December 2008 Almanac
This Month: Dark, Festive Season Keeps Us Hopping
True baby boomers born in 1946 remember a time when December seemed like a sleepy time. A few ice fishers would get onto freshly frozen ponds for pickerel and perch, rabbit hunters would chase a few bunnies and duck hunters would find solitude in December marshes.
Those days are gone. DIF&W extended the gray squirrel, rabbit, pheasant and grouse seasons through Dec. 31, and duck hunting has picked up in popularity. These sports keep folks hopping, and those who don’t find the above options titillating enough discover other options — like catch-and-release trout fishing on the ice in December.
Open-water fishing has been extended, too, through Dec. 31, so folks have lots of opportunities to get out now.
Photographers after wildlife such as deer, moose, waterfowl (particularly), eagles, songbirds and shorebirds find bonanza chances now to shoot images, as do those after landscapes and mood shots. Before snow creates a Currier and Ives setting, those textures with browns, grays and black highlight moody scenes.
On top of the activities in the outdoors, nights have stretched to 15 hours of darkness, ideal for cooking leisurely meals and lingering over a glass of brandy or coffee or both after a gourmet dinner by candlelight. Christmas parties create a social scene and life moves ever so pleasant now.
If sedentary is the thing, fly tying and reading work just fine on dark winter nights with wind soughing under the eaves. December has it all for the energetic and lethargic.
– - – - – - – - – - – - –
Tips of the Month
Maine Fish Chowda’…Oh, So Good!
Nothing works better for dinner on a dark, snowy December evening than fish chowder made from scratch — preferably from whole perch and pickerel caught that day. However, any flaky species works as the main ingredient for a fine chowder, anything from pike to cod or aquaculture salmon to farm trout.
First, gather the following ingredients:
Cold water for poaching
1-teaspoon salt
2-celery stalks, quartered lengthwise
Large onion, quartered
2-pounds fish
2-tablespoons butter (Forget the salt-pork rendering…just too unhealthy.)
1-onion, coarsely chopped
Salt to taste (not too much because the broth has a teaspoon of salt)
1/2-teaspoon white pepper (black pepper suffices)
1/2-teaspoon thyme
1 1/2-potatoes per person (diced and cooked)
1-pint Half and Half
Strained broth from poached fish
Paprika (optional)
Parsley (optional)
Place the 2-pounds of cleaned fish or fillets into a Dutch oven with 1-teaspoon salt, quartered celery sticks, quartered onion and cover with water. Simmer over a medium-low heat until the meat first starts to flake.
Remove from heat then and there, place the fish or fillets onto a cold plate, strain broth into a cold (even frozen) bowl and cool both fish and broth immediately so the fish doesn’t cook more, sitting in the broth. Bone the fish and put pieces into cool broth to store for a couple hours or overnight.
Later, melt the 2-tablespoons of butter (or more) in a Dutch oven over a medium low heat and then sauté the coarsely chopped onion until translucent. Add the boned fish, salt to taste, 1/2-teaspoon of pepper, 1/2-teaspoon of thyme, 1 1/2-diced, cooked potato per person, 1-pint Half & Half, fish broth, paprika and parsley. Bring to a near boil.
Allow to cool completely to meld the flavors. Reheat again. This last step makes you a legend — in your circle anyway. Serve with hot biscuits and tea.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Grand Idea for Christmas Present
A grand idea for a Christmas present for the fly rodder in the family would be a wooden-handle landing net with a fine-mesh insect seine sewn into the bottom of the net. The net hangs on the back, ready at a moment’s notice to remove to seine bugs. Then, it goes back on the back to dry.
Seining bugs and discovering the proper insect to match can turn a fish-less day around in a hurry, so this gift keeps giving and giving through the years.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Where the Action Is
Sea-Run Browns Fishing Well Now
Maine has a sea-run, brown-trout fishery these days, quite attractive, but it’s a misnomer. The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife stocks brown trout (and brookies and rainbows at times) in the lower reaches of coastal rivers, and folks take advantage, calling the recently stocked critters “sea run.”
One such stocking program occurs on the St. George River in Warren — Payson Park to be exact. Check DeLorme’s The Maine Atlas and Gazetteer (MAG), Map 14, E-2 and look for other anglers. Bright colored lures and flies and small, dark nymphs work well.
