Hunting
Opening day is the one of the days we await all year long. Its the time when we gather family, friends, dogs, favorite shotguns, and trade in our everyday lives for the woods. If we’re lucky the day falls on a weekend and, we don’t need to make special arrangements; but if it’s during the week, many of us succumb to unforeseen illnesses. The country’s gross national product might drop a bit, but it’ll rebound. If we miss the opener, though, there is a good chance that our spirits won’t.
Belling the dogs and walking through our coverts is the start of something special. Bird hunting ain’t all that it’s cracked up to be; it’s much, much more.
As school kids count down the days until summer vacation, bird hunters count down the days until our seasons begin. Reloading shells is a great way to kill a few long winter days. We’ll make sure that we’ve got enough l ounce #9’s in 20-gauge to get us through even the worst string of misses that we’ve ever encountered. Then we’ll load a few more to pass around to our friends who haven’t yet tried them.
If we don’t have time to reload, then we’ll order a couple of flats of our favorite shells from an ammunition company. The nice thing about making a call like that is we usually engage in conversation with a fellow bird hunter. If you don’t know what I mean, then try having a meaningful conversation with someone at the end of the phone line when you order some kitchen glasses or a new pair of pants.
Dog work is a year-round endeavor. Like us, bird hunting runs in their blood. After the season ends we’ll give our dogs a well-earned break. But when mud season draws to a close we’ll start conditioning programs. Whether it’s running through coverts, field trialing, or roading them behind a 4-wheeler – we’re looking to help shake off their extra winter weight. Training seminars are great for dogs that have picked up bad habits that seem impossible to break. We pour through dog supply company catalogs and magazines for replacement gear, for new products, and for tips and tricks.
On a hot summer day we’ll place our waxed cotton jackets, vests, and chaps in the direct sun and let them heat up to perfection. While we’re waiting we’ll boil a can of reproofing in a pot of water. When the wax is soft and fluid we’ll buff the fabric to a nice finish. Well-worn areas get extra attention, and while we’re at it, it’s also a great time to waterproof our boots.
Some time around the middle of August we’ll see a new development in our own routines, and it’s oftentimes a reduction of food. To our family’s surprise we pass on the extra helping of dry-rub ribs and limit the number of scoops of ice cream at a backyard barbecue. Add, or increase, exercise programs and by the time opening day rolls around hopefully we’ll more closely resemble a running back than the Pillsbury Dough Boy. Dropping a few pounds and getting strong means only one thing: we can hunt longer without fatigue.
Fine-tuning our reflexes comes by popping caps at the skeet, trap, and sporting clays courses. Except for the first few rounds where we miss a bunch of gimmes, breaking clay is far more fun than pull-ups. After a round or two our reflexes come back. Shooting is like riding a bicycle, and in no time flat we’re back on track. When backyard songbirds flush from the bird bath in a left-to-right flight pattern we sometimes swing our empty hands to our cheeks. My family used to chuckle when they hear me say, “bang” but they understand. They’re even starting to do it, too.
My first day in the woods is always in Canada in mid-September, and on that day time stands still. I don’t sleep much the night before, and I awake without an alarm clock. A day without bird hunting is a gloomy day indeed, but on opening day the sky is the limit. I wonder how the dogs will work, if there are birds in my favorite coverts, if the new coverts are as good as they look. Dogs always seem to know that difference between opening day and general field work. They know it’s their turn to shine, and they willingly rise to the challenge.
It’s been a long time since I missed an opening day. Indian summer rules the roost on most opening days, and the best part is during the morning or later in the afternoon. Midday temperatures are often hot, and when combined with high humidity even the fittest hunters bog down. Dogs that normally shy away from water flop down in any stream, seep, pond, or mud hole. Just before I complain about the heat, I think about my quail hunting friends down south and my pheasant hunting compadres out west. They know what heat is all about more than me, but that doesn’t stop them from getting in a few licks. Tropical storms or hurricanes sometimes drop tremendous amounts of water, downed trees, or silt in the coverts. I’ve never seen a first frost before opening day, and the woods are chockablock with foliage. I’ll only get a glimpse of a flushing grouse as my friends and I break up a brood from the spring. Young of the year are not as wily as the elder statesmen, but the leaves and the branches keep us from getting off many quality shots. Woodcock are a bit more predictable, and if we move our shotgun through the tree tops after the bird has disappeared we’ll drop enough birds to make the dogs happy. I’ve never come close to filling a bag limit on opening day. Come to think of it, I’ve never much cared.
Opening day is about something quite different. It’s about the tremendous feeling of possibility. It’s the start of a magical season, one full of hope, opportunity, and certainly redemption. We trade in work clothes for brush pants and boots. There are no offices where we go, just coverts and fields. Meetings with colleagues are replaced by a day spent with family and friends. The lunch room is no longer on the second floor; it’s by the river or on the tailgate of a muddy truck loaded with dog boxes. Folks might be late for meetings, but they’re never late for opening day. And it’s coming up. Like you, I can hardly wait.
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2012 edition of Ruffed Grouse Society.
