Outdoor Writer

Any idea on length and weight?? -TONY

"Next we moved on to the topic of challenges facing the game population in the Unit. Without hesitation, Ben said “The drought”. “Certainly”, Ben added, “habitat encroachment is a factor, as is predation. The biggest single impacting factor right now, though – is the drought”. He stated that javelina populations are stable, and that mule deer populations were stable as well – and possibly slightly increasing. I asked if there were any Coues in the Unit, and Ben told me that there was indeed a few Coues. He went on to say that many of the Wildlife Managers were surprised at the Coues’ population’s ability to adapt to the drought. Most had assumed that the mulies would handle the drought conditions more efficiently. Instead, it has been the Coues that adapted more readily." Now ain't that something. Good job, Marshall. -TONY

I assume most of you know how to figure out which is your dominant eye, right? -TONY

Some of you might recognize this buck since it is displayed at Cabela's in Phx. Corky Richardson killed it on the Fain Ranch in 1999. -TONY

John, Here's the link to the ONLINE version of your hunt on the Strip. Also, a bit better pic of your deer below. -TONY

Never interject common sense and facts into a good argument!!! -TONY

Anytime you'll be in the Phx area, let me know. Or if you come to the party on Sept. 29 at my place, just bring the book along. Same goes for anyone else who has one and would like it signed. -TONY

Josh, Just received my copy of the Sept issue of Rocky Mt. G&F magazine with my AZ Deer Forecast article in it. Your Dec. season Coues buck is the 1/2 pg. lead photo. Scott, They used Steve Madrid's mulie from the Unit 27 jr. hunt in B&W as a continuation photo. Look for it on a newsstand near you. I know Fry's grocery stores carry it in the Phx. area. -TONY

The photo at the end is Duwane Adams and I with the buck I killed in Sonora. It's also on the back of our HOW TO HUNT COUES DEER book. I killed it literally at sea level in the cholla flats because we were hunting an area west of Caborca known more for its mule deer than for Coues. One of Duwane's clients was after a big mulie first and a Coues 2nd. When we climbed a hill to glass, we could actually view the Sea of Cortez on the horizon without using binocs. When it comes to typical whitetail behavior, an incident on that hunt showed it. One day, to avoid getting lost on the maze of dirt roads, I went afield kinda self-guided with a Mexican cowboy from the ranch while Duwane was guiding his client. The cowboy spoke a bit of English and I spoke a bit of Spanish. Nonetheless we got along fine. About mid-morning we were walking along and came to a spot where two washes, perhaps each about 6 to 10 feet deep formed a Y. So we sat on the point of land where they intersected and had something to eat. We spent about 1/2 hr. there conversing in a normal tone. As we got ready to leave, I stood up and walked a few yards to the side of one wash to pee. Just as I was pulling down my zipper, a dandy buck jumped up not 5 yards below me and bounded across the wash, then headed for the next zip code. My gun was sitting next to the cowboy. The buck had been bedded in a bunch of salt cedars next to the steep side of the wash and had stayed put there the whole time, even though he was less than 10 yards from our conversation. I guess he wasn't excited about getting peed on, though. -TONY

I've hunted whitetails in 20 states and a couple Canadian provinces. If I were to make one blanket statement about them, I would say they are creatures of their habitat. As you well know, many whitetail populations live in farming counrty, so they are more of what biologists term as "edge species." They feed out in the open farmlands for the most part but spend most of their time living in nearby cover -- woodlots on the "edges." Of course, they don't have the sort of terrain available to them that our Coues deer have. Just guessing here, but if you moved a herd of Coues deer to Iowa, they would adapt to the same habitat and act the same way. Vice-versa with moving Iowa whitetails here. That said, some of the same habits as far as how whitetails behave do crossover between subspecies regardless of location. If we go back a few decades even here in AZ, we'd find that seeing Coues deer in the ponderosa country of the Mogollon Rim and such was somewhat rare. That's not the case any longer. They have slowly spread north from their tradional high-desert habitat in the southern part of the state and have adapted quite well to the bigger forests. Same for the riparian areas in the lower deserts. The adaptability of elk is another example. Once a plains animal, elk now are considered more of a high-country forest dweller, at least in the West. But of course, they also now roam wild in Nebraska, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. -TONY

