Slugs & Plugs

The best campaign ad of the year, so far

Texas judge is number one on number two

In what he considered to be a ridiculous request from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, a county judge from The Lone Star State has responded in writing after being asked to investigate whether the owner of a hunting cabin allowed his patrons to answer nature’s call in the nearby woods and fields.   

The state’s top environmental office received a complaint in early March, alleging that a Thornton resident was leasing a cabin to hunters that was not furnished with a toilet, so that hunters had to relieve themselves au naturale. 

When the complaint was assigned to Limestone County Judge Daniel Burkeen, he offered his commonsense—and hilarious—response. 

“We have had some delay in our investigation of the incidents alleged in the complaint which you kindly forwarded to us,” Judge Burkeen wrote. “The problem is, we have recently had a rash of reports of cows, horses, sheep and goats defecating at will in pastures throughout the county.” 

Further, the judge suggested that in addition to hunters and livestock, “we suspect that wild hogs, deer and all sorts of other animals are defecating without even trying to find a proper facility.” 

Yes, the news might have come as quite a shock to the Commission on Environmental Quality, but lots of critters—hunters included—do their business in the woods. 

In an interview this week with the regional legal journal, The Southeast Texas Record, Judge Burkeen said his reply has become something of an Internet sensation, and he’s received comments of support from across the country. 

“It’s all been positive,” Judge Burkeen told the publication. “Citizens that have had to deal with state agencies were especially (entertained).” 

By the way, while given the opportunity, the judge also took an easy shot at federal bureaucrats at the conclusion of his correspondence. 

“Lastly, please allow us to handle this at the local level, and do not involve the federal government. When it comes to matters of excessive defecation, Washington bureaucrats would only add to our misery.” 

All we can say is, on the subject of number two, we think Judge Burkeen is number one!

Hoosier mountain lion sighting confirmed

Just weeks after implementing a new department policy designed to consistently and systematically investigate public reports of mountain lion sightings in the Hoosier State, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources Division of Fish and Wildlife has confirmed the presence of a mountain lion in rural Greene County. 

It marked the second time the department has confirmed the presence of mountain lions in the wild in Indiana, both times based upon photographic evidence. 

In the most recent case, a trail camera recorded multiple images of a single mountain lion on May 1. In late 2009, DNR biologists investigated and confirmed the presence of a mountain lion based on a photo taken by a Clay County deer hunter from his treestand. 

In both cases, biologists were unable to determine if the animals were wild or had escaped from confinement. 

In announcing the confirmed sighting this week, the DNR explained that it plans to develop a consistent procedure to investigate reported cougar sightings and to institute a formal data collection and storage system. 

“More than anything, it was prompted by increased reports of mountain lions migrating east, specifically out of South Dakota,” said Gary Langell, the DNR’s private lands program manager and developer of the mountain lion policy. 

Langell noted the recent mountain lion sightings officially verified by wildlife agencies in neighboring Michigan and Illinois. 

“At that point, it becomes more apparent we could have mountain lions show up in Indiana,” he said. Since the policy’s inception on March 1, 19 mountain lion sightings have been reported in Indiana. 

The sighting in Greene County is the only one confirmed since the new procedures have been established. 

Presently, mountain lions are a protected species in Indiana, but state law allows a resident landowner or tenant to kill an animal that’s causing damage to owned or leased property and livestock.

Guns stolen? Don't give up!

Though it can be devastating for many gun owners, somewhere or sometime over the course of their lives, one or more of their cherished guns may be tragically lost in a home burglary or theft.   

The story of the successful recovery of a firearm taken during a 1970 burglary and returned to an Oregon man this week conveys a valuable lesson to those who have been victimized by gun theft: don’t give up and remain vigilant! 

The .45 caliber Remington 1911, stolen from a Clackamas, Ore home along with other guns, jewelry and artwork just short of 40 years ago, was recovered by a Los Angeles Police Department detective during a gang-related arrest April 12. 

And this week, it was returned to its grateful owner, retired dentist Dr. Warren Schafer, now 90 years old. Dr. Schafer was reunited with his classic pistol due in great part to his diligence in maintaining serial number records of all his firearms. 

Additionally, when he received a letter from the Oregon State Police each year asking if he wanted to keeping listing his missing guns in the state’s database, he always replied to the affirmative. 

“I tell them, ‘Hell yes!’ It doesn’t cost me a thing, and see, it works!” he told the Oregonian newspaper this week. 

So, Dr. Schafer’s perseverance paid off, albeit after 40 long years. Of the 11 firearms taken from Schafer’s home in October 1970, one other gun, a .303 Enfield, was recovered 10 years ago in Las Vegas.