Dogs, Hunting
My heart skipped a beat when my wife told me she loved Albert. He was a young, muscular, good-looking tricolor setter of North Carolina quail stock, part of the field-dog rotation at The Webb Farm. Bill Webb owned him, Wade Meacham trained him and Kenny Rabb hunted him. One day, Albert tore a ligament, and despite surgery he would never get back to the rigorous hunting schedule required of him at the farm.
Bill knew the setter still had a lot more bird-chasing years in him. If Albert were worked out regularly and hunted for shorter periods of time, he’d be just fine. And so it came to be during our annual winter hunt at The Webb Farm. Bill could think of no better fit for Albert since we work our dogs regularly and each of our coverts takes about an hour to hunt. We were shoeins for the Adopt Albert program, and everyone wanted the dog to find a home in our kennel – except for me.
How do you take a big running dog whelped on fields full of wiregrass, lovegrass, milo and bicolor lespedeza and get him to like the tight, harsh New England coverts? The term “exercise in futility” came to mind, and I was concerned that I could take the dog out of the South but that I wouldn’t be able to take the South out of the dog.
Any protest I may have had was over by the time my daughter met Albert. She liked the tan and black patches around his eyes, and she smiled when he flopped into her lap. I folded like a house of cards, and we picked up Albert on an 85-degree, Carolina-blue spring day. Love was in the air.
The dog adjusted just fine to his new life above the Mason-Dixon Line. I ran him in the woods, we did casting two-a-days to shorten his range and he showed a lot of promise. He was a smart, experienced, well-trained gun dog, and it helped that our summers reminded him of his days on the piedmont. Albert proved that you can teach an old dog new tricks.
There was just one hitch. As horses balk at jumping fences, field dogs usually reject thick cover. Unless it’s in their blood, hat dog – or for that matter, what hunter – would trade the softness of wheat, milo, and barley fields for the impenetrable white birch runs, the stabbing Hawthorne tines, the shrouds of bull briars, and the snarling tangles of raspberry vines? Dogs usually don’t volunteer to run through that kind of mess, and Albert was no exception.
Anything done in moderation shows a lack of interest, so I tried a mentorship program. I ran Albert with one of my cover dogs, which made about as much sense as socks on a rooster. I had one dog in the cover and one dog in the field, and I was in the middle. If you’re wondering about that patch of gray hair on my head, it blossomed on that day.
I like to build on successes, and Albert’s came slowly. His first win came in the Ed Gray covert. The covert was one of Ed’s favorites, and it is a delightful old farm with a hillside slope that was chock-a-block with apples, high-bush cranberries and haws so thick you could barely see daylight on the other side. A river runs through the bottom, and alder and white birch are everywhere. On a good day, you could shoot grouse on your way down to the bottom, and on a great day you’d find a few woodcock. A tremendous field separated the two sections, and that was where Albert flash-pointed his first grouse. Later on I shot a pair of timberdoodles over his points, and my friend Cabe shot a few woodcock over Albert in the King’s Covert, too. But when we were slow to find birds, Albert headed straight for the nearest field.
Albert didn’t much care to get shredded and stabbed by the bush and briars. When it’s hot and the birds are tucked away in the shade and the moisture of the thickest of thick coverts, you’ve got to have the patience of Job to work your way through. At the end of a season, my double-faced chaps are shredded and I’ve got scars on my face and wrists, but my scrapes pale in comparison to a dog on the ground. Albert wanted no part of the jungle, and the only way I could get him into the coverts was to show him a benefit. That magic arrived when the woodcock flights were heavy.
I looked forward to the full moon at the end October. The temperatures would be lower, and a killing frost would open up the woods. The heavy west-northwest winds would knock down the leaves from the trees, and there would be more chalk on the ground than on a teacher’s blackboard. I decided to put him in Freight Train, my best covert, and hoped that a flight of woodcock had dropped in for a visit.
Albert was cranked and ran over the first few before he settled down and got to work. It helped that the woodcock were spread perfectly throughout the covert. His casting tightened up to a 30- to 35-yard range on the whistle, he figured out the difference between ground and body scent and he found the birds where they always are – right in the thickness. Repetition makes the master, and after 24 birds in under an hour, Albert was well on his way to becoming a New England cover dog.
Birds make a bird dog, and for the rest of the season old Albert ran as good as my other setters, Ocracoke and Rowdy. Sometimes he ranges a little too far, and when he does he stands back off the bird a ways to let me catch up. When I get done zigzagging through the woods, he’ll reposition closer toward the bird; when I find a space open enough to take a shot, he’ll lock right up. Albert has added grouse and woodcock to his repertoire, but he’ll forever be a Southern gentleman, just the way we love him.
Hunting
Follow a famed hunter from the past’s footsteps through New Brunswick’s backcountry.
The fall is an extraordinary time of year to be in New Brunswick. In September and October, Atlantic salmon return to the storied rivers to spawn, big game animals are on the move, and bird hunters roam the upland and lowland coverts that are splashed with remarkable color. The white birch, alders, and maples turn brilliant shades of yellow, orange and red, and if we quiet our minds, autumn affords us an opportunity to see life the way an artist sees it every day.
