[Nj_federation_alert] Wallkill River Meeting Followup

[ap.maurosr at verizon.net]

This summary was sent to me regarding lasts night s Wallkill River NWR meeting (Alternative "B" is for the bear hunt.) Please see the contact to send comments to at the end of the email.
Ant

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In my opinion, tonight's meeting for comments to the Wallkill River NWR Draft CCP went well. The count tonight was 99 people and 29 had signed up to speak. About 85% of the speakers were for Alternative B. A few wanted alternative B without the bear hunt. A couple would not support alternative B because it had a bear hunt included. We did have that guy from PA who said that biologists want a bear hunt because they are hunters. 
 
I took a count of the people that I know from Federation meetings and events and the count was 15. Refuge personnel said this meeting was much more civil than the Wednesday night meeting. 
 
I always walk away from these things with a couple of thoughts that seem to stay with me. The first one tonight is that some people seem to trust wildlife biologists with setting up deer hunts due to over population but have no trust of biologists as far as setting up bear hunts in order to control the population. (Illogical and not based on a scientific approach on their part.)
The second one, from tonight, is that there are preservations and conservationists. The preservations don't want any tree cut down so that the refuge looks more like it was when the land was just occupied by the indians. The conservationists don't mind if some trees are cut down because the different successional growth provides for a larger variety of wildlife than just the "bogturtle". I heard that word enough times tonight. Unfortunately, to many organizations seem to be preservations.
 
Thanks to all of our members and friends that attended the meeting tonight.
 

 
PS -  Remember all of us have until March 10th to sent additional written or emailed comments to:
Beth Goldstein

Planning Team Leader

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

300 Westgate Center Dr.

Hadley, MA 01035

Phone: 413-253-8564

or

northeastplanning at fws.gov (put Wallkill River on the subject line.)


Anthony P. Mauro, Sr.
Chairman, New Jersey Outdoor Alliance http://www.njoutdooralliance.org