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to MDC Home Page2. Duck season outlook brightest in decades
3. Studies seek insight into flood's effects on wildlife
I am the Coyote that sings each night at dark;
It was by gobbling prairie-dogs that I got such a bark.
At least a thousand prairie-dogs I have fattened on, you see,
And every bark they had in them is reproduced in me.
Earnest Thompson Seaton, "The Coyote's Song"
Two brought home deer. All came away with a new sense of confidence and independence.
ASHLAND, Mo. -- The sun was still climbing toward the eastern horizon on Oct. 11 when five hunters rolled out of sleeping bags at Charles W. Green Conservation Area, tugged on warm clothes and completed their ensembles with hunter-orange vests and caps. They did last-minute checks of rifles and other equipment, then joined their guides outside the bunk house. Pairing off, they headed for spots they had scouted for deer sign the day before.
Opening morning of deer season is a familiar ritual in Missouri, but this hunt was different in some respects. One was the date. Missouri's regular firearms deer season doesn't open until Nov. 15. The other difference was the hunters themselves. Unlike the average group of deer hunters, this hunt's participants were all women.
The hunters had something in common besides gender. All had completed the deer hunting skills course during a three-day Becoming an Outdoors-Woman workshop sponsored by the Missouri Department of Conservation. The hunt gave them a chance to apply their new knowledge and skills. It also gave the Conservation Department an opportunity to field test the idea of special hunts designed to take workshop graduates "Beyond Becoming an Outdoors-Woman."
Jane Doss of Monett was the first BBOW hunter to tag a deer. Not long after sunrise she and guide Sara Rittman of Jefferson City saw an adult doe, a fawn and a smaller deer. Doss waited for a clean shot, which never came. Eventually, the deer walked out of sight. Her patience was rewarded a few minutes later, when a yearling doe stepped into an open strip in a corn field 50 yards from the hay-bale blind. The deer offered a perfect broadside shot, but not an easy one.
The deer stood at the right-hand edge of Doss' field of view, a difficult angle for the right-handed shooter. "I practically had to lean all the way out of the blind to make the shot," she later recalled. "When I shot, the deer ran off. I thought I might have missed it."
So intense was Doss' concentration on making the shot that she didn't experience the fumbling excitement known among deer hunters as "buck fever." Only afterwards did she notice her hands shaking. Apparently it hadn't affected her aim, though. She had hit the deer directly in the heart. The animal ran only a few yards, collapsing just out of sight around the corner of the corn patch.
After field dressing her deer, Doss reminisced about the years she had pursued hunting with only limited encouragement. She recalled buying her first gun, a pump-action air rifle, with saved-up allowance money when she was 12 years old. Through the years, she hunted squirrels, rabbits and frogs. In later years, her husband and son hunted deer. But she was never encouraged to try to bag a whitetail.
That changed with BBOW. Having killed her first deer the first day of the hunt left her free to accept her husband's invitation and spend the rest of the weekend bowhunting with him. Next year, she says, she will accompany him to Wyoming to hunt elk and mule deer.
The success rate in the first BBOW hunt was slightly better than the statewide average. Of the five women who hunted, two bagged deer. But as the five hunters and their guides shared the day's experiences, the consensus that emerged was that the hunt had been an unqualified success, even for those who didn't even see deer.
Vicky Cartmill of Grain Valley said she had hunted with her husband for 15 years, but learned more by hunting on her own. "It was a whole different story," she said. "Instead of just going out hunting, I was going out to learn to hunt. That made a big difference in what I learned."
Pat Smith of Owensville echoed Cartmill's sentiment, saying that she had always let her husband handle pre- and post-hunt details, such as cleaning her rifle. When she returned home this time, and he offered to clean her rifle, she told him she would do it herself. She felt she was no longer going to be just a token female on future hunts, but an equal member of the hunting party.
"I liked the challenge," said Doss, "to see if I could really do it." She said none of her woman friends hunt or pursue other outdoor activities, which she says is a pity. Given the opportunity to learn about such pastimes in BOW workshops, they might find them rewarding.
Building on this year's experience, the Conservation Department plans to offer more outdoor opportunities for women next year. The number of BOW workshops offered in 1998 will increase from two to three. And next year's Beyond Becoming an Outdoor-Woman hunts will include deer, turkey, waterfowl, squirrel, rabbit and quail. Those who study birdwatching, fishing, canoeing and camping in BOW also will get a chance to practice their newfound skills in organized activities after the workshops.
To learn more about the Becoming an Outdoors-Woman program, contact: Mariah Hughes, Missouri Department of Conservation, P.O. Box 180, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180. Phone (573) 751-4115, ext.189.
-jim low/mariah hughes-
Excellent waterfowl numbers and reasonably good water and food supplies should make this year's duck season one to remember.
JEFFERSON CITY -- The water is waiting and the ducks are coming. Missouri waterfowl hunters biggest challenge this year will be deciding which areas to hunt and trying to time their hunts to coincide with peak waterfowl migrations.
Duck season opens Oct. 23 in Missouri's North Zone, Oct. 30 in the Middle Zone and Nov. 13 in the South Zone.
Dave Graber, a waterfowl research biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation, says numbers of several duck species are at long-term highs. Overall, numbers of nesting ducks have soared 70 percent since 1990, the highest level on record. Mallard numbers reached 9.9 million, a 25 percent jump from last year's already strong numbers. Gadwall nesting numbers jumped 31 percent to 3.9 million, and northern shovelers climbed 19 percent to 4.1 million.
