Tonight was the last of the 9 public hearings the NC Wildlife Commission conducted for public comment on the 2007/ 2008 proposals. At least three of the Commissioners including the chairman Wes Seegars was in attendance.
They followed the same agenda in the same order as they did in the earlier hearing I went to for District 5 but of course items of interest varied between the two places given that some of these items are somewhat geographical in nature. For example there are some proposals for changes to Mountain Trout both of the hearings I went to breezed over but I’m certain the mountain hearings spent more time going over them.
The Sunday Hunting was the lead off topic and I would say that based on the folks that talked there was a slight edge for those in favor of lifting the ban. There was some representation from the trail riders association of NC and they spoke out in opposition because they want to horseback ride.
The early turkey season was overwhelmingly meet with disapproval, not a single person voiced support for this proposal. NWTF Biologist presented once again sound biological reasons this is a bad idea to open the season up early, risking losing hens to hunter error, hens may not all get bred etc. I really hope the commissioners remember the overall public outcry on this issue and flush this proposal down the toilet.
The bear hunting proposal in regards to baiting is a nightmare. Most opposition was around how can you enforce it and if you do enforce it aggressively some hunters could get tickets unknowingly. Concerns that animal right wacko’s could dump donuts on someone’s land to purposely get it closed for the entire year. At the District 5 meeting there was support for this law by the few bear hunters at the meeting. Tonights meeting was just the opposite. There were a few bear hunters in attendance as well as an individual who identified himself as the president of the North Carolina Bear Hunters Association who spoke out in opposition to this proposal.
Tim Langer who has done extensive research on the black bear in North Carolina talked about the advance cases of tooth decay they are finding in bears because of all the sugar. He basically encouraged the state to look at allowing natural grains to be used as a bait because based on his research with telemetry collared bears only a small percentage will go to a corn pile.
There was no one that spoke in favor of this proposal.
The big issue that kind of took off was dog hunting and the shenanigans that many dog hunters pull. There was two clubs at this meeting one being a dog hunting and the other a still hunting club that bordered each other. There certainly was no love lost between these two clubs. What boiled out of this after the name calling and accusations died down was a proposal for the Wildlife Commission to look at having separate seasons one for dog and another for still hunting.
The other big issue was baiting and a lot of recommendations to end the practice much of this seemed to be coming from dog hunters and I took as a retaliatory strike back at the still hunters.
Over all I thought the hearings were good and the two I attended drew a good crowd. I hope the Commissioners listen to the public comments and follow what we want. The meeting where all these proposals get voted on comes up in March and we’ll be watching.
