"I
am 'old school'. As a boy I was
taught my hunting methods and ethics by a group of 'oldtimers'
who treated the outdoors as a gift from God, and the game
they harvested as the bounty of their hard work and skill. It is
my fervent hope that when those men look down on me today they
will take pride in the fact that one of them still lives."
- Kenn Young
THE ARTICLES BELOW ARE TAKEN FROM VARIOUS SOURCES, PRIMARILY
NEWSPAPERS,
FOR WHICH KENN WRITES.
WHY
POLAR BEARS MATTER “Why
the h--- do we care about polar bears? I ain’t seen one of them here
in Arkansas in quite a while!” The
rather succinct question came from one of the older outdoorsmen who make
their home at the local gun shop, after my weekly radio show aired two weeks
ago. Normally at this time of year the show would be dominated by turkey
talk, but the gobbler chasing in our area has been so bad that no one
even wants to talk about it. So on this particular show I switched gears and discussed the various goings-on between the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&W) and the
conservation/anti-hunting groups who want the polar bear listed as an
endangered species. Here
is a little background on the topic: Back in 2004 three environmentalist groups; Greenspeace, The Center for Biological Diversity and the National Resources Defense Council filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USF&WS) in an effort to have the polar bear put on the Endangered Species List (ESL). I'm sure all of us recognize those three names, particularly the first one, whose members go around blowing up people. The
suit was filed in spite of the fact that studies have shown that today
there are more polar bears (estimates run as high as 25,000) than there
have been at any time in the last half-century. The
basis of the groups’ contention is that global warming and the
greenhouse effect is causing the polar ice cap to melt, thus reducing
the polar bear’s range. Through their own interpretation of various studies they have arrived at the
conclusion that up to two-thirds of the world’s polar bear population
may disappear by 2050. Keep that word ‘may’ in mind as we continue,
and also understand that there are other studies that show the
population may be harmed less; or even not at all. When you look 40-50
years into the future the crystal ball is clouded. Somewhat
buckling under to the pressure from these groups, the USF&WS in 2006
said that they would study the 'problem', and determine if a
recommendation to place the great white bears on the protected list was
necessary. Just to make things even harder on themselves they went so
far as to say, in print, that 'such a move may be warranted’. For
a variety of reasons, none of which have to do with the fact that the
polar bear is not under any danger of extinction today, they have now
delayed their determination numerous times. One of those reasons is
certainly the threat of other lawsuits, with the environmentalists now
getting on board with the anti-hunting groups, and those will almost
surely come if the USF&WS does
not put the bears on the protected list. Fighting these lawsuits would
be a no-win situation for the feds, since even if they won it would
still cost millions of dollars in court costs, and that is money federal
agencies simply do not have. The conservation/anti groups on the other
hand, have almost unlimited funds, and via a trial would receive the
national exposure that such groups crave. Although
rarely mentioned, there is another reason the feds have been loath to
side with the conservationists. IF the polar bear is placed on the ESL
the extensive oil exploration taking place in their home range would be
severely cut back or eliminated altogether. If there is one thing the
federal government is reluctant to interfere with today it is any
possible source of new oil. It's OK to allow oil companies 300 per cent
profits; but they do not want to give the public the idea that they are
in any way hindering the finding of new alternative oil sources. So
the bottom line is that the USF&WS is caught between a rock and a
hard place, and they have procrastinated on the decision so long that a
federal judge has now ordered them to make their decision by May 15. I
believe that this decision will have far-reaching effects on wildlife,
wildlife management and hunting, especially if the
polar bear is indeed listed as being endangered. Why is that? Because IF the bear is
placed on the ESL when all research tells us that today there is no
shortage of the animals, it will establish the precedent that
wildlife can be managed on the basis of what MAY happen in the future. What about future habitat loss for whitetail deer, for quail, for elk? What about declining water quality for fish and waterfowl? The plain fact is that by using this murky criteria which may be established, virtually every wildlife species on the face of the earth could come under the banner of being ‘endangered’. Also don’t think for a second that the anti-hunting groups, which have
millions of dollars in their coffers earmarked directly for filing
lawsuits against wildlife agencies, don't understand that, and are
licking their chops at the opportunity which may be presented! And
that my friend, is why every single hunter and fisherman in
America should be concerned about what happens with polar bears! THE FUTURE OF HUNTING "My brother Stuart and I scouted a 60-acre property that belongs to my Aunt down in Van Buren County. We found some tracks in this one place, and they were big enough that a .30-06 shell would fit inside them. We thought it might be a buck."  Paige Gilmore is a 16-year-old young
lady who attends high school at North Little Rock Old Main, where she
does all the 'typical' things that high school juniors do. But she and her brother
also head to the woods at virtually every opportunity. The 2007-08
season was her first time to deer hunt, and as Christmas neared she had
already been successful, taking a ‘small 8-point’ during modern gun
season.
