Cab 2008 Feb

advisoryboardmeetingcorrectedverison.
txt
0001
1 THE DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND
2
NATURAL RESOURCES WILDLIFE AND
3
FRESHWATER FISHERIES DIVISION
4
Meeting of February 9, 2008
5
STATE CAPITOL AUDITORIUM
6
600 Dexter Avenue
7
Montgomery, Alabama
8
9 Before the Conservation Advisory Board
10
Beginning at 9:00 a.m.
11
12
APPEARANCES
13
14
BOARD MEMBERS
15 Mr. Dan L. Moultrie, Chairman
16 P.O. Box 188
17 Verbena, AL 36091
18 Congressional District 6
19
20 Commissioner M. Barnett Lawley
21 Department of Conservation
22 P.O. Box 301450
23 Montgomery, AL 36103
0002
1 Mr. Gaines Smith
2 Alabama Co-op Extension Service
3 109 Duncan Hall
4 Auburn, AL 36849
5 Statewide
6
7 Mr. Bill Hatley
8 639 Estate Drive
9 Gulf Shores, AL 36542
11
12 Dr. A. Wayne May
13 188 County Road 203
14 Eutaw, AL 35462
16
17 Mr. Louis W. Coles
18 6207 County Road 625
19 Enterprise, AL 36330
Page 1
advisoryboardmeetingcorrectedverison.txt
21
22
23
0003
1 Dr. Warren Strickland
2 930 Franklin Street
3 Huntsville, AL 35801
5
6 Mr. Johnny Johnson
7 1018 54th Street East
8 Tuscaloosa, AL 35403
10
11 Mr. Raymond Jones, Jr.
12 401 Franklin Street
13 Huntsville, AL 35801
15
16 Mr. George Harbin
17 1177 Elliott Road
18 Gadsden, AL 35904
20
21
22
23
0004
1 Ms. Robin Nummy
2 Alabama Department of Conservation &
3 Natural Resources
4 64 North Union Street
5 Montgomery, AL 36130
6
7 Also Present: Fred Harders
8
Gary Moody
9
Corky Pugh
10
Allan Andress
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Page 2
18
19
20
21
22
23
0005
1
INDEX
2
3 Call to Order .................... 6
4 Invocation ....................... 6
5 Introduction of Advisory
6 Board Members .................... 7
7 Approval of Minutes of Last
8 Meeting .......................... 10
9 Report by District ............... 11
10 Public Hearing ................... 35
11 New Business ..................... 261
12 Season and Bag Limits ............ 273
13 Selection of Date and Location
14 of March, 2008 Meeting ........... 279
15 Meeting Adjourned ................ 279
16 Certificate Page ................. 280
17
18
--o0o-19
20
21
22
23
0006
1 CONSERVATION BOARD ADVISORY MEETING
2
Saturday, February 9, 2008
3
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: The February
5 9th, 2008 meeting of the Conservation
6 Advisory Board will come to order.
7
I would like to welcome
8 everybody to the State Capitol
9 Auditorium. The Board is glad that
10 you're able to be here today.
11
The invocation will be given
12 by Mr. Bill Hatley.
13
Mr. Hatley.
14
MR. HATLEY: Let us pray,
Page 3
15 please.
16
If you would, let's pause for
17 a moment of silent prayer in memory of
18 our troops who are fighting to keep our
19 freedoms as we know them at this time.
20 Just a moment, please.
21
Our Gracious and Eternal
22 Heavenly Father, once again, we come
23 before Thy glorious throne begging Thy
0007
1 forgiveness for our many sins.
2
We ask in a special way today
3 that you would be with all of those who
4 have gathered here today who are
5 concerned about the conservation and
6 preservation of all of the glorious
7 animals that you have placed before us.
8
We pray in a special way that
9 you would make us better stewards of
10 all you have placed in our charge.
11
We pray now that you would
12 lead, guide, and direct us through the
13 days of our lives. We ask this in
14 Jesus Christ's name and for his sake.
15 Amen
16
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you,
17 Mr. Hatley.
18
For the next order of
19 business, I'd like to call Commissioner
20 Lawley to introduce the Conservation
21 Advisory Board.
22
Commissioner.
23
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Thank
0008
1 you, Dan.
2
I'm glad to see the turnout
3 here today. This is one of the largest
4 crowds that I remember in my tenure
5 here.
6
I want to apologize to
7 everybody in advance. I have to be in
8 Birmingham this afternoon by 3:00
9 o'clock. So, if we're not through by
10 1:00 and you see me leave, just know
11 that it's something I have to do or get
Page 4
12 run off from my house by my wife.
13
As we usually do, we'll start
14 at the end with George Harbin and let
15 every member introduce themselves and
16 the district that they represent.
17
MR. HARBIN: My name is
18 George Harbin. I represent District 4.
19
MR. JONES: Raymond Jones. I
20 represent District 5.
21
MR. JOHNSON: Johnny Johnson,
22 District 7.
23
DR. STRICKLAND: Warren
0009
1 Strickland, Congressional District 5.
2
MR. COLES: Louis Coles,
3 District 2.
4
DR. MAY: Wayne May, District
5 7.
6
DR. SMITH: Gaines Smith,
7 Statewide.
8
MR. HATLEY: Bill Hatley,
9 District 1.
10
MR. CHAIRMAN: Dan Moultrie,
11 District 6.
12
Commissioner, anything else?
13
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: No.
14
15 Commissioner.
16
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I will
17 say one thing, Dan.
18
In light of the number of
19 people that want to speak -- normally,
20 the first meeting, we give a division
21 report from each of the five divisions
22 we have in the Department of
23 Conservation; but we're going to waive
0010
1 that this year.
2
The division that has regs
3 that they would like for the Board to
4 consider, they will present those.
5 Other than that, that will be the
6 extent of their reporting; and that
7 should save us some time, also.
8
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.
Page 5
9
Are there any corrections to
10 the minutes of the May 19th, 2007
11 Advisory Board Meeting?
12
MR. HARBIN: I move they be
13 approved as presented.
14
MR. HATLEY: Second.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: We have a
16 motion and a second. All in favor?
17
THE BOARD: Aye.
18
MR. CHAIRMAN: The minutes
19 stand approved.
20
The next order of business is
21 for the members to report by district.
22 This is a relatively new program within
23 the Advisory Board we put in several
0011
1 years ago that allows each district to
2 see who their representative is and
3 find out if that representative of the
4 Board has been working or not in their
5 district.
6
Starting with Mr. Hatley. I
7 know you're on your own today. We know
8 you've been working. So why don't you
9 tell us what you've been doing.
10
Speak into the microphone,
11 Mr. Hatley.
12
MR. HATLEY: Most people can
13 hear me.
14
District 1, for the most
15 part, has been relatively quiet as far
16 as the hunting is concerned.
17
For those of you who don't
18 know, District 1 takes in Mobile and
19 Baldwin Counties. Most of our deer
20 hunting is in the northern part of
21 Baldwin County.
22
I would like to commend one
23 or two officers in my district.
0012
1 Mr. Clem Cornell, who represents the
2 northern part of Baldwin County. He
3 did an outstanding job of clearing up
4 some poaching issues that we had down
5 there.
Page 6
6
Also, in Wilcox County, I
7 would like to commend Officer Dan
8 (inaudible) for investigating night
9 hunting, baiting, and some dog issues
10 we had. He did an outstanding job
11 working with our public relations on
12 the dog hunting issue.
13
I would like to bring up -- I
14 would like to commend our Marine
15 Resources Division and our Conservation
16 Officers.
17
For those of you who read the
18 paper and watch the national news, we
19 had a tragic event occur in our
20 district this year. We had an -- I
21 won't to say a father. I won't even
22 say an individual. This guy was beyond
23 anything I could describe. He dropped
0013
1 four babies off a bridge in our
2 district.
3
The response of the Marine
4 Resources and our Conservation Officers
5 and Marine Police -- all of our
6 departments did an outstanding job.
7 They used our equipment. They used our
8 boats. They used our resources, our
9 communications; and they assisted in
10 the recovery of all four of those
11 children.
12
If you guys, while you're
13 here, want to hear some bad stories,
14 you talk to these two gentlemen sitting
15 right down here on the front row and
16 talk with Allan Andress about what
17 happened under those circumstances with
18 that situation.
19
That's about it.
20
Mr. Chairman.
21
22 Mr. Hatley.
23
Out of District 2, Louis
0014
1 Coles.
2
MR. COLES: Thank you,
Page 7
3 Mr. Chairman.
4
This was the first year for
5 an alligator season at WF George
6 Reserve or at Lake Eufala last August,
7 and it was deemed a success with 14
8 alligators captured.
9
Dove season this past fall in
10 District 2 was a normal season. I have
11 had no inquiries from my district for
12 changing the dove season dates.
13
The deer harvest this past
14 season started off very slow, due
15 mainly to a tremendous acorn crop and
16 the tremendous heat that we had and the
17 drought, being that the deer were not
18 being seen.
19
Some processors reported that
20 their numbers were off as much as 30 to
21 50 percent, but the numbers increased
22 drastically after January 1st.
23
Our rut in Southeast Alabama
0015
1 came in this year around January 17th
2 and 18th and is still going on. On
3 Tuesday of this week, I observed fresh
4 scrapes.
5
This past deer season was the
6 third season for the Three Points or
7 Better on One Side Rule for Barbour
8 County. I have had no complaints about
9 this from the land owners or hunters in
10 Barbour County.
11
When this Board passed this
12 rule, part of that motion asked the
13 Conservation Department to maintain
14 harvest data to help this Board be
15 better informed to make a decision at
16 the end of a five-year period to
17 continue this or to revise it.
18
Up to this point, citizens in
19 Barbour County have been asked to raise
20 the funds to pay part or all for the
21 data collections necessary.
22
It is my opinion that if this
23 is a function of the Conservation
Page 8
0016
1 Department, then the Conservation
2 Department needs to fully fund it.
3
Dog deer hunting complaints
4 continue to be heard from not permitted
5 counties with officers responding to
6 complaints of trespassing, destruction
7 of private property, assault, and
8 intrusion of dogs on private property.
9
Thank you.
10
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you
11 Mr. Coles.
12
Grant Lynch is out with the
13 flu today; is that correct?
14
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Correct.
15
He normally has District 3.
16
District 4 is Mr. George
17 Harbin.
18
MR. HARBIN: Yes, sir.
19
My name is George Harbin. I
20 represent District 4. The first thing
21 I want to do is say that Commissioner
22 Sparks and Commissioner Lawley said
23 last meeting time that we were going to
0017
1 run a stay in several northeastern
2 counties. It's my understanding that's
3 pretty successful.
4
The biggest complaints I have
5 is the use of dogs crossing on somebody
6 else's property. Other than that,
7 everything is relatively quiet.
8
Kevin Johnson and his crew
9 and Commissioner Lawley should be
10 commended about working Fayette County,
11 Franklin County, Marion County, and
12 Lamar County.
13
14 Mr. Harbin.
15
District 5, Raymond Jones.
16
MR. JONES: I attended a
17 meeting recently held by the Department
18 on the state of catfish in the
19 Tennessee River Basin. It was a very
20 interesting study, very well done by
Page 9
21 the Department. That had received a
22 good bit of comment from the public.
23
Also, Mr. Harbin, we don't
0018
1 have any dog deer hunting complaints in
2 North Alabama. Warren and I have taken
3 care of that.
4
For those of you who don't
5 know, we don't have dog deer hunting in
6 North Alabama.
7
There have been several
8 things -- we had a very poor acorn crop
9 in North Alabama.
10
We did have a very intense
11 but brief rut, and that tended to
12 happen toward the middle of January.
13
14 Mr. Jones.
15
Dr. Strickland, District 5.
16
DR. STRICKLAND: I have to
17 agree with Ray. Ray and I both
18 represent District 5.
19
One of the things that I do
20 want to point out is that our
21 Conservation Officers were quite busy.
22 Again, we had quite a bit of activity
23 with regard to poaching and
0019
1 trespassing.
2
If I'm not mistaken, our
3 Conservation Officers probably made a
4 higher number of arrests than any other
5 county in the State of Alabama. They
6 were extremely busy.
7
I want to take my hat off to
8 Joe Lindsey and support from the
9 Madison County and Limestone County
10 Conservation Officers for the job that
11 they have done. It's hard work and
12 it's a dangerous job, and those guys
13 really need to be commended for such a
14 great job. They are definitely making
15 a difference.
16
I have to agree with Ray
17 again. I had a chance to go by the -Page 10
18 we have a couple of deer processors
19 that are pretty close to my house.
20 Normally, you can tell exactly when the
21 rut starts because the bucks will start
22 coming in. I'll make a trip down there
23 about once a week.
0020
1
One of the things I did
2 notice was that the upper end ruts, we
3 just were not seeing them in January.
4 I think the drought had a pretty big
5 effect on the buck harvest season in
6 Northern Alabama.
7
The Conservation Officer
8 normally tells me that in periods of
9 extremely dry weather -- and we were in
10 extreme high drought for the last
11 couple of years in Northern Alabama -12 it normally affects the very young and
13 the older aged class bucks. We didn't
14 seem to see the number of older aged
15 class bucks.
16
Other than that, I have
17 nothing else to report. I did get -18 there was one other thing that I wanted
19 to bring up.
20
I got a lot of very positive
21 reports with regards to the buck limit
22 that was imposed, very few negatives.
23 Most of the reports have been in favor
0021
1 of having a buck limit.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Very good.
3 Thank you, Dr. Strickland.
4
Within District 6, there's
5 usually very little that goes on.
6 However, two things of note that needs
7 to be noted in the state.
8
Yesterday was the grand
9 opening of the Guntersville State Park.
10 We will have our next meeting at the
11 Guntersville State Park.
12
Commissioner, I know you may
13 want to speak on it. I have not seen
14 it. The Commissioner says it's as nice
Page 11
15 as any Five Star resort that's in the
16 state.
17
Would you like to speak on
18 that real quick?
19
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Mark
20 Easterwood is here. It's really a
21 facility to be proud of.
22
I think our next meeting is
23 on March 8th. It's very popular. I
0022
1 know the Governor's office tried to
2 call up there and get a retreat lined
3 up for the cabinet members, and they
4 were not able to get a reservation.
5 They're booked for another three
6 months. So that's good. That's a good
7 problem.
8
I want to congratulate Mark
9 and his people on the work they've done
10 in the completion of this facility. If
11 you have a chance to get by and visit,
12 it's worth the trip.
13
We'll also be there in March.
14
15 Commissioner.
16
The other thing is that we've
17 had a lot of the schools in our area
18 involved, mainly schools that you don't
19 view as being involved in hunting and
20 fishing.
21
Again, my hat's off to Ray
22 Metsler and Marissa Sasser. They have
23 done a fantastic job with the Archery
0023
1 School programs. It is proceeding.
2 We'll have another State Championship
3 this year on May 1st.
4
It will be bigger and better,
5 and that program continues to amaze me
6 because of the interest in it. The
7 interest within those schools is just
8 truly outstanding. So thank you all
9 for a great job you're doing on that.
10
District 7, Mr. Johnny
11 Johnson.
Page 12
12
MR. JOHNSON: Thank you,
13 Mr. Chairman.
14
It's been quite active in
15 this district this time. We have -- I
16 have attended a number of meetings.
17
On August 26th, I attended a
18 meeting with a group. There were
19 probably about 24 present in this
20 meeting. They went over the new
21 regulations and handed out the booklet
22 and so forth bringing hunters up to
23 date as to what was kind of happening.
0024
1
There was another meeting
2 with land owners and hunters on August
3 28th, and there were probably more than
4 250 people in attendance at that
5 meeting.
6
Some of the biologists were
7 there, our captains from a couple of
8 districts were there. We just had a
9 great meeting.
10
This meeting involved Pickens
11 County, Tuscaloosa County, Jefferson
12 County, and Shelby County that were all
13 in attendance there.
14
On September 1st, there was
15 also another meeting concerning the new
16 regulations that were enforced.
17 Visiting these people and being there
18 at this meeting and hearing them, they
19 all seemed to have a positive attitude
20 toward what was sent out for this year.
21
Also, in Tuscaloosa, Judge
22 Lake has a meeting each year; and we've
23 probably had somewhere around 175 to
0025
1 200 people in attendance at this
2 meeting. We went over the new
3 regulations; safety; youth hunts; the
4 laws; the fines, what they would be.
5
Also, one of the judges
6 pointed out -- he said, "When a case
7 comes before me, they will not be
8 thrown out," which is real positive
Page 13
9 there in Tuscaloosa County.
10
I visited with a number of
11 people with regard to dog deer hunting,
12 and I wanted to point out one in
13 particular. He was supposed to be in
14 attendance today, and I don't know
15 whether he is or not.
16
He called the other night and
17 said, "I'm not coming." He said, "I've
18 got some problems;" and he said, "I've
19 got to live with these people here."
20
This particular man lived in
21 Mobile County, but it was in Choctaw
22 County where the problems were.
23
You know, it's bad when a
0026
1 person has to worry about their land
2 and what's going on out there on that
3 particular tract of land.
4
Our Conservation Officers, I
5 can't say enough admiration for what
6 they do and the job that they have. I
7 want to single out one person in
8 particular. This happened at my place
9 in Lamar County.
10
On November 11, I happened to
11 be stacking some lumber behind the
12 barn. I heard a shot out in front of
13 the house. I ran up to the house, and
14 I saw the vehicle pull off. It made a
15 circle around.
16
In the meantime, I told my
17 sister that lived in the house, I said,
18 "Go call Eddie Strickland." He said,
19 "I'll be out there in just a minute."
20
He came out. The deer was
21 still laying out there. He said, "Let
22 me pull my truck up behind the barn.
23 They may come back."
0027
1
They did, and he ended up
2 catching those people.
3
I'm pointing this out because
4 you've got to have the working of
5 everybody out there, and the amount of
Page 14
6 work that he did in visiting those
7 parents of those boys to help correct
8 it.
9
In visiting with a judge,
10 these people were fined $900 plus court
11 costs. Trespassing, $25 fine.
12 Shooting from the road, $250.
13
We need some fines out there
14 that will deter these people from even
15 attempting.
16
It's a pleasure to work with
17 people like Eddie Strickland, Dennis
18 Sanford, and Johnny Johnson.
19
I guess, other than that,
20 other than visiting with them on the
21 regular things, they seemed to be
22 scattered throughout the whole area.
23
I think that will pretty well
0028
1 sum my area up. Thank you.
2
3 Mr. Johnson.
4
Also, District 7, Dr. Wayne
5 May.
6
Dr. May.
7
DR. MAY: Thank you,
8 Mr. Chairman.
9
I just want to mention some
10 of the complaints, recommendations, and
11 things that people have either called
12 me about or written me about.
13
The first thing I want to
14 mention is a concern about the rule
15 about the youth under 16, even with
16 hunters education, being able to hunt
17 alone without close adult supervision.
18 They seem to think 30 feet on voice
19 command is not close enough.
20
They seem to think -- and I
21 kind of agree with them -- if you've
22 got a young 12-year-old kid with a
23 high-powered rifle sitting in a
0029
1 shooting house or climbing stand, they
2 think the adult should be right next to
Page 15
3 him; and I agree with that.
4
That's a decision I think the
5 Department needs to make on the
6 recommendation and put it in the
7 register when we put it out in the
8 fall.
9
I've had calls about shooting
10 too many does. I think more are
11 thinking we're doing the right thing
12 than not doing the right thing.
13
I personally think to manage
14 your heard properly, you're going to
15 have to shoot the doe. That's my
16 personal opinion.
17
The three-buck limit, most
18 people I've talked to like it more than
19 they dislike it.
20
I've had problems -- calls
21 with problems of dog deer hunters in
22 North Greene County, Northwest Choctaw
23 County, Tallapoosa, West Hale, Baldwin,
0030
1 and Perry.
2
Baldwin County and Tallapoosa
3 is not in my district. I'm not real
4 familiar with them, but the problem in
5 Baldwin County was a person that owned
6 property adjoining the Delta Management
7 Area Zone A, which had to do with some
8 dogs that were running on his property.
9
I've had calls on crossbows.
10 One of the things is crossbows and
11 turkeys. I've enjoyed turkey hunting,
12 and I don't care if you use a crossbow
13 to kill one, but I do have a problem
14 with crossbows because of poachers.
15 They can clean my place out from
16 turkeys, and I wouldn't even know they
17 had been there.
18
If I hear a gun shot, at
19 least I would know somebody with a gun
20 was shooting. I'm sure the game warden
21 has the same problem. It's not the
22 weapon to use when people can use it
23 for poaching, an illegal use.
Page 16
0031
1
I had one call on at least
2 defining the area; and I agree with
3 him, as pertaining to hunting close to
4 so many feet. I think I would like to
5 know if I'm legal, and I think that's
6 what this gentleman wanted to know.
7
I want to abide by the law,
8 but I want to know what the area is. I
9 don't want the game warden coming out
10 there and telling me "I think it's
11 something else," and he judges me
12 different.
13
I personally think it should
14 be like Georgia's law, 200 yards and
15 out of sight to be legal.
16
I'm hunting on 400 acres of
17 land, and I'm 200 feet from this field.
18 Am I hunting legal or illegal? The
19 decision of the Board is coming up. He
20 could say "You're in the area."
21
If I'm 50 feet from it, sure,
22 I could agree with him. It's in sight,
23 and I can see it. We need to make a
0032
1 distinction between what the area is
2 and what the area is not.
3
I've had calls on our tagging
4 system. Most people agree that we
5 should have a tagging system. They
6 just don't agree with what we're doing
7 right now; and I have a sense to agree
8 with them there.
9
I like it the way Texas does
10 it. I want a permanent tag put on. I
11 want it put on there as soon as it's -12
MR. CHAIRMAN: Quiet in the
13 audience, please.
14
DR. MAY: I want a tag put on
15 it as soon as it hits the ground, as
16 soon as you can get to him before you
17 load him on the truck. I don't care
18 whether it's a turkey or a deer or a
19 buck.
20
The way we have it right now,
Page 17
21 you can have -- I could carry three
22 different pieces of paper in my pocket
23 and mark one if I wanted to. If I've
0033
1 already had one filled out for the
2 number of bucks or the numbers of
3 turkeys, I can start a new one. So I
4 think we need some kind of permanent
5 tags.
6
Mr. Johnson mentioned -- he
7 called Thursday night about dog deer
8 hunting in Perry County. We closed an
9 area, if you recall, in West Perry. It
10 went down to the Morgan Spring Road.
11
The gentleman had kind of a
12 hard time communicating because he had
13 throat cancer. He was in the Vietnam
14 War, and a poison went through over
15 there, and his lung has cancer.
16
Last year, when we passed
17 that, I thought the man was going to
18 cry. He came up and hugged me for
19 making the motion. He said, "I
20 appreciate it so much because I've been
21 bothered for 20 years."
22
He called me last night, and
23 he said, "I was mistaken. What you
0034
1 recommended, the area did not enclose
2 where I live. I'm about five miles
3 from it. I've been tormented this
4 year." They were shooting down one of
5 his shooting houses and tearing his
6 mailboxes down.
7
They carried his 14-year-old
8 son out there one day. They had deer
9 on the field, and here come the dogs
10 running through. He would ask me, "Can
11 we not extend that area to enclose my
12 land?"
13
It's a hunting club, but its
14 owned or leased. There's 3,000 or
15 4,000 acres, I understand, from him
16 that adjoins it.
17
The lady that owns the land,
Page 18
18 he says she's a perfect lady, the kind
19 you would want to set out there on a
20 pedestal that says "This is what a lady
21 should be like;" but she leases her
22 land to some dog hunters.
