PRESIDENTS MESSAGE

 

Greetings to all Orion supporters.  The year ending in ‘08 has been unforgettable to say the least!  Change was more than in the wind, change happened quickly, dramatically, and in some instances only history will determine if it was good for any, or good for all. The only thing that was for certain is that the people decided that it was time, circumstances followed.

 

As for Orion, change came in the form of founding board member Gayle Joslin retiring from public service at Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks and energizing the Orion office as well as the Orion Board meetings.  Now the entire world will benefit from Gayle’s passion and enthusiasm that has been devoted to wildlife and the residents of Montana over her career.

 

Eric Nuse led the charge to re-energize the Izaak Walton League’s “Ethics in Action” program which was turned into reality, thanks to a grant from a new Orion supporter -Cabela’s. This grant allowed Eric to deliver the full-blown program at the International Hunter Education Association Conference in May. Over 100 hunter education professionals representing the interests of 75,000 instructors and 750,000 students worldwide attended this rebirth of “Ethics in Action”.

 

I am pleased to announce that Eric will lead Orion in a new direction as its new Board President, and I look forward to the future.

 

Noted conservationist and co-author of the “North American Model of Conservation,” John Organ, agreed to become a Board member in 2008. His wealth of knowledge, contacts and passion will accelerate change and the performance of your investment in Orion-The Hunters’ Institute.  Longtime Orion Board Member Mike Kolasa stepped down as an active participant.  He has shifted focus and is causing change to happen in another related conservation field. Our many thanks to Mike and his years of service, not to mention his invaluable advice that we will still seek.

 

Board Member Randy Newberg may be the greatest instigator of change, and may cause the most change in our field of interest in many years. Expect to see and hear the Orion message in some unusual places in the years to come – thanks to Randy.

 

In my own case, change came rapidly and almost catastrophically as I spent my last five months recovering from a hidden killer that is not only common but frequent in my ethnic background. Changes in modern medical diagnostics caught it just in time or you may have been reading an eloquent obituary from Jim describing my service to Orion. I love Jim’s writing style, but would rather wait a while before I am the subject of it.

 

Fortunately for all of us, the pillars of the Orion office, Jim Posewitz and Zoe King, are still at the helm and have changed to meet the needs of a more demanding public. It is now Orion’s time to move to the next level and we are all deeply grateful to all of you who have supported Orion through the tough times. We will be paying handsome dividends to all of you who believe. I think Theodore Roosevelt stated our mutual goal perfectly while addressing the Convention of the National Progressive Party in Chicago in August of 1912 when he said:

 

   “We do not intend that our natural resources shall be exploited by the few against the interest of the many. Our aim is to preserve our natural resources for the public as a whole, for the average man and the average woman who make up the body of the American people.”**

 

As evidenced by our last election, the will of the people can still determine the outcome of anything that energizes the “average man or average woman” enough to do something about it.

 

Think, plan, then act for the good of all…………….MH

 

**A special thanks to Orion Partner, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership for reminding me of that quote.

NEW BOARD ADDITION JOHN ORGAN   John F. Organ is Chief of Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration for the Northeast Region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  He and his staff work directly with the 13 northeast states on implementation of the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration, Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration, State Wildlife Grants, and Endangered Species Recovery programs.  John is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst  He is currently supervising a Ph.D. student studying spotted-necked otters in Tanzania and an M.S. student studying the role of black bear predation in the decline of woodland caribou on the island of Newfoundland.  He is also co-principal investigator of the Maine Lynx Study, a long-term cooperative field research effort between the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  He is a member of The Wildlife Society, American Society of Mammalogists, Society for Conservation Biology, the IUCN Otter Specialist and Sustainable Use Groups, and a life-member of the International Hunter Education Association.  He served as president of The Wildlife Society from 2006 to 2007.  John is also a Master Instructor in the Massachusetts Hunter Education Program, where he teaches Basic Hunter Education, Trapper Education, Bowhunter Education, and Waterfowl Identification and Hunting.  John lives on a 162-acre farm in the northern Berkshires of Massachusetts where for the past 17 years he has conducted land management for white-tailed deer, grassland birds, interior forest birds, black bear, ruffed grouse, fisher, bobcat, wild turkey and woodcock.  He hunts deer, woodcock, grouse, turkey and occasionally bear on his property with bow, shotgun, rifle, and black powder muzzleloader, in addition to occasionally hunting elk, waterfowl, and other critters in different parts of North America.  He feels most alive when hunting white-tails with a bow. where he received his Ph.D. in wildlife biology.