The Mousam River in Kennebunk between Route 1 and the ocean also attracts anglers in December, and the closer folks fish around Route 9 downstream of Route 1, the better the action as a general rule. The same rule for flies and lures also holds here. The 2008 stocking list shown on DIF&W’s Web Site (www.maine.gov/ifw) provides details on stocking; if not, call 207-287-8000 and ask where to find out about recent fall stockings in coastal rivers. Also check Map 3, D-1 to find access points on the Mousam.
The Ogunquit River in Ogunquit (Map 2, E-5) provides one of the oldest such brown fisheries in Maine. It’s well established and attracts anglers. Check the stocking list. Other anglers give newcomers an idea of where to fish — just watching shows the way.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Maine Bicycle Friendly
Back in the fall, the League of American Bicyclists named Maine the sixth most bicycle-friendly state in the nation. Our state received the high ranking partly because our driver’s manual lists the rights and responsibilities of cyclists. As any serious cyclist knows, the Maine scenery adds immeasurably to the biking experience.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Is Hunting Dangerous?
You bet the sport offers dangers galore — but for a different reason than most folks might think. The risk doesn’t come from being shot for a deer or accidentally plugging yourself, but rather, from driving to and from the woods. Most hunters must use a vehicle on public highways to reach hunting destinations, and those living in suburban or urban areas put on the mileage to reach the woods each season, which brings up a chilling statistic. The average person driving 15,500 miles a year for 50 years has a one in 100 chance of dying in a car crash. Compare that with the statistics of a hunter getting shot — about one in 125,000 to 250,000, depending on the year.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Couch Potato Generation
In a typical week, only 6 percent of children aged nine to 13 play outside on their own.
Nearly one-third of children from six months to six years live in households where TV is on all or most of the time.
In just one generation, the number of kids who walk or bike to school has dropped by 70 percent. One reason for this statistic begins with school systems building schools so far from population centers that children no longer can walk to school.
Obesity in children has increased from about 4 percent in the 1960s to almost 20 percent today.
From 1997 to 2003, there was a decline of 50 percent in the proportion of children nine to 12 who spent time in such activities as hiking, walking, fishing and beach play.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Is A Lead-Bullet Ban in Our Future?
Last year in an attempt to save California’s dwindling condor population, that state’s legislators passed a bill restricting lead bullets for big-game hunting in much of California — one of the most significant condor developments in condor conservation history.
How much problem is lead in wild meat that condor’s eat? Early in 2008, North Dakota Department of Health arranged to collect 100, 1-pound packages of ground venison donated by hunters to North Dakota food pantries. A radiologist scanned the packages and discovered 59 of them had metal in them.
“The scans just lit up with tiny bits of metal,” a state official said. “Much of the metal tested to be lead.”
Spurred by the North Dakota findings, health departments in several other states ran similar tests and also found tainted meat. In the largest survey of donated venison, Minnesota officials X-rayed 1,239 packages and found 22 percent to be contaminated with lead. Much of the metal is too small to be felt on the tongue.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Sports Folks Favorite Lunch Is…?
In the last several decades, tens of thousands of sports folks have eaten Maine Italian sandwiches for lunch, probably more than any other choice, an easy claim to defend.
Nearly every little convenience store, pizza joint and restaurant from Kittery to Fort Kent and from Rangeley to Eastport sell this Maine favorite, often made before the customers’ eyes. Such freshness and availability make it the choice of convenience when someone needs a quick, easy lunch.
A first-generation Italian named Amato originated this sandwich circa 1898 when shipbuilders on the Portland waterfront asked for an anti-pasta that they could eat with their fingers without the aid of a bowl and fork, and voila, the Maine Italian (often called eye-talian) became a mainstay in this state.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
A Whole Lotta’ Money
Over 260,000 people fish in Maine each year, creating an economic impact of nearly $300 million annually. This includes $100 million of wages and salaries nearly $200 million in retail sales.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Don’t Throw Away Foam Plastic
A person who sells bait may not provide or sell the bait in containers composed in whole or in part of polystyrene foam plastic. (This law does not apply to a container for holding baitfish.) Because of all the foam worm containers along streams and rivers or on ponds and lakes at popular perching spots, astute observers just know the law prohibiting the sale of this product is clearly broken in this state.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Non-resident Discrimination Widespread
Maine natives and out-of-staters alike have complained for years that Maine discriminates against non-resident hunters by not allowing them to hunt the opening Saturday of the statewide regular firearms deer season or gives out too few moose permits to non-residents, but such prejudicial laws are rather widespread on this continent.
For example, during the early 1990s, American deer hunters in New Brunswick were a little astounded to discover that non-residents couldn’t moose hunt in that province. That moose option was only open to NB residents.