And those figures don't even include the huge increase of NR hunters over that past two decades. That said..."We have the same amount of space, water, animals etc." is a bit off the mark if we're comparing 1987 to 2005. -TONY

Donnie, Here is another one of my older articles to show deer isn't the only species where closing seasons, etc. does anything to increase populations when the HABITAT is rotten because of the lack of rain at the right times. -TONY Mearns' Limit Cut Under pressure from a segment of hunters, the 5-member Arizona Game & Fish Commission reduced the daily bag limit on Mearns’ quail from 15 to 10 birds for the 2002-2003 season, which begins on Nov. 22 and closes on Feb. 10. A couple members of the commission and many within the Arizona Game & Fish Department (AGFD) viewed the limit reduction as a “social” decision likely to have no effect on the population, however. The controversy over the Mearns’ quail had been brewing for several years with a contingent of hunters saying that overhunting was severely depleting the number of birds in many areas. They even claimed the birds no longer existed in some places because they had been overharvested. On the other side, biologists and officials at the AGFD presented figures and facts showing the limit drop will likely do nothing in regards to increasing the number of birds from one year to the next. The colorful Mearns’ quail has a small range in the United States, with the largest population along a wide swath crossing southern Arizona from the New Mexico border to the Baboquivari Mountains in the west. Nearly all of the grass-covered, oak-studded foothills of the major mountain ranges around Willcox, Benson, Patagonia, Sonoita, Ruby and those south of Tucson harbor Mearns’ quail. The Patagonia, Huachuca, Peloncillo, Chiricahua, Whetstone, San Luis, Atascosa and Dragoon Mountains support decent bird numbers. Mearns’ hunting is a relatively recent happening. Because the overall range was so tiny, and biologists knew little about their reproductive capability, the colorful quail remained protected during the early 1900s. Then in 1951 Steve Gallizioli, a now-retired chief of the AGFD’s wildlife division, began an intensive quail study. The initial study on Gambel's quail, conducted over a 10-year period, compared areas where hunting was allowed to other areas that were closed to hunting. Although many birds died annually from natural causes, and populations fluctuated a bit at the end of the seasons because of the immediate additive mortality from hunting, the data over the entire study had the bird counts in the hunted areas in line with those in the closed ones. A similar study on Mearns’ quail in habitat near Patagonia and Sonoita, southeast of Tucson, produced similar results. The data did reveal that habitat, in the way of succulent vegetation, was the deciding factor, with rainfall as the key to the whole thing. If no rain came during the months just prior to the nesting seasons, the number of quail dropped off for the following fall. In the case of the Gambel's, the rain must come during the winter months, basically from late November and into March. Later than that and the rain is wasted in respect to the birds. Mearns, on the other hand, depend on summer rains, which have been a bit more numerous during the decade. The actual reason for the importance of plants in the reproductive scheme was an unknown factor for a long time. Biologists knew green vegetation was necessary, but they weren't quite sure why until research by the University of Arizona unraveled part of the mystery by determining Vitamin A was a key to the quail's sexual development for mating. The university's study found higher concentrations of the vitamin in the bird's livers when they were mating. For Gambel’s quail the newly sprouting greenery, such as Vitamin A-rich alfilaria and storksbill, raise the hens' hormone level, providing the ingredients for large broods. Later, after chicks have hatched, the springtime vegetation furnishes needed forage, including a large supply of insects, for both adult and chicks. Heavy plant growth provides additional hiding places from predators, as well. When the weeds are missing, so are the birds. The same greenery growth and reproduction cycle repeats when the Mearns’ nesting period takes place in late summer. Over the last decade, the spring rains have been sporadic, thus the population and harvest of Gambel’s quail have followed the same trend. The Mearns’ population has remained fairly stable, however, because the summer rains, sometimes referred as the “summer monsoons” have shown up more consistently than the early spring rains have. According to AGFD’s big-game supervisor Brian Wakeling, information gathered over the last few years confirms that the limit will do little to bring about any population increase of Mearns’. “Our small game surveys and wing counts tell us the average daily bag for Mearns’ quail hunters is somewhere between 1.2 and 3.5 birds per day. So dropping the limit to 10 birds will do nothing more than appease a small number of hunters,” he said. We had the limit at 8 for four years in the 1990s and the number of quail the fifth year was about what it was before we reduced the limit.” To further support this biological fact, Wakeling pointed to the 2000-2001 season in which hunters killed nearly 70,000 Mearns’ quail, the best harvest since the 80,702 killed in 1979. “We predicted it would be a good year and it was. But we also predicted the 2001-2002 season would be nowhere near as good, and the harvest plummeted to 36,000. We made both predictions mostly by the rainfall patterns in the prime Mearns’ habitat,” he said. “Basically that precipitation accounts for about 47 percent of the change from one year to the next. Many other factors come into play, but the harvest by hunters is a very small part of the overall dynamics of the quail population puzzle.” Game branch chief Tice Supplee said the now gone 15-bird limit was doing the job as intended, even in the drier years. “Although the mortality from hunting caused a drop in bird numbers during the season, enough birds remained for the population to rebound to pre-season numbers for the next year. When we had the 8-bird limit, it dropped the harvest by only 7 percent, and we estimate the new 10-bird limit will amount to about 3 percent fewer birds killed. We also calculated a 4-bird limit would result in a 25 percent decrease in the annual harvest. But on the grand scale of the overall population from year to year, it too would have a minimal impact,” she said. Some of the people that lobbied for the lower limits even suggested closing the season for a year or more. Biologists would quickly point out that this could prove as useless as the limit reduction and instead could also be a detriment. Many resident and nonresident hunters buy licenses solely to hunt quail, so closing the season would also take a chunk out of the game department revenue. In reality fewer birds result in a self-controlling factor as far as the harvest is concerned. Tough hunting due to low populations means fewer hunters go after quail. Less hunters and days afield equal fewer birds in the freezer. So just looking at the total harvest from one year to the next can be misleading. “Last year’s harvest was way down from the previous year, but so were the hunter numbers and days afield. Two years ago, 8,441 hunters went after Mearns quail compared with 5,690 last year. ” Supplee said.

