Ohio DNR takes corrective steps after former director's Fish Ohio Day ethics blunder

Associated with a state watchdog investigation of a former Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director and staff for their accepting free fishing charters in July, 2018, new ethics training for agency personnel has been adopted.

James Zehringer – who served as the Natural Resources Director under then Ohio Governor John Kasich – was found to have participated in what was – and still is – loosely called “Fish Ohio Day/Ashtabula” while angling aboard a licensed charter boat.

Others accompanying Zehringer in the 2018 event were - at the time: ODNR Assistant Director Gary Obermiller, Wildlife Officer Supervisor Scott Angelo, ODNR Deputy Director Bethany McCorkle, ODNR Coastal Management Deborah Beck, Wildlife Assistant Chief Peter Novotny, ODNR Biologist Travis Hartman, (now Wildlife Division chief) Kendra Wecker, and Wildlife Chief Mike Miller.

Also attending were Ohio State Senator Joe Uecker and then State Representative Sarah LaTourette, State Senator Sean J. O’Brien, State Representative Marlene Anielski, and Ashtabula County Commissioner Casey Kozolowski.

Fish Ohio Day/Ashtabula is an adjunct to the approximately 40-year-old Fish Ohio Day held annually at Port Clinton, and started by the-then Ohio Governor James A. Rhodes.

Rhodes used the Fish Ohio Day events to highlight the walleye fisheries in Lake Erie’s Western Basin by inviting members of the media, political and civic leaders to a day of angling. It was Rhodes to coined the phrase “Walleye Capital of the World,” utilizing the Fish Ohio venue to promote the lake’s rising walleye angling star.

Cognizant that Ohio’s share of Lake Erie does not begin and end in the Western Basin, Kasich, Zehringer and Northeast Ohio local officials and elected leaders devised the Fish Ohio Day/Ashtabula sibling, and used nine volunteer local licensed charter boats.

The idea of multiple Fish Ohio Days to promote fishing throughout the state has even been expanded upon by current Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and Natural Resources Director Mary Mertz.

However, says the Ohio Inspector General’s office in a 17-page report, “On February 15, 2019, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General received a confidential complaint” that something may have been amiss with the 2018 Fish Ohio/Ashtabula affair. This complaint jump-started an investigation by the Ohio Inspector General’s office.

On its web site the Office of Ohio Inspector General says “complaints received by the office are reviewed and evaluated to determine whether there is reasonable cause to believe the underlying allegations, if true, would constitute a wrongful act or omission on the part of a state officer, agency, or employee.”

“At the conclusion of an investigation a report of investigation is completed and provided to the Governor and the agency subject to investigation.”

The exhaustive report goes on to detail interviews with several of the 2018 event’s participants; the parties explaining the genesis of the project, including that some state officials stayed at the Lodge at Geneva-on-the-Lake/State Park, charging the state for their rooms.

The report likewise states that “On June 10, 2019, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General consulted with the Ohio Ethics Commission (OEC) to determine if they had issued an opinion or some special exception allowing ODNR employees to accept a free fishing charter from a regulated entity, and the OEC responded that they had not.”

This subsequent chain of events had relevance since another such outing was planned for September, 2019.

“On August 2, 2019, the Office of the Ohio Inspector General contacted Damien Sikora, current ODNR chief legal counsel, regarding the (then) upcoming 2019 Ashtabula Fish Ohio Event that was planned for September 27-28, 2019.” the report states.

“Sikora stated that ODNR was aware of the problem with ODNR employees accepting free fishing charter trips from a prohibited source, and he noted that for similar future events, ODNR would pay the fishing charters.”

To that end the current Natural Resources Department leadership says appropriate corrective actions were all ready underway.

“Fish Ohio Day promotes Ohio’s world class fishing and the charter boat industry for news media writers and legislative decision makers to benefit Lake Erie’s economy.” said Sarah Wickham, the Natural Resources Department’s chief of communications in a statement.

Under the current administration, Wickman says also in her statement about the 2019 Ashtabula outing, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources “limited the number of state employees participating to only include staff to educate legislators and the media about ODNR conservation practices, the importance of protecting our waterways, and the economic benefits of angling in Ohio.”