I have travelled to the Mirimichi River Valley every year for a very long time. I’m not sure what originally prompted me to go. Maybe it was the shortness of my stateside woodcock seasons, maybe it was the loss of good, local habitat, or maybe it was to get my setters more work. Once thing is for sure, and that is once I started going to New Brunswick I’ve never stopped.
Logging is a main industry up here so an adequate supply of primary and secondary growth is always right around the corner. These are places where I can run my dogs for hours on end through an endless mix of alder runs, white birch and poplar stands, and old orchards fringed with Hawthorns, raspberries, and high-bush cranberries. Sometimes the ‘cock are mixed in with ruffed grouse, but for the most part I’ll find the timber-doodles in the dark, dampness of river bottoms and seeps. The grouse are in the uplands where they should be.
An aged smell accompanies the lowlands and it is caused by the moisture and the near eternity of decaying leaves. It’s a damp and musty smell that any veteran woodcock hunter recognizes immediately as home. The leaves and moisture create a fertile soil rich in the woodcock’s favorite meal of earthworms.
There is something entirely unusual about a bird with an upside-down brain that migrates best on a Full Moon and a WNW wind. One day the coverts are chock-a-block while other days they closely resemble Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. When I go through them and find no birds I look for their calling cards. Sometimes there are bore holes in soft terrain which show where they extracted a number of meaty earthworms while other times they leave behind traces of pre-flight excrement that woodcock hunter’s call chalk. If a flight of birds dropped in over night and the pointing and shooting is fast and furious I smile. But I also smile when I come out of a covert and bore witness only to sign. In those instances I tell my dogs that we’ll find birds in the next few coverts. I haven’t lied to them yet.
I stay in an old log cabin that was assembled from logs cut just a few miles away. Over the years the wood has dried in the summer sun, and the winter snow and spring rains have caused the foundation to settle quite a bit. Most of the angles aren’t as true as they used to be, and there is a porch that overlooks the river. A stack of firewood for the wood stove is in the living room and it’ll take off the morning and evening chill in no time. The cabin is owned by Debbie and Dale Norton and is a part of their Upper Oxbow camp. Debbie is from a lineage of guides five-generations long. It’s absolutely perfect.
Sometimes Cabe Loring, my Spartanburg friend, comes up for a change of pace from all of the dove and quail he chases in South Carolina. We’ll hunt with an outstanding New Brunswick guide named Brett Silliker. Brett has birds and salmon in his blood from a number of generations, and he is a passionate Brittney man. We bomb around in his Suburban and rumble down dirt logging roads, we roll past old pines, and tuck into out-of-sight spaces in the coverts, just like our favorite birds do.
A while back I learned that other New Englanders headed to New Brunswick long before I did. In fact, a Providence, Rhode Island hunter named Edmund Davis began heading to New Brunswick in the fall during the Edwardian Period. Most hunters were reveling in Teddy Roosevelt’s big game exploits, but Davis was different; he headed to Canada to bird hunt. Because he was notoriously well-heeled he rode the expanding railroad circuit that connected places like Manhattan, New Haven, Providence, and Boston with Fredericton, St. John, and Moncton. He spent every fall hunting birds and even died in camp: a single gunshot wound to the back of his head inflicted by his own shotgun in his cabin living room. Ruled a hunting accident by authorities. Go figure, there’s obviously more to the story than hunting.
Hunting woodcock has always had a cult-like following, and Davis went so far as to write a book about it. Published in 1908, Woodcock Shooting chronicled his annual Fall excursions to hunt ‘cock. If I could find an original I’d expect to pay the same amount as a 20-gauge Parker VHE in good condition. Is it worth it? Heck yeah.
Pictures show him emerging from coverts wearing high-laced boots and breeches, and a tweed jacket. He is said to have been the first man to hunt woodcock in New Brunswick with an English setter which made him far more deadly than dogless hunters. He favored a light shotgun, preferably weighing in at about six pounds. After a few years of learning, Davis switched to a 20-bore while a gunning companion favored the 28. They were well ahead of their time in a lot of ways. Imagine that; using a setter to hunt birds. What will they think of next?
The more things change the more they stay the same, and while I may think I am unique in my hunting approach I am not. Like many woodcock hunters I follow in the shadows of Edmund Davis. I tighten the laces of my knee-high L.L. Bean boots that are ideal for walking through mucky river bottoms and feeder streams. In the early season I’ll shoot a 20-bore and when the leaves fall I’ll switch to a 28. I have three English setters and my Parkers weigh in a bit more than 6 pounds. The difference is that instead of a train I’ll load up my perfectly broken-in 4Runner with 204,000 miles on it. I may have fewer zeros following the commas in my bank account, but I feel just as rich in my New Brunswick experience.
I wonder if Debbie Norton or Brett Silliker’s great-grandparents might have taken Edmund Davis for a turn in the woods? I’ll have to ask them when I go next year. It’ll just be a matter of time and I’m already counting down the days.
This article originally appeared in the Premier Collector’s Edition of Covey Rise magazine in the Fall of 2012.