Two duck species that had declined in recent years, the American wigeon and northern pintail, rebounded 37 percent and 30 percent to 3.1 million and 3.6 million birds, respectively. The only duck species that have not shared in the recovery are greater and lesser scaup, which remain 25 percent below long-term average numbers. Wildlife managers are working to identify the factors preventing those species' recovery.
All that is great, but quality hunting depends on more than duck numbers. If Missouri wetlands are dry, or if waterfowl foods are in short supply, the birds won't linger in the Show-me State. This year, though, ducks should find plenty of hospitable spots to dally on their way south.
According to Graber, Missouri wetlands produced a good crop of natural waterfowl foods this year. He said sparse rainfall during the late summer and early fall have left some areas a little short of standing water to attract ducks, but this could change with additional average autumn precipitation. Federal refuges, conservation areas and other areas that use pumps and water-control structures to maintain wetland habitat have plenty of quality habitat to attract migrating birds.Aerial surveys flown a week before the season opener showed average numbers of ducks for that time of year. Graber said he expected many of these birds to still be around for duck season, and their numbers could be augmented substantially by more arrivals in the meantime.
As always, said Graber, the exact timing of peak waterfowl migration will depend on weather patterns. If the slow progress of this year's autumn weather continues, Missouri could see moderate numbers of birds moving through the state throughout the season. On the other hand, if winter arrives on the heels of one or two drastic cold snaps, most of the waterfowl migration could take place in one or two dramatic pulses, producing fantastic hunting for brief periods.
Graber noted that duck hunters will have 10 more days of hunting this year than last year, and will be allowed to shoot more ducks. "This is the first time we have had a 60-day season since the 1950s," he said, "and hunters will be allowed to take six ducks daily instead of five. Plus, they will be allowed two mallard hens,instead of one,and three pintails."
Waterfowl hunters also have a new option for nontoxic shot shells. Conditional approval by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will allow hunters to use tungsten alloy shot this year for the first time. Tungsten shot is ballistically superior to the other options, steel and bismuth shot, but it is also more expensive, costing as much as $2 per shot shell. "It's available," says Graber, "if you can find it and if you can afford it."
Waterfowl hunters will find new regulations in effect at Bob Brown Conservation Area on the Missouri River in Holt County this year. The $5 per hunter fee charged in the past has been eliminated. Hunters need only pick up a daily hunting record card at one of the area's parking lots to hunt any of the four pools open to waterfowl hunting. There will be no restriction on the number of hunters using each pool. Hunters still will be required to have valid state and federal permits and stamps and must fill out and return the hunting record cards.
For complete information about duck and goose hunting seasons, permits and regulations, consult the 1997-98 Migratory Bird Digest, available wherever hunting permits are sold. Information about waterfowl concentrations in the state are available via the Internet at <http://www.mdc.mo.gov>. Click on "Hunting."
-jim low-
Researchers continue to monitor changes in wildlife habitat wrought by record-breaking floods.
JEFFERSON CITY -- The great Missouri River flood of 1993 is a fading memory to many Missourians, but it is very much alive to a group of about 30 researchers and technicians working on a long-term study. They hope to determine what effects the flood had on wild animals, from mice to reptiles, fish and birds.
Karen Bataille is a wildlife staff biologist with the Missouri Department of Conservation. "The purpose of the Missouri River Post Flood Evaluation project is to evaluate the scour holes left by the flood and to determine their value to fish and wildlife," Bataille says. She adds the flood has given researchers from state and federal agencies an opportunity to learn about floodplains and the fish and wildlife habitat that has been missing since the river was channelized.
The flood has opened up some of the floodplain for fish and wildlife because some of the damaged areas have been purchased by MDC or are enrolled in the federal Wetland Reserve Program now. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has bought some flood-damaged tracts for the Big Muddy National Wildlife Refuge. Many of these areas are no longer protected by levees and will be open to future flooding. Wetland Reserve is a program of the United States Department of Agriculture that lets farmers and landowners set aside land in permanent or long-term easements, creating wetlands that can't be farmed or disturbed.
One of the results of the study is the discovery that there is a need for more than one type of wetland in the floodplain. Necessary wetlands range from temporary basins to permanent oxbows, like those at Cooley Lake and Sunshine Lake, as well as smaller scour holes created by the flood.
In dry years, shorebirds, like plovers and sandpipers, can probe for worms and small mollusks on mud flats edging scour holes or oxbow wetlands. In wet years, when scour holes are flooded too deeply to be useful to shorebirds, the birds can shift to mudflats on the temporary basins. "We see a need for a series of wetlands of all different types," Bataille says.
Bataille says that conservation areas left open to seasonal floods will complement managed wetland areas such as Grand Pass Conservation Area near Marshall. She also notes that bird use of floodplain wetlands is opportunistic, and that it depends on the degree and timing of basin flooding. She says that the timing, depth and severity of flooding affects vegetation. Newly established stands of cottonwood and willows are set back with each new flood, and flood timing affects seed dispersal and germination.
Sponsors of the four-year study include the Conservation Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Natural Resources Conservation Service, Ducks Unlimited, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the University of Missouri. Several sponsors have contributed funds for the project; students from the University of Missouri are doing some of the work.
The study began in 1994; much of the field work will be completed during 1998. Some of the work was hampered by additional floods in 1995 and 1996, but work has gone ahead at full speed in 1997.
-jim auckley-
News Services Coordinator
(314) 751-4115, ext. 243
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