Donnie, Here's the message from the What Would You Change? thread. Feel free to copy/paste to your other discussion. -TONY Biologically, it would be a meaningless move. We hunt BUCKS, not does, which are the most important for the recovery of deer numbers. All shutting down the season might do would be to possibly increase the buck to doe ratio and maybe produce some older class bucks. BUT...on the downside, it will leave more deer in an already stressed habitat, thus creating poor conditions for fawn recruitment and survival. And..the increased number of bucks would cause more infighting among them, stressing them even more. The additional stress on the habitat is exactly why G&F has been promoting the doe hunts on the Kaibab's westside winter range for the last couple of years. As for eliminating hunting during the rut, it too wouldn't mean much. It doesn't take many bucks to breed every doe in the neighborhood, and they will do so whether they are shot at or not. I wrote the following article several years ago when Ray Lee was the big-game branch head. It outlines HOW our deer herds will grow. If you know anyone with some spare winter rains, tell them to send 'em to AZ. -TONY Arizona Deer -- Oh, How they thirst Copyright 2000 by Tony Mandile No Reproduction without express permission For more than a decade now, Arizona's deer population has been on the proverbial roller-coaster ride. Sadly, in recent years the downs have been a lot lower than the ups have been high. As a result, the state's overall mule deer population is currently approaching the lowest it has ever been. Although the Coues deer have done somewhat better, their numbers have also dropped. This fact became quite evident last spring when the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AGFD) made its recommendations for the fall 2000 hunts. The total allocation for both species approved by the five-member game commission was 45,850 -- the lowest total since the AGFD began compiling data in 1946. It was 970 fewer than the 1999 total. And if the rest of this year plays out as it has so far, the permit allocation could fall even more when the commission considers next year's hunt proposals in April, 2001. Who can we blame for all this and especially for the loss of deer hunting opportunities? No one that could make a difference; the game department, you or me can't do a thing to change it. The culprit has been Mother Nature, or more specifically her unwillingness to bestow bountiful rains on the Grand Canyon State for more than one year in a row. AGFD big-game supervisor Ray Lee's enthusiasm has followed the same trend as the state's deer population. After many years of watching the herds steadily decline, Lee happily witnessed the effects of El Nino over the winter of 1997-1998. "We thought we might have turned the corner in 1999 when fawn recruitment statewide increased considerably. But it was a short-lived jump, and the reason why I had stated back then that hunters shouldn't be too enthusiastic until we have a couple rainy years strung together." Lee's warning proved prophetic. As it turned out, 1999 was one of the driest years on record in Arizona. The Phoenix metro area went for more than 100 days between September and December without any measurable precipitation. When the rain finally arrived, it wasn't enough to require the use of windshield wipers. Finally in March, 2000 a big storm hammered the state, dumping more than two inches on Phoenix and even more in other areas. But the two-day deluge overwhelmed the watersheds. The ground couldn't absorb the water quickly enough, and most of it ran downstream into the lakes or Mexico's Sea of Cortez. Pointing to the Palmer Drought Severity Index compiled by The National Atmospheric Association, Lee doesn't hold much hope for the very immediate future. "The Palmer Index examines past and current rainfalls, winds, temperatures and other factors. The most recent chart shows the southwestern United States and more specifically, Arizona, as being in the middle of extreme drought conditions. In other words, even if the entire state received two inches of rain tomorrow, it probably wouldn't take us out of that extreme category because of the moisture we haven't received in previous months," he said. The major concern of biologists when it comes to the relationship of rain and deer is timing. Rains that come at the wrong time of the year provide little benefit to big game. In the case of deer, the two key periods to benefit them are late winter and late summer. Lee points to the 1998 deer population jump as a perfect example of what can happen. "We had normal winter rains, good spring rains and adequate summer rains. Statewide, fawn recruitment went to nearly 40 fawns per 100 does in areas