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Here’s what’s worth reading today, Saturday, March 13, 2021:

Millions of saltwater fish killed in historic 2021 freeze on Texas coast

Texas spring turkey hunting guide

Texas wildlife ranch cancels group hunting after losing more than 2,000 Axis deer in deep freeze

Texas Canyon Ranch lost more than 2,000 of its 4,000 Axis deer population and about 60 percent of its blackbuck antelope population, according to a release from the ranch.

The ranch stated it experienced animal losses and infrastructure damage so severe it has been forced to cancel most scheduled hunting for the rest of the year. Only “premier” hunts will be offered, allowing one or two hunters at a time with a private guide and a limited harvest.

 

When the Arctic freeze hit, temperatures on the hunting recreational ranch dipped into the low single digits and stayed there for days, the release noted. Despite having no electricity, the staff worked around the clock to keep water pipes from freezing and to feed the livestock and wildlife on the more than 20,000-acre property.

 

However, the loss of the wildlife was out of the staff’s control. It will take years for the wildlife to get back to pre-2021 levels, the ranch said.

Mountain lion found dead in Cameron County, fourth seen in RGV in 15 years by TPWD

Texas game wardens located a dead mountain lion in Willacy County on Saturday and state it is only the fourth one confirmed seen by them in the Rio Grande Valley in the last 15 years.

According to officials, the young male mountain lion was found in the median off of Highway 77 near the Cameron-Willacy County line.

 

The feline had road rash, according to a game warden, which suspects them to believe it was struck by a vehicle.

 

Officials state that this is the fourth mountain lion spotted in the RGV in the last 15 years by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

 

The other three were spotted at the Las Palomas Wildlife Management Area and the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge across that time frame.

 

However, there are likely to be more present mountain lions in the area, but biologists say the exact number is not possible to track, but likely miniscule.

New Mexico ban on traps and wildlife poisons clears Senate

A New Mexico measure that would prohibit traps, snares and wildlife poisons from being used on public lands across cleared the Democratic-led Senate late Tuesday. The legislation passed despite four Democrats from rural areas breaking with their party and voting in opposition. Two Republicans from the Albuquerque area voted in favor.

The measure still need House approval and lawmakers have less than two weeks remaining in the legislative session. Environmentalists and animal advocacy groups have said New Mexico needs to join neighboring states and ban what they described as a cruel and outdated practice.

 

But rural residents and wildlife conservation officers have said that trapping remains an important tool for managing wildlife and protecting livestock. New Mexico already has taken some steps to rein in the practice. The state Game Commission last year adopted changes that call for trappers to complete an education course and imposed restrictions on setting traps and snares around designated trailheads and on select tracts of public lands to reduce the trap hazards to hikers and pets.

 

But supporters of the legislation have said several dogs have been injured despite the new rules and that more should be done to ensure public safety, especially because New Mexico is pushing to promote outdoor recreation.

Colorado man banned from hunting in 48 states after poaching spree

A Colorado Springs man who pleaded guilty to several poaching charges in Colorado will likely never hunt in 48 states, including Colorado, ever again.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife said Iniki Vike Kapu, 28, was accused of illegally killing 12 deer, 2 turkeys and a bighorn sheep ram across three counties.

 

Kapu pleaded guilty to illegal possession of wildlife and was fined $900 in Chaffee County in May 2019. He then entered a guilty plea in December 2019 in Teller County. And in February 2020, he pleaded guilty to illegal possession of a bighorn sheep in Fremont County. He also pleaded guilty to illegal possession of three or more big game animals. A few days later, he was fined $4,600 and sentenced to six months in jail and three years supervised probation in Fremont County as part of a plea deal. He also forfeited the weapons he used for poaching.

 

In the last week of February 2021, CPW hearing examiner Steven Cooley decided to permanently suspend Kapu’s hunting privileges.

 

“Mr. Kapu’s crimes against wildlife are the essence of what defines a poacher by taking wildlife without regard for the laws protecting them,” Cooley said. “Iniki Kapu is viewed as a serious threat to Colorado’s wildlife and his violations are among the worst. The severity and level of indifference for wildlife in this case are rarely seen and cannot be tolerated.”

The hunter decline myth: Habitat — not hunting — is at risk

The number of hunters is actually on the rise. And quality habitat is at the lowest it’s ever been. Competing ideas are at play in the hunting industry and community. Here’s more.

Over the past few years, the hunting community has jumped full sail into what it’s calling the R3 movement. “R3” stands for recruitment, retention, and reactivation of hunters. And it’s an effort to boost the number of hunters in myriad ways, mostly due to the idea that hunter numbers are in decline.

 

It’s an interesting idea, but it bears a closer look. While hunters are on the decline per capita, the actual number of hunters on the American landscape tells a different story.