23
One is out of Douglas,
0035
1 Georgia, and one is out of Montgomery,
2 Alabama; and they have no respect for
3 him or his property. I'm sure that's
4 something we'll have to deal with in
5 the future.
6
I believe that's all the
7 report I have.
8
9 Doctor.
10
Also, on the Board,
11 Dr. Smith. He said there was nothing
12 that he needed to report on from the
13 extension service.
14
I would also like to
15 recognize Commissioner Hobbie Sealy.
16
17 old business. Is there anything from
18 the previous meeting that needs to be
19 discussed.
20
If not, we'll move on to the
21 next order of business, which will be
22 the Public Hearing.
23
When you hear your name
0036
1 called, please go to the microphone and
2 give your name and the subject you wish
3 to speak on.
4
I'll remind you again that
5 only you may speak at the time that you
6 are called. Any interference to the
7 speaker will not be tolerated.
8
Also, we have standing rules
9 when you check in, Standing Advisory
10 Board Rules. On there, we have 60
11 speakers this time. You will note that
12 since we've started, we want to make
13 sure everybody has a chance to speak.
14
Also, if there are several
Page 19
15 persons that wish to speak on the same
16 subject, please agree to choose one
17 speaker to represent them.
18
I think you will find the
19 Board will be a lot more receptive
20 today if you get a speaker. Everyone
21 can talk. It just makes it repetitive.
22
A good suggestion would be to
23 follow the rules and get a speaker to
0037
1 represent you if you are in one of
2 those groups. However, we want to hear
3 from everybody.
4
With that, we'll start.
5
Does the Board have any
6 objection to talking two minutes this
7 morning?
8
(No response.)
9
10
Again, we'll make exceptions
11 as necessary. Under Marine Resources,
12 Pete Barber from Mobile.
13
MR. BARBER: Mr. Chairman,
14 Commissioner, Members of the Board.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Pete, let me
16 interrupt you just a second. I've
17 heard more cell phones this morning.
18 Y'all please make sure all your cell
19 phones are turned down on vibrate so we
20 don't interrupt our speakers.
21
Thank you very much. Go
22 ahead, Pete.
23
MR. BARBER: My name is Pete
0038
1 Barber. I'm the Executive Director of
2 the Alabama Seafood Association.
3
You should have gotten in
4 your mailings from Robin a list of
5 proposals we have dealing with
6 emergency fishing regulations that were
7 promulgated last year during an
8 exceedingly emotional legislative
9 session.
10
I think the Commissioner was
11 right to try to do something like that,
Page 20
12 and under the spur of the moment. We
13 have now had a full season under these
14 regulations. We've had fisheries
15 meetings, and what you see before you
16 is the product of these meetings.
17
First of all, we understand
18 what the Commissioner was trying to do.
19 I think that what we've come up with
20 will deal with that; and, at the same
21 time, it will give us some more fishing
22 ability so that the fishermen can
23 continue to make a living.
0039
1
With that, Ben Harvard is the
2 Vice President of our association. He
3 has chaired the Fisheries meeting that
4 generated the paper you're looking at.
5 So I would like to have him take the
6 floor.
7
MR. HARVARD: Since our time
8 is limited time, I will dive right in.
9
The management of the gulf.
10 I primarily fish in the gulf. So I'm
11 going to jump into the gulf issues
12 primarily myself.
13
Closure times and net mesh
14 that we have moved to. A lot of this
15 was done -- the way it was done, I
16 don't think things were taken into
17 consideration.
18
There were a lot of
19 complaints about the recreational
20 fishery, about the fisherman, about the
21 lack of catching Spanish mackerel in
22 2005. We think it's primarily because
23 we caught more Spanish mackerel.
0040
1
What wasn't taken into
2 consideration was in that same year, in
3 2004, they landed over 700,000 king
4 mackerel. In 2005, they landed almost
5 half that. It wasn't just the Spanish
6 mackerel that was different.
7
From Louisiana to South
8 Florida, in 2004, from recreational
Page 21
9 fisheries of all kinds, there was an
10 estimated 83 million pounds of fish.
11 In 2005, it was 53 million.
12
The reason I'm bringing that
13 up is because it shows a consensus
14 there was a drop in recreational
15 fishing of all kinds gulfwide that
16 year. It wasn't just Alabama waters,
17 and it wasn't just Spanish mackerel. I
18 wanted you to know that there was more
19 going on than just what was happening
20 in our waters.
21
Anyway, we made two
22 suggestions. I hope you will consider
23 these because we will need some help.
0041
1 If we have to fish under the same rules
2 in the gulf this year as we did last
3 year, we're not going to make it. We
4 absolutely will not make it.
5
This is not about a resource
6 stock of fish. The resource is in
7 trouble. The three species we catch
8 are Spanish mackerel, lady fish, and
9 (inaudible.) Two of these fish don't
10 even have a federal plan they're in
11 such good shape.
12
Federal plans on mackerels by
13 the National Fishery Service, they want
14 commercial fishermen to catch in excess
15 of 4 to 5 million pounds a year for our
16 public for our consumers to eat.
17
Gulfwide, we are exceeding a
18 million pounds. Recreationally, they
19 are allowed to catch over 3 million
20 pounds. This year, that's what they
21 want us to do. We've got 5 to 10
22 million catfish that can be caught
23 yearly and the stock stay healthy. So
0042
1 it's not a stock issue at all.
2
MS. NUMMY: You need to wrap
3 it up.
4
MR. BARBER: Mainly, we just
5 want you to look through these
Page 22
6 recommendations and consider some
7 possibilities we have here. We've
8 looked at this. We're professionals.
9 We know what our year will do. We know
10 what it will catch and what it won't
11 catch.
12
We would like one year. Give
13 us one season fishery under some of
14 these regulations we have here with
15 mesh sizes to prove that we are correct
16 in what size fish these nets will
17 catch. It will not be the nightmare or
18 the catching fish that the Department
19 thinks it will.
20
We know this. I'm basing
21 this on my 54 years as a professional
22 fisherman on this. If we could get the
23 Board to consider taking what a
0043
1 fisherman knows about his equipment and
2 his tools -- I know what it will do. I
3 know what it won't do. We've never
4 been given that chance.
5
They go by different
6 regulations of sizes, and they presume
7 that's what's going to happen if you
8 use this. We work this stuff. It's
9 not so.
10
All I can ask for is one
11 season to let us use these regulations
12 that we have here. Not regulations.
13 Recommendations. Let them monitor all
14 the way through. Come go fishing with
15 us. Put a man on the boat. Measure
16 the fish. Do what you need to do.
17
At the end of the season,
18 come back here next year; and let's
19 look at it. If there is a slight
20 problem, let's adjust it; but please
21 don't keep holding us to something that
22 started up here thinking that's what we
23 need without finding out what we need.
0044
1
It's killing us. We will not
2 make it through another season. We're
Page 23
3 going to be in the next line for our
4 mortgages. Thank you.
5
6 Mr. Barber.
7
Mr. Hatley, do you have
8 follow up on that?
9
MR. HATLEY: The only thing I
10 would say is that we probably need to
11 hear from Marine Resources before I can
12 make any type of recommendation on
13 that.
14
15 That next speaker will be Shawn
16 Slattery.
17
Tell us to your county where
18 you reside, Mr. Slattery.
19
MR. SLATTERY: Gulf Shores,
20 Alabama. Baldwin County.
21
I want to talk to y'all about
22 fishing. The weekend closures has
23 really killed me and my family. If
0045
1 y'all were to take 30 or 40 percent of
2 your income and just scratch it off,
3 how would y'all feel? It's a big loss.
4
We're not asking for the
5 weekends back, but the night time on
6 the weekends, there's nobody else at
7 all. We can come up with some kind of
8 plan to fish at night time.
9
MR. COMMISSIONER: What do
10 you do for a living?
11
MR. SLATTERY: I fish 100
12 percent.
13
MR. COMMISSIONER: What
14 species?
15
MR. SLATTERY: Mackerel, skip
16 jack.
17
I'd really like to get the
18 weekends back. That's a huge -- we
19 fish on the weather, you know.
20 Sometimes it will be rough on Monday,
21 Tuesday, and Wednesday; and it gets
22 nice Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.
23 You can't go Friday night and Saturday
Page 24
0046
1 night.
2
We're not asking for the
3 daytime. We know there's people on the
4 beach. I live right next to the beach.
5 There isn't a soul on the beach at
6 night, just the fishermen. I don't see
7 what the big deal is in us going out
8 there and fishing at night. It doesn't
9 make sense.
10
If you all take 30 or 40
11 percent of your income and just scratch
12 it off in a year, it's tough.
13
Ivan came. For three weeks
14 we weren't allowed on the water.
15 Katrina came. A tree went through my
16 house. I had $60,000 worth of damage.
17
Last year we were up here
18 fighting the whole mackerel season just
19 trying to fish for a living. I've got
20 three kids and a wife. Now, all of a
21 sudden, you can't fish on the weekends.
22
I lost a lot of money last
23 year, and I'm going to lose a lot more
0047
1 this year. That's what I do. I fish
2 for a living. It's tough. That's what
3 I do, and I want to keep doing it. I
4 pray to.
5
If you take away 30 or 40
6 percent of a man's income -- you know,
7 it's hard enough the last few years
8 with the economy, gas fuel prices.
9
The price of motors has
10 doubled in the last five years. They
11 used to be $10,000. Now, it's $20,000
12 for a motor.
13
I'm just asking for a little
14 bit of help. That's all.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes,
16 Dr. Strickland.
17
DR. STRICKLAND: What was the
18 purpose of closing the fishing on the
19 weekends?
20
JT THOMAS: It mainly goes
Page 25
21 back to a user group conflict more or
22 less.
23
DR. STRICKLAND: Would you
0048
1 come to the microphone, please?
2
What do you mean a user group
3 conflict?
4
JT THOMAS: The recreational
5 section of the -- the two sectors
6 there.
7
This year, there become
8 another issue about how many Spanish -9 how many were being caught by the
10 recreational and commercial. I think
11 they've been trying to find a balancing
12 act where it would work. I think all
13 those issues came back in.
14
The numbers were being caught
15 by different groups, balancing that
16 out; and the areas of the conflict of
17 -- most of the Spanish fish are on the
18 Gulf, from the Gulf Shores area, where
19 the tourists are.
20
DR. STRICKLAND: So it had to
21 do with the harvest, the fish harvest,
22 not with interacting with tourists and
23 the traffic -- I guess that's typical.
0049
1
JT THOMAS: It is interaction
2 and being seen by the groups that are
3 down there and the levels of complaints
4 that come in. There are a large number
5 of complaints that do come in with
6 those groups.
7
DR. STRICKLAND: Do you see
8 any problem with night fishing?
9
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: We've been
10 spending a lot of time on this,
11 Dr. Strickland; and it is a user group,
12 commercial and recreational. We have a
13 responsibility to both those groups
14 because that is a public trust, and it
15 can't be dominated by one or the other.
16
The last couple of years the
17 domination has gone to the commercial
Page 26
18 side. They may not catch the mackerel,
19 but the mackerel are disturbed. It
20 takes them a while to come back in
21 toward the beach where the recreational
22 fishermen are.
23
This was an effort that we
0050
1 tried last year because mainly the
2 recreational fishing down there is on
3 the weekend. This will give the
4 schools of mackerel time to settle
5 down. They should have a good
6 experience also and see how it works
7 with the commercial fishermen.
8
Obviously, in your case, it
9 did not work. It's something that we
10 look at and we try to manage because
11 it's a sensitive issue and it's a
12 sensitive resource. Regulatory changes
13 have to be made quite often.
14
DR. STRICKLAND: Thank you.
15 It sounds like there's been a lot of
16 time and thought that has been put into
17 that decision.
18
MR. SLATTERY: After May 1st,
19 all the mackerel are gone. There's
20 just skip jack there, and it's still
21 closed. I'm just sitting at home every
22 weekend.
23
Obviously, they didn't put
0051
1 too much time into it because after May
2 1st, the mackerel are gone; and we're
3 still closed.
4
DR. STRICKLAND: We can
5 discuss it in more detail a little
6 later on.
7
8 Mr. Slattery, Dr. Strickland,
9 Commissioner.
10
The next speaker will be Jeff
11 Abbett from Tallapoosa County.
12
Okay. Jeff is not here so he
13 will not be speaking.
14
Kyle Blakeley.
Page 27
15
Kyle, state the county you
16 live in, please.
17
MR. BLAKELEY: I live in
18 Etowah County. My name is Kyle
19 Blakely.
20
I've come to speak on behalf
21 of the fox hunters and what they have
22 done to us as far as taking and really
23 cracking down on our law or the rule.
0052
1 I'm not sure which one it is. I have
2 not investigated that like I should.
3
I want to speak on not being
4 able to trap our game and transport our
5 game to our fox pen within the State of
6 Alabama. Mississippi can do it.
7
Our reasoning -- or my
8 question to you, the Board, is: Is
9 there anything we can do so that we can
10 transport our game within the State of
11 Alabama?
12
We can catch it. We have
13 times we can catch it, but we cannot
14 transport it in the State of Alabama.
15
This is one of the oldest
16 sports that our nation has. It's not
17 hurting anything. We have been drove
18 inside fox pens because of land owners
19 not allowing us to do it anymore.
20 Therefore, we are hunting in an
21 enclosure.
22
We are not doing it to catch
23 the coyote or catch the fox. We are
0053
1 doing it strictly for the sounds of the
2 hounds and the sport of fox hunting and
3 to listen to our dogs run game.
4
I personally invite, any of
5 you that would like, to contact me.
6 You can go fox hunting with me any
7 time, and I promise we will not catch a
8 coyote or a red fox. Thank you.
9
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you so
10 much.
11
The next speaker will be
Page 28
12 Lonnie Gant from Fayette County.
13
MR. GANT: My name is Lonnie
14 Gant. I'm from Fayette County.
15
I'm talking about fox and
16 coyote hunting. I raise and breed
17 fresh July Fox Hounds. I raise coyotes
18 and foxes. I hunt in pens, and this
19 crackdown has hurt me.
20
Last year, I placed first in
21 the American July Association Hunt in
22 Grapevine, Arkansas. I will not be
23 attending the hunt this year, which is
0054
1 in two weeks, because I have not been
2 able to run my dogs because of the
3 crackdown on the pens.
4
These pen owners do not want
5 their coyotes and foxes harmed. When
6 they get these coyotes and foxes, they
7 give them the best medicine, the best
8 shots, and the best feed they can buy.
9
They also have catch pens
10 inside these fox pens where a fox and a
11 coyote can get if the dogs get too
12 close on them.
13
They also require that you
14 run a muzzle on your dog in this pen.
15 Nearly every fox pen I've been to, we
16 run muzzles on our dogs to keep our
17 dogs from harming the coyotes, in case
18 they get close to one.
19
This recent crackdown on
20 these fox pens and coyote pens is
21 really hurting me and my kennel. I own
22 about 30 July Fox Hounds. I have
23 puppies and large dogs. I can't run on
0055
1 the outside because of the recent
2 crackdown on dogs on the outside. Now,
3 I can't run the pens because of the
4 crackdown on the pens.
5
I would just like -- if maybe
6 we could adopt a program like Louisiana
7 or Mississippi or Arkansas where they
8 sell permits to trappers to be able to
Page 29
9 haul and trap and sell varmint game;
10 such as, fox and coyote.
11
This is a big help to people
12 like my father, who is a cattle farmer
13 who owns a 300-acre cattle farm, for
14 people to be able to go in and entrap
15 these coyotes and take them out. They
16 are a nuisance to these cattle farmers.
17 It's a nuisance to goat farmers -18
MS. NUMMY: Time.
19
MR. GANT: I would just like
20 to adopt a program where we could buy
21 permits and be able to transport game
22 to pens and keep this hunting alive.
23
Thank you.
0056
1
MS. NUMMY: Mr. Moultrie,
2 Mr. Abbett was outside.
3
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Let's
4 go back to Mr. Abbett.
5
MR. ABBETT: Good morning.
6 I'm from Tallapoosa County.
7
I was hoping my president of
8 my club would be here this morning, but
9 -10
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please, talk
11 into the microphone.
12
MR. ABBETT: I was hoping the
13 president of the club would have been
14 here this morning.
15
I was wanting to -- about our
16 doe harvest in Tallapoosa County. The
17 Red Eye Hunting Club, anything east of
18 the Tallapoosa River on 280, if y'all
19 would slow that down because we just
20 don't have -- there's places to hunt.
21 There's places that people can't hunt,
22 of course.
23
I was kind of wanting to -- I
0057
1 know y'all have a lot of complaints
2 about dog hunters. We are a dog
3 hunting club. I just want to let y'all
4 know that we make all the moves that we
5 can to keep these dogs off of other
Page 30
6 people's land.
7
We have still hunters that's
8 got clubs, and they let their dogs come
9 through. That's where a lot of deer is
10 from in Alabama.
11
We just wanted to let y'all
12 know that we have taken all the means
13 that we can to try our best to keep the
14 dogs off their land.
15
All of us need to stick
16 together; bow hunters, gun hunters, dog
17 hunters, or whatever. We're all in it
18 for the fun. Let's go out and enjoy
19 ourselves.
20
Thank you.
21
MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very
22 much.
23
Mr. Jonathan Blakeley.
0058
1
MR. BLAKELEY: My name is
2 Jonathan Blakely. I'm from Elmore
3 County, just Northeast of Montgomery.
4
I'm here concerning fox and
5 coyote chasing, as well. The concern
6 is the law about trapping. The law now
7 states that if a coyote is caught in a
8 trap, it has to be killed in the trap.
9
A dead coyote is no good to
10 me or any of my friends. A dead fox is
11 no good to us.
12
Fox hunting is one of the
13 oldest sports in this country. George
14 Washington himself ran a fox in
15 Washington DC.
16
Now, some of you love to play
17 golf, and some of you love to do
18 different things. We love to hear our
19 hounds run a fox and a coyote, not to
20 catch him, not to hurt him, but for the
21 sport of the hound.
22
I hunt many times in a year,
23 and I never carry a gun except in the
0059
1 summertime simply to kill snakes with.
2 We do not have murder in our heart. We
Page 31
3 have the love of the animal in our
4 heart, and we are the coyote's and
5 fox's best friend.
6
Cattle farmers don't like
7 him. He gets their cattle. You don't
8 like it if you hit one on the highway
9 and he messes your Mercedes up, do you?
10 Let us catch him and put him inside a
11 fox pen where we'll feed him, we'll
12 tend to him and take care of him.
13
If we get too close to him,
14 he goes somewhere where he can hide and
15 get away from the dogs. If not, if he
16 should get behind a wire -- as most of
17 you know from that being a blood
18 sport -- there's nothing bloody about
19 it.
20
We, as the hunters, want to
21 save that coyote and save that fox
22 because he -- a dead coyote is no good
23 to us. We can't run him.
0060
1
So we need a law passed where
2 we can take that coyote out of that
3 trap and put him where he will be safe
4 and be fed and be watered and be tended
5 to on a daily basis.
6
That's what we're asking for,
7 is to be able to trap him in this state
8 and move him in this state.
9
We're not wanting to carry
10 him to Texas. We hunt right here at
11 home. We want to trap him in Elmore
12 County and leave him Elmore County or
13 leave him out here in Chambers County
14 or Montgomery County.
15
MS. NUMMY: Time.
16
MR. BLAKELEY: Thank you for
17 your time.
18
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Blakeley,
19 you win the Enunciator of the Year
20 Award. That was a hell of a good job.
21
If everyone would take a
22 lesson from Mr. Blakeley, I don't think
23 our court reporter would be having the
Page 32
0061
1 problems she's having hearing everyone.
2
3 Mr. Tommy Gibson from Coffee County.
4
MR. GIBSON: Hello. I'm
5 Tommy Gibson from Coffee County. I'm
6 also a fox hunter. I'm president of a
7 deer dog hunting club.
8
In our dog hunting club, we
9 went to beagles, but I still have fox
10 hounds. I don't run my fox hounds on
11 the outside anymore because of the
12 amount of stand hunters.
13
We basically do it to keep
14 from disturbing other hunters because
15 our dogs are a little long winded and
16 they're hard to control.
17
So we run a pen. We also
18 have a fox pen. The way they crack
19 down on the fox pens now -- I mean,
20 it's always been done, basically; and
21 it's always been against the law to
22 trap them and put them in the pens; but
23 it's basically just a law that's been
0062
1 more or less overlooked. It's kind of
2 like if you don't ask, we won't tell.
3 Now, just all of sudden, they've
4 decided to lock down on it.
5
What we want is just to be
6 able, like Mr. Blakeley said, to be
7 able to trap a coyote and put him in
8 our pen.
9
We don't mind being
10 regulated. We're honest working
11 people. We all have jobs. None of us
12 want to be outlaws. There's bad apples
13 in everything. Everybody saw on the
14 news some stuff that went on.
15 Everybody is not like that.
16
In our pen, like he said, we
17 have barrels. We have wires they can
18 get behind. Coyotes and foxes can
19 climb a tree. They can go in a hole.
20 I mean, it's -- most of the pens are -Page 33
21 ours is around 300 acres. The one in
22 Andalusia we hunt in is over 1,000.
23 It's not like we're going out there in
0063
1 a five-acre pen and turning the dogs
2 loose to kill a coyote.
3
We feed these coyotes and
4 foxes the same feed that our dogs eat.
5 I mean, basically, as a dog hunter, we
6 have no place else to go. This is the
7 only way we can run our hounds.
8
I have a 16-year-old son. He
9 hunts with me, him and his friends.
10 All of them are high school boys. They
11 all go to the fox kennel with us every
12 weekend, and they sit around campfires.
13
To me, that's just a lot
14 better place for those boys to be than,
15 you know, riding the roads and getting
16 into trouble and doing a lot of things
17 that high school boys do.
18
That's all we're asking for,
19 is to be regulated. We don't mind
20 buying permits. We don't mind buying a
21 license.
22
We'll work with the
23 Conservation Department any way we can.
0064
1 If they want to come in and study some
2 of the games we have and do blood
3 samples on them, we have no problem
4 with that.
5
Thank you.
6
7 much.
8
Mr. Hatley, go ahead.
9
MR. HATLEY: Mr. Gibson, do
10 you have a Fox Hunters Association
11 statewide?
12
MR. GIBSON: Yes.
13
MR. EDWARDS: You've got the
14 president right here.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please let the
16 speaker answer the question.
17
MR. HATLEY: How many members
Page 34
18 do you have?
19
MR. GIBSON: I'd have to let
20 Mr. Junior Edwards answer that. He's
21 the president.
22
MR. CHAIRMAN: He's the
23 president?
0065
1
MR. GIBSON: Yes, sir; and
2 he's here.
3
MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you come
4 to the microphone rapidly, please, sir.
5
MR. HATLEY: I have another
6 question, if you don't mind.
7
I need to clear the air in my
8 own mind about the interpretation of
9 pens, and some of the Department may
10 help me here. Maybe we should talk
11 outside of this and get it cleared up.
12
I need to understand the size
13 of the pens, the limitations on the
14 pens, why we -- are they interpreting
15 our law correctly as far as the pens
16 are concerned?
17
Please, Allan, if you would.
18
MR. ANDRESS: My name is
19 Allan Andress. I'm the Chief of
20 Enforcement with Wildlife and
21 Freshwater Fisheries.
22
MR. HATLEY: The question is:
23 Are they interpreting our laws or
0066
1 regulations correctly in the size of
2 their pens; and are we confusing
3 interstate and intrastate
4 transportation of game? I need a
5 clarification on that.
6
MR. ANDRESS: Well, I'm not
7 sure. There's a lot of information
8 that goes along with this subject. If
9 you don't mind, I'll give you a little
10 background, if that's okay. I'll try
11 to keep it brief.