“(The) ODNR paid for the cost of the charter trips for employees that participated. Furthermore, an aggressive campaign of ethics training was provided across the agency beginning in early 2019, with both in-person and online trainings,” Wickham said.

And on January 30th the Ohio Inspector General noting as well that it “received documentation from ODNR that the fishing boat captains who participated in the Ashtabula Fish Ohio event held on September 27-28, 2019, received payments for their services.”

As for those past and current Natural Resources officials who participated in the 2018 outing, the report says “on February 4th, 2020, investigators received documentation from the Ohio Ethics Commission (OEC) that the OEC had sent letters to all who attended the 2018 Ashtabula Fish Ohio event and who were required to file Financial Disclosure Statements (FDS), stating a possible need for those individuals to amend their FDS for the value of the charter boat.”

However, no criminal referrals were warranted, the report concludes.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com 

Ohio's first week turkey kill numbers way down; turkey tag sales way up

Ohio’s 2020 first week south zone-only turkey season kill number took a 12-percent hit when compared to its 2019 counterpart.

For the period Monday, April 20th to Sunday, April 26th, turkey hunters in Ohio’s south zone shot 7,873 birds. Last year for the first week, hunters in the south zone killed 8,908 bearded wild turkeys; a difference of 1,035 turkeys or about 12 percent.

The decline in the turkey kill actually comes during a period of substantial turkey permit sales increases, however. As of April 27^th, the Ohio Division of Wildlife had issued 58,854 turkey-hunting permits of all kinds. This figure represents a roughly 9.5-percent gain over the 53,228 permits issued for the same to-date period in 2019.

Fueling the turkey tag increase were those sold to adults as well as youths. To-date as of April 27 the Wildlife Division had sold 45,459 adult turkey-hunting licenses, a gain of 6,175 permits from the 39,284 tags the agency issued for same 2019 to-date period. Thus, the gain was about 12.5 percent.

Youth to-date turkey tags numbers were 10,063 for this year, and 7,224 for the same to-date period in 2019. That is an increase of 2,839 tags, or about 28 percent.

Down, however, were the number of reduced cost senior citizen turkey tags. Here, the to-date 2020 number was 1,110 while its 2019 counterpart was 2,159. That difference represents a whopping drop of 49 percent.

Of course, sales of non-resident turkey tags also were down, owing to Ohio Governor Mike DeWine’s order a couple of weeks back to cease sales of these permits. This, in order to discourage travel into the state during the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

This year the Wildlife Division had issued 1,315 non-resident tags up until such sales were prohibited. Last year through April 27^th the Wildlife Division had issued 4,306 non-resident turkey-hunting tags.

The top 10 counties for wild turkey harvest during the first week of the 2020 south zone wild turkey-hunting season include: Belmont (266), Guernsey (250), Meigs (243), Tuscarawas (227), Harrison (224), Monroe (221), Brown (217), Coshocton (215), Muskingum (213) and Highland (206).

Data supplied by the Ohio Division of Wildlife also shows that 27 of the south zone’s 83 counties saw first week gains with four counties posting identical 2019-to-2020 first week kill numbers. The remaining 52 counties saw declines.

The northeast zone, which includes Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake and Trumbull counties begins Monday, May 4th and runs through Sunday, May 31st.