That same year, a hunting license for elk and deer in Montana cost a non-resident $450, but it didn’t allow them to hunt mountain goats. Only residents could hunt for this coveted game animal.
If room allowed, examples could go on and on, proving that Maine’s two instances of maltreating non-residents are business as usual in other states and provinces. We’re not alone, which doesn’t make it right or wrong — just common.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
‘Modern’ Cartridge Designs Ancient
The U.S. news media often publishes articles, talking about “modern” firearms being so lethal as if they’re more dangerous than just a few decades ago. Just how “modern” are most cartridges in use today? Nearly all of today’s cartridges belong in the centerfire category, which has a firing cap in the center of the back of the casing. Manufacturers introduced this concept way back in 1861 — 147-years ago! This adaptation became the standard within a few years. With the exception of a .22 rimfire, a more ancient design, centerfire cartridges have dominated the market since about 1875, a design introduced at the time of our Civil War. “Modern” it ain’t.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Calibers Came Out When?!
Let’s look at the years manufacturers introduced specific cartridges: The 8×57 Mauser came out in 1888, 7.62 Russian in 1891, 7x57mm in 1892, .30-30 Winchester in 1895, .30-’06 Springfield in 1906, .375 H&H Magnum in 1912, .300 H&H in 1920, .270 Winchester in 1925, .357 Magnum in 1935, many of the Weatherby Magnums in the 1940s, .308 Winchester in 1952, .243 Winchester in 1955 and .44 Magnum in 1956.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
AK-47 51 Years Old
The AK-47 assault rifle — not to be confused with an “assault-style” rifle — came out in 1957. This cartridge is the equivalent of a .30-30 Winchester, not much of a barnburner as a round.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
The 95 Percent Striper Rule
Ninety-five percent of all striper eggs perish before hatching, 95 percent of the hatched stripers die before completing the yolk-sac phase and 95 percent of the remaining fin-fold phase larvae perish during the metamorphosis to juvenile stripers. One in a million eggs lives long enough for the striper to reach 50 pounds.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Good Weather for Maine Trout
The recent series of wet summers and falls have produced excellent spawning habitat for Maine’s trout and landlocked salmon, and marginal salmonid waters such as the St. George River in the Mid-coast have produced wild trout galore. Normally in decades past, this river and other rivers and streams like it have little to no wild production.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Catch and Release Works
If an average person catches and releases 500 trout on flies, 10 to 20 of them will not survive the ordeal, leaving 480 to 490 to fight another day.
Careful research during the last 100 or more years has proven that 2 percent to 4 percent of fly-caught fish — on average — perishes. If a fly rodder does not play a fish too long, uses forceps and does not remove the fish from the water, the 2 percent to 4 percent statistic can be even better, according to fisheries biologists at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife.
Remember, fisheries biologists stock fish from airplanes that fly 80 to 100 miles per hour and drop fish from 100 feet up, so the fish hit the water at speeds that an angler could never reach by throwing a trout like a baseball, so rough handling to a certain degree still does not kill trout.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Tourism Jobs and Livable Wages
David Vail of Bowdoin College appeared on Jennifer Rooks’ MPBN Maine Watch in September, an acknowledged expert on tourism-related topics. On the show, he said one of his latest surveys showed that 40 percent of tourism jobs pay a livable wage, leaving six out of the other 10 workers not earning a livable wage.
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Do You Know?
Military Cartridge Adopted for Deer’
Do you know which somewhat popular Maine deer cartridge originally served the U.S. military in the Indians Wars in the American West?
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Bird of the Month
Northern Cardinal
The Christmas Bird Cometh
The male northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) strikes Maine birdwatchers as the state’s most exotic-looking, gorgeous songbird with its bright-red plumage covering most of the body, head, wings and tail.
The coal-black face patch, triangular red bill and distinctive red crest add to the grandeur, particularly gaudy on a December afternoon with all the long shadows creeping across the landscape, often brown and gray in the south country before snow flies, often around New Year’s Day.
Folks notice the cardinal’s distinctive red and its high crest but miss another feature — a very long tail. Cardinals indeed have a long tail in comparison to most other songbird species.
Even the female has a beauty of her own with the buff-brown, smooth-feathered body and some red on the wings and crest, black face and large, triangular, red-orange bill. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder as one poet wrote, and the female cardinal exemplifies that thought. She may not equal the male, but some birdwatchers consider her a beauty.
Cardinals are large birds, too, and the male measures 8 3/4-inches tall, sports a foot-long wingspan and weighs 1.6 ounces — a lotta’ bird.