12
We've got a number -- or a
13 law and number of regulations which are
14 fairly longstanding, we've had them for
Page 35
15 quite a while, that prohibit the sale
16 of live captured wildlife. Coyotes and
17 foxes are included in that group.
18
I also have some regulations
19 that prohibit the possession and
20 transportation and importation and sale
21 of protected wildlife, and coyotes and
22 foxes are a member of that group.
23
It was back in 1993 -- up
0067
1 until 1993, there was no law regulation
2 that prohibited the importation of
3 foxes and coyotes, for example. In
4 that year, a strain of rabies that was
5 unknown in Alabama was introduced into
6 the state, connected with the
7 relocation of coyotes in South Alabama;
8 and it infected some hounds. Also,
9 humans were exposed to it.
10
In 1994, that's when that law
11 against importation of coyotes first
12 took affect. We do not now nor have we
13 ever prohibited or regulated fox pens
14 as such; but it was back during the
15 '80s or so that they started to appear
16 in Alabama.
17
Between then and the year
18 2002, not a lot of attention was paid
19 to these -- what was going on there;
20 but, in 2002, the Public Health
21 Veterinarian with the Department of
22 Public Health contacted us and had some
23 concerns about what was going on with
0068
1 this relocation of wildlife. Not just
2 foxes and coyotes, but raccoons and a
3 number of other species.
4
They asked us to look at what
5 we were allowing as far as the
6 intrastate transportation, as well. Of
7 course, as I said before, we prohibited
8 the importation, the intrastate
9 transportation back in 1994, I think it
10 was. That year we did that, we
11 followed that recommendation.
Page 36
12
Even with our own staff, as
13 far as relocating nuisance animals, we
14 directed them not to relocate animals
15 across major natural barriers such as
16 rivers or to cross county lines.
17
At that time, we met with
18 some of the people who were in the fox
19 and coyote enclosure hunting area and
20 advised them of the change in our
21 practice.
22
Then, here recently, we had
23 gotten information that the laws
0069
1 against transportation, possession,
2 live capture, and relocation of foxes
3 and coyotes was taking place, and some
4 intrastate trafficking, as well.
5
We conducted about a two-year
6 investigation, which expanded to a
7 number of other states; and we found
8 that there were a significant amount of
9 violations going on.
10
This was not just in Alabama,
11 but it was in these other states, most
12 of which do what some of the people
13 here have asked for today, which is to
14 regulate, permit, and allow the
15 localized trapping and relocation of
16 foxes and coyotes. We found that
17 importation was basically one of the
18 number one problems that they were
19 having, as well.
20
The crackdown they're talking
21 about is I result of that two-year
22 investigation where we arrested quite a
23 number of people and made quite a
0070
1 number of charges on associated -2 violations associated with this.
3
I don't know if that was
4 helpful to you at all, but that's just
5 sort of a little background that may be
6 helpful.
7
MR. HATLEY: I guess maybe
8 what I'm trying to get at, Allan, is:
Page 37
9 Can we take these guys and can we take
10 our department and can we work at any
11 type of solution or resolution to help
12 alleviate their problem without
13 promulgating something else or
14 complicating the situation any further
15 than what it already is?
16
MR. ANDRESS: We have, in
17 fact, met with some of the
18 representatives and have had some
19 correspondence with some of the
20 representatives within this, I'll say,
21 organization. Not an organization, but
22 just some individuals.
23
We tried to offer them some
0071
1 alternatives and some solutions to
2 that. However, at this time, we're not
3 prepared to recommend the live capture
4 and relocation, even within the state,
5 at this time, based on wildlife health
6 concerns and recommendations from a
7 number of wildlife agencies and from
8 the Department of Public Health.
9
There are also some public
10 health concerns, and they also refer to
11 some of the humane concerns. There are
12 some who are having humane concerns
13 associated with them. However, that's
14 not our primary thing.
15
Based on those concerns, is
16 the reason the laws are what they are
17 and the reason we've been enforcing
18 them as we have.
19
Again, we'll be glad to meet
20 with them on other alternatives for
21 that; but, at this time, we're not
22 prepared to make a recommendation to
23 permit live capture and relocation
0072
1 within the state because of some
2 serious enforcement issues associated
3 with that, which other states that do
4 permit them are having themselves.
5
MR. HATLEY: I think you've
Page 38
6 answered -- helped clear up some of the
7 things.
8
My main concern was that we
9 were not really looking at their
10 problems and trying to mediate
11 anything, and you've explained why and
12 what you're doing.
13
MR. ANDRESS: Yeah. Well, it
14 was fine with me.
15
I do want to make it clear
16 that we are very sympathetic with their
17 position, and we understand that, but
18 there's no attempt to try to shut down
19 fox hunting in any way. We are just
20 focussing on doing our very best to try
21 to address these disease issues having
22 to do with the relocation of animals.
23
In no way are we trying to be
0073
1 unsympathetic or trying to shut that
2 down at all. We encourage that, what
3 they do.
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can you stay
5 at the microphone for just a second. I
6 think we're going to have several more
7 questions from the Board.
8
Will the President of the
9 Foxhunters give your name, please?
10
MR. EDWARDS: My name is JR
11 Edwards. I live in Elmore County.
12
I'm the President of the
13 Alabama State Foxhunters Association.
14 We have a hunt every year. At this
15 present time, we hold it in Andalusia.
16
We have a good turnout. We
17 have 200 to 250 members. It varies
18 every year. We have a good turnout.
19
To keep these hunts going,
20 we've got to get permission to get game
21 and put it in the pen within the State
22 of Alabama. We don't want to go
23 nowhere, just stay in Alabama.
0074
1
We ask to be allowed to trap
2 the coyote and take him out of the trap
Page 39
3 and put him in the pen -- that's all
4 we're asking for -- without getting a
5 ticket or getting arrested.
6
In the State of Georgia -- I
7 stayed over there six years. I have
8 kin over there. You can trap him. You
9 can put him in the pen. You can take
10 him with you or whatever you want to
11 do.
12
MR. CHAIRMAN: We may have
13 some more questions for you.
14
If you're having trouble
15 standing, you can sit on the stage and
16 use the microphone.
17
We've got a couple of
18 questions from the board members.
19
Mr. Johnson.
20
MR. JOHNSON: You made
21 reference to the size pens, 300 or
22 1,000 acres. I just wondered how many
23 of these we would have throughout the
0075
1 state. Do you have any estimate or
2 anything on that?
3
MR. EDWARDS: We have small
4 pens we run puppies in. Probably -- I
5 don't know how many with the puppies.
6 Big pens, we only have -- there's one
7 in Waterloo, Alabama that's about 1,800
8 acres. We have one in Andalusia that's
9 1,000. We have one in Wing, Alabama
10 with 600 acres. It varies from 50
11 acres to 13- or 14-acre pens.
12
We've got one in Georgia.
13
14 Mr. Johnson.
15
Okay. Mr. Coles.
16
MR. JOHNSON: If I might add,
17 according to the last survey we did, we
18 counted, I think, 38 enclosures,
19 something like that. They ranged in
20 size from 10 to right at 1,000 acres.
21
That's according to that
22 survey. There may have been some a
23 little larger; but, according to that
Page 40
0076
1 survey, the average was about 350.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Coles.
3
MR. COLES: Captain Andress,
4 what prohibits them from trapping and
5 transferring foxes and coyotes to other
6 pens? Is that a regulation, or is that
7 a law?
8
MR. ANDRESS: Some of both.
9 Some of both. We have a -10
MR. COLES: If it's a law
11 that prohibits them, then this Board
12 can't do anything about. It would have
13 to go before the legislatures.
14
MR. ANDRESS: Yes, sir. It
15 would require to do what -- what
16 they're requesting would require both
17 legislative action and action by the
18 Board.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN:
20 Dr. Strickland.
21
DR. STRICKLAND: Allan, what
22 I would like to see happen -- of
23 course, I know you've spent a lot of
0077
1 time on this previously -- is to take
2 another really close look at this and
3 see if there's any way that we can help
4 these guys out some way where they can
5 continue the sport.
6
Obviously, they have a real
7 passion for it. I know we have to do
8 what's best for -- you know, we can't
9 have disease, particularly rabies,
10 spread throughout the community among
11 dogs and things of that sort.
12
It looks like there's
13 something that we can do so they can
14 continue to do this legally. That's
15 basically what they're coming to us
16 for. They want a way that they can do
17 their sport within the laws that we
18 have provided.
19
MR. ANDRESS: We will be glad
20 to do that.
Page 41
21
MR. MOULTRIES: Any final
22 comments?
23
Dr. May.
0078
1
DR. MAY: Are there any
2 regulations on the minimum size of a
3 pen?
4
MR. ANDRESS: Not in Alabama,
5 no, sir. We do not regulate them in
6 any way.
7
MR. CHAIRMAN: If you would
8 like to finish up very quickly,
9 Mr. Gibson.
10
MR. GIBSON: Yeah. The only
11 thing I want to know is, you know, they
12 say that we can't transport -- capture
13 and transport, but there are numerous
14 companies in the State of Alabama that
15 actually charge people.
16
I saw an article in the
17 "Birmingham News." There's a company
18 called Critter Control. They can get
19 permits from the State, and they go out
20 there, and they catch nuisance animals
21 inside of Hoover.
22
Hoover is paying $8,900 a
23 month to this company, and they catch
0079
1 foxes and coyotes all this, and they
2 move them out of Hoover, and they
3 relocate them. They're turning them
4 back loose into the wild.
5
What we're wanting to do -- I
6 mean, we're even willing to go out here
7 and work with the biologists. As our
8 trappers catch them, we'll let them -9 we'll put tags in their ears to let
10 them know which area. That way, if it
11 comes up with a disease, it actually
12 can be confined to a certain area; and
13 they know what the disease is.
14
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Andress,
15 would you like to comment on that?
16
MR. ANDRESS: Yeah. We are
17 familiar with it, and that was one of
Page 42
18 the things addressed in 2002 in our
19 discussions to people such as these
20 first two on animals that are known to
21 carry rabies.
22
We recommend they be
23 euthanized on the spot. We recommend
0080
1 that if they are moved, that they not
2 moved across a county line or across a
3 major river system. They are not
4 allowed to be transported anywhere.
5
The best practice on those
6 kinds of animals is euthanasia, and we
7 do not allow them widespread
8 relocation, either.
9
MR. CHAIRMAN: Commissioner,
10 do you have a comment?
11
MR. LAWLEY: Yeah. The
12 question was: Why wouldn't they be
13 subject to the same regulations as
14 everybody else that (inaudible)?
15
MR. ANDRESS: They're
16 operating under a Wildlife Damage
17 Permit.
18
MR. LAWLEY: That allows them
19 to take live?
20
MR. ANDRESS: Yes. Like, if
21 you've got a raccoon in your storage
22 room, they're allowed to take that
23 animal and capture him.
0081
1
With certain animals like
2 raccoons and foxes, which are known
3 rabies vectors, we don't advise that
4 they keep them alive anywhere. We
5 advise that they euthanize them.
6
That's what happens with the
7 majority of those animals, they are
8 euthanized. They do it under a
9 Nuisance Animal Permit, Wildlife Damage
10 Permit.
11
MR. CHAIRMAN: Describe that
12 permit. It's a Wildlife Damage Permit,
13 or Nuisance Animal Permit? Which is
14 it?
Page 43
15
MR. ANDRESS: It's a Wildlife
16 Damage, which allows them to deal with
17 a nuisance animals.
18
We issue those to individual
19 citizens that have squirrels, and we
20 issue them to farmers who have problems
21 with deer. It's the same sort of
22 permit issued to the ones who have deer
23 depredating their crops. It's the same
0082
1 type of permit.
2
MR. HATLEY: Hogs.
3
MR. ANDRESS: Yeah, hogs.
4
5
If you'll finish up for us
6 real quickly, sir.
7
MR. EDWARDS: What kind of
8 permit would we have to have to trap a
9 coyote and put him in a truck and take
10 him down the road and put him in a pen,
11 alive, before we have it on the run
12 with our hounds?
13
MR. CHAIRMAN: You're asking
14 what kind of permit?
15
MR. EDWARDS: Yeah. What
16 kind of permit can we get to do that?
17 Can we get a Nuisance Permit to do
18 that?
19
MR. ANDRESS: We do not issue
20 permits to capture animals and relocate
21 them for hunting purposes, no, sir.
22
MR. EDWARDS: In other words,
23 the pen is just a don't in Alabama. I
0083
1 mean, we can't put nothing in it, and
2 we can't run it?
3
Ain't nobody going to take a
4 chance with the way the law is today
5 about hauling them in a truck. I
6 ain't, but I've done been captured.
7
MR. CHAIRMAN: The next
8 speaker will be Mr. Bruce Handley from
9 Walker County.
10
MR. HANDLEY: I'm Bruce
11 Handley from Walker County. I'm a
Page 44
12 retired coach and assistant principal.
13 I'm representing the Foxhunters of
14 North Alabama.
15
We are talking about the same
16 problem. We have moved from outside to
17 try to get away from disturbing deer
18 hunters and moved to the pen, and we've
19 been hunting in the pens for about 20
20 years.
21
Now, all of a sudden, we're
22 having to be -- we are having people
23 caught, carried to jail, given a big
0084
1 fine, and given two years probation.
2 These are law-abiding citizens that
3 want to do what's right. We want to be
4 able to trap and transport foxes, as
5 they do in all the other southeastern
6 states.
7
If you'll check with Georgia,
8 Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas -- any
9 place except Alabama -- they can trap
10 and move the game within the state.
11
Now, what about diseases? If
12 it's diseases we're worried about, I
13 believe we would rather have them in a
14 pen than out in the wild. We would at
15 least know where they are.
16
If the pens will provide an
17 escape place, they already have them.
18 Nearly all pen owners I know about
19 already have an escape place for the
20 coyotes and for the foxes to get where
21 the dogs don't get them.
22
Are we going to pay $100 for
23 a fox and take him in there and catch
0085
1 him? We're trying to protect him.
2
If it's a law that Alabama
3 needs to change, then I have a
4 representative. The majority leader,
5 Ken Guin, tells me that he will
6 introduce legislature that will change
7 the law; or he will work with the Board
8 in any way that he possibly can in
Page 45
9 order to get this changed where we can
10 hunt with some peace.
11
I'm 74 years old. I have
12 three grandsons and two sons that would
13 like to just go out and hear dogs run
14 without being harassed.
15
16
MR. HANDLEY: If we could get
17 that, that would be all we need.
18
I will say this, I've talked
19 to some other legislators, Ken Guin,
20 Mr. Tommy Shear, Mr. Bishop; and we
21 have contacted others in North Alabama,
22 hoping to get something corrected about
23 this.
0086
1
In other words, if we've got
2 pens and they're not illegal, if we
3 can't hunt, why have the pens?
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Handley,
5 thank you very much. Your time is up.
6
MR. HANDLEY: Thank you.
7
8 speaker will be Scott Head.
9
Mr. Head, please state the
10 county where you reside.
11
MR. HEAD: My name is Scott
12 Head. I'm from Escambia County,
13 Florida. I'm President of the Sunshine
14 State Foxhunters Association.
15
We hold our annual hunt
16 usually in Andalusia, Alabama. Without
17 these pens -- we have 200 to 250
18 members. Without these pens, we can't
19 have our hunts in Alabama, and we're
20 bringing revenue into the state.
21
Several hunters came with me
22 from Florida. If we don't -- it's a
23 family oriented thing. We have our
0087
1 kids there. People bring their
2 grandkids to see it.
3
Without y'all's help and
4 without the trapping laws being
5 changed, then this is a dying support
Page 46
6 for our family and everything else. My
7 grandparents done it and their parents
8 done, and we don't want to see it die.
9
Florida brings revenue every
10 year to Alabama for this fox hunt, more
11 than what is probably counted; and I
12 just want y'all to think about this and
13 help us as much as possible.
14
Thank you.
15
16 much, Mr. Head.
17
18 Dwight Lawrence from Fayette County.
19
MR. LAWRENCE: I'm Dwight
20 Lawrence. I'm from Fayette County.
21 I'm a fox hunter, have been all my
22 life. My grandfather introduced me to
23 it.
0088
1
They pretty much covered the
2 permit deal that I wanted to discuss
3 with everyone. What I would like to
4 emphasize is the health of the animals
5 that they catch.
6
I'm President of the American
7 July Critters Association. Last
8 weekend, I helped immunize over 200
9 coyotes for our field trial we've got
10 coming up in two weeks.
11
We take these animals and
12 give them a vaccine and hold them in a
13 holding pen for two weeks before we
14 turn them loose into the main pen to
15 make sure they're healthy.
16
They have rabies vaccine.
17 They're vaccinated for all diseases a
18 canine can get.
19
They are tagged and marked
20 and kept a record of to see which is
21 which, who came from -- which dog came
22 from which trapper.
23
As far as permits go, we
0089
1 stock deer pens in Alabama every day.
2 You can buy a permit to stock a deer
Page 47
3 pen, but you can't buy a permit to
4 stock a cattle pen.
5
That's it.
6
7 speaker will be Mr. Lee Miller from
8 Elmore County.
9
MR. MILLER: Mr. Chairman,
10 Members of the Board, my name is Lee
11 Miller. I'm here representing the Lake
12 Jordan Home Owners and Boat Owners
13 Association. I'm going to change the
14 subject from fox hunting just briefly.
15
We submitted a formal
16 resolution to the Commissioner back in
17 the Fall of '06 asking him to look at
18 the possibility that he would exercise
19 his authority under Alabama law to
20 implement speed zones and no wake zones
21 from the public waters of this state.
22
We are primarily interested
23 in Lake Jordan, but this is an issue
0090
1 that you might want to consider
2 statewide.
3
Anybody that fishes or boats
4 in the big lakes in Alabama knows that
5 boat traffic is increasing. The size
6 and power of the boats is increasing.
7 We had a fatality accident on Lake
8 Jordan last year that was as a result
9 of speed.
10
These lakes are going to
11 continue to become more popular. The
12 shoreline development is increasing.
13 We've got two condo developments in
14 progress up on Lake Jordan, which is
15 really just a wide spot in the Coosa
16 River. That's going to put more boats
17 and more people on the lake.
18
Shoreline erosion is an
19 issue. Lake safety is an issue.
20
We would encourage the Board
21 to encourage the Commissioner to take a
22 look at this. Other States have done
23 this. Georgia has a statute called the
Page 48
0091
1 "Proximity Law." That's a good example
2 of the type of laws and regulations
3 that you could consider.
4
The Commissioner already has
5 the authority to do this. We would
6 urge the Board to encourage him to do
7 it.
8
If it's okay, I have a
9 statement I would like to submit for
10 the record concerning this.
11
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I know
12 we sent you a copy of that Georgia law.
13 What is your feeling on that, in your
14 group?
15
MR. MILLER: I think that's
16 an excellent first thing to look at.
17 The "Proximity Law" would require idle
18 or no wake speed limits within certain
19 proximities of the shoreline where
20 there's residents or docks or piers or
21 boats that are not moving. I think
22 this is an excellent start to review
23 this issue.
0092
1
Thank you for your time.
2
3 Thank you, sir.
4
5 Mr. Gene Myers.
6
State your residence, please,
7 Mr. Myers.
8
MR. MYERS: My name is Gene
9 Myers. I'm from Gulf Shores, Alabama;
10 and I'm the owner of Paradise Marine
11 Center.
12
I'm here on behalf of 275,000
13 registered boat owners of this state to
14 defend and fight for water access
15 rights. We are 17th in the nation for
16 registered boats. If all our boats are
17 put on trailers and towed in a caravan,
18 the line would stretch from Gulf Shores
19 to Huntsville.
20
You're probably not aware of
Page 49
21 it, but the future of boating and the
22 boating industry is at a critical
23 crossroad. Public access to our
0093
1 nations waterways is shrinking at an
2 alarming rate.
3
Throughout the country,
4 developers are buying up marinas and
5 boatyards and converting them to
6 private facilities. It is happening on
7 the Alabama Gulf Coast.
8
Because of this trend, state
9 and local municipalities must be
10 proactive and take bold steps to
11 address this startling decline.
12 Without convenient access, the average
13 working man is limited in his ability
14 to boat in state waters.
15
I personally feel it is right
16 for all Alabamians to have equal water
17 access opportunity. I think you would
18 have to agree.
19
We have a golden opportunity
20 in Orange Beach to address this
21 shortage; but, to date, we feel that
22 the Conservation Department has not
23 been proactive in expanding these
0094
1 opportunities for its citizens.
2
I am here to appeal directly
3 to the Advisory Board Members to become
4 involved and learn more about a
5 tremendous opportunity you have to
6 enhance the public's access to our
7 coastal waterways.
8
Last summer, the City of
9 Orange Beach approached the
10 Conservation Department regarding a
11 proposal to build a ramp on a portion
12 of a 32-acre parcel that the Department
13 owns on Old River. The City was asking
14 for use of five acres to build a state
15 of the art boat launch facility at the
16 City's expense, not a dime paid by the
17 State.
Page 50
18
From my understanding, there
19 was little resistance from the State
20 regarding this partnership until the
21 people who live on the private island
22 community known as Ono Island bristled
23 at the idea of a public boat ramp in
0095
1 their backyard. They started to apply
2 pressure to the Governor and
3 Commissioner.
4
There are three things that
5 folks on Ono Island have that the
6 average Alabamian does not have; and
7 that is, plenty of money, political
8 clout, and a private boat ramp of their
9 own.
10
MS. NUMMY: Time.
11
MR. CHAIRMAN: If you would,
12 finish up real quick, please, sir.
13
MR. MYERS: I left you guys a
14 book up there that I prepared for you.
15 I have no agenda. I spent my own money
16 doing it, but this access of boating is
17 very very important. You're missing a
18 golden opportunity here.
19
I will put this in the form
20 of an E-mail so you can have it
21 personally, but I think this is
22 something that we're missing the boat
23 on.
0096
1
"Forbes Magazine" recently
2 rated the Mobile metropolitan area as
3 the number one growth area, with a
4 whopping 34 percent increase in
5 economic strength in the next five
6 years.
7
These people need to be
8 putting boats somewhere. You've got
9 two state ramps in Baldwin County, and
10 one over there in Mobile County.
11 That's it for the entire Gulf Coast.
12 I'm talking about ramps that can handle
13 big boats in close proximity to the
14 Gulf.
Page 51
15
16 much.
17
18 Mr. Johnny Wood.
19
Please state your county of
20 residence.
21
MR. WOOD: My name is Johnny
22 Wood. I'm from Opp, Alabama, Covington
23 County. I'm in education. I'm an
0097
1 assistant coach and principal.
2
My uncle was the past
3 Conservation Director, Carl B. Kelly
4 with the State of Alabama during all
5 the Wallace administration years.
6
I appreciate the Board's
7 opportunity, and I see some (inaudible)
8 on this fox and coyote situation that
9 we're talking.
10
I've done a lot of research
11 on this in the last six months. There
12 is one disease of rabies in a coyote
13 that came from West Texas that came in
14 to North Florida. That's where the dog
15 went to run and got the disease and
16 came back in to Alabama. So it wasn't
17 a coyote from Alabama. It was a coyote
18 from Florida.
19
Another disease that is well
20 spoken from the Department of Vets
21 comes from Canada and the northern
22 states and gets in fox, coyotes, house
23 cats, and house dogs. It was founded
0098
1 in 1858.
2
In 150 years, reckon how many
3 house cats and house dogs have come
4 from these states into Alabama where
5 the disease has never been found.
6
The only way you can get it
7 is through eating coyote, fox, cat, or
8 dog feces, ingesting it so it gets into
9 your system.
10
Our State Conservation
11 Department is against this, even though
Page 52
12 Florida, Georgia, Mississippi all do it
13 at this time.
