WLOS: Rabid coyotes, dead ducks and root ball

Jason Sandford

Jason Sandford is a reporter, writer, blogger and photographer interested in all things Asheville.

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WLOSers had all kinds of madness on Monday: one crazed coyote, nine dead ducks and some drunken root ballers.

Michelle Boudin followed the “coyote terrorizes neighborhood story” (her words) – three people bitten, including one dude who showed Michelle punctured wounds on his nose. He described how the coyote moved up to him slowly then went for his face. My question is – why did the guy ever let an obvious sick animal so close to him to begin with? C’mon, dude. Use some common sense.

Michelle also talked to a water department worker who spotted the animal and said that it bit his tires. “What did you think when the coyote bit your tires?” Michelle asked, in all seriousness. “I thought it was frickin’ Cujo comin’ for me! Wait! There he is! Ahhhhhhhhhhh!” the worker said, before squealing said nipped tires and tearing off.

Ok, maybe not. But nice try, Michelle.

In the Mills River community of Henderson County, a woman building a house on her newly acquired property nailed nine ducks that liked hanging out on a pond on the property. This neighborhood loved these ducks. Mallards. Pretty ducks. People fed them. They enjoyed watching them skim across the pond. But not the new neighbor lady, who took her shotgun to ’em.

Neighbors complained and state fish and wildlife officers came out and did a little work. Seems that mallards are a federally protected species, so if you want to kill one, you’ve got to buy a stamp from Uncle Sam first. Then you can shoot ’em. No word from the neighbor lady on why she didn’t like the little ducks.

Back in Ashvegas, WLOS told us about a shocking shooting right downtown. Sometime over the weekend, bullets were flying on Wall Street. Wall Street. A decade ago, that might not have been such a big deal. Today, Wall Street is filled with restaurants and hair salons and there’s a fancy jewelry store. The shooting happened outside a new club I’d never heard of. I think it’s called “Victory” or something. Anyway, two people were wounded, shell casings littered the tourist-filled street and police are looking into it. Blah, blah, blah.

Jon “Punnyman” Le did his 11 o’clock pun report on some drunk dudes who made up a drunk’s game called root ball. I have no idea how it’s played. It makes no sense. It looks boring. Unless you’re drunk. Le never said this, of course, but he did get his photog to take a close-up of a glass of beer, so I think that was a hint. Boring story.

We must also note here the return of Robert Green to the WLOS newscast. You all remember Robert. He was WLOSer in the mid ’90s. He had an English accent.

Turns out he still does. Have an accent. Only now, instead of beating the street for stories, he’s selling golf clubs for a living. We know this because his golf shop was broken into recently and WLOS did a little story on it. Thieves stoles like $10,000 work of merchandise and this is the third time Robert’s store has been bombed. Get some security video, dude.