Nina was going for a walk with the dog when she felt a sting on her toe. On the floor lay a European hornet, the largest wasp in Northern Europe. She is allergic to wasps and immediately realized that this could be dangerous. After a few minutes, her foot swelled up. She became dizzy and her pulse raced.

“The fact that an otter attacked a person was certainly surprising,” said a wildlife biologist with Fish and Game, who added that it’s hard to know what the motivation behind the otter’s “unusual behavior” was.

The mammoth storm sparked torrential rain, flash floods and tornadoes that pummeled the region.

In the Northwest this summer dry weather conditions resulted in an above average wasp population.

Rescuers in boats, helicopters and high-water trucks brought hundreds of people trapped by Hurricane Ida's floodwaters to safety Monday and utility repair crews rushed in, after the furious storm swamped the Louisiana coast and ravaged the electrical grid in the stifling, late-summer heat.

Karley was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Her mother was told a tick bite was the likely cause. Just as we caught it, she was also developing Bell's Palsy, which was on the left side of her face, said Shields. The condition can cause one side of the face to droop. It would traumatizing for any person, but especially a 10-year-old.

All farmer Arild Stenhaug is left with is tiny berries that cannot be sold. He believes the cause is climate change. "We have to listen to a farmer who has lost everything," says a researcher.

The fishing trip to Gaiakulpen in Vesterelva offered a real surprise to friends Njord Lindgård and Tobias Holm (13).

Community Water System at Risk: Extreme precipitation throughout the summer and sustained high water has resulted in erosion of the location for the water transmission line and Noatak's two water wells.

Extreme drought in the west means that households with private waterworks are out of water. Elvar's dried up. "The situation is very serious," he says.

The driest summer in 150 years has turned Yakutia into a tinderbox and seen wildfires tear through the region.

An unknown number of residents, firefighters and policemen are reportedly trapped between two fronts of a major wildfire in northern Athens that has already destroyed homes in the suburb of Varymbombi and is spreading to Thrakomakedones.

The notorious lúsmý (Culicoides reconditus), a species of biting midge that has colonised Iceland for the first time in the past few years. The tiny flies can cause severe reactions, with large, sore, itchy spots that can remain angry for a week or more, and sometimes spread into a sort of rash.

"My husband and I have been dipnetting on the Kasilof since 2014. This year we noticed more small fish than usual and all but ~5 of the 35 fish we caught had parasites."

Several people have fallen ill with food poisoning after eating shellfish in B.C. in the last 10 days, and health officials are warning that warm ocean waters might be to blame.

By Julia Lerner Richard Jessee, a longtime summer miner, survived an aggressive bear attack near his cabin last week.

The BC Conservation Officer Service said the latest attack happened around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night, while a woman was jogging along the seawall.

As of Monday, some 300 wildfire were burning across British Columbia. Thirty-seven blazes, 12 per cent of all B.C. fires, are rated as highly visible or a threat to life or property. Several new evacuation orders and alerts were posted over the weekend by regional governments across B.C.’s southern Interior.

Air quality concerns have extended across the foothills and west-central Alberta including Calgary and surrounding areas.

Of the 92 pools of mosquitoes tested, 30 had at least one mosquito that tested positive for California serogroup viruses. There has been one confirmed diagnosis of meningoencephalitis — a severe neurological condition — caused by the snowshoe hare virus. There have been no positive cases yet of West Nile Virus.