(At Right) Paige Gilmore and brother Stuart with Paige's big crossbow buck, taken on Christmas Day. "We put up a pop-up blind at a spot where there was a funnel, a place deer passed through on their way to feed in some nearby fields. We put limbs on top of it to make it look more natural, we had read to do that in magazines." On Christmas morning the brother and sister team hunted their stand, but didn’t see anything except a lone doe. After taking a break for Christmas dinner they hurried back to their stand about 2:00 in the afternoon. "I guess it was about 4:30 when we heard a rustling behind us," the excitement of the moment was evident in Paige’s voice. "At first all we saw was a deer’s nose, right there beside the blind, then we could see his antlers. He was huge!" He was also looking right at them. With thudding hearts they waited as he stared, scarcely daring to breath because he was so close. Finally he took several steps forward and Paige got her crossbow up. The crosshairs of the scope shook as she tried to hold them behind the foreleg of the unsuspecting animal as he stopped some 30 yards away. Finally she squeezed the trigger, and the buck bolted out of sight! "He ran a long ways!" Listening to her tell the tale I almost felt like I was there with the two of them. "It was getting dark so we went home to let my mother Karen know we weren’t lost, then we went back to look for him. I wasn’t about to let ‘my’ buck get eaten by coyotees, so we kept looking until we finally found him...about 1:00 o’clock in the morning!" Two young people alone in dark woods on a cold night, looking doggedly for a spot of blood or torn leaves, ignoring the intense winter cold. I have to think that most youths would have given up and gone home, but these two didn’t. They finally found the buck lying in some dense brush, so thick that they almost had to step on him to see him! In January Paige carried the rack to the Arkansas Big Buck Classic, and there the beautiful 10-point antlers were scored at 158 6/8 net Boone & Crockett typical points. Her buck was the largest typical taken by a woman in the entire state last year! But it was as I talked to Paige that I came to realize there’s a lot more to like about this young woman than her hunting success. "I just love being in the woods." There was an exhilaration in her voice as she spoke that left no doubt. "I love getting up early in the morning, stumbling around in the dark, trying to be quiet. I love that first breath of cold air when you get out of the truck, then sitting on your stand while everything around you slowly wakes up. I can’t explain it, but when you’re in the woods you just get the feeling that somehow you’re a part of it all." Sometimes I find myself wondering what the future holds for hunting. What with all the anti-hunting groups, declining hunter numbers, and a shift in ethics caused by ‘win at all costs’ egos, it just seems there’s not a lot of good news out there. But then you encounter young people like Paige and Stuart Gilmore, and you come to understand that the future is in good hands! THE BUCK OF A LIFETIME Most people today regard Kansas as being flatland, but that is actually not the case, at least in the northeastern region of the state. There numerous low ridges cut the fertile bottomland where row crops such as soybeans, millet, winter wheat and corn stretch in endless profusion. On the Friday after Thanksgiving I was sitting on top of one of those ridges, glassing the edges of a 100-acre soybean field below. The beans had been harvested a week or so before, but there were enough left in the field that the deer had been feeding on them, evidenced by numerous ‘trails’ easily visible in the soft earth.  It was about 4:15 when I saw a deer
come out of a thick area off to the north, and when I swung my
binoculars in that direction my heart missed a beat! Ten long points above a
300-pound body, the rack amazingly large and massive, walking
unconcernedly toward me was truly the buck of a lifetime!
