Meals on wheels

A study published this fall in the Journal of Mammalogy includes yet another reason why you shouldn’t buy a minivan.

The study found that 29% of the vehicles attacked by bears in Yosemite National Park between 2001 and 2007 were minivans, despite the fact that minivans were just 7% of the vehicles that visited Yosemite.

Yes, it’s true. Someone got paid to study bear attacks on minivans.

So why are bears targeting the humble soccer mom five-door? The study suggests that it’s not so much the vehicle as the owners. Minivans are designed for transporting kids and are therefore more likely to contain food, either packed or spilled. For a bear eating 20 hours a day in preparation for winter hibernation, a minivan smells like a one-stop shop.

So the next time you head to a national park, the study recommends leaving your minivan at home where the only hairy oafs you have to worry about are the loitering teenage boys at the end of the cul-de-sac.

Sticking to their guns

Thanks to the Adopt a Highway program, a two-mile section of Highway 55 is now the safest stretch of road in all of Minnesota.

That’s because its new parents are a group of gun owners called the Minnesota Carry Permit Holders.

The group met years ago through pro-gun-carrying websites and gun classes. Wanting to do something good for the community, the group organized its first event this past October and spent three hours picking up trash along the side of their new highway.

And, of course, trash wasn’t the only thing they were packing. One volunteer had a .40-caliber Glock strapped to his hip, while another brought his Springfield semiautomatic handgun, all legal in Minnesota with a permit.

A Mn/DOT spokesman said the group were well within their rights and that the state appreciated their service. And if they missed a few pieces of litter here and there, you can bet no one was going to point it out.

An early Christmas miracle

Five-year-old Mary Butler will likely find a few extra presents in her stocking this year after saving her mother’s life this past October.

Mary and her mother, Nikki, of Lundbreck, Alberta, were driving down Highway 3, about 40 miles north of Montana, when their truck hit black ice. The vehicle slid across the road, hit a guardrail and flipped four times down a steep embankment.

Once the truck came to a stop, Mary saw that her mother was unconscious and bleeding. Rather than cry or wait for help, the 5-year-old unbuckled her seatbelt, squeezed through the caved-in rear passenger window and then climbed back up the 150-ft snow-covered ravine to flag down help on the highway.

The first vehicle to pass was a sanding truck, and the driver couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw a tiny figure waving her arms at the side of the road. The driver quickly called 9-1-1, and rescuers were able to cut open the roof of the truck to save Nikki.

Police said that Mary probably saved her mother’s life, because the wreckage wasn’t visible from the highway and wouldn’t have been discovered for quite some time.

Nikki told the Calgary Herald that when she asked her daughter why she did what she did that day, Mary replied, “I needed to save my mom because I love my mom.”

Make that a whole lot of extra presents in her stocking.