 

And beyond that, habitat and biodiversity in the lower 48 are both well into declines that are not only alarming but also potentially devastating to both hunter opportunities and the variety of healthy American ecosystems in general.

 

There are three things I think we need to look at from a wholesale perspective.

 

The first is the consistent use of fear-based marketing tactics that tends to put the hunting community on the defense. The second is taking a look at hunter numbers from a broader perspective that shows us some good news about hunter numbers. And the third is aligning our educational focus to both help habitat and create public goodwill, as hunter numbers per capita are unlikely to increase at the rate of population growth.

Some women were gig-game hunters, complicating ancient gender roles

Archeological evidence from Peru has revealed that some ancient big-game hunters were, in fact, women, challenging what science writer James Gorman wrote was “one of the most widely held tenets about ancient hunters and gatherers – that males hunted and females gathered.”

“Man the Hunter” is a narrative of human origins developed by early 20th-century anthropologists armed with their imaginations and a handful of fossils.

 

They viewed hunting – done by men – as the prime driver of human evolution, bestowing upon our early ancestors bipedalism, big brains, tools, and a lust for violence. In this narrative, hunting also gave rise to the nuclear family, as women waited at home for men to bring home the meat.

 

As an anthropologist who studies hunting and gathering societies, I was thrilled by the discovery of female skeletons buried with big-game hunting paraphernalia, a pattern that raises important questions about ancient gender roles. But I found most of the media coverage it generated disappointingly inaccurate.

 

Responding to the finding, journalist Annalee Newitz wrote: “Nicknamed ‘man the hunter,’ this is the notion that men and women in ancient societies had strictly defined roles: Men hunted, and women gathered. Now, this theory may be crumbling.”

New California state record black crappie at Clear Lake

Clear Lake has been the prime location for crappie for Northern California fishermen so for this winter into spring, and in addition to the impressive numbers of slabs, the lake can now be known for the new California state record for black crappie.

Dave Burruss, owner of Clear Lake Outdoors in Lakeport, landed the monster slab at 4.33 pounds, breaking the old state record of 4 pounds, 1 ounce. The record-setting crappie still has to be verified by the Department of Fish and Wildlife, but it was weighed on a state-certified scale after being weighed on two non-certified scales.

 

“I had learned the week before that the California state record was 4 pounds, 1 ounce, and I knew it was the largest crappie I had ever caught. I though it was around 3.8 pounds, but when I weighed on my boat scale, it read 4.4 pounds. I thought, ‘What the heck, this way bigger than I thought,’ so I counted the number of spines since I know that black crappie have seven spines. It had seven spines, and I knew that I had a record fish here. I hunt for trophy largemouth bass but not trophy crappie so this was big surprise. I took it into a certified scale, and it weighed 4.34 pounds, so I will go into the record books officially as 4 pounds, 5 ounces.”

Montana considering series of new bills to expand trapping and killing of wolves and bears — and activists say it’s ‘an outright war against wildlife’

Gray wolves were removed from the endangered species list less than four months ago. But now, activists say their populations, as well as other endangered wildlife in Montana, may be at risk as the state considers a series of legislative bills that set out to expand trapping and hunting regulations.

Several bills are currently being weighed by legislators that would impact wolves and grizzly bears, both of which have historically struggled to maintain populations in the area.

 

Impacting the wolves, the state’s House has passed two bills, HB 224 and HB 225, which would allow wolf snaring and lengthen wolf trapping season for an additional 30 days.

 

The state’s Senate has passed two bills that have a more direct goal of reducing the wolf population.

 

SB 314 would establish hunting and trapping regulations that would allow all but 15 breeding pairs of wolves to be killed. Under this bill, any individual with a single wolf hunting or wolf trapping license would be allowed to “harvest” an unlimited number of wolves, and would permit individuals to use artificial light and night vision to hunt wolves on private land at night.

 

SB 267 would establish what the Humane Society equates to a “bounty system,” in which people with hunting licenses can be reimbursed for the money they spent on hunting or trapping wolves.

Angler makes rare catch of prehistoric fish while surf fishing

A fishing guide from Michigan was surf fishing on an Alabama beach when he hooked something big that puzzled onlookers about its identity. Even the angler was baffled, thinking a shark was at the end of the line.

Instead, when David A. Rose finally pulled the fish close to shore at Orange Beach after a 40-minute battle, he and the others discovered it was a Gulf sturgeon. It was a rare catch of the prehistoric fish, which is listed as “threatened.”

 

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined landing such a rare species…ever,” Rose said. “While I knew there were anadromous sturgeon along the Northwest Coast, it never even crossed my mind there were this species swimming about the Gulf of Mexico.”

 

Rose, on vacation, had spent most of the week catching Gulf kingfish, croaker, stingrays, a 5-pound gafftopsail catfish, a pufferfish and a crab, according to MulletWrapper.com.

 

Then came his rare catch, using fresh dead shrimp as bait.

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