of the state where it had dropped to as low of 20 fawns per 100 does. On the Kaibab Plateau, somewhat different climatic conditions caused the corresponding recruitment to rise to nearly 90 fawns per 100 does. It was an exceptional year. Unfortunately, it was only one, and that won't do it." According to Lee, the lack of moisture to sustain ideal deer populations started in 1988 and pretty much reflects the trend that occurred about 40 years ago. "Our deer numbers reached the highest ever in the 1960s, but the population dropped very rapidly from those numbers to all-time lows by the late 1970s. That's why we put deer on the permit system in 1972. And if we look back at the weather conditions from the late 1960s and early 1970s. we would quickly see they mirror the same patterns that are occurring right now. The deer population is also following the pattern." "Then the deer numbers shot up again in the early and mid-1980s because we had an anomaly of sorts with rains that produced three 100-year floods over a five-year period. Even the normally dry Salt River was running at 200,000 feet per second and washing out bridges in downtown Phoenix. "The result on our deer herds was quite predictable. For a few years running, all of the does had twins, their twins had twins, and those twins -- and so on. So we wound up with more deer than we knew what to do with. Over the next several hunting seasons, we had more permits available than we had hunters to apply for them. In 1986, we set the all-time record with 95,821 permits. That is more than double the permit allocation for 2000. "The one thing hunters shouldn't do, however, is think we'll ever get to that point again. The floods were very uncommon occurrences that created the best deer habitat we've ever had. So unless those conditions repeat themselves, which isn't too likely, our traditional optimum deer numbers will be considerably less than what we had in 1986." Fortunately, even though the permit numbers are at an all-time low right now, there are still more deer today in Arizona than there were in the 1970s when the population hit bottom. The reason is a different management concept put into place by the AGFD. When the herds plummeted in the 70s, the hunter success did likewise, averaging 16 to 18 percent statewide -- a result of supply and demand with only so many deer to go around. This prompted many complaints from hunters. Rather than allow that trend to continue, the game department began adjusting the permit allocation whereby the hunter success remained fairly consistent at 21 to 24 percent in most units. So while fewer hunters go afield now, many of those that do get to a tag a buck. The relationships between moisture and deer populations can be somewhat difficult to understand, but what it mostly comes down to is habitat. 'In years of good moisture, deer can normally get all the moisture they need by eating. As the rains decrease, they have to find other sources, which are mostly tanks or other standing water. That walking and use of standing water sources increases the chance for predation and burns up additional energy. "Without water, a doe doesn't put on weight, and the chances for her to drop twins go down considerably. She also has a lower milk production when she does drop a fawn, and the lack of good cover makes the survival of that fawn more iffy because of predation. And we're not talking a lot of weight to make a difference. If a doe can increase her weight by 5 percent, it's likely her fawn will weigh a pound more when born. That is significant for the survival of a fawn that weighs five or six pounds at birth." Another consequence of the recent drought years have been forest fires. Earlier this year, at least three major ones devastated large portions of Arizona's landscape. The highly extreme conditions for more fires prompted the U.S. Forest Service to shut down any access to large portions of several national forests in the state. Lee feels the forest fires come under that ol' good news/bad news syndrome, though. "Even though a lot of Arizona burned up this year, by and large forest fires are good for the habitat. It's a case of looking at fires over both the short term and the long term. At first, the effect is not too good because those areas basically are sterile. All the growth that deer might utilize this fall is gone. But Mother Nature does wonderful things to compensate. "Once we start getting some moisture in those areas, the nutrients begin going back into the soil, and all sorts of fresh browse sprouts. Deer don't eat pine trees, but they relish these tender forbs. So in the long run, the fires can be a blessing for our deer herds. Again, though, the key factor in the equation is rainfall. If we don't get rainfall on those