Additional Land Preserved Through Grants

North Carolina Wildlife Commission has secured funding to preserve 3000 acres of sensitive habitat land that was formally owned by International Paper.

Fund trustees voted to give the Commission more than $4.7 million in grants on Tuesday (April 23). The state’s wildlife agency will use that money to buy five properties that will be added to the public game lands system in the near future.
“Trustees of the Natural Heritage Trust Fund continue to demonstrate long-term support of the Commission’s land acquisition efforts,” said David Cobb, the division chief of Wildlife Management. “Without support of the Trustees for making sure these high-quality tracts are in a perpetual conservation ownership, many of them would be developed or otherwise converted.”
The funding continues a process that began in April 2006, when International Paper sold more than 65,000 acres of North Carolina land to the Nature Conservancy, which in turn agreed to sell much of the acreage to state conservation agencies such as the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission.
The properties consist of high-quality habitat upland and bottomland forests, as well as floodplains and wetlands, making them valuable for water quality protection and wildlife habitats. Some tracts also contain rare and endangered plants and animals
The Trust Fund’s allocation of $1.77 million for several tracts in Warren and Franklin counties will allow the Commission to purchase more than 1,100 combined acres of land along the Tar River’s tributaries. Many of these creeks have very high water quality for the Piedmont, and several harbor rare and endangered species of freshwater mussels.
Another property to be acquired through the Trust Fund is Jessup Mill Pond, which will enlarge Sugg’s Mill Pond Game Land by more than 700 acres. Jessup’s is a scenic body of water that offers great fishing and recreational opportunities among its standing Cyprus trees, all within easy access of the Fayetteville area.
Grant requests for the acquisition of lands around Juniper (approximately 1,000 acres), Roquist Pocosin (more than 300 acres) and the Roanoke River (roughly 90 acres) were also funded.
The Commission will continue to pursue International Paper lands, utilizing money from its own budget as well as other grant opportunities. The North Carolina properties were part of a massive sale by the paper company last year, which transferred ownership of more than 218,000 acres in 10 southeastern states.

We all win when lands like these are preserved.

NC Wildlife Press Release

North Carolina Natural Heritage Trust Fund

Birds on the Rebound

The Greensboro News and Record has an article from Dan Kibler about the history of the restoration of the wild turkey in North Carolina. As we approach the second half of the spring turkey season we who chase the wild turkey certainly have a lot to be thankful for as the turkey population is expanding along with the number of hunters.

Last year was record setting breaking the 11,000 mark will this year be another record setting year? I think with the hatch being off in many areas last spring the numbers will be less but that could be off set with turkeys in more areas and more hunters as well. So far this year my experience has been a very non normal year with gobbling being reduced and lots of day’s non existent. I’m seeing a lot of hens and that maybe part of the problem. In the article Marshall Collette offers this comment;

Collette hopes that the natural reproductive cycle of the wild turkey turns the corner this week and puts more gobblers out on the prowl, looking for hens to breed. The season opened April 14, the latest date possible under current regulations, and Collette thinks hen turkeys are only now beginning to go to the nest to care for clutches of eggs that can number anywhere from six to 15.

While they’re actively breeding, hen turkeys will track down gobblers and often prevent hunters from getting good chances at taking the birds.

With a great majority of hens nesting, gobblers will spend a week to 10 days cruising the countryside, looking for the small percentage of hens still willing to breed. That could lead to some exciting hunting, Collette said.

“We’ve had an early spring, weather-wise,” he said. “That may be part of what’s going on, but the hens are starting to sit. I think the second peak of gobbling is about to start.”

I hope he is right.
As far as the record I won’t be surprised either way I’m sure the harvest will be around the 10,000 mark. I’ve heard from a lot of folks killing their first birds this year and that’s great as more join the sport. With the number of hens I’m seeing and hearing from other hunters a decent spring hatch and the turkey population will really expand across the state and that will be some thing to gobble about.

Roanoke River Striper Season Extended

North Carolina Wildlife Commission has extended the Stripe Bass Season because the fish was late coming up the river because of weather conditions and high water levels.

RALEIGH, N.C. (April 25, 2007) – The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission announced today that the season for harvesting striped bass by hook and line in the Roanoke River Striped Bass Management Area will be extended until 11:59 p.m. on May 6. After that time, all striped bass caught in this area must be released immediately, regardless of condition.
The Roanoke River Striped Bass Management Area includes the Roanoke River and its tributaries downstream from the Roanoke Rapids Lake Dam to the mouth of the river at Albemarle Sound and includes the Cashie, Middle and Eastmost rivers

A little bit longer to get some of these tasty fish for the table. Good Luck.