Hunting
Your Money Is No Good Here
According to Mike Piccione of the Daily Caller, Bank of America no longer wants to do business with McMillan Firearms Manufacturing. The Phoenix, Ariz., company manufactures a wide variety of hunting, competition, and tactical rifles and has been banking with Bank of America for 12 years. Kelley McMillan, the Operations Director for McMillan Firearms, which also owns McMillan Fiberglass Stocks and the McMillan Group International, said McMillan has never been late on a payment and has never bounced a check. The outstanding debt on its line of credit is at 61 percent.
The company received a personal visit from a representative of the bank.
“A bank representative spent five minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last five years and had become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories,” McMillan said.
“At this point I interrupted him and asked, ‘Can I possibly save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer want my business.”‘
The banker’s response according to McMillan? “That is correct.” The McMillan group of companies would soon be paying off its credit line and closing its accounts with Bank of America.
Conservation Efforts Benefit from Record 2011 Excise Taxes
The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports that wildlife conservation efforts got a boost in 201 I thanks to excise taxes paid byAmerica’s firearms and ammunition industry. Excise tax obligations for firearms and ammunition manufacturers were up 27 percent in the fourth quarter and up 14 percent for the 2011 calendar year when compared to the same periods the previous year. Obligations for the full 2011 calendar year were the highest for a calendar year to date. Excise tax collections are a key economic indicator for the industry. These 10 to 11 percent excise tax dollars, collected since 1937 under the Pittman-Robertson Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act, are specifically designated to be used by state wildlife agencies for conservation. Collectively, purchasers of firearms and ammunition and hunters are the single- largest source of wildlife conservation funding.
Canadian Long Gun Laws Loosen Up
Overjoyed Canadians are celebrating the recent overturning of the Firearms Act. According to Tony Bernardo of the Canadian Shooting Sport Association, “The Firearms Act has been a thorn in the side of hunters, sport shooters, farmers, and heritage firearms enthusiasts for 17 years .” The law required Canadian citizens to register shotguns and rifles , which Bernardo said sportsmen considered to be frustrating to honest, law-abiding firearms owners. “The anti-gun fact ion had to torque statistics and align themselves with the unions and politically motivated left-wing advocates. We thank the Harper government and those who have worked tirelessly to put this legislative mess out to pasture.”
U.S.citizens entering Canada with a firearm will till need to get a temporary license, but they will no longer need a temporary registration for long guns. Canadian gun registration laws still allow American sportsmen to pre-register their shotguns and rifles. For advanced firearm registration info: http://www.rcmp-grc.gc/ca/cfp-pcaf/information/visit/index-eng.htm .
Pheasants Galore
Every cloud has a silver lining, and there is a big one for South Dakota pheasant hunters. While many hunters considered the 2011 hunting season to be poor by recent standards, more than 1.5 million pheasants were harvested. Those numbers are only down about 300,000 birds from the estimated I .8 million roosters that were taken by hunters in 20 10. South Dakota’s reputation as a leading state for pheasant hunting is still intact. According to the Game, Fish and Parks Commission’s Chad
Switzer, the smaller bag was expected for two primary reasons. First, the tough winter of 2010-2011 negatively impacted the birds. Second, there was a temporary loss of habitat as farmers converted grass acres to crops. Despite those two hurdles, the 2011 harvest was still the ninth highest in the past 20 years. “Even with that decline, things were still good from a large-scale perspective,” Switzer said. Hunters again turned out in large numbers despite the lower expectations. Non-resident hunters totaled 95,077, down from I 00,189 in 2010, while South Dakota hunters numbered 69,120, down from 72,465.m
Hunter-ed.com Seeks to Increase Hunting License Sales
Kalkomey Enterprises, the official provider of recreational safety education products for all 50 states and the parent company of hunter-ed. com, believes that fine-tuning hunter education programs could result in an increase in the numbers of licensed hunters.
According to Tammy Sapp, Communications Director, Kalkomey Enterprises, conducted a study to assess the best ways of encouraging hunter education graduates to become regular hunters and license buyers. Focus groups and pre- and post-hunter education course telephone surveys were conducted of students in Alabama, Georgia, and Kentucky.
The study revealed that between 85 percent and 94 percent of hunter education students across the three states said they were very likely to obtain a hunting license after their course. However, a series of follow-up studies indicated that only 30 to 47 percent actually purchased hunting licenses after the course.
As a way to boost the hunting license sales and time spent in the woods, Mark Duda, the executive director of Responsive Management, the assessment firm, suggested that state agencies responsible for hunter education explore ways to immediately get hunting licenses into the hands of course graduates. Doing that would mean hunter education graduates would face one less barrier to active hunting participation.
“One way of accomplishing that would be to include the fee of an annual hunting license in the overall price of course registration, thereby guaranteeing that students leave the course fully licensed to hunt in their state,” Duda said.
Another suggestion to increase the number of hunter education graduates who purchase hunting licenses is to offer optional follow-up courses. Seminars or distance-learning options could be an additional source of revenue for agencies as well as provide new hunters with more information on topics such as scouting, hunting strategies, or field dressing game.
The study also shows that hunter education graduates are open to the idea of receiving emails that offer key hunting information. Agencies that develop a mailing list can remain in contact with course graduates and target them with oppo1tunities, events, and news items throughout the year.