14
Title 9 Section 9-11-247 says
15 that in the State of Alabama, it's a
16 law that you can have 10 coons, the
17 most diseased animal in the State of
18 Alabama. You can have them on hand,
19 transport them, or anything you want to
20 as long as you're a legal coon -- with
21 a lot of contacts. That's an old rule,
22 but that's in the book. That's legal.
23
I was hearing Mr. Andress
0099
1 talk. Why couldn't we get a nuisance
2 -- if we didn't transport it across
3 major waterways or county lines, could
4 we do that?
5
MS. NUMMY: Time.
6
MR. LAWLEY: Let him finish
7 up.
8
MR. WOOD: We've been in
9 contact, me and my representatives.
10 These are people throughout the State
11 of Alabama -12
MR. CHAIRMAN: Speak into the
13 microphone, please.
14
MR. WOOD: These are doctors,
15 lawyers, cattle farmers, and other
16 representatives of the State of
17 Alabama.
18
The Speaker of the House,
19 Mr. Seth Hammett is wanting to know if
20 the Conservation Department is going to
21 help us with this situation. There are
22 people all over the state whose County
23 Commissions have met and said, "We are
0100
1 behind y'all." All this is documented
2 in these books. These are people all
3 over the state.
4
Alabama Cattle Association,
5 Alabama Wild Turkey Federation, Alabama
6 Farmers Federation, Representatives and
7 Senators from the Agriculture
8 Department and State Deputy Tony
Page 53
9 Frazier has been on hand with all the
10 communication that we want.
11
12 Before your question, I've got one
13 question.
14
Dr. May, if I can call on
15 your veterinary expertise real quick.
16 So the Board will know, how is rabies
17 transferred? Is that the only way it's
18 transferred?
19
About the only way I remember
20 it is when Old Yeller got tore up with
21 it, and he was put to sleep.
22
Can you clear up for the
23 Board how rabies is transferred or
0101
1 would be in this situation?
2
DR. MAY: Rabies normally
3 transmits through a bite.
4
The virus itself does not
5 travel by the bloodstream, but by the
6 nerve endings. The closer you are
7 bitten to your brain, the sooner you
8 are going to come down with the
9 disease.
10
MR. CHAIRMAN: So has there
11 ever been a documented rabies case in
12 Alabama on coyotes and baby coyotes?
13
DR. MAY: I can't answer
14 that.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hatley,
16 you had a question.
17
MR. HATLEY: Yeah, I've got a
18 question. In general, why -- let me
19 back up. Why are we transporting the
20 foxes and the coyotes?
21
MR. WOOD: I've a cattle
22 ranch. I get calls all the time.
23 "There's a red fox raising pups. I
0102
1 don't want that fox around there. Can
2 you please come and get him?"
3
I can't go down because if I
4 catch him, I've got to shoot him in
5 front of those little children. I
Page 54
6 can't take him out of that cage and
7 take him two miles and put him in a fox
8 pen.
9
MR. HATLEY: Move the little
10 children.
11
MR. WOOD: I'm just giving
12 you an example.
13
I can't trap where you're
14 standing and a fox pen be right because
15 I can't take him out of the trap and
16 put him in there. Law, legalwise.
17
MR. HATLEY: Why did you
18 establish pens in the first place?
19
MR. WOOD: We established
20 pens to get away from land owners
21 complaining about dogs being on their
22 property.
23
Like, I've got three 80-year0103
1 old men that come to the fox pen. They
2 can't get out and chase hounds anymore
3 on the outside of the fox. They've got
4 two or three dogs. They sit at the
5 campfire and make them some coffee.
6 They turn their hounds out and get them
7 back up and go home. That's their
8 life.
9
10 any other questions for the Board?
11
MR. HATLEY: Well, I've got a
12 lot of other questions, but I think
13 what we need to do, Mr. Chairman, is
14 have our department and these people
15 get together again. I would like to
16 see from Corky some type of reports to
17 us from your department and from you
18 people again.
19
MR. WOOD: Can I put in your
20 hands a two- or three-page document?
21 This is an accumulation for all our
22 neighboring states on the laws that
23 they have. I put it all together.
0104
1 This will possibly be presented into
2 the legislature, if we have to go
Page 55
3 lawwise with it.
4
We would rather let -5 Speaker of the House, Seth Hammett said
6 we need to get with Corky Pugh and
7 these people and Mr. Lawley and see if
8 we can work out something through the
9 Advisory Board, before we went into the
10 State.
11
MR. HATLEY: That's exactly
12 what I'm telling you right now. That's
13 what I'm telling our department. You
14 people need to resolve this.
15
There's no sense in us taking
16 400 people sitting here all day trying
17 to resolve something that could have
18 been worked on and worked without you
19 having to come here and address us on
20 this issue. So I would like to see
21 that done.
22
MR. WOOD: I've met with them
23 on December 4th, and it's been two
0105
1 months. He called me yesterday and
2 said they would not support our -3
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I think
4 we're going to need to have a meeting
5 with the Department of Health, instead
6 of a veterinarian, Corky, because we're
7 taking the blame for a request from
8 another state department, which is the
9 Department of Health, and see if
10 something can be worked out.
11
You brought up some valid
12 points, just some things that they may
13 need to look at. You have to keep in
14 mind, if their concern is the health of
15 the people of Alabama, it trumps any
16 card we have.
17
MR. WOOD: We understand
18 that. We're just common hunters.
19
I remember my uncle telling
20 me, "It doesn't matter what kind of
21 hunting you do, it all means something
22 to that person."
23
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: That's
Page 56
0106
1 right.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Did you have
3 one more question, Dr. Strickland?
4
DR. STRICKLAND: I just want
5 to make a statement. I think this is a
6 very, very important issue because I
7 don't want the dog hunters to feel this
8 Board is anti dog hunting. These
9 issues that we have with dog hunting is
10 the inability to control your dogs.
11
The fox hunters are doing
12 exactly what we would like to see them
13 do. They have their hunting contained
14 within pens. They're trying to abide
15 by the law. We need to try to do
16 everything that we can to make sure
17 that they can continue to do this
18 sport.
19
I would like for our
20 Conservation Department to get with fox
21 hunting organizations and see if we can
22 work this out. Again, we have to make
23 sure that we are not spreading disease.
0107
1
Dr. May, do you feel that
2 rabies is a real big issue with this
3 trapping and transfer? I think that's
4 the issue that has to be resolved. If
5 you feel that this is a big problem,
6 then, absolutely, we don't want -- how
7 big of an issue do you feel it is?
8
DR. MAY: Well, I don't feel
9 it's a huge issue unless you do have an
10 outbreak. Then, it becomes a huge
11 issue.
12
DR. STRICKLAND: Of course -13 let me ask you one other question.
14 Have we had a recent significant
15 outbreak of rabies?
16
DR. MAY: No. Not that I
17 know of in Alabama.
18
MR. EDWARDS: Let's give
19 Mr. Strickland a hand.
20
Page 57
21 speaker will be Brandon Price from
22 Madison, Alabama.
23
MR. PRICE: Good morning. My
0108
1 name is Brandon Price. I'm from
2 Huntsville, Alabama. Madison County.
3 I'm here on behalf of Southern
4 Catfisherman Association.
5
I just want to discuss
6 quickly with y'all Alabama catfish
7 conservation. You should have a
8 briefing in front of you.
9
For just a little bit of
10 background, as most of you know,
11 freshwater catfish are considered rough
12 fish in the State of Alabama. They're
13 not game fish. They don't adhere to
14 any size limit.
15
Alabama is one of only a few
16 states that does not consider catfish a
17 game fish. Catfish is becoming
18 increasingly popular in major circuits.
19 Bass pro shops and (inaudible) have
20 formed and are very successful with
21 catfish circuits.
22
Catfish have a massive impact
23 as a top predator in the Tennessee
0109
1 River (inaudible) to our ecosystem.
2
Currently, catfish are being
3 transported live across state lines to
4 northern pay ponds by commercial
5 fishermen.
6
There are three parties of
7 interest that we have discovered by the
8 meeting that Mr. Jones discussed in
9 Tuscumbia and Guntersville in the past
10 month. Some of these are commercial
11 market fisherman.
12
The commercial fishermen make
13 their livelihood off of fish sold to
14 fish markets. They generally look for
15 one- to five-pound catfish, from what
16 we've discussed with (inaudible.)
17
Commercial fishermen are
Page 58
18 supporting lives. They're catching
19 fish in deep nets and by other means,
20 trout lines, and transporting them live
21 across state lines to out-of-state pay
22 ponds.
23
Then, there's sports
0110
1 fishermen, which my group represents,
2 that love the support of catfishing and
3 love to eat catfish and love to catch
4 catfish.
5
The possible effects and
6 concerns we have on the catfish
7 population is the gradual drop in group
8 stock of 30-plus pounds of catfish.
9 These catfish are the breed stock.
10
As I said, they're great
11 spawners. They protect their nests
12 better. They'll breed the catfish that
13 will populate our rivers for years to
14 come.
15
The eventual effects will
16 affect the fish market and the
17 commercial fishermen because they won't
18 have the amount they once had.
19
I would like to propose a
20 one-catfish limit of one catfish over
21 34 inches in possession per day per
22 person.
23
Recognize catfish as a game
0111
1 fish species, since Alabama is one of
2 the few states that are not recognizing
3 catfish as that.
4
No transport of live catfish
5 across state lines, and ensure laws
6 that market fish where commercial
7 catfishermen are not affected by these
8 commercial catfishermen that are
9 carrying our natural resource across
10 state lines.
11
I have put my contact number
12 on the briefing. Also, I have a
13 petition that was started January 20th
14 that was signed by 216 licensed Alabama
Page 59
15 and out-of-state fishermen, cat16 fisherman and other sports fisherman
17 alike.
18
Thank you.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Price,
20 before you leave, I wasn't familiar
21 with the Southern Catfisherman
22 Association. Where are y'all based,
23 and what is y'all's membership?
0112
1
MR. PRICE: We are based in
2 Arab, Alabama.
3
Mike Mitchell is our
4 president, and he has the flu today and
5 could not attend.
6
Our local membership is
7 approximately 30 to 40 catfishermen.
8 We are a sub of the Brotherhood of
9 Catfishermen, which has 5,000 members
10 nationwide.
11
12 much.
13
Our next speaker will be
14 Barry Estes.
15
MR. ESTES: I'm going to let
16 Randy speak for bow hunters.
17
MR. CHAIRMAN: That will be
18 fine.
19
The next speaker will be Mike
20 Guillot from Autauga County.
21
MR. GUILLOT: Thank you very
22 much, Mr. Chairman.
23
I want to commend the Board
0113
1 for the three-buck limit in Alabama. I
2 think that's the way to go. I've heard
3 in several other states that are all
4 limiting their buck harvest every year.
5
I would also ask you to
6 revisit the idea of a tagging system.
7 I think it will sort of keep us all a
8 little bit more honest.
9
The real issue I want to
10 bring to your attention is the issue of
11 bow hunting and turkeys, and
Page 60
12 particularly crossbow hunting and
13 turkeys.
14
I agree with the opinion of
15 Dr. May, in trying to limit certain
16 scumbags from going on your property
17 and using bows and arrows and crossbows
18 to harvest turkeys. I'm kind of a
19 little skeptical about any regulation
20 you have that will prevent that kind of
21 activity from a small percentage of the
22 hunting population in any state.
23
So I would ask you to revisit
0114
1 that, as part of your duties creating
2 the laws of Alabama, to allow the use
3 of crossbows in catching turkeys in
4 Alabama.
5
Thank you.
6
7 much.
8
The next speaker will be Elmo
9 Ziebach from Monroe County.
10
We'll go probably about 10
11 more speakers, and then we'll take a
12 break for the audience and the Board.
13 So let's run 10 more, and then we're
14 done for a while.
15
Go ahead.
16
MR. ZIEBACH: My name is Elmo
17 Ziebach. I'm from Monroeville in
18 Monroe County.
19
I would like to bring up the
20 issue of dove hunting season. We're in
21 the north zone for dove hunting in
22 Monroe County. Y'all are well aware of
23 the middle county of the state has got
0115
1 very little agriculture anymore, mostly
2 timber with hay field pastures. The
3 bulk of our hunting is either on
4 prepared fields or clear cuts or
5 pasture lands.
6
This year, during Christmas,
7 you couldn't buy a dove load in
8 Monroeville because everybody was
Page 61
9 trying to dove hunt during the winter
10 season, which was pretty much changed
11 from what it used to be. We had a lot
12 more doves in the winter than we had
13 any other time.
14
So I would like to have -- I
15 know you're not going to change the
16 north zone feelings of everything, but
17 maybe a third zone incorporating the
18 counties in -- that are in the southern
19 wheat -- times of planting wheat that
20 are in the north zone now, and maybe
21 make a third zone and drop the limit to
22 12 and give us the 10 days. That would
23 give us more hunt-day opportunities to
0116
1 catch the migratory birds and put those
2 10 days on the winter season.
3
Everybody enjoys the way the
4 seasons are set up now. We have some
5 pretty good shoots in September and
6 some in the October season, but we sure
7 missed having those winter days this
8 year when the migratory birds were
9 coming in with the cold weather up
10 north.
11
If y'all would just kind of
12 consider that, the same number of days
13 and the same limit as the south zone.
14
MS. NUMMY: Time.
15
MR. ZIEBACH: Thank you.
16
MR. CHAIRMAN: Go ahead,
17 Mr. Coles.
18
MR. COLES: Sir, the dove
19 seasons are governed by the US Fish and
20 Wildlife Service, and they have certain
21 parameters that we could put the dove
22 seasons in.
23
We can have two zones in a
0117
1 state, but no more than two zones.
2
Other parameters are that the
3 seasons have to come within the dates
4 of September 1st and January 15th.
5 They can't be outside of those dates.
Page 62
6
We can have 50-day seasons,
7 like Mississippi and have an 18-bird
8 limit; we can have a 60-day season and
9 have a 15-bird limit, like is in the
10 north zone now; or we can have a 70-day
11 season and have a 12-bird limit; but
12 you can't have a mixture of those.
13 You've got to either have 50 days, 60
14 days, or 70 days.
15
So those are the parameters.
16 We can't create a third zone. You have
17 to live within those two zones.
18
Historically, it's been a
19 social aspect as opposed to a meat20 hunting aspect. That's one reason the
21 south zone, that Mr. Hatley and I
22 represent, is one of the 70-day
23 seasons.
0118
1
Gary, that's not the
2 parameter?
3
MR. MOODY: Pretty close.
4 We're not offering the zone that you're
5 suggesting. We have 60/15 and 70/12,
6 as well.
7
MR. ZIEBACH: I was just
8 thinking that everybody should have -9 I've been doing it for 50 years myself,
10 but the 12-bird limit -- I just think
11 everybody would be better off and have
12 more opportunity for hunt days than the
13 higher limits because it doesn't do any
14 good to have high limits if you don't
15 have anything to hunt, if there ain't
16 no birds.
17
MR. COLES: Mr. Hatley and I
18 would love to have the Monroe County
19 bunch in the south zone.
20
MR. ZIEBACH: Put us in
21 there.
22
23 much.
0119
1
MR. COLES: It's easier said
2 than done.
Page 63
3
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. The
4 next speaker will be George McCarthy
5 from Prattville, Alabama.
6
MR. MCCARTHY: Thank you.
7 I'm George McCarthy. I'm from
8 Prattville, Alabama.
9
My point of issue is, again,
10 turkey hunting with a crossbow. In the
11 State of Alabama, as you well know by
12 the regulations, the way I read them,
13 going back to 2006, you can hunt every
14 species in the State of Alabama with a
15 crossbow except for possum and raccoon.
16
During the night, you can
17 hunt migratory game birds with a
18 crossbow. I don't know who does that.
19 You can also crossbow fish.
20
I've asked the question a
21 million times, and nobody has been able
22 to explain as to why the rationale of
23 not being able to hunt turkey with a
0120
1 crossbow when you can hunt everything
2 else.
3
If the main idea is to keep
4 people from poaching, I think you're
5 going to have those unethical hunters
6 that poach no matter what weapon they
7 use or what game of species that
8 they're going after.
9
If it is poaching, I suggest
10 and recommend that more meat be put
11 into the fines if persons are caught
12 poaching, to include monetary or jail
13 time.
14
I hope the Board will
15 recommend that we will be able to hunt
16 turkey in the future and not handicap
17 those who like to hunt with a bow, a
18 crossbow in particular, all legal game
19 in the State of Alabama.
20
Thank you.
21
22 much.
23
THE next speaker will be -Page 64
0121
1
MR. MCCARTHY: Can I get
2 somebody to answer the question as to
3 what is the real reason?
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please
5 approach the microphone and speak into
6 the microphone. What is your question?
7
MR. MCCARTHY: My question -8 I'm sorry it was lost -- can somebody
9 explain the rationale as to why you
10 cannot hunt turkeys with a crossbow
11 in the State of Alabama?
12
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Harbin.
13
MR. HARBIN: Yes, sir. I've
14 asked that same question. I was told
15 it was a safety issue.
16
We are going to ask for a
17 recommendation today to see if we can
18 get that changed.
19
MR. MCCARTHY: Thank you very
20 much. I'm sure a lot of the other
21 crossbow hunters in Alabama appreciate
22 that.
23
MR. CHAIRMAN: All right.
0122
1 The next speaker will be Brady Johnson
2 from Walker County.
3
MR. JOHNSON: I'm Brady
4 Johnson. I'm from Walker County.
5
As I stated in my E-mail to
6 the Board, I am against buck limits.
7 I'm against the way that it was
8 imposed. I don't believe that we're
9 leaning towards fair chase anymore.
10
I know about the birth dates
11 and the buck potential, and I know
12 about buck age structure. I have
13 worked hard, as I have talked with you,
14 about how 95 percent of Alabama has
15 worked hard to do what was asked by the
16 Department. We've exceeded their goals
17 for the reduction in buck harvest and
18 the increase in the doe harvest.
19
As a hunter, my opportunity
20 to hunt has been seized. If I go to
Page 65
21 the delta and kill a deer, if I pick up
22 the deer, by the time I get to the
23 mulberry, I am a criminal.
0123
1
I don't have much of a gun
2 season left. I have done my part. I
3 have shot deer, and I have shot does.
4 I have six children that like to go out
5 and shoot does.
6
For myself, the opportunities
7 that I had and the freedoms that I
8 enjoyed to hunt are gone.
9
Now, I understand that WMAs
10 were not supposed to be written into
11 the original resolution. Yet, that was
12 not done. The WMAs are still under
13 restrictions.
14
I just come here to ask that
15 the WMAs be written out of this
16 resolution or out of the restrictions
17 because it never should have been done
18 to start with.
19
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Where
20 did you hear that from, on the WMAs?
21
MR. JOHNSON: I talked with
22 Mr. Moultrie and yourself.
23
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Just a
0124
1 minute. Who did you hear that specific
2 information from? It wasn't from me.
3
MR. JOHNSON: Okay. As a
4 matter of fact, it was Bill Gray.
5 Member of the Committee -- the Buck
6 Limit Committee. I talked with him on
7 the phone.
8
He told me that, that the
9 WMAs were not supposed to be written
10 into the original resolution. Bill
11 Gray from the Buck Limit Committee.
12
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: This is
13 the first time I've heard that.
14
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Johnson,
15 let me make sure the Board -- does the
16 Board have Mr. Johnson's E-mail?
17
I'm going to take my two
Page 66
18 minutes right now, and I've never,
19 since I've been chairman or before
20 being chairman, gotten an E-mail or
21 seen a letter in which the integrity of
22 the State, the Commissioner, the Board,
23 Mr. Pugh's Department, everyone
0125
1 involved was attacked. I'm going to
2 tell you, I'm pretty emotional about
3 it.
4
MR. JOHNSON: I'm pretty
5 emotional about it.
6
MR. CHAIRMAN: You're going
7 to have another time to talk. Not now.
8 I'll give you a chance.
9
You start out in your letter,
10 and you criticize all aspects of what's
11 been done by a lot of the Department
12 and a lot of the Board, and you attack
13 a lot of Mr. Pugh's department.
14
You go on record as stating
15 that you will not follow our laws in
16 the State of Alabama.
17
MR. JOHNSON: That's not
18 true.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: That you will
20 do -- you will not be caused to carry
21 an extra piece of paper.
22
MR. JOHNSON: Read the
23 letter. Read the letter.
0126
1
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have also
2 gone into saying -- the Board needs to
3 pull this letter.
4
Then, it asks if you had
5 hunted in Georgia and about what you
6 had done in Georgia and all that you've
7 done.
8
Are you a wildlife biologist?
9
MR. JOHNSON: I'm a
10 licensed -11
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please answer
12 the question. Are you a wildlife
13 biologist?
14
MR. JOHNSON: I'm a lifetime
Page 67
15 license holder and -16
MR. CHAIRMAN: Are you a
17 wildlife biologist?
18
MR. JOHNSON: What does that
19 have to do with anything?
20
Is anybody here a wildlife
21 biologist? I mean -22
MR. CHAIRMAN: That's a very
23 simple question to answer, sir.
0127
1
(Inaudible.)
2
MS. NUMMY: One at a time for
3 the court reporter.
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: You've asked
5 me to read your letter. I'm going to
6 read your letter right now, and I want
7 the Board to pay particular attention
8 to this.
9
Verbatim, your words are:
10 "With the assault on hunters being so
11 strong these days, why is our own
12 Advisory Board leading the charge?"
13
Does any of the Board have
14 any -- I didn't know that y'all had led
15 the charge nationally. Would any of
16 y'all like to talk to Mr. Johnson?
17
(Inaudible.)
18
MR. CHAIRMAN: You have the
19 floor, Dr. Strickland.
20
DR. STRICKLAND: Mr. Johnson,
21 I've been involved on many wildlife
22 boards, wildlife committees, over the
23 years; and I can say without a doubt
0128
1 that the Board that you have now
2 representing the hunters and the
3 wildlife in the State of Alabama is
4 very progressive.
5
Commissioner Lawley is known
6 not only in the State of Alabama, but
7 throughout the United States, for his
8 forward thinking, for the rules and
9 regulations that he has put forward for
10 the protection of wildlife.
11
I understand that a lot of
Page 68
12 us -- some hunters feel that maybe some
13 of their rights have been compromised
14 by the buck limit. We will see -- if
15 we give it time, I think we will all
16 realize this was the right thing to do.
17 It's just one year.
18
Look at all of the other
19 states. Again, I said this at the last
20 meeting, Alabama is the only state, the
21 only state, in the Union, the only
22 province that does not have any buck
23 restrictions at all.
0129
1
So either we are geniuses or
2 we have kind of missed it, but I really
3 feel what has happened is that we
4 probably missed it a little bit.
5
Let's just give it some time.
6 You still can shoot three bucks. Three
7 bucks. How many other states do you
8 know where you can shoot three bucks?
9
We're not taking away your
10 ability to hunt. We're just taking the
11 pressure off our bucks.
12
Everyone should have the
13 opportunity in the State of Alabama to
14 shoot a quality buck. You should have
15 a chance to shoot a quality buck.
16 That's what we want.
17
We're not trying to take any
18 of your rights away. We want you out
19 there.
20
How many bucks do you need to
21 shoot a year?
22
MR. JOHNSON: I don't
23 normally kill more than three bucks a
0130
1 year, but let me say this, along the
2 lines of three-buck limit, and I won't
3 remain on my time limit.
4
I myself have hunted in
5 Georgia for 20 years.
6
DR. STRICKLAND: What is the
7 buck limit in Georgia?
8
MR. JOHNSON: Two. It used
Page 69
9 to be five.
