Wildlife serial-killing

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Legislation
California state senator
Milton Marks on May 22 introduced
SB 2171, to require that
trapped animals either be released or
be killed promptly and humanely.
Explains Camilla Fox, executive
director of The Fur-Bearer
Defenders, “Currently California
laws are silent on how a trapped animal
must be killed.” However,
according to the Department of Fish
and Game manual Get Set to Trap,
“Adequate tools are a heavy iron
pipe or an ax handle. Most furbearers
can be killed by first sharply
striking them on the skull. It is highly
recommended that the animal be
struck two times. To ensure death,
pin the head with one foot and stand
on the chest of the animal for several
minutes. Do not step off an unconscious
animal until it is dead.”

Californians may obtain contact
information for their state representatives
from the Capitol switchboard:
916-322-9900.
The New Hampshire legislature
is reportedly close to authorizing
deer hunting on the islands off
the state’s Atlantic corner. Hunting
on the islands, heavily used for
summer recreation, was banned in
1939; reopened to the disabled and
to bowhunters between 1963 and
1970; and has been banned again
ever since.
A pending Florida bill,
passed 38-0 by the state senate
back on March 17, would expand a
program that suspends the drivers’
licenses of persons in arrears on
child support, to suspend hunting
and fishing permits as well.
Recruitment
Hoping to get more teenagers
to hunt, U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service acting director John
Rogers on June 12 proposed allowing
states to designate a “Youth
Waterfowl Hunting Day,” on a
weekend or holiday before the regular
duck season––when participants
would have the maximum chance to
bag ducks not yet wary of people
and guns. Participation would be
limited to licensed hunters age 16 or
younger, accompanied by an adult.
Vermont house bill H.
668 would create a “youth hunting
day,” upon which hunters under age
16 could kill any deer with any
weapon. “If a kid isn’t successful,
he’s going to lose interest,” explains
Fish and Wildlife Board member Joe
Coutermarsh.
The Ohio Division of
Wildlife is operating a former Boy
Scout camp as the Camp Belden
Wildlife Area, the purpose of which
is to introduce children to hunting,
fishing, and trapping. Programs are
to begin in the fall. The 470-acre
property, which will reportedly be
stocked and managed to provide as
many easy living targets for hook,
trap, and bullet as possible.
The Gobbler Creek
Lodge near Lamar, Oklahoma,
offered similar opportunities for
children to “learn the basics of hunting
and fishing” during the summer.
The Oklahoma Wildlife
Commission has designated the first
full weekend each September as
Free Hunting Days, when state residents
may hunt without a permit.
Three hundred seventy
p a r t i c i p a n t s in New Zealand’s
annual 24-hour Great Easter Bunny
Shoot, held to encourage children to
hunt, bagged a record 16,765 rabbits
this year, 5,500 more than last
year. “The Mutilators, a team from
Otago, was the winning team with a
tally of 1,300 rabbits and one possum,”
Gerald Campbell of the
Christchurch Press reported.

Miscellany
The Vermont Fish and
Wildlife Department is amending
moose hunting regulations to
encourage more shooting of females,
after 71% of the moose shot in 1995
were bucks. “Hunting won’t have a
stabilizing impact if we don’t take
roughly an equal number of cows
and bulls,” explains moose management
team chair Cedric Alexander.
“Taking bulls alone won’t stabilize
the herd.”
The John Hancock
Mutual Life Insurance Company
has agreed to let the Oklahoma
Wildlife Department sell special
permits to allow hunting and fishing
on the firm’s 215,000 acres of timberland
in the southeast corner of
the state. Funds raised from the permit
sales are to be spent on
“increased wildlife management and
law enforcement on the leased
acres,” according to an enabling bill
before the state legislature.
About 80 fallow deer,
valued at about $20,000 but uninsured,
escaped in May from the
Lucky Hill Farm in North Danville,
Vermont. According to owner
Everett McReynolds, “Some idiots
are out hunting them.” As the deer
are not native to Vermont, the state
claims no jurisdiction.
Lacking the funds to turn
the 410-acre Woodstock Hunt Club
near Ringwood, Illinois into a
nature preserve, the McHenry
County Conservation District has
instead extended the lease on the 30-
year-old club grounds for another
five years, at $28,200 a year plus
$5,000 a year set aside for lead
removal. Club owner Earl Johnson
also agreed to reduce the amount of
shooting done at the site, and to buy
55 acres of farmland next door, for
resale to the conservation district
over the next 10 years.
Transylvanian hunter
Ioan Baculea boasted to media May
6 of having blasted a 630-pound
bear with a four-barreled gun custom-made
for Manfred von
Killinger, the Nazi ambassador to
Romania, who in August 1944 shot
himself rather than risk capture and
trial for war crimes. The gun has
two shotgun barrels and two rifle
barrels, enabling the user to shoot at
least twice at anything that moves.