burned out areas this winter, the likelihood of them greening up next spring is fairly remote. "The burned out areas are certainly a concern, but right now even the habitat where fires haven't taken a toll are being stressed. Perennial plants such as cliffrose, which is a key food source for deer, can exist a long time with low moisture from year to year, but eventually that lack of moisture will kill off individual plants. You can only stress plants so many times until they become decadent. Although this hasn't happened to any great level across the state yet, some of our range people do view it as a potential problem. For the most part, habitat is fairly resilient and will eventually recover as it always seems to do. Moisture and time are the only requirements." The condition of the habitat isn't the only thing that bothers Lee, however. "What concerns me more is a lack of habitat for the future. We're losing it fast as more and more people move into Arizona and especially into the places that have been traditionally good deer areas. Just look all around Phoenix, where even the desert areas within a 50-mile radius once harbored decent deer numbers. Now many of them are covered with houses and shopping malls. The same thing is occurring around Prescott, Payson, Tucson, Flagstaff or even in the White Mountains, where more and more developments of ranchettes and such are springing up. Mule deer simply won't strive in subdivisions even if the residents plant acres and acres of succulent landscaping. So even if we get several years in a row of good rainfall at the right times, we might never reach the high deer populations of the past because there will be fewer places for deer to live." While the future appears filled with doom and gloom for Arizona's deer, in reality it could turn around quickly. In fact, even now there are places in the state where the herds are thriving and even growing somewhat, despite the so-so habitat conditions. One such place is the North Kaibab Plateau. Several years ago, a huge fire wiped out a large portion of the winter habitat on the west side. What remained has been in good shape for the most part, so the deer have done well. Still, the game department has continually managed the deer there to keep them in check. Lee feels the deer on the Kaibab are healthy. "The forage is in good shape but limited right now in that it will support only so many deer. We've attempted to keep the numbers down in such a way where the herd will rebound as the burned-out area comes back. That's why we're still issuing doe permits there. If we can hold the population down to the point where it won't destroy the good habitat that now exists, we'll never have to have a drastic cut on the deer numbers there." Another area where the deer have done fairly well is the far western edge of the state from Kingman on down to Yuma where rainfall has been significantly better over the last two years. The result was a slight increase in deer permits for the 2000 hunts. Coues deer have also fared a bit better, according to Lee. "We had been cutting back on mule deer permits for the past 10 years or so but didn't start making noticeable cuts in whitetail permits until the last couple of years. This is mainly due to the way Coues deer live in comparison to mule deer. "The mule deer tend to be in larger groups. So they need more water and forage. Whitetails move in smaller groups and stay at the higher elevations where the moisture has been more prevalent. Plus, whitetails are what I like to term as a 'bushier' animal; they wander over smaller areas and use dense cover a lot more than mule deer do. The result is a lesser need for water. They get much of it from the vegetation they eat as long as the moisture content is sufficient." At one time, Arizona's mule deer numbered somewhere between 250,000 to 300,000. Today, there are about 100,000, while the optimum goal for the available habitat is now about 200,000. Lee feels that goal is easily attainable. "It won't take much. We'll need some back to back years of good rainfall. Two would do it, but three would be even better. It can't be an 'every other one' deal. If we have successive years with good moisture, most of the does will drop twins, and during the next year, the yearling does will go into estrous and get serviced by a buck because they will have gained a lot more weight than they would have during a low-moisture year. In all likelihood that yearling will have a single fawn, but one is better than none. "I certainly can't predict this will happen in the immediate future. Yet if and when it does, we could again be enjoying the glory years of plenty of deer to go around. All we need is for Mother nature to quench the thirst of our deer herds." ------30-----

