Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Contentious topic needs input
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
mark.taylor
@roanoke.com
981-3395
Mark Taylor
Outdoors coverage
- Notebook: Outer Banks beach-driving plan kicks up sand
- Outdoors commentary: Many Sunday hunting cons
- Winter tourneys invite fishermen out in the cold
- Visit our Outdoors page
The Wild Life blog
Since it began formally reviewing the issue of hunting with hounds in Virginia, the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has gotten plenty of feedback on the topic.
It wants more.
The agency is inviting citizens to participate in a survey on the subject.
The survey can be completed over the Internet, or hard copies can be submitted by mail.
Because of the open nature of the survey, its results can't be considered a statistically accurate gauge of overall public opinion. Rather, the information will be considered another form of informal public feedback to complement the input the agency has already received though public meetings and Internet message boards.
Although the survey is open, coordinators are making an effort to avoid the kind of mailbox stuffing that can happen when some activists try to tip feedback toward their favored position.
Citizens must ask to participate by sending an e-mail with the word "request" in the subject line to houndhunting survey@vt.edu. A link to the survey and a password will be sent out within a few days.
Hard copies can be requested by calling the Virginia Tech office from which this is being handled at 231-0961.
The survey deadline is May 23.
The eight-page survey consists of 26 questions intended to gauge the participants' recreational interests and experiences with hound hunting and hound hunters, and should take most participants 10 to 15 minutes to complete.
The survey is part of a sweeping effort -- officially called Hunting with Hounds: A Way Forward -- launched last year by the department in response to increasing controversies surrounding the activity.
The agency has put together a committee that includes 18 staff members and 18 citizen stakeholders to study the issue. Virginia Tech associate professor Steve McMullin and research associate Sarah Lupis Kozlowski are the study's facilitators.
The effort will include three public meetings in the coming months, and the committee will present its finding to the agency's board in the fall.
Virginia hunters have been using hounds in the pursuit of game for centuries.
In Eastern Virginia, dogs are allowed for deer hunting and that is the favored method of many hunters.
Deer hunting with dogs isn't allowed in Western Virginia, but hound hunting is favored by many bear hunters.
Fox, rabbit and raccoon hunters also use hounds for hunting.
Conflicts sometimes arise when hounds end up on private land, sometimes particularly so when the landowners aren't fans of hunting in general.
But complaints don't come only from non-hunters.
Plenty of hunters who don't use hounds complain that roaming hounds can ruin their experience.
Contributing to the controversy are laws that allow hunting dog owners to go onto private land without obtaining permission, even if that land is posted, to retrieve their dogs. Unless they are hunting foxes or raccoons, the dog retrievers are not allowed to carry weapons. They may not use vehicles without landowner permission.
Some landowners accuse hound hunters of exploiting the law, claiming that they want their dogs to push game from posted private land onto huntable lands.
Conflicts have been on the increase in recent years in part because suburbia continues reaching into much of Virginia's once-rural landscape.
For more information about the Hunting with Hounds study, visit www.dgif.virginia.gov/hunting/hounds/.
Ridge Rifle to host youth camp
Ridge Rifle Association will host a youth shooting camp on May 31 at the club's range near Fincastle.
The camp is for young shooters ages 8 to 18. All attendees will attend a firearms safety training session focusing on safe rifle handling and operation. Afterward, participants will get a chance to shoot .22 rifles under close supervision of experienced trainers.
Ridge Rifle will provide all equipment, including eye and ear protection. Refreshments will also be provided.
The camp is free. Pre-registration is required because the participation is limited.
For more information or to register, call Roy Gross at 254-2293 or Larry Clark at 890-3264.