Here is a county-by-county preliminary breakdown of all wild turkeys checked by hunters during the first week of the 2020 south zone-only season. Their respective 2019 figure are in parentheses: Adams: 201 (215); Allen: 41 (31); Ashland: 85 (92); Athens: 183 (260); Auglaize: 23 (17); Belmont: 266 (287); Brown: 217 (205); Butler: 101 (93); Carroll: 176 (202); Champaign: 55 (48); Clark: 7 (8); Clermont: 181 (183); Clinton: 43 (35); Columbiana: 184 (162); Coshocton: 215 (272); Crawford: 26 (31); Darke: 28 (28); Defiance: 98 (88); Delaware: 67 (48); Erie: 17 (26); Fairfield: 58 (56); Fayette: 6 (3); Franklin: 10 (9); Fulton: 57 (43); Gallia: 191 (225); Greene: 10 (11); Guernsey: 250 (284); Hamilton: 77 (40); Hancock: 22 (16); Hardin: 49 (44); Harrison: 224 (239); Henry: 17 (33); Highland: 206 (193); Hocking: 127 (155); Holmes: 108 (136); Huron: 64 (64); Jackson: 180 (216); Jefferson: 191 (222); Knox: 146 (173); Lawrence: 112 (141); Licking: 155 (188); Logan: 59 (53); Lorain: 59 (62); Lucas: 17 (32); Madison: 4 (4); Mahoning: 97 (83); Marion: 26 (11); Medina: 50 (66); Meigs: 243 (289); Mercer: 16 (11); Miami: 9 (11); Monroe: 221 (297); Montgomery: 14 (16); Morgan: 159 (224); Morrow: 70 (67); Muskingum: 213 (302); Noble: 190 (247); Ottawa: 1 (3); Paulding: 33 (39); Perry: 133 (159); Pickaway: 15 (7); Pike: 92 (116); Portage: 118 (142); Preble: 57 (61); Putnam: 25 (30); Richland: 95 (143); Ross: 158 (158); Sandusky: 13 (9); Scioto: 134 (152); Seneca: 49 (73); Shelby: 22 (23); Stark: 127 (135); Summit: 26 (33); Tuscarawas: 227 (257); Union: 18 (27); Van Wert: 10 (6); Vinton: 149 (171); Warren: 51 (57); Washington: 204 (308); Wayne: 58 (46); Williams: 88 (113); Wood: 9 (10); Wyandot: 40 (33). 2020 total: 7,873 2019 total: (8,908).

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com 

Ohio Division of Wildlife's bottom line weathering COVID-19's impact

A largely steady stream of revenue and multi-year fiscal planning are helping to buffer the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s bottom line during the on-going coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis.

This, in spite of the fact the agency has taken in reduced fishing license sale receipts - about $567,335 less - than it had for the same period last year.

Also, Wildlife Division officials say the COVID-19 emergence has impacted the agency in other ways. Among them are the protocols of how officials communicate with each other. And these changes are likely to continue even after a vaccine is found for the virus, too.

“Right now we’re trying to grasp the breadth and depth of COVID-19, and how that applies to hunting and fishing license sales,” said Pete Novotny, the Wildlife Division’s assistant chief in charge of fiscal and other administrative chores.

“We need to see if this track is going to continue long-term and what that will mean, but we’re only two months or so months into this thing.”

Novotny says because the Wildlife Division has a strategy that calls for three- to five-year planning cycles, particularly on capital improvement projects, it is less dependent upon living paycheck-to-paycheck like many people and even some businesses.

“What I don’t want to do is make light of how so many Ohioans and businesses are hurting,” Novotny said, though adding the Wildlife Division’s long-term planning strategy does “give us some leverage in continuing to move forward.”

Likewise, says Novotny, the agency has a shrunken workforce and today stands at about 400 employees.

That figure has proven itself a bone of some contention with some of Wildlife Division’s staff. These individuals are critical of the Wildlife Division’s reorganization and reduction of the agency’s Lake Erie law enforcement unit, under-cover operations, district law supervisory posts, and other related fish-and-game law enforcement duties.

The charge is that such actions undermines the Wildlife Division’s ability to properly track the Lake Erie commercial fisheries and effectively conduct investigations into poaching rings.

For its part, the parent Ohio Department of Natural Resources says such personnel cuts are also a part of its long-term planning, noting how it has asked “..all sections, including the law enforcement group, to review positions and make recommendations for efficiencies to ensure we are being responsible with sportsmen’s and women’s dollars,” said the Department’s chief of Commnications Sarah Wickham.

“We want to increase the visibility of wildlife officers and uniformed staff.  We want all counties to be filled and have wildlife officers in reserve to take care of any vacancies that would occur into the future,” Wickham said.

Even so, the Wildlife Division remains on track to complete any number of high-profile and expensive capital improvement projects.

Among them, says Novotny, are the long-awaited improvements to the agency’s popular Spring Valley and Delaware wildlife areas’ metallic shooting ranges.

“We’re proud they’ll be up and running,” likely later this year, Novotny says.