Wolves’ presence alone impact elk numbers

A Montana State University study has confirmed what many elk hunters have espoused for years: that the simple presence of wolves can adversely impact elk populations. 

Ecology professor Scott Creel and his associates concluded that wolves made elk more vigilant and skittish, affecting pregnancy and calf numbers in the elk herds—indicating that wolves impact elk populations far beyond direct predation. 

Even when wolves were nearly two miles away, the elk’s vigilant behavior persisted, Creel told the Spokane Spokesman-Review. 

“If you look at the observed rate that wolves are killing elk calves, there are too many calves missing,” Creel said. “We can’t account for them all through direct predation.” 

Creel and fellow researchers found that as body fat drops, cow elk have difficulty staying pregnant through winter. They become emaciated, unhealthy and abort, the research concluded. 

During a four-year study period, Creel and his research team collected 1,205 scat samples from cow elk. The samples were taken after March 15, when pregnant elk would be in their third trimester. The scat was tested for progesterone, a hormone needed to maintain pregnancy. 

In areas with high wolf-to-elk ratios, progesterone levels in the scat decreased fourfold, Creel said. 

The results of the study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“This isn’t a new idea in ecology,” Creel said. “When a predator is in the system, it affects the system’s dynamics.”

Hunters battle lions for Black Hills deer

New data from the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Department indicates that mountain lions in the Black Hills region of the state killed as many deer last year as did hunters, raising concern among sportsmen and biologists alike. 

Biologists estimate that mountain lions annually kill about 5,500 deer in the Black Hills, almost exactly the same number of animals taken by deer hunters there in the 2009 season. 

In the past three seasons, the Black Hills deer harvest by hunters has declined from 7,800 in 2007, to 7,000 in 2008, and down to 5,500 last year. 

“It’s absolutely true that lions are one of the main causes of deer mortality in the Black Hills,” says GF&P regional game specialist John Kanta. 

The Rapid City Journal reports that lion predation of deer is currently a point of serious discussion in South Dakota, as a series of public meetings on mountain lion management takes place across the state. The first of those meetings was held in Spearfish in late March, with more than 60 people attending to listen and comment. 

Kanta told those in attendance that while lions feed on both elk and deer, they target deer in particular, making the impact on deer numbers more pronounced. He estimated that each year Black Hills lions kill about 6,300 “large ungulates,” which include elk, deer, bighorn sheep and mountain goats. 

But the vast majority of those large mammal kills include about 5,500 deer, followed by elk and a lesser number of bighorn sheep and mountain goats. 

So far, the public response has been consistent, Kanta said last week. 

“The majority of people have been saying they want fewer lions. In fact, we’ve had a few say no lions at all. They want them all to go away,” he said. “We’ve also had a few people who spoke against the lion season and don’t want them hunted. But I’d say the majority wants lions, but fewer of them.” 

The remaining three public input meetings are being held this week in Aberdeen, Winner and Pierre.

Firearms Freedom Act becoming state law

In recent weeks, the governors of two Western states have inked legislation that exempts firearms and ammunition manufactured and retained in-state from federal regulations, bringing the total number of states passing so-called Firearms Freedom Acts to five. 

Last week, Gov. Mike Rounds signed the South Dakota Firearms Freedom Act, just days after Gov. Dave Freudenthal from neighboring Wyoming placed his signature on similar legislation. With the governors’ action, the two states joined Montana, Tennessee and Utah as states that have passed firearms sovereignty laws in the past two years. 

And just yesterday, lawmakers in Arizona sent its version of the Firearms Freedom Act to Gov. Jan Brewer, who is expected to sign the bill into law. 

Similar measures appear to be on the fast track in Oklahoma, Alaska and Idaho in the current legislative session. A total of 19 other state legislatures had similar bills introduced this year. 

State firearms groups in Montana—as the first state to pass a Firearms Freedom Act in 2009—have filed a lawsuit in federal court to validate the principles and terms of the Montana Firearms Freedom Act (MFFA). Led by the Montana Shooting Sports Association, the suit does not contend that the federal government has no authority to regulate firearms, but rather that courts have misinterpreted interstate commerce regulations under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. 

In addition to its firearms sovereignty provisions, Wyoming’s Firearms Freedom Act goes further, providing that any state or federal official who tries to enforce any federal gun law on firearms made and sold in Wyoming may face a $2,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

While some contend that the thought of county sheriffs arresting U.S. marshals who try to enforce federal gun laws in Wyoming conjures up images of vigilantes and the old West, supporters say it is intended to be a symbolic assertion of Wyoming residents’ constitutional rights. “I think it sends a message that the state, and I think the Legislature, represented the voters and the residents of the state, in telling the feds that we don’t want the federal government interfering with our right to bear arms,” said bill co-sponsor Sen. Bruce Burns (R-Sheridan), a co-sponsor of the bill.