Folks often think of cardinals as a Christmas bird around the feeder after a snowfall, but this writer often associates cardinals with March when one begins calling who-it, who-it, who-it at dawn, waking the neighborhood. They also say what-cheer, cheer, cheer and birdy, birdy, birdy or a short, thin, metallic chip. Unlike many birds that just vocalize in spring, this species sounds off all year.
Speaking of Christmas bird…. Cardinal photos against balsam fir often adorn holiday cards, and why not? Red signifies the color of Christmas, so amateur bird photographers key on northern cardinals.
The truth of the matter, though, is simple. Cardinals are so easy to photograph around birdfeeders that photos of the bird have saturated the market.
Here’s how that happened. Professional bird photographers set up birdfeeders near a house window and wire limbs — say balsam fir — to feeder poles or elsewhere near the feeder, particularly above the seed-holding platform because birds like to perch above before going to the forage.
Photographers put a camera inside the window, focus on the perching limb and wait for the inevitable — a cardinal (or most species) landing on the planned prop. Bingo! The photographer shoots photo after photo.
This bird lays three or four pale-green eggs with red-brown spots in a deep nest made of twigs, leaves and plant fibers, hidden in a thicket. Birds that lie such few eggs have high survival rates. (Ken Allen)
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Book Corner
Something’s Fishy Skewers Maine’s Fishing Politics
Something’s Fishy by Ted Williams (Skyhorse Publishing, New York, NY) came across this reviewer’s desk, a wicked treat for the mind and even the funny bone. Williams reigns as one of America’s most entertaining writers, not an easy task because his usual subject matters delve into the environment — mostly how it is going to hell in a hurry.
A bunch of Mainers detest Williams and call him pompous and worse, but as this reviewer poured through Something’s Fishy, passages in the book painted a very human, somewhat humble picture of Williams. One section proved a jewel worthy of recording below.
Williams wrote on page 358, “As recently as the fall of 2003, the The Atlantic Salmon Journal ran a piece in which a misinformed fish writer (one Ted Williams) reported that sea lampreys were probably not native to Lake Champlain and Lake Ontario….”
He went on to write, “Other documents (such as my master’s thesis) contend that lampreys wiped out lake trout in Lake Ontario.”
Williams then goes on to explain that more thorough research shows that lampreys indeed lived in the Great Lakes, and its “wild lake trout and landlocked Atlantic salmon had adapted to sea lampreys.”
Williams poking fun at himself in a major international magazine, his master’s thesis and other media indeed show the reader a secure man. Not everyone can admit major errors with such aplomb.
Not to digress, but this reviewer has always thought the largest environmental disaster in the history of this country had to be the St. Lawrence Seaway, and part of the reason involved lampreys destroying the Great Lakes fisheries. After reading Williams’ comments, thought, I must rethink that philosophy.
Williams lives in eastern Massachusetts quite close to Maine, so naturally, he gets to this state often enough. Because of this familiarity, Williams often skewers our state in the sometimes-caustic essays in Something’s Fishy, which makes plenty of Mainers angry at Williams.
When someone has lived in Maine as long as this book reviewer has, I can assure readers that this state’s leaders have long screwed up our fisheries resources, and Williams is merely telling it as it really is…nothing more nor less. At times, the truth ain’t pretty. In Something’s Fishy, he uses the same caustic brush to paint other regions on the continent.
Williams strikes the reader as irreverent to the core, but such irreverence makes the reader think and think some more while reading Something’s Fishy. Williams drags even the most disinterested readers kicking and screaming into the world of challenging conventional thinking. What more can we ask from a writer?
If you love Maine, lay down $24.95 and buy Something’s Fishy. It’ll give you a better handle on how to be a better activist because Williams lays out the problems so readers can understand what needs to be done. (Ken Allen)
- – - – - – - – - – - – -
Innocent Bystander
Maine Discriminates against Muzzle-loaders
In a Maine December, even at noon, the sun still hangs low on the southern horizon, creating harsh shadows that slice across bright, glaring light.
Three years ago, on one of these eye-squinting days, I was sneaking through swale in a red-maple swamp adjacent to a fir-covered peninsula that jutted into the wetland. Deer sometimes lie on the higher ground in the black-growth, and sure enough, a doe and two skippers burst from the tangled thicket and swung into the dark shadows along the swamp edge 30 yards away.