Less certain are smaller projects that are vital but not necessarily critical at the moment. For these projects the Wildlife Division hopes they might be able to see them “pushed back a couple of months” until more favorable cash flow occurs, Novotny says.

“We are looking at what we need to finish and what can be done and still meet federal (matching) grant requirements,” Novotny said. “But I am optimistic enough.”

Novotny says he also is hopeful people who have been cooped up for months on end might very well want to explore the idea of hunting and fishing, both to recreate and possibly help ease their own respective food budgets.

“Maybe we can help motivate more people to look at these pursuits,” he said.

One unforeseen element the Wildlife Division has encountered during the COVID-19 crisis is showing up in how agency officials conduct meetings – both with the public and in-house with individual employees, Novotny says.

With today’s access to live/interactive telecommunications, Wildlife Division officials are learning they don’t always have to drive from one end of the state to the other in order to discuss an issue, talk out a problem or resolve a dispute, Novotny says.

Such get-togethers are being shrunk to the size of a computer’s screen footprint with the images and voices of the participants sharing air time, breaking new ground electronically, Novotny says.

“We’re learning and adapting,” Novotny says.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio gets muskie, steelhead stocking assists to cancel out COVID-19 problems

When the coronavrus (COVID-19) came knocking on Ohio’s fish stocking door, it became advantageous to have friends in fisheries high places.

Almost faced with a pulled plug on obtaining walleye eggs for its inland walleye- and saugeye-stocking programs, the Ohio Division of Wildlife just squeaked in under Governor Mike DeWine’s order for state employees to work at home.

And when confronted with a somewhat similar situation for muskie eggs, the Wildlife Division missed the cutoff but found a helping hand next door in Pennsylvania.

Most threatened, however, was the Wildlife Division’s steelhead stocking program. For many years now Ohio has relied on Michigan and Wisconsin to carry the steelhead egg-supplying load.

Yet those two states saw their workers also on curfew, meaning their respective fisheries staffs could not collect steelhead eggs and milt – not even for their own stocking programs.

Thus, the Ohio Division of Wildlife searched – and found – a never-before-used source of raw steelhead stocking material.

As for the walleye eggs, the Wildlife Division managed to obtain its usual supply from 7,850-acre Mosquito Creek Reservoir in Trumbull County, said Scott Hale, the Wildlife Division’s fisheries management administrator.

“We collected our walleye eggs just as the COVID-19 was starting to ramp up, and before the order came down where we wouldn’t safely been able to do the work,” Hale said.

The muskie situation was more worrisome, Hale said, as DeWine’s edict kept the agency’s fisheries staff from working the 1,000-acre Leesville Reservoir in Carroll County to obtain the necessary eggs.

“That was our greatest concern,” Hale said.

But – and it’s an important “but” - says Hale, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission offered to supply the Ohio Division of Wildlife in June with 55,000 muskies, each fish measuring two to three inches long. These fish will come from the former’s Linesville fish hatchery located at northeast end of 17,088-acre Pymatuning Reservoir

And the news here is even better, says Hale also, because the fishes will come with no sales tags attached; for free.

“We’ve helped Pennsylvania before with walleye eggs, and several years ago with muskies when red spot disease hit the fish hard at Pymatuning,” Hale said. “It’s all about being good neighbors.”

Perhaps the greatest potential snag involved obtaining steelhead eggs for stocking into five Lake Erie tributary streams in Northeast Ohio.

With both Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s steelhead egg-collecting programs being furloughed this year, the Ohio Division of Wildlife was itself now facing a skipped steelhead-stocking season in 2021.

“That one was a real doozy,” Hale said.

Hale said the Wildlife Division turned to the White Sulfur Springs National Fish Hatchery in West Virginia. This hatchery is located in Greenbrier County, hard-pressed to Virginia and was established in 1900.

The hatchery ships 10 million rainbow trout eggs annually to 20 state, federal, and tribal fish hatcheries as far northeast as Maine and as far west as New Mexico. It is also a supplier of freshwater mussels for reintroduction programs.

In Ohio’s case, 10 million eggs were not necessary, the Wildlife Division requiring only about 400,000 of them, Hale said.

