Photo by Maslowski/NWTF

In anticipation of tomorrow’s gobbler-season opener, here’s this week’s column:

It’s dark, and you’re breathing hard. The climb to your favorite turkey-hunting spot seemed a little steeper than you remembered. You sit at the base of a large oak and try to catch your breath.

The woods are quiet. The gray half-light of dawn won’t appear a while yet, so you use the time to put out a decoy, load your shotgun, don your head net and gloves, set a box call on your thigh and pop a diaphragm call into your mouth.

A loud blowing sound shatters the silence. You startle, and then smile, realizing that a deer caught your scent and snorted. The deer’s hoofbeats recede, and silence reclaims the hilltop.

The silhouettes of surrounding trees take form as the sky brightens from inky black to dove gray. Your ears perk up as you listen for …

There! From an adjoining ridge, a turkey greets the dawn with a throaty gobble. To your right, no more than 100 yards away, a long-tongued longbeard thunders its response.

Cautiously, you slip a slate call from your vest. You touch the wooden striker to the slate and scratch out a soft yelp.

The gobbler to your right booms an answer. You want to call again, but experience has shown you’d better play hard-to-get. The gobbler rattles the treetops again. You stay quiet.

Wingbeats! He must have flown down. You know that if you play your cards right, he’ll come looking for that hen he thought he heard. Nervously, you face his direction. You shoulder the shotgun and rest its barrel on your right knee.

Your ears reach out for any telltale sound, any sign at all that the gobbler might be headed your way. An ovenbird’s song — teacher, teacher, teacher! — is all you hear.

Senses shift into overdrive. Your eyes sweep the ridgeline, searching for movement. Nothing.

You yelp again. Six notes this time, and a little louder. No response. Your brow wrinkles. Could that old bird have found a hen already?

Somewhere over your right shoulder, you hear the geese. It’s a flock of Canadas, headed for a nearby lake. You listen as the ha-ronks build to a crescendo, and, after the big black-necked birds pass overhead, you watch the chevron until it fades into the distance.

“Funny,” you think. “All that noise should have caused a gobble or two. Wonder why it didn’t? Is that gobbler gone, or has he just gone silent?”

Serendipity. A woodpecker hammers away at a tree down the hill, and the gobbler breaks his silence. He sounds closer – maybe just over the brow of the ridge – so you firm up your grip on the gunstock.

As quietly as you can, you cluck. Once. Twice. Pause. Thrice.

He gobbles! Seconds later, you hear a spitting sound, followed by a low, resonant boom more easily felt than heard. He’s strutting! Somewhere over the hill, he’s strutting!

Another cluck. This time, silence.

There! A speck of red appears from behind a tree, barely 30 yards away. Heart pounding, you thumb the shotgun’s safety.

Dawn’s curtain has lifted. Opening morning’s overture has played. It’s show time …

Since it’s now possible to buy hunting or fishing licenses online, it seems only fitting that sportsmen should be able to go online to report poachers as well. Check this out, from the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources:

Reporting poaching activities just became easier. Last week DNR Law Enforcement added a Web page to the WVDNR.gov domain letting sportsman report illegal poaching statewide. When a sportsman reports a violation the information will be e-mailed to the proper supervisor responsible for the area.  To view the site click here: http://www.wvdnr.gov/LEnforce/Poachers.shtm

Hunters who carry smart phones should be able to report suspicious activity from the field, quickly and quietly.

Cool stuff, if you ask me…

As the court ruling turns…

Remember that settlement between wolf conservation groups and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service? A federal judge has thrown it out. From the Associated Press:

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — A federal judge has denied a proposed settlement agreement between the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and 10 conservation groups that would have lifted endangered species protections for wolves in Montana and Idaho.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula on Saturday rejected the agreement that could have led to public hunting of some 1,300 wolves in the two states.

In the 24-page decision, Molloy cited the court’s lack of authority to put part of an endangered species population under state management and expose that population to hunting, noting “Congress has clearly determined that animals on the ESA must be protected as such,” and the court couldn’t “exercise its discretion to allow what Congress forbids.”