Lead Shot to Be Allowed for Iowa Mourning Dove Hunting Season
From radioiowa.com:
Governor Terry Branstad has used his authority to veto a state agency rule so dove hunters will be able to use lead ammunition in September when the dove hunting season opens.
The governor’s Natural Resources Commission, after its chairman checked with Governor Branstad, voted last summer to ban lead shot, as critics say the lead that doesn’t reach its target poses environmental harm to both animals and humans.
But then Branstad said he learned the Iowa House had voted against the idea of banning lead shot when the bill establishing a dove hunting season was passed in 2011. “The law, I think, is pretty clear is that the responsibility of the Natural Resources Commission was to set the seasons, not determine what kind of shot can be used in hunting,” Branstad said.
A legislative committee that reviews the regulations drafted by state agencies put a hold on the rule banning lead shot, giving the full legislature an opportunity to weigh in on the issue. The Iowa House voted to nullify the rule, but the Senate didn’t take up the issue – which means the ban on lead shot went into effect. Branstad used his authority to veto the rule.
“I believe it is important – not only on this issue, but on other issues – that we intend to abide by the law and not let administrative agencies exceed their authority and do something beyond what the legislature has delegated to them,” Branstad said. “The determination of whether hunters should be forced to stop using traditional shot is something that should be decided by the legislature, not by administrative fiat.”
Senator Dick Dearden, a Democrat from Des Moines, is a long-time backer of the move to allow dove hunting in Iowa. Dearden attended the ceremony Branstad held to sign the executive order vetoing the ban on lead shot.
”I’m just happy with the result, not necessarily the process,” Dearden told reporters.
The Iowa House voted this past February to allow lead shot for dove hunting but the Senate never took up the measure. Dearden is unwilling to say whether the Senate’s inaction on the issue was intentional or accidental. Dearden intends to hunt doves in Iowa this September, using lead shot.
“Absolutely,” Dearden said. “You know, if you’re walking across a field pheasant hunting and a dove comes over, you don’t have time to change shot. The lead thing is more anti-hunting. It’s a way of, ‘if we make it more and more difficult to hunt, there’s going to be less and less hunters.”‘
Earlier this year the Sierra Club’s Iowa chapter filed a lawsuit to try to get a court to uphold the Natural Resources Commission ‘s decision to ban lead shot and require “non-toxic” steel shot for the dove hunting season.
“Not sure you can air my thoughts,” Neilla Seaman, a spokeswoman for the group, quipped when asked by Radio Iowa for her reaction to Branstad’s decision. “I’m very disappointed that this is happening like this.”
Seaman said Branstad’s reasoning doesn’t make sense. “You know, he said it was up to the legislature to make the decision about how to proceed with this and when he didn’t like what the legislature did – which was the Senate did nothing – now he’s issued an executive order that rescinds the ban on lead ammunition for hunting mourning doves,” Seaman said.
Governor Branstad argues his veto of the Natural Resources Commission rule makes the Sierra Club’s lawsuit “moot.” Seaman says she’s consulting with a lawyer to determine what the Sierra Club’s next step will be.
H.R. 4089 Provides Fundraising Bonanza for Extremist Groups
From the U.S. Sportsmen ‘s Alliance:
Following in the footsteps of the nation ‘s most powerful anti-hunting organization, a quartet of environmental groups wasted no time firing off fundraising appeal to fight HR 4089. The bill, also called the Sportsmen ‘s Heritage Act of 2012, is the most significant pro-sportsmen legislation in 15 years. The funding requests are full of lies, mischaracterizations, and distortions.
Joining the Humane Society of the United States in this cynical attempt to cash in are the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, The Wilderness Society, and the National Parks Conservation Association.
Opponents falsely claim that the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act will:
– Allow motorized access, roads, logging, and oil / gas development in wilderness areas.
– Prohibit the use of the National Environmental Policy Act in making hunting and fishing management decisions on public lands.
– Mandate that hunting be allowed in National Parks. This could include hunting at historic battlefield, cemeteries, or other sensitive cultural sites.
– Remove protection from the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act for polar bears.
– Allow unregulated hunting on federal public land.
– Remove the authority of the U.S. EPA to regulate lead in ammunition and fishing tackle.
Bill Horn , federal affairs director for the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance (USSA), is one of the key contributors to the language in H.R. 4089. A former Assistant Secretary of Interior, Bill explains what is fiction and what is fact about the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act of 2012.
Fiction: “Provision undercuts the Wilderness Act: Section 104(e) should be called the ‘Motorize Our Wilderness Areas Provision’ because it could allow motorized access, road construction, and logging and energy development in wilderness areas.” – The Wilderness Society.
Fact: H .R. 4089 does not open designated wilderness to road building, motorized access, or oil/gas industry development. In reality, Section 104(e)(l) states: “the provision of opportunities for hunting, fishing, and recreational -shooting, and the conservation of fish and wildlife to provide sustainable use recreational opportunities on designated wilderness areas on federal public lands shall constitute measures necessary to meet the minimum requirements for the administration of the wilderness area.”