10
Under this restrictions -11 okay. It was five. We were restricted
12 to two. I feel like further
13 restrictions are coming from this
14 Board.
15
The fact is, in Georgia, in
16 20 years of hunting in Georgia, I have
17 not seen the benefit. We have a better
18 situation right now in Alabama than
19 they have in Georgia, in my opinion,
20 after hunting there 20 years and after
21 hunting here 20 years.
22
The part of the criteria for
23 imposing the buck limit was rack size.
0131
1 It's in the Buck Limit Report. I've
2 read it.
3
In Georgia, that's not the
4 case. There's an article in the
5 "Georgia Outdoor News" that says in the
6 last two years, they have not killed
7 Pope and Young deer in Georgia. That's
8 just an article in the news. I
9 understand that that's -10
DR. STRICKLAND: Our goal is
11 not to produce profiteers.
12
MR. JOHNSON: Well, that's
13 some of the criteria used in the Buck
14 Report.
15
DR. STRICKLAND: We want
16 quality deer. There's a difference
17 between quality in deer hunting.
18
MR. JOHNSON: I understand
19 that.
20
DR. STRICKLAND: Why are you
21 hunting in Georgia?
22
MR. JOHNSON: Georgia's
23 season opens earlier than Alabama's;
0132
1 and I've been hunting over there, as
2 some of these guys have been hunting
3 over there, for years. I've been
4 hunting over there for 50 years, since
5 there was deer season anywhere.
Page 70
6
We have seen a progression of
7 the buck limit, and I just don't feel
8 like the information that's being put
9 out about the buck limit in the media
10 is correct. If it was true -11
DR. STRICKLAND: There has
12 been lots of discussion. It's been in
13 the paper. Have you been following -14
MR. JOHNSON: I have followed
15 it very closely, very closely, in
16 Georgia and Alabama. I feel like that
17 education, that we were under, is
18 working.
19
Like we said, Gary Moody's
20 department has shown the numbers. We
21 have increased the doe harvest
22 tremendously.
23
DR. STRICKLAND: Just give me
0133
1 one other state that does not have a
2 buck limit, and I will support you.
3 Just give me one state.
4
MR. JOHNSON: Excuse me, I
5 didn't hear you.
6
DR. STRICKLAND: Give me one
7 state that does not have a buck limit.
8
MR. JOHNSON: Well -9
DR. STRICKLAND: Just one.
10
MR. JOHNSON: -- I cannot do
11 that, but -12
I cannot give him a state
13 that does not have a buck limit, but
14 you're implying that we're doing
15 something wrong, that I'm not educated
16 enough to manage my property for what I
17 see fit, just like everybody else.
18
DR. STRICKLAND: You only
19 shot three bucks this year. You're
20 following the rules.
21
MR. JOHNSON: I absolutely
22 will follow the rules, unlike
23 Mr. Moultrie just said, that I follow
0134
1 the rules. I will follow the rules.
2
As a lifetime license holder,
Page 71
3 you're chipping away at my lifetime
4 license. You're wanting me to sign
5 tags and do all these other things, and
6 I feel like -7
DR. STRICKLAND: Did you sign
8 one in Georgia?
9
MR. JOHNSON: In Georgia,
10 yes. Georgia has always done that. I
11 do follow the rules. I have to hunt by
12 the rules.
13
If you put a tagging system
14 on me, I have to follow the rules; but
15 you're chipping away at my lifetime
16 license.
17
MR. MOULTRIE: Your exact
18 quote in your letter is: "I do not
19 have to have anything other than my
20 lifetime license with me."
21
Is that correct, Mr. Andress?
22 In possession of a deer.
23
MR. JOHNSON: I can answer
0135
1 that question for you.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Be quiet,
3 Mr. Johnson. We're talking to
4 Mr. Andress.
5
MR. ANDRESS: It's not under
6 current rules.
7
MR. JOHNSON: He is correct.
8 I was a little emotional.
9
10 your time is up.
11
MR. JOHNSON: I was a little
12 emotional when I wrote that letter. I
13 will say this, I was not given a pencil
14 at the meeting.
15
16 please take your seat.
17
The next speaker will be JT
18 Russom.
19
MS. NUMMY: Mr. Johnson was
20 supposed to speak for Mr. Russom.
21
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. One
22 more before we take a break.
23
Mr. Christopher Updell from
Page 72
0136
1 Tuscaloosa.
2
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: JT Russom
3 is hearing impaired. So I'm going to
4 will be reading his statement. This is
5 his statement and his statement alone.
6
"Mr. Chairman and
7 Distinguished Board Members, I would
8 like to go on record as opposed to the
9 three-buck limit. Whereas, the Alabama
10 deer hunter is important to the
11 sportsmen of Alabama, to take the
12 chance of being harmed without proper
13 study and proper data for all such
14 changes.
15
"I propose the following:
16 All hunting clubs, pay-per-day hunts,
17 hunting preserves, charity hunts, and
18 any group where three or more hunters
19 gather to harvest be licensed by the
20 State of Alabama; this license to
21 require records of all deer harvested
22 to be sent to the Alabama Game and Fish
23 by the following March 15th; this data
0137
1 to be posted on a website on or before
2 August 15th each year; after three
3 years with this data in hand, the
4 subject of buck limits again be brought
5 before the Advisory Board; a fee
6 charged for this license sufficient to
7 cover all administrative costs.
8
"To help people such as
9 myself who are hearing impaired, I
10 would like to ask this Advisory Board
11 to refrain from having a second meeting
12 until the minutes of the previous
13 meeting have been posted on the
14 website, Game and Fish, for 30 days.
15 This will give all people of Alabama a
16 chance to become better informed and to
17 have input on the decision of this
18 Board.
19
"I thank you for your service
20 on this Board and the people of
Page 73
21 Alabama. Respectfully, JT Russom, deer
22 hunter for 50 years."
23
0138
1
Mr. Updell.
2
MR. LIDDELL: My name is
3 Christopher Liddell. I'm here in
4 regards, also, to the buck limit.
5
MR. CHAIRMAN: What county
6 are you from?
7
MR. LIDDELL: Tuscaloosa
8 County.
9
Again, my name is Chris, age
10 35. I've been an avid hunter here in
11 my home state for more than 20 years.
12
I've always had a certain
13 amount of pride when I've told people
14 where I hunt, and it's not only due to
15 the three and a half month deer season
16 or that we were able to hunt a buck and
17 a doe per day.
18
It has always been due to the
19 fact that regardless of the above
20 liberal bag limits and long seasons, we
21 still have one of the highest number
22 widespread healthiest white tail herds
23 around.
0139
1
With that being said, I can
2 also brag that this fact is due to a
3 close and trusting relationship between
4 the Department of Conservation and
5 first and foremost Alabama's hunters.
6 It's not by chance that the Department
7 of Conservation began a campaign, for
8 lack of a better term, to educate clubs
9 and land owners on managing their land
10 to meet the owners' needs.
11
Now, only 10 or 15 years
12 later, 80 to 90 percent of Alabama's
13 clubs are on some kind of quality deer
14 management. My point being, we the
15 hunters -- including responsible dog
16 hunters, which seem to be losing their
17 rights every time a meeting is held -Page 74
18 bow hunters, and all other license
19 holders overall treated our land with
20 restraint, respect, and sound
21 practices.
22
With the guidance of our
23 Department of Wild Game and Freshwater
0140
1 Fisheries in our state showed that it
2 has worked very well.
3
Now, you guys sitting behind
4 this table, with the exception of
5 Mr. Jones and Mr. Hatley who voted no
6 on the buck restrictions with
7 Mr. Harbin abstaining, have drawn a
8 line in the sand with the hunters and
9 the Department of Conservation, when
10 the Department of Conservation never
11 wanted this or advised it.
12
That's from the words of the
13 Department of Conservation members that
14 I talked to.
15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Who would that
16 be, sir?
17
MR. LIDDELL: I don't want to
18 put any names out there. I don't know
19 if -20
MS. NUMMY: Time.
21
MR. CHAIRMAN: We're going to
22 continue. Who is was it that -23
0141
1 the Advisory Board to the Department of
2 Conservation. They are not two
3 separate groups.
4
MR. LIDDELL: I've heard you
5 guys -- the Advisory Board is here to
6 advise; right?
7
8 exactly right. That's where the
9 decisions come from. This is where the
10 policies are made.
11
MR. LIDDELL: If the
12 decisions and the policies come from
13 here, that's not advising. That's
14 ruling.
Page 75
15
16 where they are recommended from. I
17 have an option to either accept it or
18 not accept it. The Commissioner has
19 the option.
20
MR. LIDDELL: Okay. Well,
21 that's not the definition of an
22 Advisory Board.
23
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I
0142
1 believe it is. It's worked like that
2 for years.
3
MR. LIDDELL: Worked, I don't
4 know.
5
6 much for your comment.
7
We'll take a break. It's now
8 11:15.
9
MR. LIDDELL: I wasn't
10 finished.
11
MR. CHAIRMAN: No. You're
12 time was up.
13
The time is 11:15. We'll
14 reconvene promptly at 11:30.
15
(Short recess.)
16
17 speaker is Mr. Robert Martin from
18 Geneva County.
19
MR. MARTIN: My name is
20 Robert Martin, but I'm from Houston
21 County.
22
I'm a fox hunter. I have
23 about a 45-acre fox pen. That's been a
0143
1 real tool for me. Not many people can
2 say they got 12 or 13 broke fox hounds
3 that won't run deer (inaudible.)
4
COURT REPORTER: I cannot
5 hear you.
6
MR. MARTIN: I've got about
7 12 or 13 broke fox hounds. They will
8 not run any deer at all. I use my
9 45-acre fox pen as a major tool to help
10 me break my dogs off pens.
11
I got two bucks and a doe the
Page 76
12 minute I fenced that place in. So I
13 use electronic shock collars. So it's
14 been a tool for me.
15
One of the things I'd like to
16 ask this Commission to do, if they
17 would, consider opening up more of
18 these states. Like Barbour County
19 Management (inaudible), there's a lot
20 of fox and bobcats up there.
21
During the off season when
22 deer season's running and turkey
23 season's running, it would be a real
0144
1 good place to be able to go hunting on
2 the outside of a pen or a fenced-in
3 enclosure.
4
That's really all I've got to
5 ask for. Thank you.
6
7 sir.
8
9 Steve Epperson from Jefferson County.
10
MR. EPPERSON: I'm Steve
11 Epperson from Jefferson County.
12
Mr. Moultrie, Chairman,
13 Commissioner Lawley, and the Board, I
14 appreciate the opportunity to speak
15 with y'all.
16
First off, I would like to
17 commend y'all on the passage of the
18 three-buck limit last year. I think
19 it's a great step forward for the State
20 of Alabama. I look forward to great
21 things coming from that.
22
One of the concerns I do
23 have, though, is lack of harvest data
0145
1 for the whole state.
2
I believe Mr. Coles spoke
3 earlier about the harvest requirement
4 -- the harvest data requirement from
5 Barbour County and how that's not being
6 pushed through very well. I would like
7 the State to look into expanding that.
8
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: We will
Page 77
9 be announcing, probably next week -10 and it's on the website now, it's at
11 outdooralabama.com, for your harvest
12 data.
13
If you would go to that site
14 and put on there to -- it's asking you
15 a few more things than the card you
16 carry in your wallet. It's going to
17 ask you how many does you've killed,
18 and it's going to ask you the county
19 and probably the points on the bucks of
20 choice.
21
This is valuable data, how
22 many days you stayed in the field. If
23 you would all just take time to go on
0146
1 the website and fill this out.
2
Even if you killed no deer,
3 we need to know that, too, and how many
4 days you spent in the woods because
5 this is some valuable information; and
6 that's one of the main reasons for it.
7
MR. EPPERSON: It's like the
8 HIP survey for migratory birds.
9
COMMISSIONER: It is. Maybe
10 not quite that in depth, but it's good
11 information; and I appreciate you
12 pointing that out.
13
MR. EPPERSON: As far as data
14 from the department of Conservation and
15 Natural Resources, it seems to be kind
16 of lacking on the website.
17
The Alabama Hunting Survey,
18 the only copy I found on the Outdoor
19 Alabama website was 2003/2004. It was
20 almost four years old.
21
On the first page, it says
22 they've been doing this survey since
23 1963, yet none of this data is posted.
0147
1 I would just ask that they try to get
2 more data on the website for everybody.
3
This seems to be how all the
4 regulations and bag limits have been
5 proposed over the years, off of this
Page 78
6 survey that's done statewide. Yet,
7 nobody knows the questions or the
8 answers or anything else. Unless
9 you've been surveyed, you don't know
10 what's there.
11
12 a very valid point. Mr. Moody could
13 speak to that.
14
I think that study was based
15 on a North Carolina State program that
16 the State of Alabama has been using
17 from the survey.
18
I agree with you. It
19 shouldn't be too difficult to put those
20 results and even a copy of (inaudible)
21 on the website, also. Good point.
22
MR. EPPERSON: Any kind of
23 research data that the Department has,
0148
1 I would suggest being on there.
2
There's no page on the
3 website for deer or turkey. I'm sure
4 there's a deer program coordinator or a
5 turkey coordinator. They should have
6 their own sections on there that tells
7 how to get in touch with the proper
8 coordinator. Just some small stuff.
9
I want to thank you for your
10 time and for the service y'all do.
11
12 much.
13
14 Anthony King from Covington County.
15
MR. KING: My name is Anthony
16 King, and I'm from Covington County.
17
Like most of the young guys
18 that have been up here, I'm a little
19 bit nervous.
20
I was always told if you're
21 nervous speaking, imagine all the folks
22 naked.
23
(Laughter)
0149
1
MR. KING: I'm a still and
2 stalk hunter, always have been. I was
Page 79
3 raised by a father, uncles, grand4 fathers that dog hunted. They quit
5 doing it by the time I was a boy.
6
Like a lot of guys coming up
7 in the State of Alabama, in my youth, I
8 was trigger happy. It was a great
9 place to be trigger happy. You got to
10 kill a lot of animals and see a lot of
11 animals in the State of Alabama.
12
I'm 33 years old. For the
13 last 10 years, I've been blessed to be
14 able to hunt in states like Kansas,
15 Illinois, Kentucky, Texas. Alabama is
16 behind the curve on deer management.
17
I came up here today -- I
18 have never been to an Advisory Board
19 meeting -- because I see a glimmer of
20 hope in Alabama when you guys came out
21 with this three-buck rule.
22
The members of my hunting
23 club, of which -- I'm president of a
0150
1 16-member hunting club. We've got
2 4,200 acres.
3
We cross these deer -- and I
4 don't know if you're the Moultrie, but
5 I'm putting somebody's kid through
6 college (inaudible.)
7
We trough feed these deer
8 from February through October. It's
9 been our experience that our neighbors
10 start feeding November through January,
11 after we've quit.
12
We police ourselves. We have
13 six pages of rules. We're doing it
14 better than the State of Alabama can do
15 it for us. We've had buck limits since
16 day one, since we started this hunting
17 club.
18
We do censuses with cameras
19 that apparently Mr. Moultrie provided
20 us at a nominal cost, and that's how we
21 determine the does that we need to take
22 off the property.
23
My problem is this: We have
Page 80
0151
1 -2
MR. NUMMY: Time.
3
MR. CHAIRMAN: Go ahead and
4 finish up.
5
MR. KING: We have fantastic
6 game down in Covington County. They're
7 doing their job. There's not enough of
8 them.
9
It's fantastic to have a
10 three-buck limit, but follow through
11 with it like Kansas has done, like
12 other states have done. Issue those
13 tags to us, make us tag the deer, and
14 follow them through to the processor.
15
Give us more game wardens.
16 Give them more vehicles. I've talked
17 with these game wardens. I know they
18 can't work but 40 hours a week.
19 They're focussed so close on people
20 feeding corn during the season and not
21 hunting that they can't focus their
22 attention on anything else.
23
They need to have road blocks
0152
1 set up. We need check stations, after
2 these deer are killed, to take them to.
3
It's all about the future of
4 Alabama. That's being able to kill
5 bigger deer, a quality deer, a mature
6 deer. We all like to (inaudible),
7 regardless of who kills it, and see a
8 mature buck come in.
9
Per square mile, Alabama has
10 had a high deer density. That's been
11 the attraction. The guys come from
12 Oklahoma and hunt with me, they come
13 with a deep freezer in the back of
14 their truck. That's not the future of
15 the State of Alabama. The future is
16 being able to kill big buck.
17
18
MR. KING: One more thing. I
19 came here and heard these fox hunters
20 talk. As a manager, it is invaluable
Page 81
21 for us to be able to use trappers to
22 take bobcats and coyotes off our
23 property.
0153
1
Coyotes kill fawns. Bobcats
2 kill turkeys. They need to be able to
3 do that.
4
We've all taken these dog
5 hunters, and we've put them in a pen.
6 We need to give them a way to put the
7 animals back in their pens to hunt. We
8 absolutely need to do it.
9
If I can't get a trapper to
10 come trap them, as a still hunter, all
11 these guys resort to other methods -12 sponges in five-gallon buckets with
13 bacon grease on them. These are
14 methods that my brother hunters up here
15 know are out there.
16
17 Anthony, thank you very much.
18
The next speaker is Edward
19 Harrison from Covington County.
20
MR. HARRISON: My name is Ed
21 Harrison, and I'm from Florala,
22 Covington County, Pine Ridge Hunting
23 Club.
0154
1
We have 5,000 acres, and we
2 are doing our best we can to manage the
3 bucks, as you gentlemen have, on the
4 restrictions on the buck harvest.
5
My question is -- last year,
6 I fed 3.2 tons of 20 percent deer
7 pellets. That's on all those 1008 degree days, but I've got to quit
9 feeding them deer.
10
I've got acres of corn there,
11 soy beans, everything; but I'm in
12 violation if I set a feeder right there
13 in these acres of corn with these high
14 protein pellets in it. That not quite
15 right.
16
We all know that if you set a
17 feeder out there and you put the
Page 82
18 pellets in it -- and I resent -- I
19 strongly resent baiting. I think
20 that's so -- you spend $68,000 on
21 managing deer and trying to make bigger
22 and better with a buck restriction with
23 three points on one side, and where
0155
1 baiting comes up, that's bad.
2
We would like to be able to
3 feed year around. The corn is there,
4 the soybeans, et cetera. They don't
5 come out and eat. You kill a couple of
6 deer. That's it. It's over with.
7
I don't care if it was round
8 steak to us. In that feeder, you're
9 not going to stick your head out there
10 after dark. The fact they come out
11 after dark and have nothing to eat but
12 the old carbohydrate corn, maybe a lab
13 lab (sic) field a frost done killed,
14 soybeans or whatever.
15
We need to be able to feed
16 more than just the nine months out of
17 the year. The 20 percent proteins
18 would help our young bucks and our
19 young does.
20
Thank you very much.
21
22
23 John Perkins from Tuscaloosa.
0156
1
MR. PERKINS: Thank you. My
2 name is John Perkins. I'm actually
3 from Morgan County, but I do my hunting
4 in Tuscaloosa County.
5
Mr. Lawley, Commissioner, all
6 of you Advisory Board, I'm coming in
7 basically with the same thing. We hunt
8 over 9,000 acres.
9
We have taken it upon
10 ourselves to eliminate -- well, two
11 feed blocks. As we go in, we want to
12 put feeders out. I know we can put
13 them out during a non deer hunting
14 season.
Page 83
15
What we're asking for is to
16 be able to feed them in a safe haven
17 area that we cannot go in there and
18 hunt.
19
Like Dr. May said, what is
20 the ruling? It says in the book:
21 "Hunt any area where baiting feeding
22 has occurred until 10 days after all
23 bait and feed has been removed."
0157
1
What is the area, is what
2 we're asking; and is it legal if we
3 eliminate that area in our hunting area
4 and let game wardens come in? We're
5 more than willing and happy for them to
6 come and look at our program and see
7 what we're doing. We want to be able
8 to feed our deer.
9
Thank you.
10
11 much.
12
Our next speaker will be
13 Wayne Harrell from Boligee, Alabama.
14
MR. HARRELL: My name is
15 Wayne Harrell from Greene County,
16 Alabama.
17
I manage a fairly large
18 hunting club over there. I've met you
19 at the Oak Mountain Club.
20
I want to let you know that
21 this is my first meeting. I, too, am a
22 little nervous. I'm not going to make
23 the comment the other gentleman did.
0158
1
I am vehemently opposed to
2 any kind of baiting. I have a game
3 warden that lives on our property, and
4 I see how hard he works trying to
5 prevent that with our neighbors in
6 (inaudible.) I hope we never get to
7 that stage here.
8
I've hunted in states around
9 the country that do it, and it's just
10 (inaudible) to me.
11
We have already had
Page 84
12 restrictions at our club. There are
13 lots of them. I think it's a great
14 move in the right direction, but I
15 would like to see at some point we have
16 some tags, where we could permanently
17 affix tags just like I do when I go to
18 Wisconsin or Canada to hunt.
19
The doe harvest, I think we
20 are on the right track with that. The
21 fact the we're not seeing as many does
22 around is due to a lot of things; our
23 acorn crop. Mainly, (inaudible) on the
0159
1 property.
2
I believe there the doe
3 harvest regulations are working. We
4 are reducing the doe herd. Therefore,
5 we're making a better buck.
6
I know we killed several huge
7 bucks on our property this year. One
8 of them was 22 points, 173 and a half
9 pound deer, which we've never seen on
10 that property until the last few years.
11 So I think it does work.
12
One thing I want to make a
13 comment about is that I would like to
14 see restrictions put on the high fence
15 areas. I think the problem is going to
16 get to the point where the average guy
17 that works -- I'm retired, but I did
18 work for a living -- is not going to be
19 able to hunt because of that.
20
I'm opposed to high fencing.
21 I think it's artificial, and I think
22 it's taking a resource away from the
23 public in Alabama that we paid for and
0160
1 we developed over the past 50 years.
2 When I grew up, there wasn't any deer
3 here.
4
MS. NUMMY: Time.
5
MR. HARRELL: Thank you.
6
7 much.
8
The next speaker will be Tom
Page 85
9 Hayes from Marshall, Alabama.
10
MR. HAYES: Thank you for the
11 opportunity to come here today.
12
I had heard rumors there was
13 a possibility that the crossbow season
14 could be drastically changed this year.
15 I came here to ask you to leave the
16 crossbow season as it is, in
17 conjunction with the regular bow
18 hunting.
19
That's all I have to say.
20
21 much, Mr. Hayes.
22
23 James Jenkins from Lamar County.
0161
1
MR. JENKINS: My name is
2 James Jenkins from Lamar County. I
3 want to thank the Board for hearing me
4 speak today.
5
I'm just an old country boy.
6 I have several things on the list that
7 I had gotten from people in our area,
8 but this is my first trip down here
9 today, and I see it's going to take a
10 little bit different approach to reach
11 different things.
12
The one thing I'm going to
13 spend my time speaking on is, I'm not
14 really for the buck limit. I don't
15 have a lot of acreage of land. If I
16 let a buck go on the small area that I
17 hunt, around with my neighbors and
18 whatnot, I'll probably never see it
19 again.
20
Also, I like the liberty
21 of -- I'm primarily a bow hunter. I
22 catch 90 percent of my deer with a bow.
23 I like the liberty of that, that we've
0162
1 had.
2
Also, I'm worried about
3 having a three-buck limit now and the
4 does wide open. It's working in our
5 area.
Page 86
6
This year, I saw some intense
7 rutting action. They peaked up. They
8 were out chasing in the wide open in
9 the middle of the day. It looked like
10 it was from the northern states. So I
11 know the doe/buck ratio is getting
12 closer.
13
Also, we dressed a doe
14 January 18 that had two big bones
15 missing. It was a legal deer. Where
16 are we headed with that? When we get
17 all our does in check and we can't
18 shoot anymore does and we've got a
19 three-buck limit, where are we headed
20 with that? That's my concern.
