The State of Vermont has been holding public hearings on a proposed expansion of the state's deer and moose hunting seasons this month, and most hunters who've attended these meetings have expressed opposition to the idea. The State will point out that happy/pleased people are less likely to attend public meetings, thus the concerned voices in attendance aren't an accurate gauge of public sentiment. It's a fair point that will ring true to anyone familiar with small-town politics or newspaper op/ed pages. But it doesn't mean the proposed rule change is a smart idea...

Five years ago, chronic wasting disease (CWD) was spreading across North America like wildfire. It leapt from its stronghold in the Rocky Mountain states across the Mississippi River to Wisconsin in 2002. It was discovered in New York State in 2005. It seemed inevitable that it would continue its journey east, and that deer in New England would be the next to succumb...

Forester and naturalist Lynn Levine snapped this picture last fall. In all, there were about 25 apples in the crooks of trees at different heights - 10 feet in the air, near the ground, and every height in between. "It looked like an Easter egg hunt," she recalls.

She makes a pretty convincing case that she knows whodunit. Do you?

Every other week we run a photo of something unusual found in the woods. Guess what it is and you'll be eligible to win a copy of The Outside Story, a paperback collection of our Outside Story newspaper columns. A prize winner will be drawn at random from all the correct entries. The correct answer, and the winner's name, will appear in next week's column. 

Reader Penny Harris from Cambridge, Vermont lost an enormous white pine in a recent windstorm. This photo shows the inside of the snapped trunk. What caused these strangely shaped holes?