He also said he couldn’t approve the settlement proposed in March because not all the parties involved in the case agreed with it. Part of the argument for the settlement was that it could end litigation, but Molloy noted that was unlikely given the opposition by some to the proposed settlement.

Saturday amounted to a one-two punch for the 10 conservation groups as Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester and Idaho Republican Rep. Mike Simpson on the same day announced wolves in Montana and Idaho would be taken off the endangered list under the budget bill pending before Congress.

One of the reasons the 10 conservation groups entered into the settlement was because of growing political pressure and potential Congressional action to reduce wolf numbers in Montana and other states due a gradual increase of wolf attacks on livestock and some big-game herds suffering declines. The groups hoped a favorable court decision would provide greater protection for wolves than lawmakers might provide.

So the groups not only lost in court on Saturday, their fears concerning lawmakers removing federal protections for wolves also became more real.

“The congressional threat was very much on people’s minds when we negotiated the settlement,” said Andrew Wetzler of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “In light of the court ruling, it’s going to make it more difficult to derail the rider that may well be attached to the budget deal that will provide much fewer protections for wolves than the settlement would have.”

The proposed settlement effectively asked Molloy to reverse his previous rulings on the matter. Last August he faulted the Fish and Wildlife Service for a 2009 decision that took wolves off the endangered list in Montana and Idaho but not neighboring Wyoming. He said decisions on the Endangered Species Act should be based on science and not on political boundaries, such as state lines.

The federal government appealed that decision, leading to the proposed settlement agreement that has now been rejected.

“I can’t blame Molloy for the ruling,” said Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the 10 conservation groups favoring the settlement. “It’s a very tortuous situation. We entered into a settlement agreement we didn’t love but thought it was the lesser of two evils.”

The Alliance for the Wild Rockies, one of the four plaintiffs in the lawsuit that did not agree to the settlement, said Molloy’s rulings have consistently followed federal law, and his rejection of the settlement followed those same principles. Just because some of the plaintiffs agreed to the settlement doesn’t make the deal any more legal, said Michael Garrity, the group’s executive director.

“We think the fastest way to remove (wolves) is for everybody to work together so they can be legally removed from the endangered species list,” Garrity said.

Suckling said the center wouldn’t appeal Molloy’s decision, but planned to work to stop the wolf rider on the in the budget bill pending before Congress. Wetzler said his group would do the same, but was reserved about the possibility of success.

“Idaho and Montana have long maintained that they can responsibly manage wolf populations,” he said. “They may get the chance to prove that. And we’ll be watching.”

Garrity called the rider “bad news for wolves.”

“We don’t think congress should gerrymander the Endangered Species Act,” he said.

An official with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press on Saturday.

Want to read a genuine success story? Here’s one, courtesy the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources:

CHARLESTON, W.Va.— Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin today announced the Governor’s One Shot Whitetail Deer Hunt raised a record $75,000 in donations for the Hunters Helping the Hungry (HHH) program. The event, held Dec. 5 and 6 at Stonewall Jackson Resort State Park in Lewis County, has been held the past four years to raise money for HHH, which is administered by the Division of Natural Resources.

“The Governor’s One Shot Committee set a very ambitious monetary goal for last year’s event and I congratulate them on their success,” Gov. Tomblin said during a check presentation at the Capitol on March 2. “I also want to thank all those who participated, from the hunters to the business sponsors, because they put food on the table for many West Virginia families. While I look forward to this year’s hunt, which will be the event’s fifth anniversary, I’d like to encourage West Virginians to make year round donations to our food pantries.”

The first event, held in 2007, raised $17,000, the second in 2008 raised $35,000, and the third in 2009 raised $50,000.

The HHH program allows hunters to donate legally-harvested deer to certified processors so the meat can be distributed to soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, senior centers, missions, churches and community centers around the state. The HHH program has been highly successful since it began in 1992, providing more than 100,000 meals to the neediest of West Virginians. However, the program also requires cash donations to pay for processing and distribution costs to benefit these needy individuals.

