THERE will be a number of statewide meetings held next month to give sportsmen a chance to voice their opinions about several proposed changes to deer-hunting seasons in New York State.
Their meetings also will feature a vocal contingent of bowhunters who do not like the changes.
In New York, the number of deer hunters has been declining since the late 1980s, while deer populations have been on the rise, although these recent brutal winters have helped to push deer numbers down. The Department of Environmental Conservation is proposing several ways to maintain deer hunting as the primary tool for controlling deer populations on a statewide scale. They include changing the hunting-season structure and providing new deer-hunting opportunities, including some for young hunters.
While many of the changes are welcomed, breaking up the bowhunting season has drawn the anger of New York’s bowhunters. Several changes have been proposed for the Southern Zone, including a Saturday opening day; a limited, new, early antlerless-deer-only muzzleloader season; an expansion of existing archery and muzzleloader seasons, and a pilot program in Wildlife Management Units 3C and 3J that limits the taking of bucks to deer with three or more points on one side. A more detailed description can be found at the DEC web site at http://www.dec.state.ny.us.
To send written comments on the proposals, e-mail fwwildlf@gw.dec.state.ny.us or mail to: Big Game Season Changes, NYSDEC, Bureau of Wildlife, 625 Broadway, Albany, NY 12233-4754.
The meeting closest to the metro area will be Feb.16, 8-10 p.m., at the Nassau County Rifle and Pistol Range,. Mitchel Athletic Complex, Charles Lindbergh Blvd., in Uniondale.
Another meeting will be held in Suffolk County at a date and time to be announced. Call the Regional Wildlife Office at (631) 444-0311 for meeting location and time.
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Here was something that happened last week that had no impact on New York’s sportsmen and women and that was the shame of it.
New York’s DEC commissioner Erin Crotty left office and is being replaced by deputy commissioner for natural resources Lynette Stark.
They are two individuals with no background in hunting or fishing or any kind of wildlife knowledge in a job that would seem to require just that -especially when a good chunk of the money that supports the DEC comes from hunters and anglers.
While Crotty was commissioner, the state gave up the 10,000-acre Ten-Mile River Co-op Area in Sullivan County; eliminated the Migratory Bird Stamp Program; limited access to hikers and campers on more than 100,000 acres in the High Peak region of the Adirondacks; closed 54 roads to motorized vehicles in the Adirondack Forest Preserve; proposed opening the Hudson River to commercial striped bass fishing and approved a cut in fish and wildlife staff.