“The rainbows are what’s called the ‘Shasta strain,’ and I believe their behavior will be similar to our London strain,” Hale says also. “I think this is going to be a one-shot deal, too.”

For Ohio’s old angling hands, the London strain was an early agency’s steelhead program jump-start, the fish typically arrived along the Lake Erie shoreline as early as around Labor Day, providing stream angling action shortly thereafter and at least through early winter.

London strain fish were later supplanted by the so-called Little Mainistee strain of steelhead found in Michigan. The reason for the switch was because the return rate of Little Manistee strain fish is several percentage points greater than is the London strain trout.

The fish from the national hatchery are expected to be stocked in April, 2021 and become available as catchable fish beginning in 2022, Hale says as well.

Asked why the Wildlife Division doesn’t simply capture its own steelhead in the spring and strip the females of eggs and the males of milt, Hale says such operations requires specialized gear with a high degree of limitations and expense the Wildlife Division would just as soon avoid.

“As long as we can keep getting trout eggs from Michigan and Wisconsin we won’t have any problems,” Hale said.

And now add a knock on the door with the federal government, a new Ohio steelhead program partner.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's 2020 bald eagle nest census shows numbers off the charts

An effort combining volunteers with the Ohio Division of Wildlife showed that over a two-month period in February and March some 707 American bald eagle nests were counted.

That eagle nest census figure demonstrates a 151 percent increase from the 2012 census count of 281 nests, the Wildlife Division says in a press release.

The Wildlife Division’s release says the agency received approximately 2,500 reports from the public for the 2020 census. Wildlife Division staff, including wildlife officers and biologists, verified nest locations in 85 counties.

Counties along or near Lake Erie have the highest number of bald eagle nests. Bald eagles thrive near Lake Erie because of the abundance of food and nesting habitat, the agency says.

The 12 counties with the highest number of eagle nests include: Ottawa (90), Sandusky (50), Erie (32), Trumbull (26), Seneca (24), Wyandot (19), Lucas (18), Licking (17), Ashtabula (16), Knox (16), Mercer (16) and Wood (16), also says the agency in its release.

The bald eagle was once an endangered species, with only four nesting pairs in Ohio in 1979. However, thanks to partnerships between the Division of Wildlife, Ohio zoos, wildlife rehabilitation facilities, concerned landowners, and sportsmen and women its population increased.

After much hard work and continued conservation, the bald eagle was removed from the federal list of threatened and endangered species in 2007 and from Ohio’s list in 2012, the Wildlife Division says.

Bald eagles in Ohio typically lay eggs and incubate in February and March. Young eagles leave the nest about three months later, usually in June. The birds nest in large trees such as sycamores, oaks, and cottonwoods near large bodies of water. Fish and carrion are preferred foods.

Here is the county-by-county 2020 American bald eagle nest census results with their respective 2012 census counts in parentheses (Note that these numbers are raw data and subject to change): Adams: 1 (0); Allen: 5 (0); Ashland: 9 (2); Ashtabula: 16 (9); Athens: 1 (0); Auglaize: 4 (0); Belmont: 4 (1); Brown: 4 (1); Butler: 8 (0); Carroll: 1 (0); Champaign: 2 (0); Clark: 5 (0); Clermont: 4 (0); Clinton: 2 (0); Columbiana: 4 (1); Coshocton: 14 (6); Crawford: 6 (3); Cuyahoga: 3 (2); Darke: 1 (0); Defiance: 8 (2); Delaware: 13 (7); Erie: 32 (17); Fairfield: 2 (0); Fayette: 3 (0); Franklin: 5 (3); Fulton: 3 (0); Gallia: 1 (0); Geauga: 7 (6); Greene: 4 (0); Guernsey: 2 (1); Hamilton: 3 (1); Hancock: 12 (4); Hardin: 9 (1); Harrison: 1 (1); Henry: 6 (0); Highland: 4 (1); Hocking: 1 (1); Holmes: 5 (1); Huron: 15 (5) Jackson: 0 (0); Jefferson: 2 (1); Knox: 16 (7); Lake: 7 (4); Lawrence: 0 (0); Licking: 17 (3); Logan: 8 (1); Lorain: 10 (3); Lucas: 18 (8); Madison: 2 (0); Mahoning: 7 (5); Marion: 11 (6); Medina: 5 (1); Meigs: 0 (0); Mercer: 16 (3); Miami: 5 (0); Monroe: 4 (1); Montgomery: 3 (1); Morgan: 1 (1); Morrow: 5 (2); Muskingum: 6 (2); Noble: 1 (1); Ottawa: 90 (46); Paulding: 3 (0); Perry: 2 (0); Pickaway: 9 (3); Pike: 4 (2); Portage: 8 (5); Preble: 3 (0); Putnam: 8 (2); Richland: 14 (5); Ross: 7 (4); Sandusky: 50 (33); Scioto: 2 (2); Seneca: 24 (7); Shelby: 3 (0); Stark: 4 (1); Summit: 5 (2); Trumbull: 26 (9); Tuscarawas: 9 (6); Union: 8 (4); Van Wert: 2 (0); Vinton: 1 (0); Warren: 4 (2); Washington: 1 (1); Wayne: 7 (2); Williams: 4 (0); Wood: 16 (7); Wyandot: 19 (12). 2020 total: 707; 2012 total 281.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's southern zone spring turkey season opener kill shows continued decline