21
Like I say, I'm going to
22 touch base with Mr. Harbin, he's in our
23 area, to see if he can't get some local
0163
1 meetings for some of these other
2 things.
3
I apologize for being
4 nervous. Like I said, this is new to
5 me. Thank y'all.
6
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Jenkins, I
7 believe this is an interesting subject.
8 I want the Board to make sure to be
9 aware of it.
10
Mr. Moody, don't y'all
11 conduct fetus studies in the state?
12 Would you go to the microphone real
13 quick and just briefly speak on the
14 fetus state for the state?
15
MR. MOODY: For several
16 years, I guess about 10 or 12 years,
17 we've been conducting a fetal
18 reproductive study statewide, sometimes
19 more intense than others. We're trying
20 to get an idea of the conception dates
21 across the state, not just in one
22 geographic area.
23
Also, we are taking the
0164
1 opportunity during this time to work
2 with clubs when we determine a fetal
Page 87
3 conception date is later in the year,
4 giving them advice on how to keep
5 buck/doe ratios in balance and watching
6 to see what happens in every case.
7
In just about every case,
8 when we move the buck/doe ratio into
9 closer balance, we've seen the ruts
10 back up and get more intense in the
11 January period and sometimes into
12 December, depending on the area it is.
13 So it has been successful.
14
Bill Gray has been our
15 coordinator on that. I think a lot of
16 people have talked to Bill or heard
17 Bill or seen his writings. He's a deer
18 biologist, and he understands all of
19 that very well.
20
It's an ongoing study.
21
MR. CHAIRMAN: What's the
22 average conception date?
23
MR. MOODY: There is not one
0165
1 average conception date. We have deer
2 that breed anywhere from October or
3 November into January, a little bit
4 into February; but most of February
5 reproduction that we've found, working
6 with land owners, we can back that up
7 into January.
8
We have a majority of our rut
9 in January, but we do have some of the
10 early reproduction that for some reason
11 has maintained the early, early deer
12 that were brought in here 75 or 80
13 years ago from northern climates have
14 maintained early breeding dates. It's
15 very common for reproduction.
16
17
The next speaker will be Jack
18 Williamson from Conecuh County.
19
MR. WILLIAMSON: My name is
20 Jack Williamson. I'm from Conecuh
21 County, Alabama.
22
I have my property that I own
23 in the Treasury Forest Program for the
Page 88
0166
1 past 17 years. I've been a member of
2 the Deer Management Program for the
3 past 17 years.
4
I have (inaudible) about
5 every two years give me recommendations
6 for my property. I follow those
7 recommendations rigorously. I harvest
8 the does each year. I limit my harvest
9 on bucks to what they tell me to limit,
10 and my hunting has slowly gotten worse.
11
I don't know whether the deer
12 are breeding later. I don't know
13 what's happening, but I'm not seeing
14 any quality bucks at the end of the
15 season.
16
I just heard the report on
17 the fetal study. I have a copy of it
18 for Conecuh County. The average
19 breeding date for Conecuh County is
20 February 8th, according to this study.
21 Now, I don't know if any have been done
22 since that time.
23
I really need to be hunting
0167
1 today, not here in Montgomery, in order
2 to harvest a quality buck deer on the
3 land that I manage.
4
The scrapes for the past week
5 have increased. I've seen more buck
6 deer in the last few weeks, and I think
7 I'm going to see it probably next week.
8 (Inaudible) take pictures of some of
9 the deer.
10
I'm asking for help. I've
11 had Mr. Davis on the property. I've
12 had Mr. Taggert Colton there. I've had
13 Bill Gray, Richard Thorpe. I've had
14 all these people visit and try to help
15 me, but it's just getting worse.
16
I'm slowly losing interest in
17 deer hunting. Every deer I've killed
18 this year is full of corn. I just
19 don't know what to do.
20
MR. CHAIRMAN: Who is on your
Page 89
21 study that you have there, so that the
22 Board will know? Who authored that
23 study that showed February 8th as
0168
1 the -2
MR. WILLIAMSON: Eugene J.
3 Wider, Steve Barnett, Richard Thorpe,
4 Bruce Todd.
5
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is that a
6 private or a state group?
7
MR. WILLIAMSON: State group.
8 It was done on Stacy Farms, which is on
9 the north end of the county.
10
They ran a study, and 70
11 percent of the does bred in the month
12 of February. Only three bred in
13 January.
14
The date would have probably
15 been later, but they had one that was a
16 freak deer that bred in early January.
17 It was very odd from the rest of the
18 deer.
19
DR. STRICKLAND: Do you have
20 information on your buck/doe ratio?
21 Did they give you that?
22
MR. WILLIAMSON: No, sir,
23 they have not.
0169
1
DR. STRICKLAND: That may be
2 your problem.
3
MR. WILLIAMSON: I've
4 harvested three does to every buck for
5 the past 12 or 15 years.
6
DR. STRICKLAND: How many
7 acres do you have?
8
MR. WILLIAMSON: I have 353.
9 I own 93 and lease the rest.
10
DR. STRICKLAND: What about
11 the people around you, are they on
12 national growth?
13
MR. WILLIAMSON: They're
14 harvesting does. The ones next to me
15 are killing does and everything they
16 can possibly shoot; and they've put out
17 more corn than the problem in Darfur.
Page 90
18
DR. STRICKLAND: That may be
19 your problem.
20
21 did you have a question, also?
22
MR. JOHNSON: How many acres
23 have you got in your operation?
0170
1
MR. WILLIAMSON: 353.
2
3 Thank you very much.
4
5 Randy Yeargan from Chilton County.
6
MR. YEARGAN: My name is
7 Randy Yeargan from Chilton County. I'm
8 with Bowhunters of Alabama.
9
Chairman Moultrie and Board,
10 thank you for having us speak today.
11 Again, as always, I appreciate the hard
12 work y'all always do.
13
I'm here on behalf of the
14 Bowhunters Association today. At the
15 previous board meeting, Dr. Strickland
16 introduced the subject of revoting
17 possibly at a future meeting on the
18 crossbow issue during bow season.
19
We are here again today in
20 support of that. We would like to see
21 crossbows taken out of the general
22 archery season. As before, we are not
23 opposed to having crossbows in the
0171
1 state. We're not opposed to having
2 them during the general firearm season.
3 Just not in archery season.
4
We are not opposed to having
5 them there for kids or for women or for
6 somebody elderly who are not able to
7 draw a bow. We're absolutely not
8 opposed to having them during archery
9 season in that case.
10
We would like to see a
11 possible vote at a future meeting to
12 take the crossbows back out of that
13 season.
14
At the previous meeting,
Page 91
15 Chairman Moultrie, I believe you asked
16 me to possibly get the statistics, if I
17 could, on the subject. As somebody
18 brought up earlier, it's hard to come
19 by.
20
I do know the statistics that
21 I do have, as far as the general
22 archery seasons -- it's from the
23 Department of Conservation's survey.
0172
1
Prior to the passage of the
2 crossbows in Alabama, Alabama had
3 approximately 62,000 bow hunters per
4 their survey. Since that time -- I do
5 not have the '06/'07 statistics. I
6 asked Mr. Moody today, and he told me
7 they were approximately the same as
8 '05/'06, in that same general area.
9
In '05/'06, they were down to
10 57,000. We do have a decrease in bow
11 hunters. Now, is that strictly due to
12 crossbows? I'm not naive enough to
13 think that that's probably the case.
14 Are they part of it? Possibly. We do
15 have a decrease in bow hunting.
16
The same trend is taking
17 place in the State of Georgia. They
18 had 101,000 prior to -- they did their
19 survey. They had 101,000 bow hunters
20 prior to the passage of the crossbows.
21 As of '05/'06 or either '06/'07, they
22 are down from 62,000.
23
MR. NUMMY: Time.
0173
1
MR. YEARGAN: So there is a
2 decrease there.
3
That's basically all the
4 statistics we have that we have come up
5 with in that situation.
6
I have two regulation changes
7 that I might ask for.
8
MR. CHAIRMAN: One of them is
9 for the Bowhunters Association. We
10 would like to see -- during the youth
11 hunt weekend, we would like to see the
Page 92
12 harvest limit being the same for the
13 youth as it is during the regular deer
14 season.
15
Currently, the deer -- they
16 can kill one deer. We would like to
17 see that increased to two a day, the
18 same as it is during the regular time
19 so they can kill a buck and a doe if
20 they want to.
21
The other regulation we would
22 like to see changed is -- well, one
23 observation that was brought up as far
0174
1 as the crossbows are concerned. As an
2 organization, bow hunters organization,
3 somebody asked for a crossbow to be put
4 into turkey season.
5
If they're going to be legal
6 for deer season, we'd like for them to
7 be legal during turkey season. I don't
8 see why there should be a distinction
9 there.
10
We're opposed to crossbows
11 basically during archery season. If
12 they're legal during deer season, they
13 might as well be legal during every
14 other season. I see no reason to
15 distinguish between the seasons.
16
Thank you. I appreciate your
17 time.
18
19
The next speaker will be Jim
20 Couch from Fayette County.
21
MR. COUCH: I'd like to thank
22 the Board for letting me speak today.
23 My name is Tim Couch. We represent the
0175
1 dog hunters of Fayette County.
2
We formed a dog hunters
3 association at Fayette County last
4 year. We put forth some effort
5 designed to make hunting better in
6 Fayette County. I give the Board
7 articles in another newspaper.
8
I come here today to see what
Page 93
9 kind of complaints -- I know we had
10 some tickets wrote in Fayette County,
11 but I did come here last year and ask
12 for help. I want to thank you for the
13 help you give us. The only way you can
14 get rid of the bad apples, you got to
15 get them out of there.
16
I just want you to know that
17 we appreciate the help the Board has
18 given us with the Game Warden Sting
19 Operation.
20
Mr. Johnson made a good point
21 awhile ago. He said he had somebody
22 shoot from the road on his property in
23 Lamar County. That's a very good point
0176
1 because if that had been in Fayette
2 County, that would have been associated
3 with a dog hunter, just because they
4 were shooting from a vehicle.
5
I just want to thank the
6 Board today.
7
MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you have a
8 question, Mr. Johnson?
9
MR. JOHNSON: Yes.
10
Do you have any type of
11 record at this time on the number of
12 tickets or what they were related to in
13 Fayette County?
14
MR. COUCH: Yes, sir. There
15 was 22 tickets wrote in Fayette County;
16 15 for hunting from a public road, I
17 believe there was 3 for baiting, and 2
18 for hunting from a motorized vehicle.
19
I believe we do have a couple
20 of complaints. I give my phone number
21 so we could go out and try to work with
22 land owners. I put my number. There
23 was like six or seven us that put our
0177
1 number in the paper.
2
We had one complaint, a
3 legitimate complaint, that we actually
4 went out and resolved the problem.
5 Both the land owners joined that
Page 94
6 hunting club was well satisfied. They
7 haven't heard a dog since then.
8
I had another person -- I
9 will not call a name -- and I tried to
10 contact him to see if he was having
11 problems because I knew he was
12 supposedly having problem last year.
13 He done his best to make me mad, and I
14 told him I wouldn't get mad. I ain't
15 going to stoop to his level.
16
17 do you have what you showed, for the
18 record, of the rest of the conditions
19 in Fayette County? Can you give us
20 what you have today? Is that the same?
21
MR. ANDRESS: Pretty close,
22 actually.
23
MR. CHAIRMAN: In Fayette
0178
1 County. I'm sorry.
2
MR. ANDRESS: The results of
3 our additional efforts for Fayette
4 County produced 28 arrests and 2
5 written warnings. That was a special
6 operation with the assistance of the
7 Alabama Department of Agriculture and
8 ABI, from their officers.
9
DR. STRICKLAND: Is that
10 total arrests, or is that just dog11 related arrests?
12
MR. ANDRESS: That's just
13 related to dog hunting.
14
DR. STRICKLAND: Do you know
15 the average number of arrests per
16 county?
17
MR. ANDRESS: That's hard to
18 say. It varies. It's quite a few.
19
There again, that represents
20 an increase effort in that particular
21 area, as well.
22
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Johnson.
23
MR. JOHNSON: As I recall one
0179
1 of the meetings that we were in last
2 year, Fayette County Dog Hunters
Page 95
3 Association and also Seth, Mr. Harbin
4 and Dr. May attended the meeting in
5 Berry.
6
At that time, a statement was
7 made in regard that the Dog Hunters
8 Association was going to work toward
9 improving what you had in Fayette
10 County, what was going on.
11
What have you done, as a dog
12 hunter, to improve that situation out
13 there,
14
MR. COUCH: I think I give it
15 to Robin. We ran several articles in
16 the papers. We had several public
17 notices, and we've had meetings and
18 invited the public to come to them.
19
Like I said, that's pretty
20 much all we can do. We can't take the
21 game wardens' places and go out there
22 and write tickets themselves. All we
23 can do is go talk to the land owners
0180
1 and go talk to the -2
MR. HARBIN: How many land
3 owners have you talked to in this
4 county, that are complaining about the
5 dogs?
6
MR. COUCH: I only talked to
7 one person and one other guy. They
8 will not call.
9
MR. HARBIN: They're not
10 having the problem. It is really your
11 place to talk to them, I thought.
12
MR. COUCH: If we don't know
13 who has got the problem, we can't talk
14 to them.
15
I did go out on a limb and
16 contact one person on my own, and I
17 received a cussing for it. He does not
18 know me. He's sitting in this room
19 today. He does not know me.
20
I did not call him to start
21 an argument with him. He will stand up
22 and tell you I never raised my voice to
23 him. He accused me of (inaudible.)
Page 96
0181
1
MR. HARBIN: I don't know
2 what to tell you about that. I've
3 talked to this gentleman you're
4 referring to, and there just doesn't
5 seem to be any progress being made up
6 there in that part of the country.
7
They run one day of an
8 operation up there, and some of them
9 have been arrested.
10
MR. COUCH: I believe
11 Mr. Andress said that was not done all
12 in one day.
13
MR. HARBIN: I understand
14 that.
15
MR. COUCH: I don't think all
16 the arrests were made in one day.
17
MR. HARBIN: My biggest
18 concern is just controlling the dogs.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Jones, do
20 you have a question?
21
MR. JONES: Mr. Couch, you
22 represent the Old Liberty Hunting Club.
23 How many arrests did y'all have within
0182
1 your own club?
2
MR. COUCH: We had four
3 arrests within our own club. We did.
4
MR. JONES: Out of 28? Out
5 of 28 arrests, you had 4?
6
MR. COUCH: Can I -- it was
7 two visitors.
8
MR. HARBIN: I don't know,
9 sir. I just got the supervisor's
10 report.
11
MR. COUCH: What I'm saying
12 is, the members that got the tickets
13 were two visitors that were visiting
14 with us that day. Our club is at fault
15 for not explaining how far they needed
16 to be.
17
One member was a new member,
18 and he was down in the woods, and his
19 son killed an eight horn. They were
20 off the road and shot the deer. They
Page 97
21 walked back to the truck.
22
In the excitement of killing
23 the deer -- the man was my age or
0183
1 older, knows better -- he walked back
2 to the truck, asked somebody to help
3 his son because he wasn't able to help
4 his son grab the deer out.
5
He walked back to the truck,
6 and he stepped out on the edge of the
7 road with his gun up hollering for
8 somebody to come and help him drag the
9 deer out, and he was wrote a ticket.
10
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Couch, I
11 would like to say that (inaudible)
12 showed a copy of this article that
13 y'all ran in the paper. I would like
14 to commend y'all on your efforts to try
15 to control dog hunting and try to make
16 it done right in Fayette County.
17 That's very commendable, y'all taking
18 that approach. I think that's a great
19 approach.
20
MR. COUCH: We are trying. I
21 mean, if nobody contacts us, it's hard
22 for us to go out and resolve a problem
23 if we don't know who's causing the
0184
1 problem.
2
4
MR. ST. JOHN: Can I add
5 something to that? I'm not on the
6 list.
7
MR. CHAIRMAN: Generally, we
8 are not accepting comments from the
9 floor because this is very intense. I
10 will bypass that if you will come down
11 and give us your name and where you
12 reside, I will allow that very quickly.
13
MR. ST. JOHN: Good day. I'm
14 Virgil St. John. I'm a member of the
15 Good Old Boys Hunting Club in Fayette
16 County, from Berry. I appreciate you
17 giving me a few moments.
Page 98
18
To the gentleman that was
19 asking the questions about the tickets
20 and what all was trying to be done,
21 Good Old Boys Hunting Club is a 6522 member dog hunting club with zero
23 tickets this year, sir. We are
0185
1 striving real hard. We have 7,500
2 acres that's in one block.
3
We talk to the people in the
4 community. We visit their stores,
5 their restaurants. We try to socialize
6 with them.
7
We had a youth hunt that was
8 open to the community of Berry, and
9 anybody that chose to bring their child
10 and share a day with them out there in
11 the woods.
12
Now, I understand that dog
13 hunting is aggravating some folks, some
14 land owners. Sir, I'm 48 years old. I
15 worked for 28 years paying my taxes,
16 and I got my back busted up. I can't
17 go climb a tree. I can't do the ladder
18 stand like I used to do. I have to be
19 took out to the woods and put off on my
20 stand, and I have to get brought back.
21
Now, the people in Berry at
22 the restaurants, the service stations,
23 the police officers, and the grocery
0186
1 stores, they all know us because we try
2 to be a part of the community. We're
3 not some gang that just wants to roll
4 in, destroy, and roll out.
5
Now, I understand you've got
6 to have limitations, and I'm saying
7 please provide the limitations -8
MS. NUMMY: Time.
9
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please finish
10 up.
11
MR. ST. JOHN: But I'm asking
12 you: Don't put all the eggs in the
13 same basket. I'm willing to work with
14 anybody that's willing to work with me,
Page 99
15 whether it's a phone call -- we try
16 real hard to please ourselves, sir.
17
Like I said, we've got zero
18 tickets.
19
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: I don't
20 have anything to do with y'all.
21
MR. ST. JOHN: Thank you.
22
23
0187
1 Jimmy Crowe from Fayette, Alabama.
2
MR. CROWE: That was a
3 misprint. I'm from St. Clair County.
4
We run dogs, and we have
5 4,000 acres. We control our dogs down
6 there. We try to keep them on our
7 property, and we have no problems with
8 our dogs.
9
That's all I have.
10
11 much.
12
The next speaker will be John
13 Dover from Fayette.
14
MR. DOVER: My name is John
15 Dover, and I'm from Fayette County. I
16 reside in Fayette County, and I also
17 hunt in Fayette County.
18
Just to elaborate, I'm in
19 support of the dog hunter. My name is
20 on the advertisement that you see there
21 to be contacted.
22
To elaborate, we did have
23 some other people we contacted. Bruce
0188
1 Bailey is the Vice President of the
2 Fayette County Chapter. He contacted
3 one member, Bill Cook, that has had a
4 problem with dogs last week.
5
I tried to help mediate and
6 resolve that situation. Bill didn't
7 take him up on his offer, but I don't
8 know whether Bill had any problems here
9 or not.
10
There's outlaws. There's
11 laws being broke. Some is broke on
Page 100
12 accident, some is broke on purpose.
13 This thing is a step in the right
14 direction, but you can't have it one
15 time for it to be effective.
16
Let the people know if you
17 break the law, you're going to be
18 punished. These people here like the
19 gentleman from the Good Old Boys who
20 had zero tickets -- we've got zero
21 tickets -- they couldn't find us if
22 they tried to. Don't punish these
23 people. Give these people a chance.
0189
1
I brought a petition out here
2 last year with 2,000 signatures of
3 residents that supported this. We are
4 a very rural county. We are not an
5 urban developed county. We have the
6 support of the community.
7
We would like the opportunity
8 -- just give us enough time to clear
9 this up. Let us run an ad in the paper
10 again next year, let everyone know
11 we're open to all their suggestions.
12
That's all I've got.
13
14 acres are in your club?
15
MR. DOVER: My club? I
16 couldn't honestly tell you. I'm just a
17 member. It's approximately 4,200 or
18 4,400, something like that. It's
19 rather large. There's a lot of
20 timberland.
21
DR. STRICKLAND: Were there
22 any dog-related violations out there?
23
MR. DOVER: None, to my
0190
1 knowledge.
2
3 Mr. Dover.
4
5 Robert Graddy from Pike County.
6
MR. GRADDY: My name is
7 Robert Graddy, and I'm from Pike
8 County, Troy, Alabama. I thank you for
Page 101
9 having this time to talk to you.
10
My main concern is about our
11 dog hunting. Y'all wanted to cut our
12 dog hunting out last year. I talked to
13 you, Mr. Lawley, and told you how I
14 felt about the dogs.
15
We have a lot of kids that
16 hunt with us, and we have a good time.
17 I don't care nothing about killing the
18 deer. I like to hear my dogs run.
19
Suppose we had 82 complaints
20 last year. We had one this year, that
21 I know of. We changed the time limit
22 we hunted. We don't dog hunt anymore
23 after 12:00. We don't dog hunt close
0191
1 to the neighbors after 9:00.
2
We've done everything we can
3 do to try to get along with our
4 neighbors. I did everything I told you
5 I would do.
6
My main concern is to find
7 out if we're going to get to dog hunt
8 again this year or not. That's my sole
9 concern.
10
As far as I know, like I
11 said, we had one complaint. I talked
12 to the game warden officer. He told me
13 that. I know folks that dog hunt have
14 just as much right to hunt as I do, but
15 I'm trying to salvage my hunt.
16
That's really all have I to
17 say. The one run in we had, the man
18 took the collar off of my dog and threw
19 it at the boy that owned it. So he
20 didn't really want the boy find the
21 dog, but we did.
22
I know we messed up his
23 hunting; but he don't have no right to
0192
1 do that, in my eyes.
2
I've tried everything I can
3 do to please everybody around me. I
4 just don't want to lose my dog hunting.
5
I know how it is to get dogs
Page 102
6 killed. It happened to me four years
7 ago. I couldn't get nothing done about
8 it. I like dog hunting as much as
9 anybody here, probably more.
10
MR. CHAIRMAN: What part of
11 Pike County is your club?
12
MR. GRADDY: Probably
13 northeastern Pike County. I'm right on
14 the Bullock County/Pike County lines.
15
I heard a rumor that they
16 were trying to cut it out in Northeast
17 Pike County. I hope that's not true,
18 especially with everything we
19 accomplished this year. When you go
20 from 82 complaints to 1, that's a big
21 difference. I don't know how to get
22 any better than that. I just don't
23 know any better way to do it.
0193
1
I started my own chapter of
2 dog hunting association in Pike County.
3 I've talked to everybody I can talk to.
4 I don't know what else I can do.
5
6 acres do you have in your hunting club?
7
MR. GRADDY: We've got
8 probably 2,200 we lease. We've
9 probably got another 1,000 we can hunt.
10
DR. STRICKLAND: About 3,200
11 total.
12
13
MR. COLES: What's the name
14 of your hunting club.
15
MR. GRADDY: Calhoun Hunting
16 Club.
17
MR. COLES: I believe the 82
18 complaints you're referring to was 82
19 tickets written on a sting operation
20 several years ago when Grady Reeves was
21 the president of the club.
22
MR. GRADDY: That had to be
23 several years ago. I know I've been at
0194
1 this club for going on seven years. We
2 haven't had a ticket in this club since
Page 103
3 I've been hunting. I'm the president
4 of the club now.
5
I was told we had 82. I know
6 of 1 ticket this year, and I don't know
7 how to get any better than that.
8
DR. STRICKLAND: Was it a
9 ticket or a complaint?