NCWC

Outdoorsmen unite over Devastating Disease

If you have ever had a family member or someone you love get Alzheimer’s you know how devastating a disease it can be as it robs the individual of their mind. Mike Zlotnicki’s column this week over at the N&O tells us about an organization of Outdoorsmen who are raising money for research on Alzheimer’s.

Ben Wolfe. He credits his late grandmother, Bobbie Hunter Boney of Wilmington, for much of his outdoors interest, and he has taken his appreciation a step further.
In 2005, Wolfe founded Outdoorsmen for Alzheimer’s Inc., a nonprofit group that hopes to make an impact by raising funds for research into the disease, a brain disorder that gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to learn, reason, make judgments and communicate.
The disease stole the final years from Boney, who was 77 when she died.
“My grandmother, Bobbie Boney, passed away in January of 2005,” Wolfe said from his home in Raleigh. “I always had a real, real close relationship with her. She instilled a real appreciation of the outdoors from an early age. She took her kids duck hunting and golfing.

Outdoorsmen for Alzheimer’s Inc. are having a fund raising 5K run at Umstead State Park on May 6th, 2007. Check their website for more information and to get signed up. Hopefully soon scientists and the medical community will discover the right answers to defeat this disease.

National Park looking for Elk Volunteers

As one who travels up to see the elk a few times a year I’ve witnessed some folks pulling some real bone headed moves. These are wild animals and should be treated like that and respected. The draw for these animals is huge and traffic jams in the middle of the woods are common. I’ve seen lots of folks attempting to get way to close to an elk and other wildlife. Well the National Parks is going to introduce the “Elk Bugle Corps”.

The park is putting together a team called the Elk Bugle Corps that will work with park rangers in the valley, located north of Waynesville, from spring to late fall.

The program is similar to one in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado. The Elk Bugle Corps there has been directing traffic and answering questions about the animals for 17 years. The team is named for the bugling sound of male elk.
“It is really important to get the message out to visitors about elk behavior and how to behave while viewing elk in Cataloochee,” said Ranger Nancy Gray.

Wish I was a bit closer sounds like a good program.

Volunteers would work from 5:45 to 8:45 p.m. during the week. Help is especially needed on the weekends. The park would prefer volunteers to sign up for a particular day each week or commit to a week at a time.
Volunteers would need to be good with people and have an interest in the elk and the park. In addition to traffic control and teaching ethical wildlife viewing, the volunteers would provide general information about the park and expert information on the elk project.

Citizens Times

Soon it Will Be Moving Day

If you’re a bear in Cataloochee Valley better start packing your bags for a trip to Tennessee. Again this year the National Park plans to capture the bears in the valley and move them out of the area to help the small elk heard and protect the new born calves. The elk population is still small but any plans to bring in additional elk from other parts of the country is still on hold because of CWD.
If you’re a bear fan don’t worry it will take a little bit of time but the bears will find their way home.

Interesting article about how the biologists capture and collar& tag the elk so they can track them for research.

When the collarless calf stopped to graze in a grassy field, Yarkovich took aim with a tranquilizer gun and darted it in the hind leg from 45 yards. After three minutes, the calf collapsed on the frost-covered ground.

“She’s not completely under,” DeLozier said. “We’ll take her temperature, pulse and respiration. The main thing is to keep her head up so the discharge from her mouth doesn’t drain into her lungs.”

It has been almost six years since elk were reintroduced in Cataloochee Valley, on the North Carolina side of the Smokies near Waynesville. From those 52 elk released in 2001 and 2002, the park’s herd has grown to approximately 75 animals.

Biologists say at least 100 elk are needed before the park’s herd can withstand such setbacks as disease and poaching and be self-sustaining.

Have You Heard about the OLF?

According to a new Elon Poll only half of the people of North Carolina are even aware of the Navy’s plan to build an OLF. Myself I think that’s pretty good because for the longest time it was pretty much a local issue. The No OLF people really did a good job of getting this out and making it a statewide issue. There is no “only” in it I doubt there is many issues that start off as obscure as this issue and capture the focus of a lot of folks across the state. The important thing is that 55% of those who know about the issue don’t support the construction at the Navy’s preferred location and more importantly almost all the politicians’ side with the majority on this. Some how I suspect keep the statistics and change the issue the word “only” wouldn’t be included.

