COVID-19-derailed Fish Ohio program back on the tracks

 

Much delayed, the status of Ohio Division of Wildlife’s Fish Ohio pin component is ready for the net.

Or almost anyway.

The Fish Ohio program’s 40^th Anniversary edition of the pin will again feature a smallmouth bass, as it was represented on the first Fish Ohio pin in 1980 and in three subsequent copies over the program’s past four decades.

Yet unlike those cases, the issuance of this year’s pins was delayed by the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. The pins were made in China; Ground Zero for the infectious disease. This fact resulted in a seriously long lag in the Wildlife Division seeing the pins come, and any subsequent distribution to qualifying anglers.

Under the program’s rules, a pin is awarded to individuals catching and applying for a qualifying specimen from one of 25 eligible species. An individual may enter as many applications as he or she chooses but receives only one general Fish Ohio pin.

Anglers who catch a qualifying member from four or more of the list’s eligible species is entitled to a modified Fish Ohio Master Angler pin.

None have been distributed as of late October, months behind when the first batches typically have gone out. The COVID-19-inspired logjam has been breached, says Brian Banbury, the administrator for the Wildlife Division’s information and education section.

“The pins are currently at the vendor that was awarded the contract, and hopefully they are being produced even as we speak,” Banbury said.

Banbury said too that to-date the Wildlife Division has received 15,91 Fish Ohio applications and will issue at least 8,710 Fish Ohio pins. Again, this smaller number is because some anglers have submitted multiple applications but are eligible to receive only one pin.

In 2019 the Wildlife Division processed 16,196 Fish Ohio applications.

Likewise, says Banbury, the agency intends to have made about 11,000 general/regular Fish Ohio pins along with about 900 Fish Ohio Master Angler pins.

“Before Thanksgiving we are estimating the delivery to us, and we plan to start mailing the pins out December 1^st,” Banbury said. “We hope to have them all delivered by Christmas.”

Banbury said the delay did not lead to any additional cost for the Wildlife Division. Each Fish Ohio pin costs about 40 cents to make.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Portman looks to put brakes on illegal international wildlife trade as Ohio does the same here

 

Ohio’s junior senator Rob Portman is spearheading a bipartisan federal legislative effort to help deal with the illegal international trade in wildlife – a subject the Ohio Division of Wildlife says it also has on its radar.

Republican Portman is joining with Democrat Delaware Senator Chris Coons to hammer out the “Eliminate, Neutralize, and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2020.”

This updated act would make permanent the authorizaton of legislation that was signed into law in 2016. And END would also expand on this matter.

The END Wildlife Trafficking Reauthorization and Improvements Act of 2020 is supported by various non-governmental agencies and bodies. Among them are the African Wildlife Foundation, World Wildlife Foundation, Wildlife Conservation Society, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Portman and Coons say that the illegal trafficking trade is a major threat to the conservation of threatened species” and likewise has been linked to other transnational organized criminal activities, including trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and people.

This trade – which excludes domesticated animals and instead ifocuses on wildlife, including the pangolin sold in China’s so-called wet markets which are believed to have contributed to the rise of the COVID-19 virus – is said to be worth between $7 billion and $23 billion annually by the World Economic Forum.

(The) illegal wildlife trafficking is the fourth most lucrative global crime after drugs, humans and arms,” the Forum recently said.

Adding, the World Bank says “For all practical purposes, combating illegal logging, fishing, and wildlife trade is a governance issue that first and foremost requires high-level political commitment at the national and international levels.”

To that end, says Portman, the Senate’s Republicans and Democrats are working across the aisle to stem the illegal trade in wildlife.

Since passing in 2016, the END Wildlife Trafficking Act has aided in the arrest of members of wildlife trafficking networks and supported inter-agency efforts to combat the practice globally through country-specific and regional initiatives, Portman says

However, says Portman also, “certain provisions of the law are set to expire in 2021.”

“END will permanently authorizes the duties of the Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking and related reports on major wildlife trafficking countries, and creates new focus areas, such as the role of online platforms in facilitating trafficking activities,” Portman says.