It appears Ohio’s youth hunters are better at the game than are their adult counterparts.

During the just-concluded two-day youth-only spring wild turkey-hunting season the participants shot 512 more birds than they did during the like-2019 season.

However, for the opener of the state’s southern zone general wild turkey-hunting season on Monday (March 20th), hunters killed 549 fewer birds this year than for the 2019 season opener (2,430 turkeys verses 2,979 turkeys, respectively). Coincidentally, that 549 decline is nearly identical to the youth season’s 512 bird gain.

And the drop indicates a steady decline, too. In 2018 the southern zone’s spring turkey season opener tally was 3,316 birds while the figure for its 2017 counterpart was 3,123 birds.

Ohio has two zones for spring turkey hunting: the 83-county south zone and the five-county northeast zone. The south zone opening day was Monday. The northeast zone, which includes Ashtabula, Cuyahoga, Geauga, Lake, and Trumbull counties in Ohio’s snow belt, begins Monday, May 4th.

The top 11 counties for wild turkey harvest during this year’s southern zone opening day include: Harrison (93); Belmont (89); Guernsey (80); Tuscarawas (73); Jefferson (70); Monroe (69); Columbiana (65); Meigs (65); Washington (65); Brown (64) and Coshocton (64).

Also, note that of the 83-county southern zone, fully 56 members saw a decline while six secured identical 2019 and 2020 open day kills. The remaining 21 counties in this zone saw gains.

Here is the county-by-county list of all wild turkeys checked by hunters during Monday’s southern zone opener with their respective 2019 figures in parentheses: Adams: 63 (72); Allen: 9 (9); Ashland: 25 (36); Athens: 48 (77); Auglaize: 6 (5); Belmont: 89 (85); Brown: 64 (74); Butler: 32 (31); Carroll: 63 (77); Champaign: 14 (14); Clark: 1 (1); Clermont: 54 (60); Clinton: 14 (13); Columbiana: 65 (66); Coshocton: 64 (81); Crawford: 7 (9); Darke: 7 (13); Defiance: 40 (34); Delaware: 25 (16); Erie: 4 (11); Fairfield: 14 (16); Fayette: 2 (1); Franklin: 5 (1); Fulton: 21 (16); Gallia: 54 (68); Greene: 4 (3); Guernsey: 80 (86); Hamilton: 24 (14); Hancock: 5 (8); Hardin: 19 (23); Harrison: 93 (87); Henry: 7 (12); Highland: 61 (62); Hocking: 40 (55); Holmes: 29 (56); Huron: 20 (25); Jackson: 60 (66); Jefferson: 70 (74); Knox: 42 (60); Lawrence: 36 (37); Licking: 50 (63); Logan: 22 (21); Lorain: 16 (24); Lucas: 6 (14); Madison: 2 (2); Mahoning: 30 (35); Marion: 6 (3); Medina: 17 (15); Meigs: 65 (89); Mercer: 2 (3); Miami: 2 (0); Monroe: 69 (87); Montgomery: 5 (6); Morgan: 48 (71); Morrow: 16 (34); Muskingum: 55 (88); Noble: 47 (77); Ottawa: 0 (3); Paulding: 11 (12); Perry: 43 (57); Pickaway: 4 (2); Pike: 21 (44); Portage: 36 (38); Preble: 21 (21); Putnam: 7 (10); Richland: 25 (44); Ross: 48 (59); Sandusky: 5 (6); Scioto: 39 (62); Seneca: 15 (27); Shelby: 7 (11); Stark: 34 (39); Summit: 6 (11); Tuscarawas: 73 (94); Union: 9 (8); Van Wert: 2 (2); Vinton: 42 (52); Warren: 18 (17); Washington: 65 (97); Wayne: 22 (15); Williams: 26 (48); Wood: 2 (5); Wyandot: 11 (9).