An additional subsequent clause in (e)(l) prescribes this language is “not intended to authorize or facilitate commodity development, use, or extraction or motorized recreational access or use.”
None of the language in this section would open designated wilderness areas to road building, motorized access, or oil/gas industry development. The “deem necessary” language was included to contravene three U.S. Court of Appeals rulings that ove1turned U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Forest Service determinations about the “necessity” of conservation activities and recreational access (via horseback) to satisfy the requirements of the Wilderness Act.
Section 104(e)(l) clarifies the interpretation of the Wilderness Act that the agencies had relied on for more than 30 years until the 9th Circuit stepped in. Just as was the case prior to these judicial actions, motorized access and road building would not be authorized in wilderness areas. The bill speaks of providing “oppo1tunities” for hunting, fishing, recreational shooting, and wildlife conservation, but does not reference ” motorized access opportunities” or “road access opportunities.” Land management agencies can satisfy the requirements of Section 104(e)( I) by making sure that traditional wilderness opportunities are available via access on foot or on horseback.
The allegations regarding section 104(e)(2) are even more off the mark. Please note that it merely reaffirms the ORIGINAL language in the 1964 Wilderness Act. Section 4(a) of the 1964 Act (16 USC 475; Pub.L. 88-577) provides the following: “The purposes of this Act (the Wilderness Act) are hereby determined to be within and supplemental to the purposes for which national forests and units of the national park system and national wildlife refuge systems are established and administered.” Pursuant to this 48-year old language – still in effect – wilderness areas are off limits to motorized vehicles, road construction, etc. However, the 9th Circuit (again) disregarded this language in a recent Arizona Refuge case holding that a wilderness area within a refuge unit had to be treated as a wilderness first and a refuge second; that elevated the plainly “supplemental” purposes of wilderness above the “primary” wildlife conservation purposes of refuges per the 1966 and 1997 Refuge Acts.
To correct the errant 9th Circuit, HR 4089 provides the following in 104(e)(2): “The term ‘within and supplemental to’ wilderness purposes in section (a) of Public Law 88-577, means that any requirements imposed by that Act shall be implemented insofar as they do not prevent federal public land management officials and state fish and wildlife officials from carrying out their wildlife conservation responsibilities or providing recreational opportunities on the federal public lands subject to a wilderness designation.”
This provision is also subject to the clause about no commodity development, extraction or motorized use. The language is limited to wildlife conservation and hunting/fishing recreational opportunities – nothing in it provides any authorization for oil and gas, mining, grazing, road building, logging, or motorized access.
Claims to the contrary are just a willful misreading of the language.
Fiction: “Provision provides an exemption from the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): Section 104(c)(l)(B) prohibits the use of NEPA in making hunting and fishing management decisions on our public lands and forests.” -The Wilderness Society.
Fact: Section 104(c)(l)(B) does not prohibit adequate NEPA review as wrongly alleged. Let me quote the provision itself: “No action taken under this title (i.e., to provide for fishing , hunting or recreational shooting) or section 4 of the National Wildlife Refuge System Administration Act of 1966 (16 USC 668dd) , as amended by the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act of 1997, either individually or cumulatively with other actions involving federal public lands, shall be considered to be a major federal action significantly affecting the quality of the human environment, and no additional identification, analysis, or consideration of environmental effects, including cumulative effects, is necessary or required.”
Since HR 4089 establishes that BLM and Forest lands are “open until closed” to fishing and hunting, no agency “action” per se is needed to keep these federal public lands open to anglers and hunters . If there is no “action ,” there is no need to do an environmental impact statement (EIS). However, federal courts do not like implied amendments to NEPA (and the EIS requirement) so this provision makes it plain that when BLM or Forest Service comply with this bill to provide fishing/hunting/ shooting opportunities, no additional EIS or NEPA review is necessary. How this language could “actually result in less hunting opportunity” as some have stated is beyond me. That charge is just another specious red herring.
The Refuge Act references in section 104(c)(l)(B) are designed to correct another errant court ruling. The 1997 Refuge Act specified that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) would prepare a Comprehensive Conservation Plan (CCP) for each refuge unit and make the decisions within the CCP to provide for hunting and fishing (which are designated “priority public uses” in the 1997 Improvement Act). Each CCP is accompanied by an appropriate NEPA document – an EIS or an Environmental Assessment (EA). Anti-hunters filed suit against FWS arguing that a series of CCP/EIS decisions to allow hunting on 51 refuge units were illegal because FWS had failed to consider “cumulative effects.” FWS defended its action saying that as there were no on-the-ground connections and no cumulative effects associated with deer hunting on the Bond Swamp NWR in Georgia, bird hunting on the Canaan Valley NWR in West Virginia, duck hunting on refuges in North Dakota, or caribou hunting on refuges in Alaska, a “cumulative effects” analysis was unnecessary and superfluous.
The court ordered this analysis anyway, and FWS spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of staff time producing this superfluous (but legally necessary) analysis. HR 4089 reverses the court decision, re-establishes the intent of the 1997 Refuge Act, and spares FWS from having to do costly, time consuming, factually unnecessary cumulative effects analyses regarding its decisions to open refuge units to hunting and fishing.
