The trial of a man who worked for a wealthy Florida businessman accused of hunting illegally in Montana began Monday in Yellowstone County District Court.

Toby Lee Griffith is on trial for a single felony count of unlawful possession of a game animal. His trial before Judge Susan Watters is expected to last three days.

Griffith is one of eight people charged last year in what authorities said were extensive illegal hunting activities over several years on two large ranches in Yellowstone and Big Horn counties.

At the center of the charges is Mark Morse, the millionaire owner of an exclusive retirement community near Orlando. Morse and his wife are awaiting trial on several charges related to illegal hunting.

By Glen Wunderlich

As predicted, Michigan’s deer management strategy continues to be an abysmal failure.  And, to prove it, all one has to do is to review the statistics.  According to State Farm Insurance, the number of vehicles on U.S. roadways has grown by 7 percent over the last five years.  But the number of times those vehicles have collided with deer has swelled by much more than that. Michigan remains second in the nation on the list of states with car/deer crashes – a 1 in 78 chance for any one vehicle to collide with a deer statewide. 

Using its claims data, State Farm estimates 2.4 million collisions between deer and vehicles occurred in the U.S. during the two-year period between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009 (100,000 per month).  That’s 18.3 percent more than five years earlier.  To put it another way, one of these unfortunate encounters occurs every 26 seconds (although they are much more likely during the last three months of the year and in the early evening).   

These findings are nothing new to us in Michigan but a June 2011 report issued by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) offers some insight on how hunters are impacting the results of deer management policy.  In spite of newly created deer hunting seasons that run nearly one third of the entire year, in year 2010 hunter numbers decreased 4 percent and their hunting effort decreased 6 percent from the previous year.  Yet, the MDNR’s survey of some 50,000 deer hunters indicated increased satisfaction with their hunting experience.  On the surface such news may seem encouraging – that is, until one discovers that over 55 percent of the same hunters surveyed were not satisfied with their overall hunting experience.  So, what’s the rub? Read more

Federal Premium® Ammunition’s “Bullet Breakdown” Video Educates, Informs Hunters on Bullet Selection

ANOKA, Minn. – Federal Premium® Ammunition’s award-winning “Bullet Breakdown” video shows hunters how different bullets perform and why selection is so important. It is available to watch on Federal’s channel on YouTube, at www.youtube.com/user/FederalPremiumAmmo#p/u/1/nMKvetaMqhE.

Breaking down the Options
Hunters have many different ammunition choices as they prepare for their next hunt. The experts at Federal Premium created a testing scenario to help show what to look for in a rifle cartridge-and what to expect on impact.

Four bullet types and three different impact tests give these Federal Premium rounds a workout. Read more

 
Michigan deer hunters harvested 6 percent fewer whitetails in 2010 than in 2009, but they said they found the season more enjoyable than the previous year, according to the Department of Natural Resources annual mail survey.
 
An estimated 656,500 hunters spent 9.6 million days afield, taking nearly 418,000 deer. Overall, 44 percent of hunters harvested at least one deer.
 
The survey was sent to more than 50,000 deer-license buyers.
 
The survey showed a 4 percent decrease from 2009 in the number of individuals buying deer licenses in 2010 and a 4 percent decrease in the number of licenses sold.
 
Hunters killed 1 percent fewer antlered bucks and 10 percent fewer antlerless deer than in 2009. However, hunters reported increased satisfaction with the season in terms of number of deer seen, deer harvested and overall hunting experience.
 
The complete survey is posted online at www.michigan.gov/dnrhunting.

Jim Orsello is the hero of his Woodbury neighborhood for solving a miserable problem – goose poop.

His apartment complex was thrown into a fecal furor this spring when an infestation of geese carpeted lawns and sidewalks with the birds’ stinky nuggets.

Orsello’s solution – deception – was as old as nature itself. He installed a floating alligator head…more here

By Glen Wunderlich

When I began deer hunting, I had never heard of any type of record books for hunters.  And, when I took a big buck in 1986 in Michigan’s Iron County in the Upper Peninsula, I performed the field dressing duties, as I had in the past.  To get the meat cooled quickly, I had learned that it was good to open the animal well into the neck.  It had always been about the meat.  I never learned about any techniques to preserve a trophy until I had spoiled the cape of what was to be my first mount. 

I was able to trade the entire hide of the 190-pound field dressed buck for a cape from another deer.  (The hide from my deer was used on a full-body mount of an 18-point buck displayed in a sporting goods store in St. Claire Shores, where my unwitting incision was cleverly hid from view.)   Since then, the substitute cape and rack have hung on a wall. Read more

The opinion article concerning bears by Jennifer Hobgood of the Humane Society of the United States misleads the public.

The Humane Society of the United States, or HSUS, is an animal rights organization that preys on urban folks who wish to support wildlife and animals but are clueless to the organization’s true goals and its “animals have the same rights as people” policy. The HSUS is not associated with nor supports any local animal shelter or organizations that provide services helping animals as their leaders believe no person should benefit from animal use or “ownership.” Their goal is to raise money to perpetuate animal rights by opposing through the legal and political systems sustainable, conservation based hunting, farming, ranching and pet ownership.

The Florida black bear is the same species found in stable and increasing numbers across the country. Never was it in danger of extinction. Unfortunately, through politics and financial might, the HSUS more here…