To which Coon heartedly agrees.

“Wildlife trafficking is not just a critical conservation issue but one that threatens the security of the United States and our international partners,” Coon says.

“The Presidential Task Force on Wildlife Trafficking has done outstanding work, but the threat of wildlife poaching and trafficking is constantly evolving. It is vital that the work of the Task Force continues without disruption.”

And although Ohio may not at first blush appear to be a major focal point of the illegeally, international trade in wildlife and wildlife parts, it is by no means immune from being a conduit to such trafficking, says Ken Fitz, law enforcement administrator for the Ohio Division of Wildlife.

“We work commercialization of wild animals all the time, and in the past we have assisted other agencies with investigations, both at the federal and state level, and they have assisted us.”” Fitz says.

Frequently, says Fitz such trafficking may consist of such “home-grown” items as meat - venison in particular - and also sport-caught fish.

In addition, Fitz says the Wildlife Division sees a lot of animals for sale as pets, especially reptiles, and very frequently being sold on-line.

All are part and integrally associated with the global problem of trafficking in wildlife

“In fact we are in the process of wrapping up an investigation dealing with the illegal collection and sale of turtles by one individual, that knew what they were doing was illegal,” Fitz said.

“We count on tips from the public, via calls or texts to the 1-800-POACHER line, or emailed links to online violations. Of course the public is always encouraged to contact officers directly as well.”

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's deer-hunting season continues its strong pace; fall turkey season, not so much

 

With about three weeks into the Ohio archery deer-hunting season, the pace of hunters bringing home the venison continues briskly though not with the sprinting speed seen during the first week.

However, for the state’s fall wild turkey hunters the news – while not glum – is hardly in the same league.

To-date for 2020 and for the period September 26th through October 20^th, hunters in Ohio had killed 23,371 deer. For the comparable time frame in 2019 that figure was 21,263 deer.

“The harvest is up approximately 10 percent, which is a slight improvement over last week when we were at just over eight percent ahead of last year,” said Mike Tonkovich, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s deer management administrator. “After the first week, the harvest was up 59 percent, but we knew that wouldn’t be sustained.”

Along with the increase in the deer kill, sales of deer-hunting tags also has demonstrated an upward climb.

Tonkovich says that through October 13^th, hunting license and deer permit sales were up 10 percent and four percent, respectively, over last year for the same time period.

As for a thumbnail breakdown, of Ohio’s 88 counties, 16 of them recorded to-date declines when their respective 2019 and 2020 were laid side-by-side.

Among the noteworthy counties showing drops were Hocking: 263 animals to-date this year verses 314 animals for the same recording period in 2019; and Logan, with a 2020 to-date kill of 248 animals verses 298 for the same recording period in 2019.

Noteworthy gainers (with their respective 2020 to-date numbers followed by their respective to-date 2019 numbers in parentheses) were: Brown – 312 (267); Licking – 704 (576); Meigs – 341 (270); Muskingum – 483 (397), and Trumbull – 781 (671).

So far this season and based on the October 20^th to date numbers, only nine of Ohio’s 88 counties had yet to see deer kills of 100 or more animals each. Last year for the same recording period that figure was 11 counties.

Tonkovich said also the Wildlife Division had projected a 5 percent to 10 percent increase in the deer kill for the entire 2020-2021 deer-hunting season.

“And barring any major unforeseen problems, I expect we should land pretty close to that. Of course, we are only three weeks into a sixteen-plus week season,” Tonkovich said.

For Ohio’s fall turkey hunting season – which opened October 10th and will run through November 29th – the take is hardly the stuff of legend-making, says Mark Wiley, the Wildlife Division’s turkey management biologist.

Wiley said that in the first 10 days of Ohio’s 2020 fall turkey season, 290 birds were recorded as being taken. During the first 10 days of the 2019 fall wild turkey-hunting season that figure was 315 birds.

“On this trajectory we would expect the 2020 fall harvest total to be around 1,000 birds, which is below the 5-year average of 1,388 birds,” Wiley said.