The first comment above is a total contradiction. The second would do little to get "numbers back up." I've already addressed this. In fact, it was a message to YOU, if I recall. I'll see if I can locate it again. Stopping the hunting of BUCKS has no relationship to increasing the OVERALL population. Bucks do not have fawns, so until we start killing does, other than to change the buck/doe ratio, HUNTING as now done has little to do with fawn recruitment and population increases. In fact, as I had previously stated, it could ADVERSELY affect a population in an area where habitat is poor, as it is in many of those units where populations have declined. THAT is exactly why the herds have declined. This is all mostly included in Biology 101. Now, if you really want to do something to increase the deer populations, start by doing a few rain dances every day. -TONY

-TONY

Not sure about the clarity factor, but if you determine the exit pupil, you'll see why the lower power is brighter. The EP is 4.2 for the 10X and 3.7 for the 15s. -TONY

Larger objective lenses also let in more light because they provide what is known as a larger "exit pupil." The exit pupil is merely the small disc of light that you see in the eyepiece when the binocs or a scope is held at arm's length. The size of the exit pupil is important because it tells you how much light is available. You can determine the size by dividing the objective lens diameter (in millimeters) by the magnification. In normal light, the human eye can only utilize an exit pupil of 2.5mm. When the light is bad, though, the eye can use up to 7mm, with an average of about 5mm. 10X binoculars or a scope with 42mm objective would have an exit pupil of 4.2; it is 5.6 for 56mm. Some companies use the term, relative brightness, rather than exit pupil to rate the brightness of scopes and binocs. In reality, it is meaningless and is nothing more than the square of the exit pupil. In other words, a scope with a 5mm exit pupil will have a relative brightness of 25. A 4mm exit pupil would be 16. For the nontechnical folks, it simply provides a comparison reference. -TONY