The trio ran in plain sight, and the trailing youngster stopped long enough to gawk, a perfect broadside shot for my Thompson Center Hawken .50 caliber. I had no any-deer permit, though, and just watched. The yearling would have been good eating, too, the best.
Three years later, passing up the shot still irks me. In comparison to bowhunters, black-powder hunters in Central Maine have five lousy strikes against them in this special season.
1) Unlike bow hunters who can shoot either sex in Central Maine, the black-powder crowd must have an any-deer permit to shoot antlerless deer.
2) The statewide archery season lasts 27 days in 2008, not counting Sundays, but folks with muzzle-loaders have 12 days in the lower two-thirds of the state and six days in Northern Maine.
3) An archer can hunt deer in the special statewide season with a single archery license, but muzzle-loaders must buy a regular firearms hunting license and a muzzle-loader permit to hunt deer in the special, black-powder season. In short, to hunt deer in each respective special hunt, archers must spend $21 and muzzle-loaders $34 — for less days.
4) Black-powder hunters in the special deer season must buy a permit from the time they are age 10, but archers wait until they’re 16 years old to buy the archery license to participate. Before that, children archers need a less expensive junior license.
5) Hunters have chased deer to hell and back by the time the black-powder folks get a chance, so deer spook easily.
It’s common to spend a whole day afield without spotting a flag because December deer have really turned nocturnal after 170,000 people have chased them all November.
Muzzle-loaders need equal footing, folks, but unfortunately, no organization is speaking for us now. (Ken Allen)
Next Month: Full-Blown Winter Has Arrived
Full-blown winter has arrived from Kittery to Fort Kent, and with it, ice-fishing season for game fish has kicked off on New Year’s Day.
Which brings up the most salient of points. The One That Didn’t Get Away Club, run by this magazine, has two periods of fishing that produce most of the trophy fish in this club — the first four to six weeks after ice-out in the spring and the first 10 to 14 days of the ice-fishing season. Fall falls in as a distant third, so early January is the time to catch a wall hanger.
In the North Country, snowmobiling fills every hamlet with a motel, sporting camp, lodge and restaurant, a wonderfully busy time of year to be in the north woods. Snowmobiling spurs the economy, saving many people at what was once a very slow, starving time of year. God bless this snow machine because it has saved economies in the northern third of the state.
Fly tying and rod building really hits high gear now, and local high schools often have fly-tying classes. Fly tiers work hard to fill boxes, particularly those folks who really get at it for eight months, fishing like crazy.
Even with all the winter activities, sportsmen shows in southern New England attract legions from the Pine Tree State as do fishing lodges in tropical climates.
Also, Maine Legislature is in session and some folks get their kicks, hanging around hearings and walking the halls. It’s a social time in this seat of government, and lifetime friends are made.
That’s one of the neatest things about a Maine winter. It can be as busy or as leisurely as anyone’s heart desires, and that, folks, means the world to many of us.
While I agreed that controlling black bears should not be part of the proposed pilot study and that reducing black bear numbers to increase deer would likely be publicly unacceptable, I want to go on record that I do not feel that meaningful deer predation control can be achieved without controlling predation by black bears. This issue is similar to whether we have the necessary tools and manpower to control predation on deer, and calls into question the overall feasibility of controlling predation on deer.
–Wally Jakubas, DIF&W Wildlife Biologist and Director of the Mammal Group to the Deer Predation Working Group. October 22, 2008
With its unanimous decision on Plum Creek, LURC has taken the first important step to direct development to suitable sites, to protect critical resources and to create a brighter future for the region as a whole…In this unfamiliar, new world of post-paper industry ownership of the (unorganized territories), we as residents of Maine could not have asked for more from the commission.
–Richard Baringer, research professor at the University of Southern Maine’s Muskie School of Public Service, former Conservation Department Commissioner, and chair of the Maine Quality of Place Council, commenting on the decision of the Land Use Regulation Commission to approve Plum Creek’s Moosehead Lake Conservation Plan. Bangor Daily News, October 4, 2008.
What we have to look at is why is it that our kids are so lured indoors? How do we reduce those barriers to get them outside? There’s a huge number of industries making a profit of luring the children indoors.
–Dr. Dora Mills, Maine’s public health director, speaking at the Governor’s Conference on Youth and the Natural World. October 3, 2008.
Maine is known for its rugged outdoor image, uncompromised natural beauty, family-friendly environment and Yankee originality. There is a stark contrast between these attributes, for which Maine is known, and those associated with casino gambling.
–Dana Bullen, general manager of Sunday River, at a press conference where Maine’s three major ski resorts announced their opposition to a ballot measure for an Oxford County casino. The measure was defeated on November 4.