The fall turkey kill decline, says Wiley, is being attributed to a continued slide in poult production over the past four years.

By Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Trump and Biden both aim for sportsmen/sportswomen votes; so who hits the bull's-eye?

 

With only three weeks to Election Day, both presidential candidates are scrambling to generate interest in their campaigns from what the general media might consider to be outlier interests.

Among them being outdoors enthusiasts – hunters and anglers, trappers and such. Thus both the Joe Biden and Donald Trump campaigns have created “sportsmen/sportswomen for (insert name here)” committees.

And well-known Ohioans are sitting around their respective candidate’s campfire rings, hoping to convince others they are happy hikers with their picks.

An examination of the two sides’ committees demonstrates that the whole truth and nothing but the truth is sorely lacking.

At least in the case of the “Sportsmen and Sportswomen For Biden,” the group has a slick web site. Actually, two websites.

Among the group’s six-point platform are such planks as “Conserving and Restoring the Great Lakes,” “Improving Access To Places To Hunt And Fish,” as well as finding ways to obtain access to federal lands now closed off for one reason or another – and doing so by 2025; which, not coincidentally, is when a second Biden-Harris (or Harris-Biden) Administration would be sworn in.

The committee’s scaffolding is a disciplined amalgamation offering more than enough political wiggle room should Biden succeed in accomplishing them and which consequently would then make his administration look very good.

And if the proposals don’t work out - or else are not passed - the failure could be laid at the feet of Congress or unto some well-oiled opposition.

Included in the committee’s sales pitch is – predictably - how evil the Trump era has proven for the country’s natural resources and by extension, sportsmen and sportswomen.

In what charitably is best called canned commentary (perhaps with a dash of accuracy), former Ohio Department of Natural Resources Director Sean Logan says this the committee’s web site:

“President Trump has failed Ohio sportsmen and sportswomen by allowing our waters to become more polluted and our native wildlife face greater threats from invasive species and disease. That’s why we need Joe Biden, who will create millions of good jobs restoring habitat and recreational infrastructure that are essential for hunting, and fishing and growing Ohio’s tourism-based economy.”

Some of the other Ohioans serving on the group are U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-13), Ohio State Sen. Sean O’Brien (D-32), Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor, former unsuccessful Republican candidate for Ohio Attorney General Rocky Saxby, and unsuccessful 2018 Democratic candidate for Ohio Attorney General Steve Dettlebach.

Thus, what the Biden committee has done very right is both building its two web sites and also describing the group’s members with burnished bios. Along with their respective formulaic praise for Biden, of course.

Jumping over to the web site of the Sportsmen For Trump Committee (no “Sportswomen” in the title, but I digress) is the equivalent of a high schooler’s attempt at writing a term paper the night before it is due.

The committee’s single 62-word paragraph toting why outdoors people should re-elected Trump is short on generalities and even much shorter still on specifics.

And the profiles of the advisory committee members features them on small oval-shaped black-and-white photos with just their names being posted: No bios nor any boilerplate quotes as to why the reader should vote to re-elect Trump.

Thus while I know by first-hand knowledge that Trump advisory board member Mike Budzik is a former Ohio Division of Wildlife chief (his blurry photo image reminding me of a wanted poster from the 1880s, and I digress once more), I have absolutely no idea who are “Bubba” Saulsbury, Laurie Lipsey Aronson, a scowling Mark Geist, Clayton Reaser, or Kristy Titus.

In short, the Sportsmen for Trump group has proven as clumsy at its job of advocating for its candidate just as the candidate has done for himself.

Now we get to the elephant in the room: The Second Amendment and gun-owners’ right.

Here, the unspoken speaks volumes. With Trump, Second Amendment rights are front and center, even if his “Sportsmen For” committee’s bumbling short-coming fails to articulate that position.

Meanwhile, Biden’s committee’s shameful work on the subject is nothing short of guileful. There are those tell-all bio photos that demonstrate a very narrow perspective on all of the tools that sportsmen use: Plenty of double-barrel shotguns and a bolt-action rifle or two but no semi-autos representing the latter, let alone one in AR configuration.