He was moving along the edge of the field below me, and I saw that he would pass my spot less than 75 yards away. The problem was that there were numerous saplings along the hillside, and they would shield him from a shot if I stayed in my present position. But looking ahead, I saw a spot 50 yards away that offered a clear avenue to the bottom of the ridge. With the buck still quite a distance away I eased back until I was out of sight, made sure he was still coming, then trotted ahead to that spot. When I settled into my new position I had a clear shot at no more than 40 yards, the wind blowing directly from him to me. I steadied my Thompson/Center Omega across a handy limb and waited...and waited...and waited... Finally I eased my head up, and was amazed to see the buck standing on the opposite side of the field! With shots echoing around him all day, and hunters cruising the draws from dawn to dark, he had for some reason crossed that huge opening in broad daylight! I mentally gauged the distance...one football field...two football fields...the buck appeared to be just over 200 yards away. Something had caught his attention and he was standing at the field edge, head up, staring back toward the north. The sight of him as I got the crosshairs of my scope centered about 3-4 inches from the top of his back was an image that is burned into my mind, and will remain there until the day I die. Loaded with 150 grains of Triple-7 behind a 270-grain Platinum Powerbelt bullet, I knew that the Omega was capable of such a shot. The gun regularly produced 3-shot groups at 100 yards where the holes touched, and I had once knocked a coyote off a hay bale with it at over 200 steps. So as I steadied it across the limb I was about as confident as anyone can be in such cases. Deep breath...half out...squeeze...BOOM! At the shot the buck turned his head to stare in my direction, but that was his only reaction to the shot! Then as I kept the scope on him he merely walked into the woods, disappearing like a ghost into the blackness under the trees! I sat there reviewing the shot as I waited for my heart rate to return to normal, fighting to keep the foreboding of disaster from washing over me. I knew that the crosshairs had been locked on the spot at the top of his shoulder when I fired; I knew that there was no shaking thanks to the limb; and I knew that I hadn’t flinched. So in spite of his actions to the contrary, there should be a dead buck lying over there in the trees! By the time I got there it was starting to get dark. I had marked the spot where I fired with a strip of blaze orange flagging, and I found the small cedar tree he had been standing by when I touched off. Walking in the direction he had gone I found a muddy creek crossing 25 yards away with huge tracks in the soft earth, along with deep gouges where he had lunged up the opposite side. What I didn’t find was blood! I marked the spot where he had been standing with more flagging and started looking. Darkness came too quickly, and not wanting to mess up what sign there might be, I reluctantly headed back to the cabin. My old hunting buddy Billy was there waiting, and we hashed over the state of events as we prepared supper. He could naturally tell that I was sick inside, and we even thought briefly about going back to the spot that night, but finally decided to wait until the next morning. Needless to say, it was a sleepless night for me! It’s when something like this happens that you find out who your true friends are. Even though we were on a 3-day hunt, Bill went back with me the next morning, and 3 hours later we were both down on our hands and knees, still looking for blood. There were some of those brown leaves with red spots on them there, and we were literally picking them up one by one, rubbing the spots and then tossing them away! Let me interject one thing here, I shoot a lot. Several times a month during the off-season, then 2-3 times a week leading up to hunting season. When you realize that one shot is all you may get; you want to be both capable and ready when the time comes. So even after hours of fruitless looking I still KNEW that I should have hit that buck. It was along about mid-morning and both of us were standing back at the cedar tree, running out of options. Bill was staring at the orange flag on the opposite side of the field, his face considering. "That’s where you shot from?" I nodded. Walking to his truck, which was parked 100 yards away, he came back with his rangefinder. Sighting on the distant hillside, I heard him exhale before handing me the small unit. 287 yards! While I do a lot of practicing, the range that I use is only 100-120 yards long, and rarely do I have the opportunity to practice at longer distances. Being a mountain boy, my ability to estimate ranges is also limited, particularly beyond 100 yards or so. The old ‘one football field...two football fields’ simply hadn’t got the job done. That’s why my ‘buck of a lifetime’ is still walking around up there in Kansas. WHITETAIL RUT CHRONOLOGY About 10 years ago I wrote an article which appeared in Arkansas Sportsman magazine titled ‘Understanding Rut Chronology’, which dealt with the various phases of the whitetail breeding period in the Natural State. Apparently it was a topic that appealed to a lot of people, because for months afterward I received phone calls and letters (e-mail wasn’t that big back then) from hunters all over the state wanting to talk about the guidelines I had put down.  Now virtually
everything contained in that article evolved around one key date: the PEAK
BREEDING DATE. What is that? Simply put, it is the single day
when the most does in any given area get bred.
