CALIFORNIA
Leo, a 3-year-old female sulcata tortoise, became an overnight TikTok sensation after her owner posted a surveillance video of the reptile trundling herself away from her burning home in Fullerton, California, abc7.com reported. The harrowing incident took place on Feb. 8, while Leo’s owner, Hyeri Tom, was at a Superbowl party and Leo was tucked away in her backyard enclosure, warm and cozy with a heat lamp. Until the lamp tipped over, and the shed erupted in flames. Apparently, tortoises aren’t always slowpokes, they just need the proper motivation to get moving; Tom described the shell-shocked tortoise’s miraculously speedy escape as “kicking into sports mode.” The TikTok video has amassed millions of views and can be seen on Leo’s account, @leothehomelesstort. We’re happy to report that Leo is recovering from smoke inhalation and is doing a great job serving (unofficially) as a spokes-tortoise for heat lamp safety.
COLORADO
Not all the West’s fire- and death-defying stunts involve tortoises: A human being was caught on police drone footage juggling flaming torches while balancing on a unicycle and impeding traffic near the intersection of U.S. 85 and 60th Avenue in Commerce City, Colorado, 9News.com reported. The Commerce City Police received multiple calls from bewildered motorists who apparently aren’t used to this sort of thing on their daily commute. “We don’t often get reports like this anymore … well to be fair … we have NEVER gotten a report like this one,” the Commerce City Police noted on Facebook, adding that the intersection wasn’t “the Las Vegas Strip … or was it?” The police let the unidentified unicyclist off with a warning, adding politely that he was clearly very talented but please don’t do this again.
OREGON
Thanks to Columbia Sportswear and Breakside Brewery, the proverbial question “does a bear shit in the woods?” has taken on fresh relevance. The Portland, Oregon, companies have teamed up to produce a rather, um, unique new brew — a limited-edition beer aptly named “Nature Calls,” described as “a crisp lager infused with a special substance during the brewing process”: Ursi cacas, or, as it’s more commonly known, bear poop, KGW8 reported. It’s all part of Columbia’s “Engineered for Whatever” brand campaign, which apparently wants to prepare folks for “absolutely anything — even ‘nature’s most unexpected ingredient.’” We don’t know about “unexpected” — we expect a certain amount of excreta from mammals, being of mammalian ilk ourselves — but this is certainly a new way of exploiting it. And if you’re wondering, “Is it safe to drink?” its makers say absolutely, 100%. In addition to its, you might say, “wild ingredients,” the beer itself is brewed under the same strict standards as any other Breakside beer,” using malted grains sourced from the Pacific Northwest along with honey and huckleberry. The wild ingredients are collected separately, from all-natural free-range black bears in Montana. Joe Boyle, Columbia Sportswear’s brand president, put it best: “From the inside of a bear to your mouth, we’re making nature’s crap easier to swallow.” Now there’s a slogan! What’s next? One Moosefart Margarita, please, and a shot of Buffalochip Bourbon.
OREGON
There’s a surprising amount of information to be gleaned from 12,000-year-old clothing, even if you didn’t find it under your kid’s bed. In 1958, amateur archaeologist John Cowles excavated some artifacts from Cougar Mountain Cave and Paisley Caves in central Oregon. After his death, they were stored at the Favell Museum in Klamath Falls and only recently became available for analysis. Anthropologist Richie Rosencrance, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nevada, Reno and research affiliate with the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History, is leading the team. The 12,000-year-old materials, which were dated using radiocarbon testing, were made in the Late Pleistocene, near the end of the last ice age, and include “braided cords, bone needles, projectile points and wooden artifacts,” all of which provide glimpses into the traditional ecological knowledge of the era, Smithsonian Magazine reported, as well as proof that the people living there back then were darn good at sewing and used methods still practiced today. The items mark the world’s oldest known evidence of sewing: Two fragments of elk hide sewn together with cord made from plant fiber and animal hair. Their original function is undetermined, but they’re believed to have been part of a piece of clothing, moccasin, bag or shelter. Rosencrance told NPR: “It really underscores what Native people have been telling scientists forever, which is that they have always been here.”
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This article appeared in the April 2026 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Heard around the West.”
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