10
MR. GRADDY: It was a
11 complaint. It was a legitimate
12 complaint. We had no citations.
13
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any more
14 questions from the Board?
15
16
The next speaker will be Bill
17 Herren from Fayette County.
18
MR. HERREN: My name is Bill
19 Herren. I live in Walker County, and I
20 own property in Fayette County.
21
We came last year and made a
22 plea before the Board that dog hunting
23 be banned in Fayette County. The
0195
1 reason being the rights of the land
2 owners were not being represented in
3 any way.
4
I don't know about complaints
5 last year. I know we tried to contact
6 law enforcement. They responded
7 promptly on several occasions this
8 year, but the complaints, the lack of
9 respect this year was just as great or
10 greater than it was last year.
11
As far as our property, we
12 didn't accomplish anything in the fact
13 that you allow the dog hunters to
14 contact land owners or to try to work
15 out an agreement. That has not worked.
16 That has not taken place.
17
I would just like to see dog
18 hunting be banned because of the rights
19 of the land owners, and it's just -- I
20 don't see any other way to resolve it.
21
The contacts that were made
22 with one of the hunting clubs adjacent
23 to us -- I talked to a young man, and
Page 104
0196
1 he told me, "As long as we dog hunt,
2 there's no way that we can keep the
3 dogs from running across your
4 property."
5
If they know it and they
6 continue to do it, there's nothing we
7 can do. We're not got to shoot the
8 dogs. We're not going to take the
9 collars off. We'd like to get along
10 with our neighbors.
11
So we've come to you as the
12 authority that has an opportunity to
13 help us, and we would appreciate any
14 help and any concern that you can
15 muster, I guess, to improve this
16 situation.
17
I don't see that agreement
18 has worked with them and them worked
19 with us. I don't see any effort
20 whatsoever having taken place.
21
Thank you for your concern.
22
23 Mr. Herren.
0197
1
2 Dennis Hudson from Perry County.
3
MR. HUDSON: I want to take
4 an opportunity to say you have a hard
5 job. I respect the job y'all are
6 having to do because you have to hear
7 both sides of this and make a decision.
8
In Perry County last year,
9 there were some restrictions made on
10 one side of the road that we hunt on.
11 We are a dog hunting club.
12
You can look back on our
13 club. We've got 4,500 acres. We've
14 been established for 30 years. I've
15 been in The Club about 10 myself.
16 There has been maybe one ticket in the
17 last five years given out.
18
We have Conservation Officer
19 Ken Daniels patrolling regularly. You
20 can ask him about us. He comes through
Page 105
21 there.
22
I just want to say that my
23 daughter hunts with me. She loves to
0198
1 dog hunt. She has a dog. I raised it
2 from a puppy. She considers it to be
3 hers.
4
I don't know what else to
5 say. I think we all ought to get along
6 and respect the dog hunter, and the dog
7 hunter ought to respect the stalk
8 hunter.
9
We try to get in there and
10 keep our dogs from getting on anyone
11 else's property. I just think we all
12 ought to get along. Thank you.
13
14 much.
15
The next speaker will be Joe
16 Knight from Fayette County.
17
MR. KNIGHT: My name is Joe
18 Knight, and our hunting club is Creek
19 Hunting Club in Fayette County.
20
We've got 4,000 acres. We've
21 been in existence for 23 years. We
22 don't have no problem out of none of
23 our neighbors. We have good fellowship
0199
1 with the community.
2
Our dogs do not get off our
3 property. That's hard to believe, but
4 we keep them on our property. That's
5 one reason we don't have any problems
6 over there.
7
I'm worried about Fayette
8 County because of a few bad apples.
9 There are too many good hunting clubs
10 in Fayette County.
11
That's about all I have to
12 say. I just want y'all to realize
13 that.
14
We are in the very southeast
15 corner of Fayette County, as far
16 southeast as you can get.
17
I appreciate your time.
Page 106
18 Thank you.
19
20 much.
21
The next speaker will be Don
22 Knight from Anniston, Alabama.
23
MR. KNIGHT: Good afternoon.
0200
1 I'm Don Knight. I'm from Calhoun
2 County.
3
I'm the State President of
4 the Alabama Dog Hunters Association,
5 and I would like to thank the
6 Enforcement Division for (inaudible) in
7 Fayette County. I think that's a step
8 in the right direction to help us get
9 things straightened out up there.
10
I've seen a lot of effort
11 from these gentlemen this year. The
12 State took a stand. We didn't have any
13 news coming to us. We wanted them to
14 take that money, invest it in ads,
15 anything -- youth hunts and all that
16 kind -- anything they can do positive
17 in Fayette County. I think the ad and
18 all was very good.
19
I want to thank Allan and
20 them for putting on the sting. I'd ask
21 the Board for some time now for that to
22 have an effect. You don't just run up
23 in there and do something like that.
0201
1 It's got some attention now. They know
2 there's a (inaudible) behind the
3 problem.
4
As you can see, it wasn't
5 from all the clubs. It wasn't from
6 hardly any of the clubs. We just want
7 you to understand that it's not a
8 method-of-hunting problem. It's a
9 people problem. It's not the dog
10 hunting. It's the people.
11
I think Mr. Smith and
12 Mr. Strickland made a great point.
13 Mr. Strickland says the most tickets
14 written in this state was in their
Page 107
15 area. They don't have any dog hunting.
16 That's got to tell you something. It's
17 still a people problem.
18
There's still tickets being
19 written in Lamar, anywhere that there's
20 areas where there's not dog hunting.
21 The tickets are still written. It's a
22 people problem.
23
Don't punish the method of
0202
1 hunting, which is dog hunting. Give it
2 some time, get the enforcement up.
3
We're trying. We're putting
4 forth every effort we can from the dog
5 hunters' side of it to try to make this
6 thing work. We want to hunt.
7
MS. NUMMY: Time.
8
MR. CHAIRMAN: Don, I know
9 you had a lot of people you grouped
10 together. If you could, just try to
11 finish it up quickly.
12
MR. KNIGHT: It's good to
13 hear these people get up here and talk
14 about zero tickets.
15
I hunt in Barbour County.
16 Our club had zero tickets from a dog
17 hunting club, also. It can happen, but
18 you've got to have time.
19
You were talking about people
20 that have been hunting all their lives
21 a certain way. Then, all of a sudden
22 one day, boom, you've got to change it
23 and do it a different way.
0203
1
In my case, we try to teach
2 dog hunting in a method that would
3 work, and you try to keep your dogs off
4 somebody else's land every possible way
5 you can.
6
I'm going to ask for help
7 from the still hunters, from these
8 people that get up here and complain
9 about their dogs going on the property.
10 Help us out. We need your help.
11
Don't put corn on your
Page 108
12 property. If that deer leaves our
13 property going to your property to get
14 corn and we don't have corn, our dogs
15 are going to get on that trail and come
16 on your property.
17
I'm not saying that's
18 everybody. I'm just asking for your
19 help. Don't put corn on your property
20 and then fuss about dogs coming over
21 there.
22
Thank you.
23
0204
1
The next speaker will be Adam
2 Lesley from Tuscaloosa.
3
MR. LESLEY: I'm Adam Lesley,
4 from Tuscaloosa; and I would just like
5 to tell you why we should have hunting
6 deer with dogs in Tuscaloosa County.
7
There are so many things I
8 could say hunting deer with dogs. I
9 grew up on it. My whole family did.
10 There is nothing like waking up,
11 getting to the hunting club, loading
12 the dogs up, then getting on your stand
13 knowing that you can't let that deer
14 get across your stand when it comes.
15
It's so nice when you get on
16 your stand to hear the drivers let the
17 dogs out. You can hear the dogs
18 barking and running the deer and hope
19 they run it towards you. So then your
20 heart gets pumping and your adrenaline
21 runs through your body.
22
All of a sudden, you hear
23 leaves cracking. You look around
0205
1 anxiously, waiting on the deer. The
2 dogs get closer. Everything gets
3 louder.
4
Then you see the deer.
5 Everything stops, and you let him have
6 it. The dogs tearing up the trail,
7 barking, spit running everywhere. They
8 don't care, they're just glad they've
Page 109
9 finally got their jaws on him.
10
The dogs are so proud to know
11 that all of their hard work has paid
12 off. It's so good to know that your
13 dogs have run this deer, and you didn't
14 disappoint them.
15
If dog driving was outlawed,
16 then a lot of people will never get
17 this feeling. There will be a lot of
18 dogs that will be given away and never
19 get to hunt anymore, be thrown out, or
20 even be killed.
21
Our hunting clubs have never
22 had any trouble about dogs getting on
23 someone else's land. There are so many
0206
1 good things about it.
2
It's how hunting got started.
3 In the old days, that's the only kind
4 of hunting there was. It has so much
5 history behind it, and I think we
6 should keep it going.
7
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Lesley,
8 that was an absolutely great
9 presentation. For a man of your youth,
10 you did a great job.
11
Mr. Johnson.
12
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir. You
13 did a great job.
14
I would like to ask: Where
15 is this hunting club located?
16
MR. LESLEY: On Northeast
17 Tuscaloosa County.
18
MR. JOHNSON: Do you live in
19 Tuscaloosa County?
20
MR. LESLEY: Yes, sir.
21
MR. JOHNSON: Whereabouts?
22
MR. LESLEY: Northport.
23
MR. JOHNSON: Okay. Thank
0207
1 you.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good job.
3
MR. HARBIN: Mr. Chairman,
4 let's get one thing straight. It's not
5 the acreage. It's not the dog hunters.
Page 110
6 It's jut the simple fact that you've
7 got to learn to control these dogs and
8 keep them off these people's land that
9 don't want the dogs on their land.
10
It's not the tickets. It's
11 not the enforcement. It's not the type
12 of hunting. It's just -- the fact is,
13 if this man doesn't want a dog on his
14 land, keep your dog off of it.
15
16 Mr. Harbin.
17
18 Robert Martin from Geneva County.
19
DR. STRICKLAND: Excuse me,
20 Mr. Chairman.
21
MR. MOULTRIE: Go ahead,
22 Dr. Strickland.
23
DR. STRICKLAND: Mr. Harbin,
0208
1 it's a lot easier to control dogs on
2 4,000 than 40 acres.
3
MR. HARBIN: Oh, yeah. I
4 understand that; but, if you've got
5 4,000 acres and your dog is get on
6 someone else's land, you might as well
7 have 40 acres.
8
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Robert
9 Martin from Geneva County. Is he here?
10
11 James McMickens from Fayette County.
12
MR. MCMICKENS: I'll speak
13 for him, if you don't mind. I'm his
14 brother.
15
My name is Les McMickens. I
16 live Jefferson County, and I hunt in
17 Fayette County. I'm 50 years old.
18
I was supposed to be dead by
19 the time I was 16. I have a bad heart,
20 bad circulation. I can't walk. I
21 can't climb. I can't pick up a deer;
22 but, because the dogs run, I'm still
23 hunting.
0209
1
That's all I have to say.
2
Page 111
3 much.
4
5 David Morris from Bessemer, Alabama.
6
MR. MORRIS: I appreciate
7 every one of y'all.
8
I'm probably the worst hunter
9 in this room, if not in the top five.
10 I've been dog hunting all my life, and
11 I just like to listen to them run.
12
I've been a member of the
13 Creek Hunting Club. We have had no
14 tickets in the last eight years that
15 I've been a member of it.
16
If the dog gets on our
17 property, if it's our dog or anybody's
18 dog, we catch it. We try to -- we try
19 to keep our dogs off everybody's
20 property.
21
The gentleman on the end, you
22 can't control where the dog runs. All
23 we can do -- all we can do is try to
0210
1 control where the dog goes, but we
2 don't have another drive until we catch
3 all of our dogs. We're dead in the
4 water until we get them all in.
5
That's about as good as you
6 can get. I appreciate y'all listening
7 to me.
8
MR. JOHNSON: What part of
9 Fayette County?
10
MR. MORRIS: Do you know
11 where Highway 69 is, Blue Water? Right
12 out that road. It's like the twilight
13 zone when you go out there.
14
I'm from the city, but I
15 enjoy it because I'm a businessman. My
16 phone rings 90 times a day. When I'm
17 out there, the phones don't work. It's
18 quiet. You listen to the dogs, and
19 it's great.
20
You can take it away from us,
21 but what have you accomplished? There
22 are people -- the problem we have on
23 our hunting club is people coming
Page 112
0211
1 through there that don't belong to our
2 club, and they turn their dogs loose,
3 and we have to fight that.
4
Y'all were talking about the
5 land owners. We rent that property.
6 So we have to stop individuals from
7 using our own land. That's bad, also.
8
We try to do it right, but we
9 can't control everybody.
10
Thank you.
11
12 Mr. Morris.
13
The next speaker is Susan
14 Morrow from Mobile.
15
MS. MORROW: I'm Susan
16 Morrow. I live in Mobile County.
17
I hunt all over. I have come
18 here today to ask y'all if you would
19 consider giving us more dog days on the
20 management area.
21
We have four areas that we
22 can hunt; Mobile Delta, Boykin, Scotch
23 Management, and Blue Springs. If we
0212
1 could have two more days added for dog
2 hunting, it would be greatly
3 appreciated.
4
Thank you.
5
6 Ms. Morrow.
7
The next speaker will be Ken
8 Moses from Hartselle, Alabama. Is he
9 here?
10
Robin, strike him.
11
The next speaker will be Jace
12 Terry from Tuscaloosa.
13
MR. TERRY: I'm Jace Terry.
14 I'm from Lawrence County, Alabama.
15
I hunt down north of
16 Tuscaloosa, and we've been running dogs
17 down there. Y'all took it away last
18 year.
19
I have a nephew, great
20 nephews. I promised their granddaddy
Page 113
21 on his death bed that I would keep them
22 hunting. They didn't want to come
23 hunting this year because we didn't
0213
1 have our dog rights.
2
I'm just asking the Board to
3 consider giving a permit for a certain
4 amount of acreage of land to be able to
5 get our dogs out back and north of 82
6 in Tuscaloosa.
7
That's all I got to say.
8 Thank you.
9
10 Mr. Terry.
11
The next speaker will be Doug
12 Vines from Fayette County.
13
MR. VINES: My name is Doug
14 Vines. I hunt over in Fayette County.
15 I live in Tuscaloosa County.
16
I've been hunting with this
17 bunch -- for 23 years, we haven't had a
18 ticket.
19
Nobody in the club -20 everybody -- when we line up in the
21 morning and draw our stand, we hand out
22 rope, dog leashes. We catch our dogs.
23 We try our best not to let a dog get
0214
1 out of our property.
2
I've been dog hunting every
3 since I've been able to follow my daddy
4 in the woods. I'm 62 years old, and my
5 grandkids, they've followed me from the
6 time they was able to walk.
7
I've got cancer in my back
8 now, and I can't walk, but they still
9 hunt with me. Don't take it away from
10 us.
11
Thank you.
12
13 Mr. Vines.
14
The next speaker will be Lee
15 Wilson from Coosa County.
16
MR. WILSON: I represent
17 Coosa County. The name of our hunting
Page 114
18 club is Hattchett Creek Hunting Club.
19 We have 14,000 acres of land that we
20 lease. We are a dog club with zero
21 tickets, zero fatalities.
22
This club has been in
23 existence since 1964. We are trying
0215
1 our best to adhere to all the state
2 laws and regulations that have been put
3 to us.
4
We ask that this Board and
5 this panel please consider us when it
6 comes time for us to apply for our
7 permit at the dog hunt next year.
8
We are desperately trying to
9 enact laws that will help us to control
10 our dogs so they will not get on other
11 people's property; such as, giving
12 leashes out, as the gentleman before me
13 talked about.
14
We are cutting our
15 (inaudible) down to one drive a day.
16 We are cutting the amount of driving we
17 do during the season.
18
If there's any input that we
19 can get from you guys, we would greatly
20 appreciate it. Thank you.
21
22 much.
23
The next speaker will be Tony
0216
1 Wynn from Cullman County.
2
MR. WYNN: I'm Tony Wynn. I
3 live in Cullman County.
4
We hunt Northeast Tuscaloosa
5 County. I'm the hunting master of the
6 Buck Horn Hunting Club. My dad started
7 hunting in Northeast Tuscaloosa County
8 in early 1950.
9
I started hunting in 1959,
10 when I was 13 years old. At that time,
11 we hunted by permit or mostly just land
12 owner permission.
13
Buck Horn Hunting Club was
14 formed in 1961 with 12 members for the
Page 115
15 first year. I started taking my boys
16 dog hunting with me when they were four
17 years old. Now, I have four grandsons
18 that I carry hunting. That makes four
19 generations of the Wynn family that has
20 been dog hunting in Northeast
21 Tuscaloosa County.
22
Mike Cassidy, the owner of
23 the land, 7,220 acres, has no objection
0217
1 to us dog hunting. Y'all have the
2 letter in front of you.
3
We also lease other land from
4 other private land owners, a little
5 over 9,000 acres.
6
In all the years that we've
7 hunted that land, we have never had one
8 dog violation charge against our club.
9
I don't know if you can
10 change the law back or not, but at
11 least give us a permit to run the dogs
12 on the land we have. If not, then
13 we're going to have to dissolve or club
14 because we are a dog hunting club.
15
If you would, please give us
16 a decision by March 16, where we'll
17 know what to do on the land issue.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Johnson.
20
MR. JOHNSON: How many
21 members do you have in that club, and
22 where are they located?
23
MR. WYNN: We have 35 members
0218
1 at the present time, mostly from
2 Cullman, Morgan, and Lawrence Counties.
3
4 much.
5
6 Claude Aultman from Perry County.
7
MR. AULTMAN: My name is
8 Claude Aultman, and I'm from Perry
9 County.
10
I would like to thank
11 everyone in the Advisory Board for the
Page 116
12 decision they made. They came out and
13 they looked at our situation. After
14 looking at it, they agreed; and y'all
15 banned dog hunting in a problem area
16 where we live at.
17
I heard about the meeting. I
18 had two evenings to get this together.
19 I have two pages of land owners right
20 here and another page -- some called
21 last night that still want to be on
22 this list. This is the way it was
23 typed up.
0219
1
I would like to read it if, I
2 could. I would like to say there are
3 dog hunters, and there are outlaws.
4 That's two different things. That's
5 what we have; outlaws.
6
We would like to thank
7 Dr. May, Mr. Johnson, and the entire
8 Board for their decision on banning
9 deer hunting with dogs in the problem
10 area of North Hale County. We have had
11 a peaceful and safe season. We hope it
12 will continue this way.
13
I would like to give this to
14 you, and I have another one comment.
15 I represent people that Dr. May and
16 Mr. Johnson will tell you didn't sign
17 this on account of getting some
18 threats.
19
I knew when I took this on,
20 that I would be not liked, and I've had
21 some harsh things said. They're going
22 to come up in the yard and fuss at me,
23 I've had letters delivered to me.
0220
1
I had some say that this
2 State don't work on Saturday, that
3 y'all good people are just a joke.
4
I want to say this, I thank
5 you for listening. I thank you for
6 listening to the people. I think
7 you're a great bunch of guys that do
8 make life decisions.
Page 117
9
This right here proves you
10 did make one right decision down in our
11 county. There will be another one
12 coming. I do appreciate y'all.
13
14 much.
15
16 Randy and Sharon Bailey from Talladega
17 County.
18
MR. THOMAS: I will be
19 speaking for them. I'm their brother.
20
My name is Edison Thomas.
21 I'm also on the list to speak, along
22 with the other land owners (inaudible)
23 and Jimmy Goodman.
0221
1
I represent the land owners
2 of the Salt Creek area in the Talladega
3 National Forest. We own property
4 there.
5
We are faced with a dilemma.
6 We are on a seven-mile road, and
7 there's 25 homes on this seven-mile
8 dirt road. It's surrounded by four9 wheeler trails, the Kentuck ORV Trails.
10 I brought a map of it up there, and I
11 have highlighted where the trails run.
12
We've had problems this year
13 with dog hunting. It's basically -14 we're not against this sort of dog
15 hunting at all. We all own land very
16 close to the National Forest proximity
17 there.
18
We have been threatened,
19 assaulted. The preacher has even had
20 his cattle threatened. His brother's
21 life has been threatened. We feel very
22 threatened.
23
We've made report after
0222
1 report with Officer Whitworth of the
2 National Forest. We've talked with
3 Jerry Fincher. As a matter of fact, he
4 called me the other day and was
5 supposed to be compiling all these
Page 118
6 complaints to have for you today.
7
Are you aware of any of these
8 complaints?
9
(No response.)
10
MR. THOMAS: Jerry Fincher
11 was the one who was supposed to be
12 bringing it.
13
I also brought a petition of
14 34 -- it's got 34 signatures out of 25
15 homes within that seven miles of dirt
16 road.
17
This all started -- or it's
18 been going on since last year, but the
19 day before Christmas -- the Sunday
20 before Christmas, we were up on our
21 property smoking hams for Christmas.
22
I look up, and I see seven
23 hunters fall out on the road within a
0223
1 150 yards of my little cabin. I
2 holler, "Hey, there's a house down
3 here." They didn't hear.
4
So I jumped in my truck and
5 told my brother-in-law, "I'm going to
6 go let them know that there's someone
7 down here." It is sort of a hidden
8 little nook that I'm in.
9
So I get up there, and I
10 asked them, "Gentlemen, would y'all
11 mind moving on down the road? I've got
12 a wife and kids down here, and we feel
13 very unsafe with you and your rifles."
14
He told me right quick, he
15 said, "You land owners think you own
16 this mountain."
17
MS. NUMMY: Time.
18
MR. CHAIRMAN: You can finish
19 up.
20
MR. THOMAS: I said, "Well,
21 as a matter of fact, I do own this
22 portion." He went to his truck, with a
23 four-year-old in that truck, and
0224
1 started loading his shotgun. He said,
2 "I'll take care of this problem right
Page 119
3 now." He intended to kill me standing
4 on my own land.
5
We feel very very threatened.
6 What we ask of you guys, the Board,
7 with the four-wheeler trails being on
8 here, some of our lives have already
9 been threatened, also.
10
One of the signatories on
11 there is an avid four-wheeler. He was
12 there when I was threatened.
13
We ask for some kind of
14 sanctions to limit the deer hunting in
15 and around the National Forest around
16 these homes.
17
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: They
18 are hunting on National Forest land?
19
MR. THOMAS: They're hunting
20 in our front doors.
21
We all plant crops. We plant
22 clover and things like that for deer.
23 They go over in Cleburne County. See,
0225
1 Cleburne County, Talladega County, and
2 Clay County lines come together right
3 in the back of our property.
4
If they go over in Cleburne
5 County, which it's illegal for hunting
6 deer with dogs, they'll turn them loose
7 in Cleburne County; and they'll run
8 them in the back of our property
9 towards our front door.
10
They even told the game
11 warden, Officer Whitworth of the
12 National Forest, they told him that if
13 we didn't want people hunting in our
14 front door, we shouldn't have bought
15 property up there.
16
Well, Preacher Collett has -17 that property has been in his family
18 for over 100 years. He's lived on the
19 mountain long before there was ever a
20 deer season in Alabama.
21
We just ask the Board to look
22 at this as closely as you can because
23 it's a ticking time bomb.
Page 120
0226
1
2 much.
3
The next speaker is Mike
4 Chappell from Butler County.
5
MR. CHAPPELL: My name is
6 Mike Chappell. I'm from Georgiana,
7 Alabama, Butler County.
8
I would like to say, first of
9 all, none of the Fayette County dogs
10 have been on my hunting list.
11
I'm not pinpointing all dog
12 hunting clubs, just some local ones
13 that we've had problems with that have
14 no respect for other hunters. They go
15 on other people's leased land, if they
16 know they're out of town. There's a
17 lot of leased land that's leased by
18 people that don't live in the state.