It also is silent on the charge that Biden’s previous comments have suggested banning the Internet sale of not only firearms but ammunition and even firearms parts.

Too, there is the committee’s language. Officially the committee’s web site now says as to how Biden will ensure Second Amendment rights while also protecting “..the lives of innocent citizens.”

Even so, the committee’s early September press release launch included a bullet point that stated how Biden will “Protect the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans to purchase and responsibly use firearms for hunting and sporting.”

Missing then by the Biden-backing group is any acknowledgment as to what a massive segment of the gun-owning community believes: That the Second Amendment is not about bolt-action deer-hunting rifles nor over-under shotguns used to break clay targets or shoot ruffed grouse.

Obviously, it appears that for members of each committee the choice of a preferred candidate was easy. I suspect for many cynical voters, though, such a decision is not so cut and dried.

After all, as journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken once correctly observed: “Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule and both commonly succeed, and are right.”

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio sets its eyes on fall turkey season; none more so than crossbow hunters

 

Ohio’s fall wild turkey hunting season remains a thin shadow of its more popular spring counterpart with the taking of a bird often being one of opportunity instead of design.

Ohio’s fall season begins October 10th and runs through November 29th. However, also unlike the spring season in which hunting is allowed in of the state’s 88 counties, the fall wild turkey season is closed in 18 counties: primarily in northwest and west-central Ohio.

Also, in the fall, hunters can shoot any bird with no restrictions as to sex nor if the bird is sporting a “beard.” Plus hunting is allowed from thirty minutes before sunrise until sunset every day of the season verses the spring season’s until noon restriction during its first several days.

And only one bird can be killed in the fall whereas in the spring a properly licensed person can shoot up to two birds.

As for how things are shaping up for 2020, well, expect pretty much what was encountered in 2019, says Mark Wiley, the Ohio Division of Wildlife biologist in charge of the agency’s wild turkey research program.

“To some degree, annual trends in fall wild turkey harvest mirror the trends of Ohio’s summer poult index. When poult numbers are up, quite often fall harvest is up and vice versa,” Wiley says.

“In 2020, the poult index was 2.2 poults per hen, slightly below the long-term average of 2.6 poults per hen. Therefore, we expect the 2020 fall harvest total to be slightly below average, likely in the range of 1,000 to 1,200 birds.”

Wiley’s analysis of data shows that the fall turkey kill has continued to slide along with the sale of fall turkey tags. Last year’s fall take of turkeys was 1,054 birds: down from the 1,121 birds taken in 2018 and a significant drop from the 1,537 birds that hunters killed in 2015.

An anomaly was in 2016 when hunters shot 2,168 turkeys. There’s an explanation for this momentary blip, too.

“In some of the years that we saw high fall harvests we also saw high poult survival rates – and those are the years with high cicada brood emergence,” Wiley said, going on to explain that turkey poults relish eating and thriving on the insects.

Perhaps of some noteworthiness is the take of wild turkeys during the fall season by archery hunters; significantly more so than by bowmen during the spring season.

Based on the data supplied by Wiley, last year hunters using so-called “vertical bows” shot 15 percent of the fall season’s total turkey kill – a figure relatively unchanged since 2015.

However, those hunters utilizing crossbows shot a whopping 30.8 percent of Ohio’s total 2020 fall turkey kill: Up astoundingly from the 21.7 percent recorded in 2015.

These figures are polar opposite of what’s seen during the spring season. For this past Ohio spring wild turkey hunting season, those persons using the so-called “vertical bows” took just 1.3 percent of the total 2020 spring kill.

And the numbers shrank even more for those hunters employing crossbows. Here only 0.9 percent of Ohio’s total 2020 spring wild turkey kill were taken by crossbow hunters.

Obviously then says Wiley, “we also expect patterns of hunter activity to have considerable influence on the fall harvest total.”

