The
prospects of a high-security anti-ballistic-missile-missile system being
located at Camp Ravenna Joint Military Training Center ought not to interfere with
the 21,418-acre reserve’s controlled deer hunts.
Of concern
to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources’ Division of Wildlife and the sportsmen
and sportswomen who apply to hunt here is that such a system would close off
access to Camp Ravenna, more popularly called Ravenna Arsenal.
Annually
several thousand applicants submit to a random lottery drawing for an always
meager number of permits. This year, for example, 4,798 men and women applied
for only 176 available slots.
Yes, the
opportunity to hunt deer within the high-fence arsenal attracts such large numbers
of applicants.
And this
year the reserve will hold just three hunts: two for adults and one in which lottery-selected
women are considered the primary hunters. Those women selected are allowed to harvest
any deer while their partners are limited to taking antlerless deer only.
Success
varies according to the number of participants selected, which varies each
year. Only after joint consultations between the Department of Defense and the
Wildlife Division are held does approval come about for the number of approved hunting
slots.
Over the
past three years the tally of deer harvested has ranged from 219 in 2011 to 216
in 2012 and 232 in 2014, said Tom Rowan, assistant chief for the Wildlife
Division.
This year’s Camp
Ravenna deer herd is estimated to be around 1,100 animals. As such the reserve
needs to keep its deer population in check, and the most efficient method is
through the lottery drawing and adherence to both a management plan and a
strict set of hunting rules.
Consequently,
the hunts almost certainly will go on, even if Camp Ravenna is plucked from a
field that includes three other candidates for a much-talked about silo-based
anti-ballistic missile interceptor system that could cost upwards of $5
billion.
“We don’t
believe such a system will impact the hunts, in part because the silos would be
off-limits,” said Tim Morgan, the Environmental Supervisor for Camp Ravenna.
Agreeing is
Jeff Westerfield, a biologist with the Division of Wildlife’s District Three
(Northeast Ohio) office in Akron.
“I’d really
be surprised if they shut down deer hunting entirely there,” Westerfield said.
Westerfield
said as well that the only time he remembers Camp Ravenna’s controlled hunt
being scrubbed was following the al-Qaeda terrorist attack of September 11,
2001.
“We wanted
to get it open again as soon possible because the hunts are much more than just
providing recreational hunting opportunity; it’s for wildlife management there,”
Westerfield says.
As for the
interceptor missile system, Morgan says initial speculation calls for setting
aside 600 acres of Camp Ravenna. Within this small enclave would be installed
up to 20 interceptor missile silos, their existence a component of the Defense
Department’s Missile Defense Agency.
Each of these
silos would likely contain a 55-foot long, 25-ton, $50 million interceptor killer
missile that would be ushered toward in-coming ballistic missiles careening
from outer space and programmed to strike somewhere within the United States.
These interceptor
missiles would not explode, per say. Rather, they would physically strike the
arriving ballistic missiles, each projectile traveling at several times the speed
of sound, obliterating one another on impact.
Estimates
are that such a Star Wars-type, stationary Iron Dome-defense set-up could cost
between $1 billion and $5 billion.
Two such
systems are already in place; their job intended to combat a threat from such
rogue régimes as those found in Iran and North Korea.
Currently
one working interceptor missile system is at Fort Greely, Alaska and another is
at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Thing is,
this whole shooting match is one big “If.”
While
Congress has approved conducting environmental impact studies of Camp Ravenna
and the other three potential sites – Fort Custer, Mich., Fort Drum, NY, and
the Navy-operated Portsmouth Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape Training
Area near Rangley, Maine – no final missile installation commitment is included,
Morgan says.
And part of
the reason for this stems from opposition in the first place to such a system’s
effectiveness as well as its 10-figure cost.
“All it is right now is a call for a
preliminary environmental assessment of each of the four sites, and that’s
going to take another 18 months to two years,” Morgan said.
Thus a
decision to install a missile interceptor complex at Camp Ravenna - or at any
of the other three candidate sites - is nowhere near at hand, Morgan says.
In the end
then, sports hoping their lottery number will come up in the annual drawing to
hunt deer at Camp Ravenna still have a chance of being picked, even if the odds
are stacked against such luck.
“There’s no need
to worry; we’ll certainly be hunting deer at Camp Ravenna,” Morgan says.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
Jeff is the retired News-Herald reporter who covered the earth
sciences, the area's three county park systems and the outdoors for the
newspaper.
During his 30 years with The News-Herald Jeff was the recipient of more
than 100 state, regional and national journalism awards. He also is a
columnist and features writer for the Ohio Outdoor News, which is
published every other week and details the outdoors happenings in the
state.
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