Candus Thomson
On the Outdoors

BALTIMORE SUN

In his final message to the state's outdoors lovers, departed Department of Natural Resources Secretary Ron Franks declared: "All in all, I'd say 2006 shaped up to be a pretty good year for Maryland's natural resources."
The good dentist from the Eastern Shore must have been snorting laughing gas when he penned that one for the winter edition of his agency's magazine.
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The Division of Fish and Wildlife's Endangered and Nongame Species Program and the NJ Audubon Society are entering their fourth year in a partnership to identify amphibian (salamanders, frogs, toads, newts) crossings in northern NJ. Volunteers are needed to survey assigned sites at night during the month of March, 2007.

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By JAN BARRY
RECORD STAFF WRITER

Builders are fuming about not being told where they can build.
Property owners want to know if they'll be able to develop -- and how they'll be compensated if they can't.
Environmentalists are puzzled that more housing seems slated for mountain lake neighborhoods.
Local planners are wondering what, exactly, the state's going to allow to be built in their communities.
And everyone's frustrated about having to comment on the big plan to preserve Highlands reservoir lands without yet getting all of the facts behind that plan.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Elaine Makatura (609) 292-2994
Darlene Yuhas (609) 984-1795

(07/01) TRENTON * Governor Jon S. Corzine has approved the appointment of veteran wildlife conservationist David Chanda to serve as Director of the Department of Environmental Protection's Division of Fish and Wildlife, DEP Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson announced today.
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Home News Tribune Online 01/5/07

The South River Borough Council's decision to officially sanction and regulate local trap, neuter and release efforts may seem to be an innocuous way of controlling the area's feral cat population, but the initiative is a blunder. For one, the practice known as TNR is an environmental nightmare. For another, the borough has promised to seek grant dollars so that a group of residents can expand the program even further. As a result, instead of getting feral cats out of the wild — where they have never belonged and do enormous damage every year — the borough is inviting even greater harm.
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The following message regarding deer season information updates and preliminary harvest estimates was sent to subscribers to the Division of Fish and Wildlife hunting Listserv.

The 2006-07 deer seasons continue with Winter Bow now open statewide and Permit Shotgun and Permit Muzzleloader seasons open in some zones. Preliminary harvest information is now available and detailed on the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife Web site at http://www.njfishandwildlife.com/news/2007/deerupdate.htm Read More...

(FOR HUNTERS, FISHERMEN, TRAPPERS & OTHER NEOPHYTES)

This morning I had breakfast with an old friend. He mentioned the continuing misuse of the hunting and fishing excise tax money by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. These are the hundreds of millions of dollars collected annually as taxes on arms, ammunition, fishing tackle, and motorboat fuel. These funds are specified for sport fish and wildlife programs managed by State (not Federal) fish and wildlife agencies. The only portion of these funds that may be used by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (the Administrator of the funds) is a specified amount for administration. The US Fish and Wildlife Service not only continues to withhold more than this amount, they are cleverly influencing the use of the funds to advance the environmental and animal rights agendas so in vogue in Washington these days.
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