PA deer harvest lowest in 23 years

The Pennsylvania Game Commission reported last week that Keystone State hunters harvested an estimated 308,920 whitetail during the 2009-10 seasons, marking the lowest overall deer-kill in 23 years. 

Last year’s deer totals were an 8 percent decline from the 335,850 in 2008-09. With its history of high harvest numbers, one has to go back to the 1986-87 season to find a lower deer take, when an estimated 300,014 deer were recorded. Pennsylvania hunters took 108,330 antlered deer in the 2009-10 seasons, down 11 percent from the previous license year’s harvest of 122,410, but similar to the 2007-08 harvest of 109,200. 

The 2009-10 buck kill represents a 47 percent decline from the record-high buck kill of 203,247 posted in 2001-02, the last season before the state’s antler restrictions went into effect. Also, hunters harvested 200,590 antlerless deer in 2009-10, a 6 percent decline from the 213,440 antlerless deer taken in 2008-09. The 2007-08 antlerless deer harvest was 213,870. 

The 2009-10 hunting season marked the first time crossbows were legal in statewide archery deer seasons for all hunters. In those 19 WMUs outside of the three urban areas, the archery harvest increased 13 percent. 

The proportion of the archery harvest taken by crossbows in the 19 WMUs increased from 15 percent to 30 percent. Crossbows have been legal in WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D since 2004. 

“Although we do not use season-specific harvest data for management purposes, we recognize the public is interested in these harvest estimates,” said DuBrock. “For that reason only, we provide estimated deer harvest breakdowns for firearms, archery and muzzleloader seasons, but we only use total deer harvest estimates when making recommendations for each WMU.”

Study: Catching spawning bass doesn’t harm populations

Despite the widely held notion that catching aggressive bass off nests during spawning season can deplete largemouth populations, a new University of Florida study published in a national fisheries journal this week indicates otherwise.

Largemouth bass are easily the most popular gamefish among American anglers. When the fish spawn in early spring, male bass make shallow nests in the sand, court females, and then protect the eggs and hatchlings for several weeks.

Males guarding nests are notoriously aggressive, striking anything that moves. The fish are easy to catch, and as a result, it is commonly believed that spawning-season fishing reduces bass populations.

“We found that in most cases, spawning area closures won’t improve bass populations,” said study co-author Mike Allen, a fisheries professor with UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. “If you lose some nests, the ones that are left have higher survival rates.”

Allen and biological scientist Daniel Gwinn gathered data on anglers catching bass during spawning seasons in three states. The researchers plugged the data into mathematical models representing several types of restricted and unrestricted fishing.

The results showed that prohibiting bass fishing during spawning season would only boost populations in waters where very high percentages of spawning bass are caught.

“Those conditions are pretty rare,” Allen said.

The researcher also conceded that the practice of catch and release fishing may significantly reduce any negative impact of fishing off bass nests during the spawn.  In 2008, Allen and colleagues published a study showing that the percentage of largemouth bass caught and kept by anglers was half what it was in the 1980s.

The study’s findings were published in the current issue of the journal Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.

Shoot like a girl

This past weekend, the Texas Christian University Horned Frog Rifle Team won their school’s first-ever NCAA Rifle National Championship, posting a two-day aggregate score of 4,675. 

And not only did the team surpass the shooting prowess of a West Virginia team that was heavily favored to repeat its 2009 title, it won with a team comprised entirely of women—the first time in the history of the event that an all-female team has taken the NCAA rifle crown. 

You see, in collegiate competitive shooting, there’s no such thing as separate men’s teams and women’s teams. 

The Horned Frog women posted a respectable second-place score of 2,314 in smallbore (.22 cal.) on Friday, following it up with a blistering 2,361 in air rifle Saturday. Alaska-Fairbanks shot a two-day aggregate score of 4653 to finish in second place, with West Virginia University placing third, Kentucky fourth and Army fifth. A total of eight teams qualified for the finals, which took place at TCU’s home range in Ft. Worth, Texas. 

Coming off this weekend’s NCAA Championship performance, five members of the TCU rifle team received All-American honors. Senior Erin Lorenzen joined Sarah Scherer and Sarah Beard as All Americans in both smallbore and air rifle. Team members Simone Riford and Caitlin Morrissey garnered All-American honors in air rifle. The TCU Rifle Team is coached by Karen Monez. 

Go Frogs!