“Unlike the spring season when hunters are afield solely in pursuit of turkey, many hunters pursue turkey opportunistically in the fall,” Wiley says. “Approximately 39 percent of fall turkey permit buyers claimed to hunt turkey while in pursuit of deer during the 2019 season.”

Also, the daily take of birds was greatest on opening day of the season and more evenly distributed throughout the remainder of the season. Daily bird kills spiked on weekends and showed lulls mid-week, Wiley’s annual report on the fall turkey season notes.

Still, interest appears waning in fall turkey hunting in Ohio. That detail is firmed up in the number of fall season licenses that are sold. In Ohio, a person who hunts turkeys in the fall must by a tag separate from the one required for the spring season.

Last year, reports the Wildlife Division, the agency issued 9,441 fall season permits; down from the 9,825 permits issued in 2018 and significantly lower than the 11,689 permits the agency issued in 2015.

- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com

Ohio's first four days deer kill up 59 percent; but state's top deer biologist says throttle back excitement

 

Ohio’s hunters took a fast jump on the deer kill though with just a four-day tally the numbers are likely just a quick first step rather than a marathon run.

Even Ohio’s top deer biologist agrees with this point as hunters – virtually all archers – shot 4,978 animals from September 26th through September 29th. For the first four days during the 2019-2020 season that number was 3,138 animal, for an increase of 59 percent.

Hold the applause until the end when all of Ohio’s various deer-hunting seasons end February 7th, 2021, basically says Mike Tonkovich, the Ohio Division of Wildlife’s deer management administrator.

“It should be a great Ohio deer season, but I wouldn’t bet on it being up 59 percent come February 8th, 2021 when we have the final numbers,” Tonkovich said.

Similarly, Tonkovich says biologists, administrators, hunters have all been talking for years about the dangers of reading too much into these rather dramatic swings, especially when “One - we are dealing with four days of a 125-day season, and, Two - normal weather as opposed to record warm temperatures“

That last point is exceptionally relevant, says Tonkovich, because Ohio was in the throes of record-setting warm temperatures during the first four days of the 2019-2020 archery deer-hunting season, unlike this season’s first four days.

Tonkovich said also that it’s “worth noting” that deer permit sales are up 28 percent over last year, fueled by a 153-percent increase in non-resident deer permit sales.

“Now, we’ve not had a chance to determine if this has translated into more hunting and more importantly, more harvest, or if it is simply a response to concerns about the availability of permits later this year,” Tonkovich said.

Tonkovich says, too, that he “would be remiss if I didn’t mention the pandemic.”

“Sadly, many people are finding themselves with lots of time on their hands right now,” Tonkovich says.

“Anecdotes suggest that many hunters are hitting the squirrel woods and others may be spending some of their free time in a deer stand or blind. Perhaps reactivation, short-term or otherwise, is contributing something to the uptick in the harvest - finally!”

In the end, says Tonkovich, the Wildlife Division is anticipating the total 2020-2021 deer kill to be up three to five percent over last year’s take of 184,465 animals.

In part, the deer management administrator concludes, “because of a few more deer in the population and changes in our antlerless harvest regulations.”

As for the first four days, only two of Ohio’s 88 counties saw deer kill declines for the first four days this year when compared to the first four days of the 2019-2020 season. Those counties were Shelby – 18 deer for this season verses 20 deer for the first four days for the 2019-2020 season; and Van Wert County – four deer for the first four days of this season verses six deer for the first four days of the 2019-2020 season.

Also, there were 11 counties where 100 or more deer were killed in each one during the first four days of the 2020-2021 season. In the 2019-2020 season, that figure was three.

The 11 counties for the first four days of the 2020-2021 season were, in alphabetical order: Ashtabula – 164 deer; Clermont – 108 deer; Coshocton – 169 deer; Guernsey – 107 deer; Hamilton – 104 deer; Holmes County – 110 deer; Knox – 103 deer; Licking – 158 deer; Muskingum – 109 deer; Trumbull – 201 deer; and Tuscarawas – 146 deer.

- Jeffrey L. Frichkorn

JFrischk@Ameritech.net

JFrischk4@gmail.com