, man shot and killed another hunter whom he mistook for an animal earlier this week in Shoshone County.

James R. Hinchcliff, of Deer Park, Washington, died in a forested area near the Montana border when he was shot by James Egan.

Hinchcliff's death, the fifth hunting fatality in the county since 1992, "really could have been prevented simply by wearing some different clothing," Rod Plank of the Shoshone County Sheriff's Office said.

Hinchcliff "was wearing brown camouflage clothing from head to toe." The Spokesman-Review says Idaho doesn't require hunters to wear bright orange.

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Truck driver has joyful reunion with his lapdog

A truck driver recently was reunited with his cab mate – a one-year-old Shiba Inu – after losing the pooch in late October while on a run through Idaho.

A Pocatello family found the pooch running around at a Flying J truckstop in McCammon and has cared for the dog since.

The Eline family was going fishing on October 26th and stopped at the Flying J for gas. To their surprise, they found Gidget running around without an owner.

The Elines had considered flying her back to John on an airplane or giving her to another family if he couldn't make it back to the area.

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PETA gets sassy to save the turkeys

Members of the group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dressed as "sexy pilgrims" and handed out 50 meat-free Tofurkeys on an Idaho Falls street corner earlier this week.

PETA says more than 300 million turkeys are killed in the U.S. every year and 40 million for the Thanksgiving holiday alone.

To combat what they believe is animal cruelty, the group is on tour giving out the meatless delicacies in various cities across the country.

Unamused, a music store owner in Idaho Falls called the police to get the protesters off the corner in front of his store.

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One of the biggest superfund sites is about to get bigger

The massive federal cleanup of Silver Valley started shortly after state and federal regulators agreed on a plan in 1991.

It's still going on, and an EPA spokesman says it will last another four or five years.

The organization is cleaning lead contamination in an area that encompasses Kellogg, Pinehurst and Mullan.

And now, the operation is moving to more remote areas in northern Idaho.

The Associated Press says the Silver Valley for decades was a major producer of silver and other precious metals, but the environmental cost of mining and smelting was high and the area was declared one of the nation's largest Superfund sites in 1983.

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Man gets heat for cougar killing

A Twin Falls man calls it a "crock of crap" that he was issued a warning by the Idaho Department of Fish & Game for shooting a cougar with an unlawful weapon even though it was in self defense.

John Stevens, his dad, a dog and an 11-year-old boy were stalked by a cougar while duck hunting Oct. 6 at Island Park Reservoir in eastern Idaho.

Stevens pulled out a shotgun to kill the animal, which was hiding in the bushes watching the hunters. He cleaned the animal and later called Fish & Game.

"They treated me like the incident wasn't in self-defense, that I was intentionally hunting cougars," he said.

Stevens had bought a cougar tag the day before, but he said it was not for hunting the animals.

He planned to hunt coyotes this winter and bought a cougar tag in case he ran into any cats, since cougars answer to the same predator calls that coyotes do, he said.

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Time to ski at Grand Targhee

Grand Targhee Resort will open Saturday, the first area ski hill to do so.

The Post-Register reports that only one lift will be open, however, because there's not much snow - 21 inches as of Wednesday.

Lift tickets will be $35 this weekend.