Here in the mountains that date has for most of my lifetime been regarded as being November 15. I’ve used that date in many articles, and numerous others have too. It was, for a period of more than 20 years, the ‘accepted’ date for this region. How was it determined? Back before he graduated from college former Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC) Director Steve N. Wilson traveled throughout the state examining the carcasses of road-killed does. I guess it was his senior thesis, though it may not have been called that. By back-dating the embryos found in those dead does he was able to tell when they had been bred, and thus arrived at the November 15 date for the northern half of the state, about a week later in the southern half. Though the methods have changed, that is essentially the same process used today, and Wilson’s work was very thorough for the time (the 1960s). But I always had the vague feeling that there was something just a little bit off about Wilson’s peak date. Admittedly, most of that was bases on personal observation. I would see rutting activity (rubs and scrapes) begin to appear about the first week in October here in Johnson County, and by the last week of the month the bucks would really be tearing things up. That just didn’t quite correspond with November 15. I originally thought that all this activity was surrounding the ‘false rut’, which is the breeding that takes place 28 days prior to the primary breeding date/period. A few older does will ‘come in’ during that time, very few, and their availability just about drives the bucks crazy. Never forget that bucks are capable of breeding pretty much any time, and in every instance they must wait on the does. But still it seemed as if something was off. The heaviest scraping activity of the entire year, at least that I was seeing, was occurring from about mid-October until the end of the month. During that time my game cameras lit up with pics of bucks visiting scrapes, and many of those scrapes doubled in size almost overnight, indicating that the level of frustration of the bucks using them was at an all-time high. t was something I pondered many times, and as I said, I knew that my observations didn’t quite match up with Wilson’s finding. Close...but not quite. Then this past summer I was looking through the Deer Harvest Summary put out by the AGFC. If you haven’t seen one of these informative publications you should get one. Since Cory Gray took over as Deer Project Leader there has been much more testing done on the Arkansas deer herd, and that information has been far more available to the public, both good things. You can probably have one mailed to you by calling the AGFC offices in Little Rock (800-364-4263), or even by visiting their website (www.agfc.com). The particular item that caught my eye was the statement that according to testing done, the the peak date of conception here in the Ozarks is November 10. That date correlates with the Peak Breeding Date I mentioned earlier. I queried Cory about the method of determining this, and he explained that the G&F does extensive testing on numerous fetuses annually, and that this date is actually a 5-year average for that testing. OK, the week roughly before and after this date comprises the PRIMARY BREEDING PERIOD, making the actual dates November 3-17, not November 8-22 as I wrote in the articles I mentioned earlier. More importantly, particularly if you’re a bowhunter, that makes the PRE-BREEDING FRENZY, the last few days in which the bucks are looking for the still non-receptive does, take place during the last week of October, not the first in November as I had originally thought. Under this ‘new’ scenario, it is logical that visible rut activity should appear and increase during entire month of October! Without going into all the needless details, those dates are far more in line with my own observations, made over the last two decades. So maybe you really can teach an old dog new tricks! ANTLER RESTRICTIONS AND ALTERNATIVES I remember the conversation well. It took place back in June of 2000 and I was talking with Hugh Durham, who had just been hired as Director of the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC). We were discussing his plan for deer management in the Natural State. "Antler restrictions are merely one piece of the puzzle," Hugh said. "They are not a stand-alone management program, nor are they necessarily a long-term answer." Here in the central Ozarks where I live, I believe that the 3-point rule has had a positive effect. Buck age structure has improved and both antler and body size have increased overall. In other areas of the state the results have been either great or terrible, depending on who you talk to, but a majority of hunters still seem to favor the rule. But questions do exist.