Most in the sportsmen’s community would rather have FWS spend finite dollars and personnel resources on genuine conservation work rather than useless paperwork. And by eliminating the court-imposed requirement to engage in useless paperwork, it facilitates action by FWS to open more refuges to fishing and hunting.
Fiction: “H.R. 4089 mandates hunting on public lands including National Parks.” – Humane Society of the United States. HR 4089 “could allow hunting at historic battlefields, cemeteries, or other sensitive cultural sites” according to the National Parks Conservation Association – E&E Daily, April19, 2012.
HR 4089 ignores “the millions of families who visit, value, and love experiencing and learning about our heritage in our National Park System, but its odd treatment of many National Park Service areas is highly arbitrary and wholly inappropriate.” – Craig Obey, National Parks Conservation Association senior vice president of government affairs.
Fact: It is evident that this is just more misreading of the bill ‘s actual text and willful disregard of existing (unamended) statutory authority and 35-year-old case law regarding hunting on NPS units. HR 4089 does not mandate hunting on National Parks, period. Nowhere can that language be found in the bill. In fact, section 104(h) specifies that nothing in the bill “requires the opening of national park or national monuments under jurisdiction of the National Park Service to hunting or recreational shooting.”
First, almost all designated National Park and Monument units are statutorily closed to hunting or closed in the Presidential Proclamation that creates the unit (in the case of monuments). Second, at the other end of the spectrum are statutorily designated Preserves in which Congress mandated in law that hunting be allowed. Third, in the middle are an array of NPS units that are not parks, monuments, or preserves including lakeshores, seashores, battlefield parks, historic sites , recreation areas, national rivers, etc.
In many of these units, Congress was never expressly clear about whether or not hunting was authorized on such units . In the late 1970s/early 1980s disputes arose regarding hunting and trapping on some of these units including a couple of lakeshores and a national river. NPS initially adopted a policy that units were closed to these activities unless the law creating the specific unit expressly mandated or provided for hunting and trapping.
NRA challenged this policy in federal court and lost the case – the court determined that general NPS law (i .e ., the 1916 Organic Act) and Congressional silence provided adequate authority for NPS to adopt and enforce this policy. Immediately following this court ruling, NPS promulgated a regulation to this exact effect- 36CFR 2.2(b) – which remains in full force and effect. The regulation states “hunting may be allowed in park areas where such activity is specifically authorized as a discretionary action under federal statutory law if the superintendent determines that such activity is consistent with public safety and enjoyment, and sound resource management p1inciples” (emphasis added).
Enter HR 4089. It provides as a general matter that on “federal public lands” – which include NPS units – the federal land managers “shall exercise their authority under existing law” to facilitate hunting (and shooting) “except as limited by (1) statutory authority that authorizes action or withholding action for reasons of national security, public safety, or resource conservation; … (3) discretionary limitations on recreational fishing, hunting, and shooting determined (by the land managing agency) to be necessary and reasonable …. “Section 104(a)(l), (3) .
In the case of NPS units , the early ’80s court decision (and the subsequent regulation) determined that NPS had “statutory authority” to withhold action (i.e., not act to open a unit to hunting) for reasons of public safety or resource conservation. HR 4089 does not change the law or the regulation or mandate NPS to take such action.
Fundamentally, the bill (and section 104) leaves intact established NPS discretion regarding these matters . The early 1980s court decision did not conclude that NPS was compelled or mandated to promulgate the rule at 36 CFR 2.2(b); the court held that the agency had the discretion to adopt the rule. NPS has the authority and discretion to revoke the 38-year-old rule, if it chooses, and adopt a different policy if it wants. NPCA (via the proposed Holt amendment) wanted to change this law and codify in statute the 36 CFR 2.2 rule. NPCA wanted to strip NPS of the retained discretion to change its mind regarding hunting on these non-park and non-monument units and is now declaiming that preservation of the legal status quo in HR 4089 constitutes some threat to these NPS units.
Bottom line, NPS could amend existing policy and regulations to allow hunting on a variety of its units. The agency has authority under existing law to do just that but has not taken such action for nearly four decades. HR 4089 does not change this law and emphatically does not mandate agency action to open these units – like Gettysburg or the Mall – to such activities. These charges are just one more red herring being peddled by HR 4089’s opponents.
Fiction: “H.R. 4089 puts polar bears at risk. It would undo protection for polar bears.” – Humane Society of the United States.
Fact: Title III in H.R. 4089 simply allows these 41 trophies to be brought into the United States. It does not re-open any additional polar bear importation. It does not remove current protections on polar bears. The 41 bears in question are already dead.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed polar bears as endangered in 2008 over the objections of the Canadian government, American sportsmen, and native tribes in the Arctic. Prior to the listing taking effect, 41 Americans legally took polar bears in Canada. The trophies have been marooned in Canada since.
Fiction: “H.R. 4089 mandates that federal agencies open nearly all federal public lands to hunting without regard to the impact on hunting and other resources.” – Humane Society of the United States.
Fact: Hunting seasons and bag limits on Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands are set by the individual state wildlife agencies as part of their mission to manage wildlife.