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's youth turkey hunters score big during their special season

In running far ahead of the plummeting number of youth turkey hunting licenses sold, the tally of birds taken during Ohio’s two-day youth-only spring season rose sharply.

This season ran April 18th and 19th. Youths age 17 and younger were allowed to hunt. They shot 1,843 wild turkeys, an increase of 512 birds from the 1,331 turkeys the youths killed during the 2019 youth-only season. That was an increase of about 39 percent.

Which was in sharp contrast to the number of youth spring turkey hunting licenses issued by the Ohio Division of Wildlife. As of April 13^th, the Wildlife Division had sold just 1,935 youth spring turkey hunting licenses: a drop of 3,738 such permits the agency issued for the same period in 2019 (5,673 documents).

Top 11 counties for wild turkey harvest during the 2020 youth season include: Monroe (71), Tuscarawas (68), Muskingum (63), Meigs (57), Washington (55), Noble (51), Guernsey (48), Belmont (47), Coshocton (45), Columbiana (44) and Harrison (44).

Of Ohio’s 88 counties, 11 showed declines while three had identical 2019 and 2020 youth-only spring turkey hunting season kills.

Here is the county-by-county breakdown, their the respective 2019 figures in parentheses: Adams: 41 (26); Allen: 10 (5); Ashland: 19 (23); Ashtabula: 36 (33); Athens: 34 (22); Auglaize: 4 (5); Belmont: 47 (38); Brown: 40 (36); Butler: 24 (10); Carroll: 32 (25); Champaign: 9 (2); Clark: 4 (1); Clermont: 31 (25); Clinton: 15 (6); Columbiana: 44 (30); Coshocton: 45 (42); Crawford: 3 (2); Darke: 8 (17); Defiance: 40 (17); Delaware: 11 (6); Erie: 2 (5); Fairfield: 11 (3); Fayette: 5 (1); Franklin: 2 (0); Fulton: 23 (7); Gallia: 36 (26); Geauga: 13 (18); Greene: 1 (2); Guernsey: 48 (44); Hamilton: 5 (4); Hancock: 7 (1); Hardin: 9 (8); Harrison: 44 (38); Henry: 13 (10); Highland: 41 (23); Hocking: 26 (10); Holmes: 37 (28); Huron: 7 (8); Jackson: 30 (21); Jefferson: 36 (31); Knox: 33 (30); Lake: 6 (6); Lawrence: 19 (17); Licking: 30 (22); Logan: 12 (7); Lorain: 11 (10); Lucas: 8 (3); Madison: 0 (1); Mahoning: 16 (18); Marion: 5 (2); Medina: 18 (6); Meigs: 57 (38); Mercer: 4 (1); Miami: 7 (2); Monroe: 71 (66); Montgomery: 3 (2); Morgan: 36 (25); Morrow: 21 (13); Muskingum: 63 (30); Noble: 51 (50); Paulding: 9 (3); Perry: 33 (19); Pickaway: 6 (1); Pike: 13 (16); Portage: 19 (18); Preble: 8 (6); Putnam: 11 (6); Richland: 16 (21); Ross: 31 (17); Sandusky: 3 (0); Scioto: 28 (11); Seneca: 8 (13); Shelby: 4 (2); Stark: 19 (11); Summit: 3 (5); Trumbull: 43 (22); Tuscarawas: 68 (47); Union: 5 (4); Van Wert: 4 (2); Vinton: 35 (29); Warren: 15 (5); Washington: 55 (39); Wayne: 11 (11); Williams: 20 (7); Wood: 4 (0); Wyandot: 8 (8).