Well since it appears the interest has waned, here are the last two answers. 1. Elgin Gates -- He wrote Trophy hunter in Asia, Trophy hunter in Africa and The Gun Digest Book of Metallic Silhouette Shooting. He was alo instrumental in developing several wildcat handgun calibers as a result of his interest in silhouette shooting. The quote was from Trophy Hunter in Asia. 5. James Fenimore Cooper -- author of the Leatherstocking Tales that included in order of publication: The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans, The Prairie, The Pathfinder and The Deerslayer. The quote came from The Pioneers. The main character of the Leatherstocking Tales was Natty Bumpo, usually referred to as Deerslayer or Hawkeye, the latter of which was the Mash clue -- Hawkeye Pierce! In The Last of the Mohicans, which was considered his best work, Cooper used Poe as the name for that character but went back to Bumpo for his subsequent works. -TONY

These are gonna be the last ones, and they're toughies. Me think the only ones who might guess them are the cheaters amongst you that might have already seen them thru a google. Each one is from a different person. Use the #s for your guesses. Have fun. -TONY 1. "The true trophy hunter is a self-disciplined perfectionist seeking a single animal, the ancient patriarch well past his prime that is often an outcast from his own kind... If successful, he will enshrine the trophy in a place of honor. This is a more noble and fitting end than dying on some lost and lonely ledge where the scavengers will pick his bones, and his magnificent horns will weather away and be lost forever." 2. "Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsman grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one." 3. "I saw a guide-post surmounted by a pair of moose horns.... They are sometimes used for ornamental hat-trees, together with deer’s horns, in front entries; but ... I trust that I shall have a better excuse for killing a moose than that I may hang my hat on his horns." 4. "The only reason I ever played golf in the first place was so I could afford to hunt and fish." 5. "The flesh is sweeter, where the creature has some chance for its life; for that reason, I always use a single ball, even if it be at a bird or a squirrel; besides, it saves lead, for, when a body knows how to shoot, one piece of lead is enough for all, except hard-lived animals." 6. "There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast."

Those are some very nice mounts, Gino. -TONY

Marshall, See HuntandShoot.org. -TONY

The burros on FEDERAL land and those within the Lake Pleasant county park, are a protected species and are SUPPOSED to be managed under the the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act of 1971. In SOME cases, when a population burgeons, the BLM or USFS will round up a bunch and put them up for adoption under the Adopt-a-Horse or-Burro Program, just as they often do with wild horses. BUT...I don't believe they can legally KILL them under the law, and there isn't much demand from the public to adopt burros. So most of them go unmolested. One of the major problems in the past with many of the water catchments in the southwest part of the state where bighorn sheep roam have been burros. They can readily take over and destroy a catchment, thus causing sheep to look elsewhere. As for Lake Pleasant, something will have to be done soon. Whenever I fish there, I can usually count on seeing four or five different groups in a few hours. And with no restrictive fences, they are free to roam out of the park into other areas. I'm surprised they aren't roaming the streets of Sun City yet as they do in Oatman, where they are considered a tourist attraction. -TONY

Nope. But good guess, nonetheless. -TONY So has everyone given up? Keith??? -TONY

MarC has been doing all my mounts for about 12-15 years now. He did the little buck below that came out of 36B, and has mounted every animal shown in the OW's NEW Trophy Room thread. When Chris worked for Bob Peers at Quail Run, he mounted many of my critters including the 'lope upper right above, which are in the OW's Original Trophy Room thread. Before Chris, Fred Campbell, who lived in Avondale and is now deceased, did all my work. That was back in the 1960s and 70s. -TONY

Aaah, that sounds good. I need someplace to let the air out of a critter this fall since I got shut out on AZ permits. -TONY