Consider a statement made recently by Larry Castle, deer program coordinator
for the state of Mississippi. Stephen Demarais, professor of Wildlife Management at Mississippi State University, concurs with Castle's opinion. After intensive monitoring of buck kill on the state's Sunflower WMA, his statistics show a gradual but definite decrease of the Boone and Crockett (B&C) scores of 3 1/2-year-old bucks taken on the WMA since the 4-point rule was adopted. The 3-point rule has now been in use for seven years here in Arkansas. Are we on the edge of seeing antler size beginning to decrease? Cathy Helm is one of the
prime forces behind the annual Arkansas Big Buck Classic held each
January down in Little Rock, and is directly involved with the event's
popular statewide big buck contest. Those comments, by someone who year after year sees a majority of the state's largest bucks, would seem to agree with the opinions mentioned above. So OK, if we do have a problem, or soon will have one, what are the alternatives? Here's where it get 'dicey', because the answers are sometimes ones that a lot of hunters simply don't want to hear. So let’s look at some of the possibilities, along with the pros and cons of each. *SPREAD
REQUIREMENTS. Some biologists suggest adding a minimum inside antler
spread to the current point restriction. *SLOT LIMIT FOR
BUCKS. Hunters may take bucks with LESS THAN three points on
one side;or MORE THAN four. This is being
tried on a limited basis in some areas right now. Those two options are merely adjustments to current point restrictions. While many hunters view the 3-point rule as being the entire quality management package, that is not true. In actuality quality management is much more far-reaching, and there are numerous other herd/buck improvement options which have nothing to do with points. *LOWER BUCK BAG
LIMITS. Kentucky has drastically improved it's buck age structure
by reducing the bag limit to one buck per
year. Quite a number of other states utilize the same approach. *REDUCING SEASON
LENGTH. Longer seasons result in more bucks being killed, so
reducing days would cut down on
harvest. *ADJUSTING SEASON
TIMING. Kansas, a noted big buck state, and quite a few others as
well, do not open their gun season during the breeding period. *MORE PRIMITIVE
ARMS HUNTING/LESS MODERN GUN. The McAlester Army Ammunition
Plant in Oklahoma is known for the number and quality of it's bucks. One of
the primary reasons is that only
bowhunting is allowed there for bucks; shotguns are permitted during
doe-only seasons. To sum up, I really don't know that Arkansas is in dire need of any of the changes mentioned above right now. Aside from the 'slot limit', along with the 1-buck limit currently in use in certain zones, I have not heard about real discussion by the commissioners of potential major changes for the coming year. Of course that could change. But it is time for us, as hunters, to educate ourselves, and to become aware of the various options, and even to begin making our opinions known about them. It is our right, and it is also our duty. BUILDING EFFECTIVE FOOD PLOTS - PART I Back in the late 1980s I 'inherited' a 200-acre plot of ground located within the deeper reaches of the Ozark Mountains. Since I wasn't smart enough to figure out how to convince some major company to build a plant in the middle of nowhere, paying me millions of dollars in the process, I decided to use it as a hunting spot.  For the most part it
was typical Ozarks terrain, steep ridges covered with scrub oaks, but
there were a few flat spots
along a small creek that cut through the northern half of the acreage.
About 30 acres along that
waterway had been logged some 8-10 years before, then replanted in
pine, and was at the time
nothing more than one big thicket.