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's fishing license revenues likely feeling the pain caused by COVID-19

With a suspected coronavrus (COVID-19) drop in Ohio fishing license sales, it only stands to reason the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Wildlife Fund is also coughing and wheezing.

However, the income derived from the sale of turkey-hunting permits is actually robust and healthy. For now anyway, and what happens when the ban on sales of non-resident turkey tags continues is an economist’s headache.

As found in a previous posting, the as-of April 13th issuance of all Ohio fishing licenses totaled 161,975 documents. This figure represents a 32-percent decline for the same 2019 to-date tally of 238,172 documents.

The net result is a to-date total drop of income derived by the sale of all fishing licenses of $567,335; from $5,327,310 to-date in 2019 to $4,759,975 to-date this year and as of April 13. That is a drop of a little more than 10 percent.

All of the single-day and multi-day fishing license sales were down as were nearly all of the multi-year fishing licenses available to resident anglers.

And here with the multi-day license sales revenue declines likely can be attributed to Governor Mike DeWine’s order to cease the sale of all licenses and permits to non-residents during the COVID-19 crisis.

Among the examples is the three-day license sales. Here the state made $40, 230 to-date in 2019 but only $14,688 to-date this year. Likewise, the sale of one-day Lake Erie charter licenses saw to-date revenues decline from $3,350 in 2019 to just $923 this year.

Looking at the sale of annual non-resident fishing licenses and one sees that to-date in 2019 the Wildlife Division saw $485,492 go into the Wildlife Fund. To-date this year and that figure has slipped to $275,380, a revenue decline of $210,112.

For the all-important resident annual a drop was also encountered. The 2019 to-day revenue generated by this category was $3,720,402. To-date this year that figure stands at $3,112,008; or an income drop of $608,394.

A glimmer of gold is being seen – again, for the moment – with the sale of spring turkey tags. In all there are six spring turkey tag classifications but only five of them generate funds. The exception belongs to the issuance of free spring turkey tags to disabled veterans.

However, combining the five categories and the Wildlife Fund has to-date collected $45,841 more dollars; up from the $406,459 collected to-date in 2019 to $452,300 to-date this year.

The revenue of to-date resident (adult) spring turkey tags rose from $298,632 to-date in 2019 to $365,490 to-date this year. This jump represents an increase of $66,858.

Yet noteworthy as a revenue slippage was both the to-date sales of youth spring turkey tags as well as those sold to senior citizens.

For youths, to-date in 2019 the Wildlife Fund collected $62,403. But for the to-date sale of these youth licenses this year the figure was only $29,025, a drop of $33,378 or about 53 percent.

The revenue percentage plummet was equally severe for the sale of senior citizen spring turkey hunting licenses. The to-date 2019 revenue figure or this category was $18,964 while the comparable 2020 to-date figure was $9,130, or a drop of about 48 percent.

Still, while the sale of non-resident annual fishing licenses and the short-term day licenses – more often than not believed to go to out-of-staters – revenue from the sale of non-resident spring turkey tags was actually up. And considerably so, too.

The to-date 2019 revenue figure for non-residents was $26,480, but the revenue generated to-date this year for the sale of non-resident turkey tags is $48,655. That is a whopping jump of $22,175.

It must be remembered, though, that while those non-resident turkey hunters who have all ready bought a spring tag can use them, no additional non-residents may purchase such a spring wild turkey license through the remainder of DeWine’s order.

Multiple factors could all be impacting license sales, says Brian Banbury, the Wildlife Division’s Executive Administrator For Information and Education.

And the potential mitigating reasons are the influences of the weather, a change to multi-year licenses, “and possibly the current health situation,” Banbury says.

“We will not understand the full picture until later this year,” Banbury said.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
JFrischk@Ameritech.net
JFrischk4@gmail.com