The One Shot event is sponsored by DNR and the One Shot Committee. Private individuals and businesses donate money for the opportunity to participate in guided antlerless deer hunts on private property near Stonewall Jackson Resort State Park and end the event with an auction and an award banquet. All venison from the hunt, along with profits from the sponsorships, goes to HHH.

“While we want to thank all our dedicated volunteers for their hard work and time, it simply couldn’t have happened without the generous support of the many corporations and individuals who are willing to put their money where their mouths are,” said DNR Director Frank Jezioro. “They stepped up again this year and were overly generous in bidding on the many articles donated for auction at our event and purchasing the corporate tables for the banquet. Having different organizations underwrite most of the cost of the event enables us to give the major portion of the money raised directly to the HHH program.”

Gov. Tomblin and Director Jezioro also commended the landowners who allowed the participants to hunt on their property, providing not only a place to hunt, but also an opportunity to remove antlerless deer from overpopulated areas. Special thanks went to the many guides, who gave of their time to help the participants find the deer and assist with the harvest.

“We are already planning for this year’s event,” Jezioro said. “We have been contacted by new people and corporations that want to be part of next year’s Governor’s One Shot event for Hunters Helping the Hungry. At this time of giving there can be no greater gift than helping to feed less fortunate West Virginians.”

More information about the HHH program can be found at www.wvdnr.gov/Hunting/HHH.shtm or by calling 304-558-2771.

I suppose they’re a grim and unfortunate sign of the times, but budget cuts can really stink.

Just ask Georgia’s widlife officials. The budget they’re submitting for the upcoming fiscal year calls for a cut of up to 15 percent in the amount of land the state Department of Natural Resources leases for public hunting.

If the cuts occur, hunters would lose access to about 25,000 acres.

The full story is here, in the Rome News-Tribune.

West Virginia has so far avoided the same fate, largely because our Division of Natural Resources officials had the vision to set up a steady, dedicated source of revenue to fund land leases and acqusitions. Each “Conservation Stamp,” which must be purchased with every hunting or fishing license, puts $3 into a DNR fund that pays for land acquisition and capital improvements.

Most panther deaths are roadkills

It’s both good news and bad news: The recent death of an endangered Florida panther brings the 2010 death rate to near-record levels.

It’s bad news, of course, because the panther population needs all the individual animals it can get. It’s good news because a record number of dead panthers indicates a relative abundance of individual animals.

Florida wildlife officials say radio-collared panthers are producing roughly 100 cubs a year. Not all panthers are radio-collared, so the actual reproduction rate is even higher.

The Fort Myers News-Press has the full story.

Here’s the story, as reported by the Associated Press:

The Environmental Protection Agency denied on Thursday a petition by several environmental groups to ban lead in fishing tackle, two months after rejecting the groups’ attempt to ban it in hunting ammunition.

The EPA said that the petition did not demonstrate that a ban on lead in fishing tackle was necessary to protect against unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment, as required by the Toxic Substances Control Act.

In a letter to the American Bird Conservancy, one of the groups that filed the petition, EPA Assistant Administrator Stephen A. Owens said that a number of steps are being taken to address the concerns of lead in fishing tackle. Among them: limitations of lead in fishing gear on some federal lands; bans or restrictions on the state level; and federal and state outreach and education efforts.

“The emergence of these programs and activities over the past decade calls into question whether the broad rulemaking requested in your petition would be the least burdensome, adequately protective approach,” Owens wrote to the conservancy’s director of conservation advocacy, Michael Fry.

In their petition, the groups had argued that lead from spent hunting ammunition and lost lead fishing gear causes the deaths of 10 million to 20 million birds and other animals a year by lead poisoning.

Fry assailed the EPA’s decision. “The EPA has apparently completely abdicated its responsibility for regulating toxic lead in circumstances where wildlife are being poisoned,” he said.

Fry suggested the reason for the decision was politics: “The political appointees have acted in this administration not like heads of agencies, but like they’re running for office.”

In a statement, the EPA said: “This decision is based solely on an analysis of the facts and the law. EPA conducted a careful review of this petition and made a determination that the petitioners did not make the case that is required under (the law) to undertake a national ban on lead in fishing gear.”

