Hunters frustrated by U.S. national security

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2001:
SPRINGFIELD, Mass.; AK-RON, Ohio; Tallahassee, Fla.;
BARABOO, Wisc.; DALLAS, Tex.– “Given the events of September 11,”
an October 11 Massachusetts State Police advisory read, “the
appearance of armed individuals wearing camouflage outfits and
possibly operating camouflage boats along the coast of Massachusetts
may cause concern to some of our citizens. This having been said, we
want to remind everyone that today is the opening day for duck
hunting.”

Massachusetts waterfowl biologist H. Heusman warned hunters
to carry their licenses and other identification if they entered
Boston Harbor, as they were likely to be intercepted by either the
U.S. Coast Guard or Massachusetts Environmental Police.
“Hunting was banned on Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape
Cod,” wrote Trudy Tynan of Associated Press. “The Massachusetts
Water Resources Authority cut short the fishing season, and banned
hikers and birdwatchers from the Quabbin Reservoir in central
Massachusetts, which provides drinking water to Boston and its suburbs.”
Tynan said the Water Resources Authority had not yet decided
whether to allow deer hunting at the reservoir this year.
Long off limits to hunters, the Quabbin Reservoir area was
opened to deer hunting in 1991, ostensibly to prevent deer
overpopulation. Hunt opponents including Dorothy Checci-O’Brien,
who died on August 27, argued that the tendency of hunters to target
mostly bucks would ensure that the reservoir herd would continue to
grow, and predicted that the hunt, introduced as a one-time event,
would be repeated annually–as it has been, so far.
Deer hunts held annually at the Ravenna Army Ammunition Plant
and at the NASA Plum Brook Station in Ohio have a similar history.
They were cancelled on September 27 this year, the first time since
they started that they will not be held.
National security concerns restricted hunting opportunities
throughout the U.S..
Florida hunters, for instance, lost access to Camp
Blanding, run by the state National Guard; the Avon Park Air Force
Range; and Eglin and Tyndall Air Force bases. The Eglin and Tyndall
bases continued to allow fishing, but all hunting, fishing,
boating, and vehicular traffic was banned in much of the Merritt
Island National Wildlife Refuge to help secure the Kennedy Space
Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
The Defense Department even cancelled hunting at the Badger
Army Ammu-nition Plant in Baraboo, Wisconsin, which produced ammo
from 1943 until March 1975, and has not served a military role since.
Some hunters shot out their frustrations on target
ranges–but they couldn’t use their rifles or shotguns at the DFW Gun
Range on West Mockingbird Lane in Dallas, whose owner, Ken
Goldberg, 48, created paper targets bearing a lifesized facial
portrait of Osama bin Laden and sold them at a rapid rate for $1.50
apiece.
“The range does not cater to hunters with long guns,”
reported Francis X. Clines of The New York Times, “because ‘I only
hunt those who would hunt me,’ said Mr. Goldberg, who tries to be a
vegetarian.”
“It’s hard to stay a vegetarian in Dallas,” Goldberg
admitted to Clines, “but I do frequent the all-you-can-eat
vegetarian bar at the Hare Krishna temple.'”