Outdoor News Roundup

© By Othmar Vohringer

It has been a while since we did a “News Roundup” here at Outdoors With Othmar Vohringer. In other words, it about time for one. Staying informed is very important for hunters and anglers, especially about news of new pending legislation.

Without further ado here is the latest news in the outdoor world.

It is with great regret that a missing hunter in Calgary hunter has been found dead. According to the authorities who examined the dead hunter it is very likely that he had been attacked and killed by a grizzly bear. It seems that each year we of more hunters, anglers and hikers are attacked by bears. This means only one thing, despite the claims of animal rights, bear populations grow an nowhere more so than in Canada. For the full story go to the Calgary Herald. In New Jersey a hiker was attacked and killed by a black bear.

Talking about bears. In NW Wyoming the wildlife service has increased the limit on taking grizzly bears for the next three years in a323-square-mile public land grazing complex east of Jackson. In that area hunters can now take three female grizzly bears.

Alligator hunting is on my “must do list” for several years now and so it is no surprise that I read up on alligator hunting news. In the Mississippi Sportsman News I read that the record on trophy gators has been broken twice inside two weeks. The first reptile, a 756-pound 16 ft. beast, was caught by Robert Mahaffey of Brandon. His record was short lived when Brian Montgomery caught a monster gator weighing in at 792-pounds. Both alligators where taken on public waters near Vicksburg.

When I lived in Illinois the state was known as the nation’s deer hot spot number one, hunters from far and wide would travel to Illinois in anticipation of taking a trophy buck. Large deer populations and good genetics made it possible to hunt on public land with good expectations to get a nice buck. However, over the years things changed for the worse. Some blame the decline of the deer population on bad wildlife management and others on the outbreak of CWD (Chronic Wasting Disease)

This lead to the founding of the Illinois Whitetail Alliance, an organization committed to bring the Illinois deer herd back to its former glory. To do so the Illinois Whitetail Alliance borrowed a conservation tactic that helped the duck population to regain their large numbers, it’s called “Voluntary Restraint”. Read here more how the program works.