The petition, filed three months ago, stoked alarm among outdoorsmen, and members of the House and Senate introduced legislation aimed at preventing the EPA from regulating ammunition or fishing tackle.

The American Sportfishing Association praised the EPA announcement.

“It represents a solid review of the biological facts, as well as the economic and social impacts that would have resulted from such a sweeping federal action,” said group vice president Gordon Robertson. “It is a commonsense decision.” He argued that a lead ban would increase costs and price out many anglers, which in turn would decrease tax and license revenue for fisheries conservation.

In 1994, under President Bill Clinton and EPA administrator Carol Browner, now White House energy adviser, the EPA actually proposed banning lead and zinc in certain smaller-size fishing sinkers. The agency said in a statement at the time: “The ingestion of even one small fishing sinker containing lead or zinc can result in the death of a water bird.”

The proposal sparked a backlash in Congress. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, introduced the “Common Sense in Fishing Regulations Act” in 1995 that would have blocked the EPA from implementing it. The agency eventually abandoned the proposal.

The American Bird Conservancy filed the petition in August along with the Center for Biological Diversity, the Association of Avian Veterinarians, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility and a hunters group called Project Gutpile, seeking a ban on lead in both hunting ammunition and fishing tackle.

The petition cited nearly 500 peer-reviewed scientific articles that the groups said document the toxic effects of lead on wildlife. These studies “conclude that the lead components of bullets, shotgun pellets, fishing weights and lures pose an unreasonable risk of injury to human and wildlife health and the environment,” the Aug. 3 petition argued.

The EPA earlier rejected the ammunition part of the petition, saying it didn’t have authority under the Toxic Substances Control Act, but that it would make a decision on the part pertaining to fishing tackle. In September, 60 groups wrote to EPA administrator Lisa Jackson asking her to grant the petition for both ammunition and tackle. 

Fair chase a thing of the past?

Hold onto your skivvies, folks, the hunting community  just might be in for a wild ride.

A judge in southeastern Missouri has ruled that the state’s regulations against deer hunting from vehicles or hunting with dogs are unconstitutional.

Two hunters sued the state, saying the regulations were overly broad and not easy to understand. The judge agreed with their arguments.

The ruling could have ramifications elsewhere, including here in West Virginia. One, it might launch a tidal wave of lawsuits from hunters who disagree with state-imposed regulations. Two, it might spook state wildlife agencies to rewriting some of their regulations — with no guarantee the amended regulations would resist future challenges.

The Associated Press story on the ruling:

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A southeast Missouri judge has ruled that state regulations prohibiting the use of dogs and vehicles in deer hunting are so vague that they are unconstitutional.

Missouri Department of Conservation spokesman Joe Jerek said Friday that department lawyers are still deciding whether to appeal the ruling handed down earlier this month by Ripley County Circuit Judge Robert Smith.

Ripley County hunters Neil Turner and Bobby “Shannon” Jones sued in February over the regulations, which prohibit such things as hunters driving through the woods or using dogs to scare deer out into the open, or shooting deer from a car. Violations are class A misdemeanors.

The regulations “are vague, overly broad, indefinite and fail to establish sufficient standards so that people of ordinary intelligence must necessarily guess at their meaning,” Smith wrote in the Aug. 5 ruling.

“In our area, hunting is not only for recreation but it is a part of our way of life and any infringement of this right must be constitutional,” Smith wrote.

At issue are Conservation Department regulations that prohibit the use of a “motor-driven air, land or water conveyances” while deer hunting. The department also has a regulation stating that deer may not be “hunted, pursued, taken or killed with the aid of dogs, in use or possession.”

“Big picture, these regulations are in place to help ensure ethical hunting and fair chase, and also, based on our scientific management, to help protect and sustain wildlife species,” Jerek said.

But Daniel Moore, an attorney for Turner and Jones, said the wording confuses both hunters and the conservation agents charged with enforcing the regulations.

“It left it up to the agent’s interpretation, and you can’t have a law applied based upon the feelings of a law officer,” Moore said. “Where it says you can’t pursue deer with the aid of a vehicle, who the hell knows what that means?”