 

NUSES' MOOSE Vermont Moose Hunt Or, Nuse's Moose Bent over, I ran up on the skidder road hoping to intersect the moose before she got in the tangle of a clear cut on the far side.  That is when I heard the beating of hooves.  Oh no, had I spooked her?  Listening intently, the hooves sounded a bit too regular.  You would think that a guy who has hunted for 48 years and killed all kinds of critters, wouldn’t have a heart pounding so hard it that it sounds like a big moose on the run.  But I’m getting ahead of myself.   Like all hunts, to be successful you have to do your homework.  The number one factor is to hunt where the critters are.  For big guys like moose, who live in big country, that means lots of footwork.  But first you want to narrow down the possibilities.  Using my extensive network of local informants (e.g. the local retired game warden) I located a hot spot for moose near the Connecticut River on paper company land.  I spent nearly a week learning the logging roads and scouting for sign.  Combining that with a good topo-map, compass and GPS sped up the learning curve a lot.    But how did it happen that Vermont had moose to hunt in 2008?  When I started as a game warden in 1971, only a few moose lived in the area I was hunting in the corner of Vermont that cornered with New Hampshire and  Quebec.  Moose had been gone from the state since the late 1800s.  Wiped out by unregulated hunting and land clearing on a massive scale.   In 1875, sportsmen got together and formed the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen’s clubs.  They pushed for game laws and wardens to enforce the laws, hoping to bring back deer, moose, turkey, beaver and trout.  Vermont was 85% open land, brooks were still choked with sawdust from the stripping of the mountains and the air smoky from making charcoal.  Just seeing a deer track was a big event much less seeing an actual deer.  Through the hunters’ efforts, deer and beaver were imported from Maine and New York and game laws passed.  In 1904, the Vermont Fish and Game Department was created with a professional commissioner and paid game wardens. That same year, Theodore Roosevelt was our “Conservation President” and voters elected him to his second term by what was the largest margin in American history.   Gradually the clear cuts regenerated, abandoned hill farms turned to brush and the poachers were brought under control.  By the mid ‘60’s, moose started filtering in from New Hampshire and Quebec.  The deer herd had exploded under the bucks-only laws.  Biologists predicted that the moose would be quickly infected with moose sickness and never reach huntable numbers.  Heavy snows in ’69 and ’71 killed thousands of malnourished deer, especially in the Northeast Kingdom allowing moose to expand.  At the same time, the paper companies were clear-cutting the forest, creating huge patches of hardwood whips that moose love.  With no remaining large predators, moose numbers grew exponentially and their range expanded.   Over in my patrol area, bull moose started showing up in the late ‘70’s and causing problems during the rut when they could not find any cow moose to mate with.  They went for the next best thing, heifers and milk cows.  They objected to farmers intruding on their love interests, so I was called in to mediate.  I had some interesting times trying to keep both parties happy.  By then poachers were starting to shoot moose, mistakenly thinking they were competing with deer.  Motorists were hitting them on the roads with disastrous consequences for both moose and drivers.   The first legal hunting season for moose in 98 years was held in 1993.  Thirty permits were issued and twenty-five animals where taken.  In 2008 over 1,000 permits were issued spread over nearly every area of Vermont.   I was one of the lucky ones to draw a tag.  Which brings us back to the hunt…   Opening day was clear and cold, my sub-permittee and intrepid wife, Ingrid, and I were in the woods at dawn, headed toward a 15 year old clear-cut that was full of fresh sign and trails.  We didn’t even make it to the cut before coming onto a big fresh track in the frost.  We tracked it through some gnarly country for about 1/3 mile before I spotted a dark stump that upon closer examination had very big brown ears and moved.  