H.R. 4089 does nothing to change that. The state’s authority to consider the impact of hunting is maintained entirely.
Fiction: “H.R. 4089 would strip the EPA of its ability to protect people, animals, and the environment from poisoning through toxic lead ammunition exposure.”- Humane Society of the United States.
Fiction: “H.R. would exempt toxic lead in ammunition and fishing equipment from regulation under the Toxic Substances Control Act.”- Center for Biological Diversity Aprill7, 2012.
Fact: The Center for Biological Diversity’s (CBD) attack on HR 4089 continues a pattern of disinformation and misrepresentation about what the bill does and what existing law actually provides. In this case, CBD misrepresents Title IV of the bill, which confirms very recent EPA decisions about the agency’s lack of authority under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) to regulate lead in ammunition and fishing tackle.
Congress passed TSCA 36 years ago to regulate hazardous chemicals. The law specifically exempts ammunition from this regulatory scheme.
Disregarding this plain language, in 2007 environmentalists petitioned EPA to use TSCA to ban traditional ammunition that uses lead and fishing sinkers and lures using lead. On Aug. 27,2010, EPA rejected the petition concluding the law does not authorize EPA to regulate or ban lead in ammunition . EPA also declined to regulate fishing sinkers or lures.
In March 2012 activists led by CBD filed a new petition with the Obama EPA looking for a different answer on ammunition. But the law is the law and on April 9, 2012, EPA reached the same conclusion: the March petition “provides no new information that would lead EPA to consider the 2012 submission to be a new petition under Section 21 , nor does it include information not previously considered by EPA that would warrant reconsideration of EPA’s conclusion that it does not have authority under the TSCA to regulate shot and bullets.” The EPA release can be found at http://www.epa.gov/oppt/chemtest/pubs/petitions.html.
Not willing to take “no” for an answer – twice – CBD filed suit against EPA arguing that TSCA does allow EPA to regulate and ban traditional ammunition.
Aware of this new suit, and not wanting some activist federal judge to overrule the EPA decisions handed down by two different Administrations, the House of Representatives included Title IV in HR 4089 confirming EPA’s reading of TSCA. CBD wants to change the 1976 law and opposes action by Congress to merely confirm what has been the basic understanding of TSCA for nearly 40 years.
The activist attack on fishing gear follows a similar pattern. As noted, EPA rejected in 2010 the first effort to regulate fishing tackle. CBD and company filed a new fishing tackle petition in November 2011. And EPA rejected it again in February 2012. Title IV of HR 4089 also confirms this action by the Obama EPA. Again, it is the activists seeking to change the law – HR 4089 maintains the TSCA as enacted in 1976 and continues to bar EPA from expanding its reach to regulate fishing tackle.
UA Contributor Exhibits at the Wildlife Experience
Eldridge Hardie – Art of a Life in Sport, a one-man exhibit of more than thirty original oil, watercolors, and drawings covering four decades of this preeminent sporting artist’s work is currently being displayed at The Wildlife Experience in Parker, Colo., a short drive from downtown Denver. The exhibit runs to Sept. 3. Hardie has long been well known to collectors of fine sporting art for his authentic portrayals of angling and hunting experiences. In 2011, he was the featured artist at the Southeastern Wildlife Exposition in Charleston, SC.
He was also honored with the first ever retrospective exhibit at The National Bird Dog Museum. He has exhibited at the Prix de West Invitational at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Artists of America, Great American Artists, The National Museum of Wildlife Art, and the American Museum of Flyfishing. The Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame has named him a Legendary Artist. In addition to regularly providing artwork for covers of The Upland Almanac, Hardie has published his art in other magazines and has illustrated more 25 spotting books.
This is a unique opportunity to see paintings from the artist’s and other private collections as well as his workbooks and other artifacts of his long career. The Wildlife Experience hosts many outstanding traveling exhibits such as Birds in Art, The Society of Animal Artists, and Art of the Dive , and has an impressive permanent collection of major wildlife rut. It inspires an appreciation and respect for wildlife and the outdoors through adventure, experiences, and education. A unique blend of fine art, interactive exhibits, 1mge format film, natural history, and community educational programs provides The Wildlife Experience the opportunity to present information on the world’s wildlife and ecosystems that encourages discovery and understanding through fun and entertainment. For more information call 720-488-3300 or visit www.thewildlifeexperience.org.
Collegiate Sport Shooting Grows in Leaps and Bounds
A record 61 colleges and university competed at the ACUI Intercollegiate Clay Target Championships held in late March 2012 in San Antonio, Texas. The event has received a tremendous amount of support from the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Collegiate Shooting Sports Initiative. Shooters competed across six different events, which included American Skeet and Trap, International Skeet and Trap, Five Stand, and Sporting Clays. For the second year, Missouri’s Lindenwood University took high overall team in Division I. And while the overwhelming number of student shooters came from schools located in hunting and shooting hotspots like the South and the Midwest, some surprises did exist. Two Ivy League colleges, Harvard and Yale, fielded teams, as did the University of Vermont and Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2012 Flushes & Noteworthy Points column of The Upland Almanac.
