About 40 – more or less – Northeast
Ohio sportsmen and sportswomen took the time today (Saturday, March
1) to express their thoughts regarding the state's proposed 2014-2015
hunting laws and regulations.
Now it remains to be seen whether the
Ohio Division of Wildlife was truly listening.
Each March the Wildlife Division hosts
a series of open houses throughout the state intended to inform the
state's hunters of the coming seasons' parameters as well as all of
the other legal requirements necessary to tie-rap what is store.
Among the locations that again served
as a venue was the Wildlife Division's Fairport Harbor Fisheries
Research Station.
Among the Wildlife Division officials
attending the forum was Kevin Kayle, manager of the fisheries
station, Scott Denamen, state wildlife officer assigned to Geauga
County, and the agency's assistant chief, Tom Rowan.
The program ran for three hours with
visitors coming and going at their leisure, picking up materials,
leaving penned thoughts and expressions of either support or
opposition regarding the proposals. These recommendations were
spelled out in large letters on even larger talk boards that strung
out in the complex's office section.
Officials were responsible for
explaining the recommendations' fine points along with why the
Wildlife Division choose the wildlife management-driven regulatory
paths that the agency selected.
And the curious, the opinionated, the
supporter and the opponent got along with the proposals, Rowan said.
Mostly, anyway.
“I really haven't heard anything
negative so far but then I don't think we're proposing anything too
controversial,” Rowan said.
Widely – if not also wildly –
applauded was the agency's proposal to allow the use during the
statewide general firearms deer-hunting season of a 26-arsenal-list
of specific straight-walled cartridges chambered in rifles. Such
calibers as .45-70, .50-70, .375 Winchester, and .444 Marlin all made
the Wildlife Division's grade.
And though this generally accepted and
much-appreciated proposal is less than one month old it has already
undergone a rather significant change. And one that will impact not
only those who will (if the proposal is approved) use a lever-action
Marlin rifle but also a deer hunter who sticks with his or her
semi-automatic Winchester slug shotgun.
Originally the proposal said that a
rifle could hold no more than three live cartridges. Just like what
is required now of shotguns.
Instead the Wildlife Division is
proposing to do away with the plug requirement, exchanging that
stipulation with one saying either a rifle or a shotgun simply have
no more than three rounds of live ammunition; one in the chamber and
no more than two in the magazine.
“It became a question of safety; how
to ensure that the placement of dummy rounds and live rounds don't
accidentally get mixed around,” Rowan said.
And if the three rounds maximum
standard will apply to rifles then it ought also to apply to slug
shotguns, Rowan said.
Since this subject was of keen interest
by the attendees the broader issue of Ohio's current deer management
was of even greater curiosity. But apparently not so much an object
of scorn, said Denamen.
“It was 'motivated curiosity,'”
Denamen said. “What they wanted to know was why we are going in the
direction we are and not in some other direction.”
Which is not the same as saying that
the attending hunters believed that Ohio's deer herd is growing.
“I think our deer herd has taken a
hit,” said open house attendee Dale Golob of Euclid. “I didn't
even take a shot at a deer this year because I just didn't see the
numbers I once did, but I think Ohio has an understanding about the
deer herd.”
Credit, or blame, more like it, must
fall at the feet of the non-resident deer hunter, Golob also said.
While many Ohio resident deer hunters
have an exceptionally long opportunity with a four-month-long archery
season along with three separate gun-type seasons of one kind or
another, the non-resident deer hunter typically has only a couple of
days to get in, kill a deer, and get out, Golob says.
“So the non-resident hunter is less
selective and will take whatever he can get,” Golob said.
Which is why Golob says he'd like to
see the non-resident general hunting license fee rise from the
present $125 to “$300.”
“It's pretty frustrating,” Golob
said. “I don't mind seeing non-resident hunters but they're going
to have to pay more.”
Of course, the Wildlife Division cannot
set the cost of a hunting or fishing license on a non-resident or a
resident. That right is owned entirely by the Ohio General Assembly,
which may very well take up the question of raising non-resident
hunting and fishing license fees this year.
But for now the focus centers on
whether the eight-member Ohio Wildlife Council will approve or reject
the Wildlife Division's hunting law recommendations.
Then again, what form those proposals
will ultimately appear may rest in part on whether the Wildlife
Division is willing to tweak them or be dead-set in believing the
agency – and the agency alone – knows what is best for the
state's wildlife along with the state's sportsmen and sportswomen.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
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