Weekly News

Floridaďż˝s Burmese Python Hunt more difficult than expected

The Florida Burmese python hunting contest, named the Python Challenge, opened up on January 12, but organizers expected many more dead snakes to be turned in by now. As of Friday, January 18, there were only 21 pythons captured and killed. Nearly 800 people from more than 30 different states registered for the competition which awards $1,000 to the person who kills the largest snake and $1,500 to the hunter who bags the most.

Even a man known as ďż˝Alligator Ronďż˝ who has a lifetime of hunting experience in the Florida Everglades and , could not lead hunters to a single python, according to the Associated Press.

Part of the problem lies in the fact that pythons are simply hard to spot. ďż˝When these snakes are in the water, in the vegetation, they blend in naturally to where you canďż˝t hardly see them,ďż˝ State Wildlife Commissioner Ron Bergeron told the AP. This is what gives them an advantage in the wild and is part of the reason why the invasive species has survived so well.

Upstate Snow Goose Hunting Seasons Re-Opened

Rulemaking Filed to Allow Hunting from October 1 through April 15 Annually

State regulations to expand the special snow goose harvest program in New York have been amended to allow hunters to take snow geese during a special harvest program from now through April 15 in upstate New York, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) announced today.

This special harvest is in addition to the regular hunting season which runs from October 1 through January 15. Previously, the special season would not have opened until March 11. DEC filed a Notice of Emergency Adoption and Proposed Rule Making with the Department of State on January 23, 2013, and the changes took effect immediately.

"Extending the snow geese season is just one more way Governor Cuomo and DEC are working to expand opportunities for New York's sportsmen and women," DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said. "We encourage the hunting community to take full advantage of this opportunity."

The expanded special season will increase hunter opportunity to harvest snow geese throughout the winter and early spring, when they are most abundant in New York. The special season was established in 2008 to

help reduce environmental damage caused by the overabundance of snow

geese in eastern North America. Snow geese are an arctic breeding goose species that reached record high population levels in North America in recent years - from approximately 50,000 birds in the 1960s to more than one million birds in recent years.

Wildlife agencies, ecologists and environmental organizations have expressed concern about the impacts that overabundant snow geese are having on arctic ecosystems, coastal wetlands and agricultural crops. In response to those concerns, federal hunting regulations were liberalized in 2008, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) adopted a conservation order allowing states in the Atlantic Flyway to implement special snow goose harvest programs in addition to its regular hunting seasons. Based on guidance from USFWS, DEC decided to have one continuous season this year.

The special season includes a bag limit of 25 snow geese per day. Hunters are also allowed to use electronic calls and unplugged guns, shotguns capable of holding more than three shells, when no co-occurring open season exists for other migratory waterfowl. The special program does not include Long Island because relatively few snow geese occur in that region of the state during spring.

For more info: http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/50514.html.

NY town defends Remington factory amid new gun ban

The big brick Remington gun factory pieces together military-style rifles in a state that has just banned their sale after a string of mass shootings led to a national outcry over civilian ownership of them.

Residents of Ilion, N.Y., see the issue far differently: The gun factory is a major local employer and a source of pride for almost two centuries. As Mayor John Stephens put it, "Remington is Ilion. Ilion is Remington." Little wonder that residents in this blue-collar stretch of the Mohawk Valley are defending Remington after state lawmakers banned the sale of semi-automatic rifles like the Bushmaster weapon made there. The move came after the weapon was linked to gunmen in the deadly Connecticut school shooting and in the Christmas Eve slayings of two firefighters in western New York.

Remington employee Tom Bradle said don't blame the guns in mass shootings, blame the shooters. "It's the person that pulls the trigger. I don't care what kind of gun it is," Bradle said as he walked back to the factory from lunch break on a chilly, gray day recently.

Remington has been intertwined with Ilion since shortly after Eliphalet Remington crafted a flintlock rifle on his father's forge in 1816. Even the elementary school shares the company's name. The factory employs about 1,200 people and produces Bushmaster, Marlin and H&R products.

Parts of the Remington Arms Co. factory, with its imposing four-story front of brick and old-style, multi-paned windows, date back to the days when upstate New York was a manufacturing powerhouse. But factory jobs have become rarer in the string of modest towns along the Mohawk River, and Ilion, with about 8,000 residents, depends heavily on Remington.

Stephens, the mayor, was disgusted by the news last month of 20 first-graders and six adults killed by a gunman at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. But he is critical of the New York state law approved last week banning certain semi-automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines and calling for background checks on ammunition purchases, among other measures. He dismisses the idea that there's an emotional link between Newtown and Ilion.

"Are people disappointed and distraught?" Stephens asked. "Do they feel bad and are they sad? Absolutely! Absolutely! I would never wish that on anyone, never. But as far as an emotional attachment between us and them, I don't see it." Stephens voiced a sentiment heard frequently in this

largely conservative area: New York's law and the sweeping gun regulation package proposed recently by President Barack Obama are wrongheaded.

The New York law, starting when Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed it Jan. 15, defined as illegal assault weapons semi-automatic rifles that accept detachable magazines and have one additional military-style feature such as a pistol grip, flash suppressor or bayonet mount. The old law required two such features.

Bushmaster is owned by Freedom Group Inc., the largest firearms maker in the U.S., which has its headquarters on Remington Drive outside the neighboring small towns of Madison and Mayodan, N.C. No guns or ammunition are manufactured there. Most people around know the 43,000-sq-ft building near the high school and the Wal-Mart as the home of Remington Arms, which moved to the site in the mid-1990s, and not the weapons conglomerate Freedom Group has become, said Mayodan Town Manager Michael Brandt.

"They're not big contributors to the community like a typical large company would be in an area," Brandt said. "This is where they're located, but we don't really see much of them." Word that Freedom Group is for sale and changes are looming has generated little local concern in an area where surviving textile producers and a Miller-Coors brewery are bigger employers. That contrasts with Ilion, where the concern among people is the future of Remington. The company had said last March it could leave New York if the state went ahead with a move to add unique identifying information on spent bullet casings. That proposal is off the table, but people in town wonder where things stand in the wake of the new state law, which does not affect Remington's ability to manufacture military-style weapons.

"If I'm an executive at Remington, what's my attitude going to be toward the state that bans one of the premier products that I produce?" local Assemblyman Marc Butler asked.

Obama's gun control proposal added more uncertainty. Jamie Rudwall, who has worked at the plant since 1995 and is president of the United Mine Workers of America Local 717, said he expected the gun business to increase in the short term amid new regulatory proposals, but he worries about jobs in Ilion long term. "We've been here almost 200 years," he said. "I hope to be here another 200."

Floridaďż˝s Burmese Python Hunt more difficult than expected

NY town defends Remington factory amid new gun ban

State Fish Pages

Illinois - Indiana - Michigan - Minnesota - Ohio - Pennsylvania - New York - Wisconsin - Ontario