From the sharp angle of the body I determined it was a good-sized calf, good eating but we didn’t want the hunt to end so soon.  About a mile and a half further we jumped a nice bull wading in the water at the inlet of a beaver dam.  Unfortunately, it was outside the area I had scouted and I didn’t know how far it was to the nearest skidder road.  I did know that there was no way to get a moose out from the direction we had just come.  How a bull moose could get through that tangle of trees is beyond me.  One thing you don’t want to do is kill a moose in a spot where you can’t handle it.  Ingrid had an OK shot, but we decided to pass.  It tuned out we were just down from a fairly recent clear cut with a passable skidder trail.  Oh well…   Six miles later, in the dark, we headed back to camp -- tired but happy.    The next two days we managed to avoid seeing any moose, but got in some fun tracking, saw lots of hilly, boggy wild country and had some great conversations with a gang of Canadian Jays.  Ingrid had to get to work on Tuesday and I had a Fish and Wildlife Board meeting to attend.  So we left camp for the outside world and a hot shower.   I was back at it on Wednesday, met up with retired warden Bob Baird, and we headed into the same area.  It was a beautiful, cold, rainy day – perfect for moose and ducks.  It also made for quiet walking and thus good hunting.  Two and a half miles from the truck and fours hours later, we spotted a nice cow browsing on whips at about 125 yards.  With the binoculars I saw the butt of another moose, but only briefly.  After a quick conference with Bob, I decided to move forward at an angle to get closer and get a better angle for a shot.  Using a blow-down for a rest, I started to aim but found that my scope was blurry with rain drops.  I wiped it down, got back on target and started to squeeze the trigger.  About then the cow decided the brush was greener on the other side of the mountain and took a few steps into the whips, leaving me no clear shot.   I cut to my right at a low run to get ahead of her.  That was when I thought I heard pounding hooves.  Fortunately, it was just a want-a-be heart attack.  I came up on an empty skidder road and took a few deep breaths to calm down.  A few moments later, out stepped my moose.  At the shot she disappeared.  Bob saw her go down but I didn’t.  As I ran forward I heard some bellowing, then saw a large moose heading up the hillside at about 100 yards.  I started to panic thinking I had missed but knowing there was no way.  Then I saw my moose on the ground – what a relief.  After a finishing shot and a lot of congratulations, I tagged her and Bob help me dress her off.  It is pretty amazing to see a 600 pound animal so close up, and then try to roll her over!  The paunch alone was nearly as big as a small deer and just as heavy.    Early the next morning I hopped in with the skidder operator who lived about 7 miles away.  We clunked up the road for a few miles, chained her to the blade, raised her up, carried her down, and slid her into my truck. When we hung the moose it stretched nearly 15 feet from hoof to nose.   Two days later with the help of a few friends she was all cut up and in the freezer:  three hundred fifty pounds of local, organic, free ranging meat; sixteen quarts of marrow bone stock; twenty pounds of scrap for the dogs; and, a salted down hide ready for the tanner.  A great hunt in great country.  And all made possible because hunters acquired a conservation ethic and restored wildlife, including the icon of the North Country – the moose.  Now the question is, will hunters 100 years from now still be able to enjoy the hunt?  Will there be free ranging wild animals to hunt in places where the regular folks can access?  Will hunters step forward again to mitigate and adapt to big challenges like climate change, privatization of wildlife and wildlife diseases?  Groups like the Federation of Sportsmen’s clubs, Vermont Wildlife Partnership, and Orion-The Hunters’ Institute among many others, can make a difference, but they need your support and your time.  Wherever you live, please consider joining and donating your time, energy and money to this noble, yet uniquely American cause. Hunters did 100 years ago – now it is our turn.