Turner was arrested and faces federal charges after a 2008 undercover investigation into illegal hunting activities, known as “Operation Pulling Wool.” Moore said negotiations continue with federal prosecutors and he is hopeful the case will be settled before it goes to trial.

“We’re not against hunting regulations, but it’s just fair if you don’t know whether you’re in violation or not,” Moore said.

Jerek said the acts prohibited by the regulations are also covered by other laws and regulations, and “are still considered impermissible” despite the judge’s ruling.

A great fishing spot, trashed

This week’s column is more like a rant. It follows up on a recent blog post about litter at West Virginia’s Marmet Locks and Dam:

I went to one of the Kanawha Valley’s favorite fishing spots to get photos of people fishing.

I ended up taking photos of garbage.

The people were missing, driven off by bright sunshine, high humidity and 95-degree afternoon heat. I stood at the head of the stairways that led down to the Marmet Locks fishing pier, camera in hand, wondering if there might be fishermen on the banks downstream. To find out, I walked down the metal staircase to the fishing pier.

The farther I walked, the madder I got.

Trash littered the fishing pier from one end to the other. I stepped over Styrofoam worm tubs, balls of discarded fishing line, empty lure packages, plastic chicken-liver containers, pop cans, fast-food wrappers and chunks of broken-up Styrofoam coolers.

Plastic grocery bags filled with even more debris hung from the catwalk’s metal handrail. At least two trash bags, each stuffed with rubbish, lay on the cross-piers that supported the walkway.

The sight infuriated me so much I decided to share it with you. I started snapping photos. At the same time, I started putting together a mental outline for a column to accompany the images. This column.

At first I planned to call for the temporary closure of all Kanawha and Ohio River piers. “Let those litterbugs do without for a while, and maybe they’ll appreciate what a precious resource these fishing piers really are,” I thought. “Maybe then they’ll take clean up after themselves.”

I quickly realized, however, that such a draconian approach wouldn’t work.

For one thing, it’s not at all clear who would have the authority to order a closure. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers controls some of the facilities. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission controls others. The Division of Natural Resources has agreements with both entities to allow public access to the piers.

A call to Bret Preston, the DNR’s head of warm-water fisheries, revealed yet another complicating factor. Cleanup responsibilities don’t necessarily rest with the DNR, FERC or the Corps of Engineers. In some instances, a social service agency hires developmentally disabled people to clean up the piers. In Marmet’s case, the town government handles the cleanup.

I know what you’re thinking: “Why in the heck aren’t those entities doing a better job of keeping the place clean?”

My response: They shouldn’t have to. If anglers were being responsible, there wouldn’t be any trash to clean up.

“If you can carry it in, you should carry it back out,” a Boy Scout leader told me years ago.

Clearly that’s not happening at Marmet. Fishermen able-bodied enough to descend and climb the steep steps to the piers apparently don’t consider themselves able-bodied enough to carry out empty chicken-liver containers, even though they carried them in full.

Perhaps the summertime heat is making wimps of them. Maybe all that casting tires them out. Possibly — just possibly — the excitement of landing a 12-inch white bass turns their arms and legs to jelly. Or maybe they just don’t give a damn.

I vote for that last one.

Immature pangolins

Why in the world would anyone want to eat an anteater, let alone one covered in scales?

Apparently there’s quite an appetite for pangolin meat, which explains why Chinese authorities are having to guard against smugglers who traffic in pangolin carcasses.

Customs agents in the Chinese province of Guangdong recently intercepted one of the largest-ever shipments of illegally smuggled pangolins. The June 5 bust turned up 2,090 frozen pangolin carcasses and 92 cases of pangolin scales. The animals apparently had been collected  in southeast Asia by five Chinese nationals and were on a boat bound for the Xiangzhou port in Guangdong.

Pangolin meat and scales are prized in China. The meat is considered a delicacy, and the scales are believed to benefit breast-feeding mothers. Pangolins are rapidly disappearing in southeast Asia, and now we know why.