Yes sir, I had me a deer sanctuary! Unfortunately, as I was to learn deer choose their safety spots with some definite objectives in mind, safety being first and foremost. I tried on many occasions, but I could never ease into the grown-up interior of that morass without spooking every deer long before I got into shooting range. The problem was compounded by the facts that there wasn't a tree big enough to hang a treestand in, and any type of ground blind had a maximum visibility of about 25 feet. 'When you can't go to the deer, make the deer come to you,' old hunters truism. Quality deer
management was still pretty much a thing of the future back in those
days, but at least I did
know what food plots were. So one spring I paid one of the locals to
disc up three of the
flatter spots along the creek, about 8-10 acres in all, and then
planted them with a 'mixed seed blend'
I got at the local Farmers Co-op. When the bare ground started turning
green I was on my way, or
at least so I thought. As years passed I
learned that building a food plot is something of an art, far more
than merely throwing out a
few seeds and hoping that they grow. Trial-and-error is a great
teacher, so the remainder
of this column, and the next one as well, will be a discussion of how
you go about building a
multi-purpose food plots. How important is pH in
growing food sources? Biologists tell me more than even fertilizer. I won't go into the egghead explanation
of the why, but instead just give you the non-scientific version.
The nutrients within soil are bound to individual soil particles. The
more acidic the soil (lower
pH) the tighter those nutrients are bound, which in turn makes them
less available to plants.
So if your pH is low, no matter how much fertilizer you put out, it
may not even get to the plants
themselves. How do you find out
the pH level of your soil? There are pH meters on the market which
will do this for you, but
if one isn't available take several samples from different parts of
your acreage. To do this,
dig a small hole down 4-6 inches, take a small cupful from each spot,
then put them all together
in a plastic bag (don't worry about it all getting mixed together).
Then take it to your local
Soil Conservation agent to be analyzed. In the meantime, good hunting. BUILDING EFFECTIVE FOOD PLOTS - PART II In my last column we were to the point where we had the soil of our food plot analyzed to determine it's pH. For those just joining us now, the lower the pH value the less fertile your soil is. The hard fact is that if you have a low pH even dumping tons of fertilizers on your property will do little good. 
The most common mistake made by beginners is to think that their soil is 'OK'. The truth is that very little natural soil is balanced, and a vast majority will have a lower pH than is needed to grow productive plants. There's only one feasible way to raise pH, and that is through the application of lime. Lime comes in two forms, agricultural, which is powdered, and pelletized. The powdered is cheaper, and is typically delivered by truckload from the local Co-op. If you're building a large plot that you can get a truck to this is certainly the way to go since they will spread it for you. But since most of us want our food plots away from roads, pelletized lime, which is sold in 50-pound bags, is the more common method. How much do you use? It certainly depends on the pH level in your particular soil, but a general 'rule of thumb' is that new food plots will INITIALLY require 1-2 tons of lime per acre to bring your pH up to desired levels. I personally apply about one-half of the recommended amount, allow it to 'lay' for a couple of months, then go back and test the pH again, adding more if needed. I also realize that 1-2 tons per acre sounds like a lot, and it is, especially if you're using something like an ATV spreader to broadcast the pellets. But unless you're into large-scale food plots, most are only 1-2 acres, and can generally be done in a few hours. Once you have your pH
level in a workable range, it's time to actually prepare and plant your plot.
If there are lots of
grasses and/or other plant cover on the plot spray a week or so
beforehand with a herbicide
such as Round-Up,
then start watching the weather channel. Why? It is always better to
have your seed in the
ground a few days before rain. Any gardener can tell you that
virtually anything you plant
lives or dies at the whim of Mother Nature. Just as in my initial
case, unusually dry weather can
kill a young planting down to bare earth, or make it not start at all. What do we plant?
Today there
are literally dozens of different seed blends out there, but if you read the labels carefully you will see
that many contain the same seed varieties, just in differing quantities.
