STORY UPDATED: check for updates below.

Were a man and woman wearing Bigfoot costumes to "spice up their sex life" shot by bear hunters in eastern Ohio? It is a hoax report published by a known fake news website, Lead Stories can confirm.

The story originated from an article published on February 8, 2019 titled "Couple having sex outdoors in Bigfoot costumes gets accidentally shot by hunters" (archived here) which opened:

An Ohio couple's attempts to spice up their sex life with some kinky roleplay turned horribly wrong last night, as they were both shot by hunters while having sex in the woods in Sasquatch costumes. 43-year old Chris Mumford and 41-year old Janet Smith were wearing disguises and engaging in loud sex in a wooded area a few miles out of Woodsfield when they were spotted by local hunters. Jarod Burns and his son were patrolling their property with rifles in hand, looking for signs of bears that may have awakened early from their hibernation, when he saw the hairy creatures. Mr. Burns and his son were convinced they were facing a couple of sasquatches, folkloric creatures said to be hairy, upright-walking, ape-like creatures that dwell in the North American wilderness.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

Couple having sex outdoors in Bigfoot costumes gets accidentally shot by hunters

An Ohio couple's attempts to spice up their sex life with some kinky roleplay turned horribly wrong last night, as they were both shot by hunters while having sex in the woods in Sasquatch costumes. 43-year old Chris Mumford and 41-year old Janet Smith were wearing disguises and engaging in loud se

The fake news author did use a real county for the fictional report, but it could have been a better choice. Monroe County, Ohio, has a very low population of bears with only 3 confirmed sightings of the creatures, accorind to a 2013 report by the state's wildlife agency. The fictional hunters in this story would also have been breaking the law, since there is not a legal bear hunting season in Ohio, which has a population between just 50 and 100 bears, according to the wildlife agency.

Lead Stories could not find any state wildlife agency reports on confirmed -- or unconfirmed -- Sasquatch sightings in Ohio.

Another clue that this report is fake comes from examination of the photo used to illustrate it. An ambulance is clearly marked as being from "Monroe Township," which is in New Jersey, and not Monroe County.

The website World News Daily Report is a well known satire website specialized in posting hoaxes and made up stories. The disclaimer on their website is pretty clear about that even though you have to scroll all the way down the page to find it:

World News Daily Report assumes all responsibility for the satirical nature of its articles and for the fictional nature of their content. All characters appearing in the articles in this website - even those based on real people - are entirely fictional and any resemblance between them and any person, living, dead or undead, is purely a miracle.

On March 20, 2019 the site added a new header that included the slogan "Where facts don't matter" to make it clearer to casual visitors the published content is fictional:

It is run by Janick Murray-Hall and Olivier Legault, who also run the satirical Journal de Mourréal, a satirical site spoofing the (real) Journal de Montéal. Very often their stories feature an image showing a random crazy mugshot found in a mugshot gallery on the internet or on a stock photo website superimposed over a background of flashing police lights or crime scene tape.

Articles from the site are frequently copied (sometimes even months or years later) by varous fake news websites that omit the satire disclaimer and present the information as real.

NewsGuard, a company that uses trained journalist to rank the reliability of websites, describes worldnewsdailyreport.com as:

A website that publishes hoaxes and made-up stories that are often widely shared and mistaken for news.

According to NewsGuard the site does not maintain basic standards of accuracy and accountability. Read their full assessment here.

We wrote about worldnewsdailyreport.com before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:

• Fake News: NO Florida Nursing Home Shut Down by FDA for Feeding Elders With Dog Food
• Fake News: Zoo Keeper NOT Accused of Impregnating Female Orangutan in Indonesia
• Fake News: Elderly Couple Did NOT Burn Down House During Sex Game Involving WW2 Flamethrower
• Fake News: 63-year-old Daycare Owner Did NOT Breastfeed Toddlers in Public While Smoking Crystal Meth
• Fake News: Cousins NOT Arrested After Refusing to Stop Having Sex During Funeral Ceremony

Updates:

• 2019-03-21T01:51:45Z 2019-03-21T01:51:45Z
  Added info about news site header.