ABC 11

My Stories on OLF

Counting Your Turkeys Before Your Eggs Hatch

That seems that’s what happened in Virginia with a ten year old plan to boost turkey numbers has not produced the expected return. Turkey hunters gave up 4 weeks off the fall turkey season with predictions of a 292% increase in spring harvest in 10 years along with a fall harvest return of 77%. Well the results was a bit more modest with the doubling of the spring harvest and the fall season harvest is a fraction of what it was prior to the change.
There has been a proposal for Virginia Wildlife to further protect the turkey by altering the season to open a week earlier and close a week earlier so as not to end on the same week as the deer season. Although it would appear that the State Chapter of the NWTF supports this alteration one local chapter does not.
The Botetourt Longbeards Chapter has formally requested that the four weeks they gave up in 1995 be restored so the 6 week season would once again be a 10 week season. They cite that the returns the biologists predicted never materialized and that the turkey hunter is more endangered now then they were 10 years ago.
There is no doubt that there has been a drop in hunters across the board but I’m not sure adding 4 weeks will have an impact on declining numbers. Furthermore the biologists state that the model they used to make those 10 year predictions was flawed because it utilized average or better then average hatch #’s which never materialized. With that in mind does anyone think if during that time period the season had remained the same that the flock would have doubled in size? It would seem to me that had the season remained the same the flock would have not grown as fast and maybe even seen a reduction. I think a 6 week season with good numbers is better for hunter retention then a 10 week season with a much reduced flocked. It will be interesting to see what Virginia decides to do with the fall turkey season.

Bill Cochran Roanoke Times
Mark Taylor Roanoke Times

Pistol Packing Miss America Refuses to be A Victim

Miss America 1944 Venus Ramey maybe 82 years old but she’s no push over. She confronted a stranger coming out of a building on her farm in Kentucky where in the recent past she has had some equipment stolen.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. “I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave,” Ramey said.
She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.
“I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it,” she said. “If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now.”
Ramey then flagged down a passing motorist, who called 911.

When asked about the encounter Miss Venus said;

“I’m trying to live a quiet, peaceful life and stay out of trouble, and all it is, is one thing after another,” she said.

WRAL

Miss America 1944

Ted Weighs in on Gun Debate

I haven’t said much about the VT Shootings here or in any of the forums I regularly post on. I find it inconceivable that either side of the gun issue would so quickly use this as an example even before all the victims were identified. The Virginia Tech shooting is a horrible situation and my thoughts and prayers go out to all that are involved.

I don’t know if it is just my perception but the coverage not surprisingly has been around the need to suspend the 2nd amendment. Shocking as it seems given the overwhelming outcry to end the freedom of the press after military secrets were leaked about how our government was able to track terror cells across the world I guess it’s time we give up the 2nd Amendment too. NOT

Although I’m not a huge fan of the Nuge I think his commentary on CNN is appropriate and on target. I’m putting it up here because I think its important that everyone sees this and hears our side of the issue because I believe we’ll see an increase attack on our Rights;

WACO, Texas (CNN) — Zero tolerance, huh? Gun-free zones, huh? Try this on for size: Columbine gun-free zone, New York City pizza shop gun-free zone, Luby’s Cafeteria gun-free zone, Amish school in Pennsylvania gun-free zone and now Virginia Tech gun-free zone.
Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I’ve about had enough of it.
Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.
A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.
At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.
More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.
My hero, Dr. Suzanne Gratia Hupp, was not allowed by Texas law to carry her handgun into Luby’s Cafeteria that fateful day in 1991, when due to bureaucrat-forced unarmed helplessness she could do nothing to stop satanic George Hennard from killing 23 people and wounding more than 20 others before he shot himself. Hupp was unarmed for no other reason than denial-ridden “feel good” politics.
She has since led the charge for concealed weapon upgrade in Texas, where we can now stop evil. Yet, there are still the mindless puppets of the Brady Campaign and other anti-gun organizations insisting on continuing the gun-free zone insanity by which innocents are forced into unarmed helplessness. Shame on them. Shame on America. Shame on the anti-gunners all.
No one was foolish enough to debate Ryder truck regulations or ammonia nitrate restrictions or a “cult of agriculture fertilizer” following the unabashed evil of Timothy McVeigh’s heinous crime against America on that fateful day in Oklahoma City. No one faulted kitchen utensils or other hardware of choice after Jeffrey Dahmer was caught drugging, mutilating, raping, murdering and cannibalizing his victims. Nobody wanted “steak knife control” as they autopsied the dead nurses in Chicago, Illinois, as Richard Speck went on trial for mass murder.
Evil is as evil does, and laws disarming guaranteed victims make evil people very, very happy. Shame on us.
Already spineless gun control advocates are squawking like chickens with their tiny-brained heads chopped off, making political hay over this most recent, devastating Virginia Tech massacre, when in fact it is their own forced gun-free zone policy that enabled the unchallenged methodical murder of 32 people.
Thirty-two people dead on a U.S. college campus pursuing their American Dream, mowed-down over an extended period of time by a lone, non-American gunman in illegal possession of a firearm on campus in defiance of a zero-tolerance gun law. Feel better yet? Didn’t think so.
Who doesn’t get this? Who has the audacity to demand unarmed helplessness? Who likes dead good guys?
I’ll tell you who. People who tramp on the Second Amendment, that’s who. People who refuse to accept the self-evident truth that free people have the God-given right to keep and bear arms, to defend themselves and their loved ones. People who are so desperate in their drive to control others, so mindless in their denial that they pretend access to gas causes arson, Ryder trucks and fertilizer cause terrorism, water causes drowning, forks and spoons cause obesity, dialing 911 will somehow save your life, and that their greedy clamoring to “feel good” is more important than admitting that armed citizens are much better equipped to stop evil than unarmed, helpless ones.

