Category: Hunting & Fishing

Hunting & Fishing

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Fed up with poachers, the Plaquemines Parish,
Lousiana district attorney’s office two years ago began
offering people convicted of hunting and fishing offenses
the option of contributing to an equipment fund to help
game wardens in lieu of paying higher fines. The 1991
receipts bought walkie-talkies and a video camera.
Receipts rose to $5,125 in 1992, and were mostly spent on
a $4,000 night vision scope, to detect jacklighters.
The Lousiana House of Representatives on
May 14 killed a bill to require hunters under 16 to pass a
gun safety class.
Allen Sarratt, of Camden, Tennessee, killed
his son Brent, 12, and daughter Kelly, 15, with a single
shot on May 17 when he slung his loaded deer rifle over his
shoulder as he started down the steps of their home and it
discharged.

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Alaska revives plan to strafe wolves

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

JUNEAU, Alaska––Just six months after an
international tourism boycott forced the Alaska Board of
Game to rescind a plan to strafe radio-collared wolves,
the board is ready to ratify essentially the same
plan––unless it ratifies one even deadlier.
On the agenda for the June 26 meeting of the
Board of Game are 92 separate wolf management pro-
posals, including two from the state Department of Fish
and Game that differ from last winter’s proposal mainly
in that they would encourage killing as many wolves as
possible from the ground before the air strikes begin.
Hunters and trappers would be given the radio collar
frequencies, so that they could trace each wolf pack in
the Delta and Fortymile areas, south of Fairbanks, right
to their dens. The killing could start as early as July 1.

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Jaws

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The National Marine Fisheries Service on
April 29 issued fishing quotas on 39 shark species
native along the U.S. coast from Maine to Texas, and
banned catching sharks just to cut off their fins, which
command high prices in China, Japan and Southeast
Asia. The action is intended to prevent the slow-breed –
ing and heavily hunted sharks from becoming endan –
gered. A total ban on commercial pursuit of the great
white shark, tiger shark, and black tip shark is under
consideration. West coast sharks were not protected
because, NMFS spokespersons said, they are already
covered by various state laws.

Whaling ban holds

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

TOKYO, Japan––The 47th annual meeting of
the International Whaling Commission concluded May 14
with the 1986 ban on commercial whaling still
intact––and Japan and Norway still threatening to follow
Iceland in quitting the treaty that holds the IWC together.
Norway has already announced that it will
resume commercial whaling this summer, risking trade
sanctions from the United States. Meanwhile, Norway
and Japan are already harpooning 100 and 300 minke
whales apiece per year for “research.” The rudimentary
research ends in each nation with the whale meat on
restaurant tables. Claiming that the Southern Hemisphere
minke whale population is up to 760,000 and out of dan-
ger, Japan wants to kill 2,000 a year. The Japanese gov-
ernment is also desperately worried that the IWC will
extend its authority from minkes, the smallest of the great
whales, to smaller cetaceans such as dolphins and porpois-
es. As with the great whales, some species of dolphins
and porpoises have been driven close to extinction by
aggressive huntiing, and public opinion in most of the
developed nations favors protecting them.

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Mountain lion mix-up

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Last October, Predator Project Newsletter extensively
quoted and paraphrased from a letter by Michael Horan of Eagle’s
Nest, New Mexico, protesting the relocation of 13 mountain lions
as part of a study of their population dynamics which has yielded
strong evidence that the species should not be hunted. Horan linked
the relocation to older and ongoing mountain lion killing projects
undertaken to protect livestock.
Various animal protection groups picked up and echoed
Horan’s claims, condensing his account each time, dropping source
identification, and eventually adding appeals for letters of protest to
be addressed to the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish.
Then someone, remembering that the original item had been pub-
lished on newsprint, wrongly cited ANIMAL PEOPLE as the
source, although the first issue of ANIMAL PEOPLE hadn’t even
gone to press yet when Horan wrote his letter.

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It’s to make you turn green

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

The United Conservation Alliance,
an association of hunters and trappers whose
name only sounds like an environmental group,
teamed with the Fur Information Council of
America to distribute 100 public service
announcements to 50 leading TV stations just
before Earth Day. The 30-and-60-second
announcements ––which apparently were not
aired by most of the stations––quoted Greg
Lincombe of the Louisiana Department of
Wildlife and Fisheries, claiming, “Commercial
trapping through the fur industry is the only
viable solution to keep muskrat and nutria in
check.” Actually, Louisiana alligators eat a lot
more muskrat and nutria than trappers catch, and
they’d eat even more if Linscombe’s department
didn’t remove as many as 75,000 alligator eggs a
year for resale to alligator farmers––but it’s the
sale of trapping permits (down 90% in five years)
that keeps him in a job.

Trapping not necessary for rabies control, says N.Y. wildlife official

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

NEW YORK, N.Y.––New York State Department of Environmental
Conservation Bureau of Wildlife official Gordon Batcheller rattled readers of Fur Age
Weekly on May 17. “Although the harvest of raccoons is one way of reducing the risks of
contact,” Batcheller wrote in a guest article, “the relationships between hunting or trapping
and population size are too complex to make a simplistic statement like: hunting and trap-
ping is a necessarymeans of control.”
Batcheller went on to describe progress in developing means of vaccinating rac-
coons to halt the mid-Atlantic raccoon rabies pandemic, now in its 14th year. His remarks
were a sharp departure from the traditional position of state wildlife agencies, whose
income is derived in part from the sale of trapping licenses, and were a direct rebuttal to
recent claims by several Fur Age Weekly columnists.

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ANIMAL HEALTH & BEHAVIOR

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1993:

Chinese authorities have begun
purging officials of Shenqui county in
Henan province for collaborating with
Wang Zhiqiang, an entrepreneur who built
a rural empire around a factory that manu-
factured fake veterinary medicines––among
them “antibiotics” made of talcum powder
and cornstarch, and “intravenous solution”
made of monosodium glutamate dissolved
in water. Wang allegedly bought off police
and politicians, held investigators for ran-
som, and tortured witnesses. Federal
authorities finally arrested Wang and shut
down his No. 1 Veterinarian Medicine
Factory, as he styled it, last

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The dream that haunts Vic Koppelberger by Donna Robb

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1993:

The dream that haunts Vic Koppelberger came to
him 30 years ago, and changed his life.
“I stood in a room before all the animals I ever
shot,” Koppelberger remembers. “They were lined up and
staring at me. It was my judgement day.”
Koppelberger, now 75, never hunted again.
He had the dream shortly after a disturbing hunt-
ing experience. Using a stuffed owl as a decoy,
Koppelberger and his game warden hunting companion hid
in the woods at the edge of a clearing. The owl, perched on
a stump, attracted crows who dive-bombed the stuffed
enemy. The crows made easy targets.

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