Good trout streams are like good school districts, keeping real estate values high even in a down market.
–CNBC Economics Reporter Steve Liesman, Live Water Properties Newsletter.
We’re very concerned about the illegal introduction of this nonnative, destructive species into one of Maine’s lakes and have begun an all-out assault to minimize any harm it may cause.
–DIF&W Commissioner Dan Martin, commenting on the discovery of a three-pound koi in Limerick’s Pickerel Pond. John Richardson story, Portland Press Herald, September 17, 2008.
Rescued Hiker One: Wardens Mike Morrison, Roger Guay and James Babiarz assisted with the rescue effort of a 55-year-old man from Massachusetts with various health problems on the Appalachian Trail in TAR 11. The man had to be rescued from a remote section of the trail near Mountain View Pond, and was flown out by the Maine Forest Service.
Rescued Hiker Two (An educational experience): A 57-year-old Pittsfield woman who injured her ankle while hiking on a trail leading up to Whitecap Mountain was helped out by wardens and an outdoor education class from Brewer High School that was staying at a nearby campground. About 20 members of the group assisted with carrying the injured woman off the mountain. Wardens Roger Guay, Troy Dauphinee, Dan Carroll and Rick Clowry, Sgt. Bill Chandler, Pilot Charlie Later and Lt. Pat Dorian coordinated the rescue.
Rescued Hiker Three: A 32-year-old man from Dayton, Ohio, fell and struck his face on a rock while hiking on the Appalachian Trail in Elliotsville Township. Warden Roger Guay hiked to the man’s location, and worked with Emergency Medical Services to get the man off of the trail.
–DIF&W Weekly Report, October 10, 2008.
FEMA has not traditionally and culturally had to look at that until now, although we recognize the importance of salmon.
–Mark Carey, Regional Director of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is now required to protect salmon and other endangered species as part of the National Flood Insurance Program, potentially limiting or prohibiting development or even rebuilding in floodplains. Kennebec Journal, October 22, 2008.
MTA received notification that (animal rights groups) have filed a new motion in Bangor federal court asking the judge to grant them ‘preliminary injunctive relief’ prior to the start of the 2008 canine season. If this motion is granted, it will essentially end all land trapping in the northern half of the state.
–Information about a new lawsuit in federal court in Bangor by animal rights groups seeking to stop all trapping to protect Canadian lynx. The Maine Trapper newsletter, October 2008.
I remember when Maine’s furbearer management program was the envy of just about every other state in the country… Budget woes eventually resulted in the elimination of (DIF&W’s two furbearer biologists)…For more than a decade Maine has been without a furbearer biologist. As a result, Maine’s furbearer management program has suffered, and critical questions about our furbearer populations have gone unanswered.
–MTA lobbyist Skip Trask, announcing that DIF&W recently hired a new furbearer biologist. The Maine Trapper newsletter, October 2008.
A transformation in forestland ownership has created uncertainty about whether private forests… will continue to provide recreation, clean water, and economic support for rural communities. State governments and conservation groups need to reexamine their toolkits.
–Open Space Institute report, Forestland for Sale: Challenges and Opportunities for Conservation over the Next 10 Years.
Even the ugly need protection.
–News headline about the Conservation Law Foundation’s petition to list the Atlantic wolfish as an endangered species. Clarke Canfield Associated Press story. October 2, 2008.
- – - – - – - -
Answer to “Do You Know?”
You Say .45-70 Means What?
The .45-70 Government cartridge came out in 1873 for a single-shot rifle, which the U.S. Army then used in the Indian Wars in the American West. The .45-70 also killed a pile of bison, elk and deer right from its inception.
In the last 20 years, American gun manufacturers have built lever-action models as well as single-shot rifles for the .45-70 Government — some of the latter high-end firearms. So, this cartridge has enjoyed a popularity rebirth, although it never went out of production.
The .45-70 stayed wicked popular in the last quarter of the 19th century and continued that popularity until circa 1920 when small diameter, fast-stepping projectiles took over. It nearly petered out in the next 60 years but started making a modest comeback in the early 1980s.
The “.45” in the .45-70 Government stood for the projectile’s diameter, measured in hundredths of an inch. In essence, a .45 caliber is nearly 1/2-inch wide, a .50 caliber is 1/2-inch wide and a .25 caliber 1/4-inch. The “70” equals the number of grains of black powder in the cartridge load. Smokeless powder made that last designation obsolete.