Unfortunately, some that I have checked out also contain unwanted
varieties of grasses - so read carefully. OK, you've got everything in the ground. Now it all becomes one big crap shoot. If the rains come your plot will produce, if they don't you say a few choice words and try again. I realize that this column hasn't been overly scientific. That's a good thing, since far too many biologists today try to make growing something, be it plants or deer, sound like rocket science. Mostly it's just hard work, along with experimentation, and then that 'luck' factor. Good planting... (D) WHAT IS CHRONIC WASTING DISEASE? Last week the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (AGFC), fearing an outbreak of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in the state's deer and elk herds, passed an emergency measure banning importation of wildlife into the state. This is a move already instituted in both Missouri and Texas. What is CWD? Are the Arkansas deer and elk herds in danger? Is the disease a danger to humans? How do we recognize it? All of these are questions that have been asked since the AGFC announcement.To explain what CWD is I'm going to have to use some of the clinical, egg- head language that sets biologists apart from normal people. I should also point out for clarity that when I refer to 'commercial' or 'penned' animals in this column I am talking about animals kept enclosed on game farms. As a group, these are entirely different from 'free-roaming' or 'wild' deer and elk. The first instance of CWD of which I am aware occurred nearly two decades ago in game farm herds in Colorado. Apparently wild animals contracted the disease from those penned animals, because there are reports of CWD found in free- roaming mule deer and elk in Colorado and Wyoming back during the 1980's. The bad news, and what led to the AGFC ban, is that CWD seems to be spreading. In the last decade infected animals have been found in commercial herds in Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana and Oklahoma. Last year the disease was found in wild deer and elk in the southwestern corner of Nebraska, and in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. CWD is a spongiform encephalopathy type disease, which means that it destroys brain tissue. What has many people alarmed is that CWD is classified in the same general 'family' as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as mad cow disease. What actually causes CWD is still being debated. There are three main theories on the subject: 1) a prion, an abnormal form of a normal protein, most commonly found in the central nervous system. The abnormal prion protein 'infects' the host animal by promoting conversion of normal cellular prion protein to the abnormal form; 2) an unconventional virus; 3) a virino, or 'incomplete' virus composed of nucleic acid protected by host proteins. The prion theory is the most prevalent. At this point even the mode of transmission of CWD is unknown. Both animals born in captivity and in the wild have been affected. The most likely method is that CWD is passed directly from animal to animal. Most cases of CWD occur in adult animals. The disease is progressive and always fatal. The most obvious sign of CWD is gradual weight loss. Behavioral changes occur in the majority of cases, including listlessness, lowering of the head, blank facial expression, and repetitive walking in set patterns. In elk, behavioral changes may also include hyperexcitability and extreme nervousness. Most deer show increased drinking and urination. Species which have thus far been affected with CWD include Rocky Mountain elk, mule deer, white-tailed deer, and black-tailed deer. Other ruminants, including domestic cattle, sheep, and goats, have shown no evidence of disease transmission. A nationwide surveillance effort was started in 1997-98, concentrating on wild animals. This on-going effort consists of hunter-harvest surveys conducted in many states, as well as observation targeting deer and elk exhibiting signs suggestive of CWD. Over 15,000 harvested free-ranging deer and elk have been tested to date, including 8,000-plus animals harvested from outside the previously-infected areas. No CWD has thus far been found in free-ranging animals anywhere in the United States outside those already-infected areas. According to the AGFC, there is no current indication that the disease exists in Arkansas. However, with testing just beginning, there is no way to be absolutely sure. Anyone witnessing animals exhibiting the behavior characteristics mentioned above should contact their local wildlife personnel. *Information used provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Veterinary Services Division. GAME FARMS ARE NOT ‘HUNTING’ Webster’s Dictionary defines ‘hunting’ as being ‘the act of a person to search carefully for, to try to find game’. It also defines a ‘hunter’ as being ‘a person who hunts’. Keep those two definitions in mind as you read the rest of this article. Have you ever
thumbed through the hunting outfitters advertisements that appear in
the back of most outdoor magazines? Have you ever noticed one that
makes the claim ‘guaranteed kill’, or ‘no kill - no pay’. Now I’ll
tell you a story about a friend of mine who won a trip to one of those
guaranteed-kill Texas ranches several years ago. I’ll call him ‘Mike’,
but that’s not his real name.
To Mike’s credit, he never took his gun out of the truck. If
you have questions or comments about any of these articles,
|
KENNETH
RALPH 'KENN' YOUNG
is an outdoor writer/photographer who makes his home, along with his beautiful wife Connie, in the
Ozark
Mountains of Northcentral Arkansas. 