CNN

Teds Website

Importance of Sighting In

This weeks Outdoor Section in the N&O had an interesting article about sighting in your turkey gun to help you understand how it shoots. I’m a firm believer in this practice and even though I know that little changes from year to year I still sight my gun in prior to the season. I think we owe it to the animal to make sure we can make a clean humane kill.

As the article says you’ll get a wide variety of results when you change choke tubes, change shot size, brand, and shell size. You’ll want to use a full or extra full choke tube and maybe even move into the aftermarket choke tube selection. I use an Undertaker that is designed for Hevi Shot and it works great. Use a turkey target and count your pellets that hit the kill zone granted you only need one to hit and break the neck or hit the brain but you really want o see multiple hits in the kill zone.

The cost of using a variety of shot sizes and brands to figure out what shoots best in your set up can be a big obstacle to many of us. (I think Hevi Shot runs around $3 or so a round) One thing that we do is often a group of us gets together to sight in and we each buy a different shot size brand so we all can try a wide variety to see what works best. For my set up I use 3” Hevi Shot # 5 but that may not be exactly what your gun likes.

Misses

A topic we don’t like to talk about but one many of us have had experience with is the misses. The reasons for misses most often are a distance problems either to close or to far. To close your pattern is so tight that it’s really easy to miss that’s why I like to see especially for new hunters is a bird that is in the 25 yard range. The other reason is to far we all have at one time or another difficulty with judging distance. Another good use for decoys because it gives you a marked distance provided you pace it off so you know. If you’re not using decoys remembering some landmarks will help you when the big boy comes in.

There are those occasional misses that are similar to the ones we have during deer season that we attribute to “Buck Fever” but we won’t talk about them. Just pattern the gun and be ready to lay the smack down on Tom this season.

Another Mystery Animal this One Out of Ohio

Cleveland Metro

Love a good mystery? I do and we’ve followed a few of these stories in the past out of Maine and another out of North Carolina so here is another one and this time its Ohio. The quality of the photo is not great but the creature looks like something has crossbred with a deer or some type of goat.

Mystery animals roam Ohio woods

Thursday, April 19, 2007 2:56 PM PDT

CHESTERLAND, Ohio (AP) — Is it a goat? Is it a sheep? No, it’s a … what is that thing?

Wildlife experts haven’t been able to positively identify at least three animals spotted roaming the woods in Chester Township, about 20 miles east of Cleveland, over the past few months.

‘‘We’re not exactly sure what they are,’’ said Allen Lea of the Ohio Division of Wildlife, which has reviewed photos taken by a resident. ‘‘But they’re definitely not a native species. They’re not where they belong.’’

Police have received calls from residents offering varying descriptions, with possible IDs including bighorn sheep and wild goat. Sal LaPuma, an avid outdoorsman, said he recently got within 30 feet of one of the animals before it ran away.

‘‘The moment I saw it, I knew it was out of place,’’ he said. Sgt. Debbie Davis said her Internet searches have failed to identify the ‘‘half deer, half ram’’ she has seen while on patrol. Experts at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo reviewed the photos and speculated the animals could be tahrs (a wild goat indigenous to Asia) or mouflons (a wild sheep found in Europe and Asia). Officials believe the animals could have been dumped by their owner or escaped from captivity, although nobody has filed a missing-animal report, township police Chief Mark Purchase said.
He said there were no plans to trap the animals.

‘‘We’re not looking to run them out,’’ Purchase said. ‘‘But we would like to know what they are.’’

Argus Observer

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