SAN YGNACIO // One May night in Zapata County, a game camera at the SpinTech-Myers Ranch captured the image of a mysterious, four-legged figure. Ranch managers wondered if it was a humongous wild hog. The next day, when the camera was able to record the figure again in the daylight, they were surprised to learn that the creature was in fact a black bear traveling from Mexico to Texas. “I was shocked,” Dr. Gary Schwarz, a surgeon who owns a nearby ranch, told KRGV. It constituted a rare sighting for Zapata County ranchers, though black bears once thrived in the Valley, a biologist told the TV station.
SHENANDOAH // A “hacker” crashed a video-streamed city council meeting in Shenandoah, interrupting the proceedings with a wave of obscenities, the Houston Chronicle reported. It’s unknown why the interloper, who has not been identified but who sounded to be a “younger male,” chose to interrupt the Zoom meeting with a colorful diatribe. Embarrassed by the incident, city leaders secretly doctored the meeting’s video before they posted it on YouTube, deleting the offending portion. A local activist who had watched the original meeting noticed the discrepancy and alerted the press. Local leaders admitted to the Chronicle they scrubbed the video, but said they did it to “protect the public from hearing vulgar and profane comments.”
BRIDGE CITY // In Bridge City, a resident called police to say an unwanted visitor had taken up residence at their home and wouldn’t budge. When an Orange County game warden arrived, he found an 8-foot alligator sunning itself on the front porch, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife’s Field Notes newsletter. The game warden had no time to wait for animal control officials, so he caught the reptile himself and relocated it to a nearby marsh.
