Wildlife officer falls through ice on pond

A Canadian wildlife officer is missing and presumed drowned after he fell through the ice on a pond on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, officials said. Howard Lavers and two other Newfoundland and Labrador wildlife officers were on patrol south of Hawke's Bay around 4 p.m. Thursday when ice gave way on the pond, CBC News reported. Retired conservation officer Earl Pilgrim said the two other officers managed to get back onto the ice and tried to save Lavers. "They tried to get a rope to him and they tied a shovel on a rope and threw [it] out to him," Pilgrim said. "Of course, they couldn't get to him. There was no way he could hold himself onto the edge of the ice, so he slipped through, and that was it." In a statement released Friday morning, Justice Minister Darin King said he was "deeply saddened" by the incident.