19
They can't catch their dogs.
20 We pay a lot of money to lease this
21 land, and they don't -- they fly up and
22 down the roads and everything, and they
23 shoot all over the highways and
0227
1 everything.
2
Overall, they abuse their
3 privileges as hunters, and also ours.
4 Thank you.
5
6
MR. COLES: What part of
7 Butler County?
8
MR. CHAPPELL: It's on the
9 west side of I-65 on Highway 106.
10
MR. COLES: South or north of
11 106;
12
MR. CHAPPELL: South.
13
MR. COLES: Is it mostly IP
14 land?
15
MR. CHAPPELL: Most of is it
16 IP land.
17
18 much.
19
20 Mitchell Cline.
Page 121
21
MR. CLINE: I'm Mitchell
22 Cline with Water Edge Hunting Club.
23
MR. CHAIRMAN: What county do
0228
1 reside in, Mr. Cline?
2
MR. CLINE: Well, I live in
3 St. Clair County, but I hunt in
4 Tallapoosa county.
5
The complaint -- we're
6 against the dog hunter. The complaints
7 that we've got is their coming on our
8 land and dropping off their dogs.
9 They're coming on our property and
10 dropping off their dogs and shooting
11 across the property line.
12
The main problem is they come
13 to us -- while we're still out in the
14 woods hunting, they'll come out there
15 and pick up their dogs. They're coming
16 out on our property while our hunters
17 are still out in the woods.
18
We've seen several people
19 come out and be calling their dogs up.
20 That's the problem we're having.
21
22 much.
23
0229
1 Emery Collett from Talladega.
2
MR. COLLETT: Ed Thomas spoke
3 concerning our group. So I won't take
4 up your time.
5
6 much, sir.
7
The next speaker will be Marc
8 Garrett from Pike County.
9
MR. GARRETT: My name is Marc
10 Garrett from Pike County,
11
Mr. Lawley, I wrote you a
12 letter back in January concerning a
13 problem I was having as a land owner
14 with dog hunters.
15
For four years, I've owned a
16 piece of property that I make a pretty
17 hefty mortgage payment on, and I bought
Page 122
18 it so my son and I would have a place
19 to hunt, we thought, forever.
20
This year, we didn't hunt
21 there. I went once. Like the TV show
22 "1 versus 100," it was Marc versus
23 about 100 dog hunters lined up all
0230
1 along the dirt road in front of my
2 property.
3
They have tactics -- and they
4 can't deny it -- to drop their dogs off
5 on the dirt road, go to the other side
6 and wait for them to come out after
7 they've run across me and three other
8 land owners.
9
It's sad when you own a piece
10 of property and you can't have the
11 quiet peaceful enjoyment of it.
12
Mr. Strickland, I've seen you
13 take a nice deer on TV. I'd like to do
14 the same thing, but I can't do that dog
15 hunters are running the deer off my
16 property during January right until the
17 last day.
18
I've confronted them. I'm
19 the person he referenced taking the dog
20 collar off. They denied dogs were on
21 my property. I took the collar off and
22 took it to them and said, "Here is your
23 collar. Keep your dogs off my land.
0231
1 You're doing it on purpose."
2
Skin Oaks Hunting Club has
3 been complained against for years. He
4 said they have lots of land. Why do
5 they release their dogs on 30 or 40
6 acre adjoining three land owners who do
7 not give them permission? It's a
8 tactic to hunt everybody's land in that
9 valley.
10
There is a creek that creates
11 a border that the deer don't like to
12 cross, and they naturally follow that
13 creek. They have access at both ends;
14 and, for a mile and a half, they run
Page 123
15 all the deer through the valley.
16
I've been there with friends
17 from Montgomery trying to hunt
18 squirrels with an eight-year-old.
19 We're all afraid. It's a safety, too.
20 They don't know I'm there.
21
My gate is closed. I have to
22 close it because in years before,
23 they've come in the gate and retrieved
0232
1 their dogs.
2
I don't have anything against
3 the dog hunters. Just keep the dogs
4 off my land. Don't hunt -- don't put
5 your hunters out adjacent to my land
6 and run dogs in, in attempt for them to
7 circle back and bring deer back off my
8 land.
9
As a land owner, your rights
10 are more important than the privileges
11 of dog hunting.
12
MS. NUMMY: Time.
13
MR. GARRETT: You must
14 respect the land owner. Thank you.
15
16 much.
17
18 Butch Graham from Macon County.
19
MR. GRAHAM: That's actually
20 Graham Carroll from Macon County. My
21 father is Butch, and my brother is Lee.
22
We are members of what we
23 call Creekstand Cooperative. It's a
0233
1 group of land owners that have gotten
2 together with the same goals in mind,
3 (inaudible.)
4
We've got about 7,000
5 contiguous acres. There's a manila
6 folder up there. It's kind of a thin
7 one. I think we have 13 members.
8 We've got 7,000 contiguous acre.
9
I'm also here on behalf of
10 George Mann and his family. They're
11 just to the northeast of us. He's got
Page 124
12 about 1,700 acres.
13
We're having a big problem
14 with dogs. This is in Macon County.
15 They're coming all up on our land about
16 eight weekends a year. Every weekend,
17 we've got them. They run through the
18 fields. Sometimes they run up under
19 the stands we sit on.
20
The way the crop is situated
21 -- you'll see there's a map in that
22 folder on the back page. We have a
23 bunch of land together, 2,400 acres
0234
1 full of beautiful pines.
2
We're bordered by Clear Cut
3 Mead Paper Company property. They
4 lease that. They release them onto our
5 property (inaudible.)
6
I realize it's not the dogs'
7 fault. In some cases, it's not the
8 hunters' fault, but we've got to do
9 something.
10
What I propose is we don't
11 ban it altogether. We can look at
12 Georgia's laws, or we can look at
13 Florida's laws. They've had these
14 properties that are permitted. The
15 dogs have to have tags. After several
16 complaints, the license or permit is
17 revoked.
18
We just need to look at
19 something of the nature to remedy the
20 problem. That's all I have. I
21 appreciate y'all having us here.
22
23 much.
0235
1
2 Sonny Granger from Coffee County.
3
MR. GRANGER: Sonny Granger
4 from Coffee County. Actually, I reside
5 in Escambia County, Florida, but we own
6 land in Alabama.
7
I believe all of y'all have
8 probably received letters from myself
Page 125
9 and from the members of our club.
10 We've had an ongoing problem with our
11 hunting camp.
12
Our club is Hit and Miss near
13 Elba. It's a hunting camp that was
14 actually founded in 1968. We've been
15 where we are now for 25 years. I've
16 been a member of that club for 10
17 years.
18
Ever since -- from the very
19 beginning, we've had a problem with,
20 not dog hunters, but dogs running all
21 over us. It's been an ongoing issue.
22
We've tried to address it.
23 We've tried to address things with the
0236
1 dog hunters. Most of the guys we've
2 talked to are so uncordial when we try
3 to work with them.
4
I had an incident one time
5 where I actually asked one of the dog
6 hunters, "What can we do? Let's work
7 together. Let's try to figure
8 something out." I asked him, I said,
9 "Give me an idea, what can we do here?"
10 He said, "Well, I guess you probably
11 need to go somewhere where there's not
12 dog hunting." I disagree.
13
We're here basically to ask
14 for a resolution or some kind of
15 solution to help us out, to figure out
16 what we can do to solve this problem
17 that's been going on. It's been going
18 on for so long that we're just
19 frustrated. We're kind of at our wits
20 end.
21
I know there are some things
22 out there, as far as a potential permit
23 system. That sounds like it's pretty
0237
1 good.
2
My concern that we've -3 Mr. Coles, you and I have talked about
4 is the penalties there and what would
5 occur with a couple of violations. I
Page 126
6 know that dog hunting, it really has to
7 do with just a couple of bad apples
8 that cause problems for everybody else.
9
If there was a permit system
10 that went into place, after a couple of
11 violations, then their permit would be
12 revoked forever; or something very
13 severe so that the dog hunters will
14 police themselves.
15
It sounds like there are a
16 lot of dog hunting clubs that have been
17 able to do that. We're fine with that.
18 We've just been -- their coming on top
19 of us.
20
MS. NUMMY: Time.
21
MR. GRANGER: It's just been
22 far too much.
23
I've actually got a petition
0238
1 that I've had signed by numerous people
2 who feel the same way that I do,
3 members of my club and also residents
4 of Coffee County.
5
One thing that's kind of
6 disturbing to me is that we've been
7 working to get these petitions signed,
8 and there's people that won't sign it
9 because of fear of retribution. To me,
10 that's just unacceptable.
11
I understand their fear. I'm
12 just saying it's unacceptable that that
13 fear exists. On a lot of our property,
14 we are -15
MR. CHAIRMAN: Please finish
16 up.
17
MR. GRANGER: We are
18 surrounded by parcels that are small.
19 They're hunting on the roads. It's a
20 safety issue.
21
Again, we're looking to y'all
22 to please offer some sort of solution
23 and resolution so we can continue our
0239
1 club for the next 25 to 50 years.
2
Page 127
3 much.
4
The next speaker is Darrell
5 Harris from Chilton County.
6
MR. HARRIS: Good morning.
7 I'm from Chilton County. My name is
8 the Darrell Harris.
9
For the last six or seven
10 years, we have tolerated dog hunting.
11 I say "tolerated" because we've tried
12 our best to be as nice as possible.
13
We take their dogs back. We
14 call them to come and get them. We've
15 even called their club president four
16 or five different times, asking him
17 "Why do y'all keep turning the dogs
18 loose on our property?" "No, it ain't
19 us. It ain't us."
20
Well, you know, I describe
21 the trucks and everything else, and he
22 says, "Yeah, that was me. I'm just
23 trying to get my dogs. I can't control
0240
1 where they go."
2
The issue of it is -- I'm not
3 against dog hunting, by no means; but,
4 when you ask somebody enough times to
5 please quit wearing your land out and
6 run your own land, it becomes a hassle.
7
It's to a point that I'm
8 actually afraid somebody's going to get
9 hurt over this issue. That's why I'm
10 down here today.
11
This is the first time I've
12 ever come to anything like this. I've
13 learned a lot just by sitting and
14 listening.
15
These clubs that are doing
16 well with dogs and all, my hats off to
17 you. These clubs that give other clubs
18 issues time and time again, they should
19 be banned. They should be put out,
20 outlawed, however you want to do it.
21
It's got to the point where a
22 neighbor can't get along anymore. No
23 matter how nice you are to them or how
Page 128
0241
1 nice you speak to them.
2
I mean, as far as this
3 morning, in Chilton County, there was a
4 deer killed with a dog this morning. I
5 could near about put any amount of
6 money on the one who owns it because
7 our system is laughed at.
8
MS. NUMMY: Time.
9
MR. HARRIS: They still run
10 dogs, but they're rabbit hunting. It
11 accidentally comes up with four legs
12 and a bushy tail, you know, a big deer.
13
We're tired of it. We don't
14 know no other choice to turn to except
15 this Board.
16
I wish Bill was still down
17 here. Did Bill leave?
18
MR. CHAIRMAN: Bill who?
19
MR. HARRIS: Hatley.
20
MR. HATLEY: I'm here.
21
MR. HARRIS: We hadn't
22 addressed this in six or seven years.
23 I know Mr. Bill. He's a good turkey
0242
1 hunter and everything.
2
MR. CHAIRMAN: Good is
3 relative.
4
MR. HARRIS: Mr. Bill went
5 hunting every weekend; and, every time
6 he caught him big gobbler, I'd run out
7 there and save the dog.
8
Mr. Bill wouldn't appreciate
9 that too much anymore. I probably
10 wouldn't get to go hunting with
11 Mr. Bill anymore.
12
AUDIENCE: Time.
13
MS. NUMMY: Quiet.
14
MR. HARRIS: I would just
15 like for y'all to look into the Chilton
16 County dog hunting issue. It's not all
17 clubs. As far as I know, there's only
18 two.
19
Appreciate it.
20
Page 129
21 much.
22
23 Randy Henson from Talladega.
0243
1
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: He stepped
2 out.
3
4 speaker will be Mr. Truman Herren from
5 Fayette.
6
MR. HERREN: My name is
7 Truman Herren from Northeast Fayette
8 County.
9
I spoke to you quite a bit
10 last year. As I expected, my hunting
11 season was ruined just because of my
12 presence up here.
13
There was numerous occasions
14 where I had two and three packs of dogs
15 running on me at one time. I took a
16 different tact. I monitored the CB.
17
I heard them turning the
18 second and third group of dogs loose on
19 me when one pack is running. I heard
20 them park on the roadway and send a
21 hunter onto my property to kill a deer,
22 a three-legged deer so small that the
23 dogs were in danger of catching it.
0244
1
The dog did catch it, and
2 they sent somebody on my property to
3 dispatch it.
4
So, all in all, it was a
5 disastrous season. There was only two
6 weekends that I was not overrun by
7 dogs. One of those weekends, the next
8 week, my wife, who is the hunter -- I
9 didn't hunt a single day -- on three
10 outings, she saw 15 deer.
11
That weekend we were overrun
12 by dogs. The next two weeks and two
13 day, 24 hunter outings, nobody saw a
14 deer. Nobody.
15
Okay. I was the unnamed
16 complainant Mr. Couch was talking
17 about. I assure you that I didn't cuss
Page 130
18 him out.
19
He called me, and we had a
20 long conversation that ended amicably,
21 and he volunteered to come to my
22 property and see my circumstances and
23 see what the problem was. He knew the
0245
1 hunters that we were talking about.
2
That was in late November. I
3 never heard from him again.
4
I called his phone on three
5 occasions in December to lodge a
6 complaint. I left a message that I was
7 overrun by dog hunters, I would like
8 for him to call me back. I haven't
9 heard from him since.
10
I thank you very much. I've
11 got a lot more to say, but there's two
12 more meetings, and I'll be back.
13
14 much.
15
The next speaker will be Paul
16 Jefferys from Lamar County.
17
MR. JEFFERYS: I want to
18 thank the Board for hearing us today.
19
Years ago, we came to y'all
20 with the same complaint these guys come
21 with.
22
Let me step back and say, I'm
23 Paul Jeffreys. My family owns property
0246
1 in Lamar County and Marion County. We
2 have problems with dog hunters.
3
About five years ago, we came
4 before y'all with the same complaints
5 these land owners have. I would like
6 to thank y'all for having the courage
7 and the fortitude to stand up and say
8 enough is enough.
9
I do not want to step into
10 Fayette County, but I would like to use
11 an example. It's my understanding that
12 Fayette County had 50 complaints
13 against dog hunters on private
14 property.
Page 131
15
Lamar County had four, four
16 complaints across a whole county.
17 Marion County had eight, and both of
18 these counties are banned from dog deer
19 hunting.
20
That right there is
21 statistical data. If that doesn't tell
22 you a success story, then nothing will.
23
Also, I've learned something
0247
1 today. I have never fox hunted, and I
2 will tie this into dog hunting. I have
3 never fox hunted in my life, but it
4 sounds like to me that these guys saw
5 the problem coming; and they corrected
6 the problem.
7
A gentleman stepped up here
8 today and said the reason they started
9 hunting in pens was to stop their dogs
10 from getting on private property. All
11 these fox hunters that came up here,
12 they saw the problem coming; and they
13 stopped it before it got to the point
14 that the land owners are in now with
15 the dog deer hunters.
16
My point is, I want to thank
17 y'all for standing up and putting a
18 stop to our problem in Lamar County,
19 Marion County, Franklin County. Thank
20 you all.
21
22 speaker will be Danny Jernigan from
23 Coffee County.
0248
1
MR. JERNIGAN: My name is
2 Danny Jernigan from Coffee County,
3
Commissioner, Staff,
4 Conservation Board, and Enforcement
5 Officers, I want to come here today and
6 express my growing concern for the ever
7 growing problem that I'm having with
8 people who chase deer with dogs.
9
I'm a property owner in
10 Coffee County, and I've been so for 20
11 years. For 20 years, I've had this
Page 132
12 problem. It's going to take me way
13 longer than two minutes to explain to
14 you what kind of problems we've had.
15
This year was the straw that
16 broke the camel's back. This is the
17 year we started calling the police and
18 the game wardens, and we're trying to
19 do something about it. They have no
20 respect for my property, and they have
21 no respect for my time or the amount of
22 money and sweat equity that we put into
23 a piece of property.
0249
1
We have followed every
2 recommendation that the State has given
3 us to create a wonderful place for my
4 wife and son to go and hunt. I don't
5 appreciate their attitude when I catch
6 them on my property. I get the feeling
7 that I have really inconvenienced them
8 when I ask them to please get their dog
9 and get off my land.
10
I'm tired of it. I've gone
11 to every extreme to be nice and
12 cordial. I don't know what else to do.
13
I hope that we can use this
14 venue today as a starting block in
15 Coffee County. I don't want any
16 trouble from land owners (inaudible) to
17 allow dog hunting eight or ten land
18 owners over.
19
All the people that are on my
20 county road, which is 520, do not allow
21 dog hunting. We have a good group of
22 land owners over there that feel the
23 same way I do about it; and I represent
0250
1 them, also.
2
The list goes on and on and
3 on. We can be cordial, we can tiptoe
4 around the issue, we can sideswipe it;
5 but we better meet it head on or
6 there's going to be some problems that
7 I can't do anything about.
8
I'm not going to shoot a
Page 133
9 man's dog. I'm not going to throw his
10 collar away, but he does not show me
11 that same respect.
12
I don't know -- there are
13 some great things going on in dog
14 hunting. It sounds like to me these
15 fox hunters have got their act in
16 order.
17
MS. NUMMY: Time.
18
MR. JERNIGAN: I need to ask
19 you to do several things. Come up with
20 a list of things that these guys can
21 live with, that the land owners can
22 live with. Some type of permitting
23 system or maybe a code of ethics might
0251
1 be a good starting spot.
2
All the money and time spent
3 developing hunting tracks, and my
4 family is in no way (inaudible) by this
5 Board, but I do need some help.
6
7
8
The next speaker will Jack
9 Martin from Trussville, Alabama.
10
MR. MARTIN: Good afternoon
11 Members of the Board. I'm glad to be
12 here. I wouldn't have been here today
13 if there wasn't a problem.
14
Previous meetings in the
15 hunting season, I listened to dog
16 hunting club members and their
17 president as they stated their case and
18 made promises to work with land owners
19 and leaseholders. This past season,
20 this has not held true.
21
They stated that they will
22 contact the land owners and discuss how
23 to make things better. This never
0252
1 happened. Throughout the past season,
2 I was never contacted, and their dogs
3 continued to run on the property.
4
At the last meeting in
5 Huntsville, Mr. Harbin called all of us
Page 134
6 from Fayette County who were against
7 dogs hunting out in the hall. He told
8 us the Commissioner was not going to
9 suspend dog hunting in Fayette County
10 this season. He said he was going to
11 give them one more season to straighten
12 up their act.
13
Well, we went through this
14 season with hopes that it would
15 straighten it out. It would have made
16 hunting a pleasure for all of us.
17 Instead, it got worst.
18
I sat at my shooting house
19 many times and listened as dogs ran
20 through the property. I even sat on
21 the porch and watched dog hunters drive
22 up and down the road waiting for their
23 dogs to run deer out on the road where
0253
1 they could shoot them.
2
I saw one little deer who was
3 trying to make it back into the woods.
4 One of his leg was shot off. I don't
5 know what happened to it. The dogs
6 continued to run it. I guess they ran
7 it off the property.
8
I see no future in stalk
9 hunting in Fayette County if dog
10 hunting is allowed to continue.
11
MS. NUMMY: Time.
12
MR. CHAIRMAN: Finish up,
13 please.
14
MR. MARTIN: Even with my
15 experience, I can never expect to raise
16 and harvest even one trophy deer.
17
Hunting in Fayette County is
18 no longer friendly or a sportsmanship
19 like atmosphere. There's little
20 respect. It's become angry, vicious,
21 and dangerous.
22
I've spoken with hunters from
23 Lamar, Franklin, and Marion Counties;
0254
1 and they told me how great deer hunting
2 has become since dog hunting was
Page 135
3 suspended.
4
Some of these hunters came
5 before this Board at the last meeting,
6 and I just heard some today express the
7 same opinions. At the last meeting,
8 Commissioner Sparks stated that he
9 recognized this was a serious issue and
10 strongly encouraged dog hunters to
11 resolve the problem.
12
Because of similar problems
13 in Tuscaloosa, Hale, and Perry
14 Counties, motions were passed by the
15 Board to suspend dog hunting.
16
MR. CHAIRMAN: I need you to
17 finish up, please.
18
MR. MARTIN: The same issues
19 are still unresolved in Fayette County.
20 In fact, they've become worse.
21
I come before you today
22 asking that you please consider a
23 motion to suspend deer hunting -- dog
0255
1 deer hunting in Fayette County.
2
Gentlemen, thank you for your
3 time.
4
5 speaker will be Mark McWhorter from
6 Alex City, Alabama.
7
MR. MCWHORTER: I'm here for
8 dog hunting in Tallapoosa County, the
9 beginning of a major problem.
10
What it is, we'd like to see
11 it maybe go to a permit system or
12 something. I don't want to see dog
13 hunting go away. I ran dogs for 20
14 years.
15
The last couple of years,
16 I've done more still hunting and stalk
17 hunting than I have dog hunting. I'd
18 like to see my kids have the same
19 opportunity to run dogs, if that's what
20 they want to do.
21
The problems we're having is
22 that we lease land, and the dog hunters
23 run wherever they want to whenever they
Page 136
0256
1 want to. They have no respect for you.
2 You can talk to them, and it still
3 don't do any good.
4
Maybe if we can see it go to
5 a permit system where they've got to
6 have a couple thousand adjoining acres
7 of land instead of a 40-acre plot here
8 and an acre there, have it all
9 adjoining so they'd have enough land to
10 run dogs on.
11
Something needs to be done
12 because it's really getting -- people
13 talking about houses getting burned and
14 cars getting burned and all that. It's
15 getting rougher and rougher every day.
16 So we would like to see something
17 happen.
18
19
20 Russell Mullins from Talladega.
21
MR. MULLINS: I'm Russell
22 Mullins from Talladega County.
23
I would like to touch on what
0257
1 Ed Thomas said about what's going on
2 at Salt Creek Road. A lot of those
3 hunters -- it's one thing -- a lot of
4 the dog hunters out here are talking
5 about going off to their stands.
6
These dog hunters are running
7 the roads. They're letting them off on
8 that back road, running them across our
9 property up to Salt Creek Road, and
10 they'll drive the road constantly all
11 day long 70, 80, 50 miles an hour. It
12 don't matter. Wherever that dog's at,
13 that's where they're going.
14
That's what he was talking
15 about. They're going around and coming
16 out in front of his property. They're
17 going right in front of my property and
18 down below my property. I've had them
19 up behind my property.
20
It's one thing -- they're not
Page 137
21 on my property. I don't own a lot of
22 acreage, but they're about 50 feet off
23 my property, and they're shooting a
0258
1 high-powered rifle.
2
When you ask them, "Hey, be
3 careful, there's a house back here,"
4 and you get cussed at and cussed for it
5 and you don't know if they're going to
6 run into you at the store. I've done
7 that already. I've met a few of them
8 at the store, and you get threatened
9 there and whatnot.
10
My name is the first name on
11 the petition, and I'm the one targeted
12 for that.
13
I just needed y'all to know
14 that they're not parking and walking
15 out in the woods on the National
16 Forest. They're riding the roads and
17 shooting the deer from the roads.
18 That's what's going on.
19
20 Mr. Mullins.
21
The next speaker will be Trae
22 Parham from Jackson, Alabama.
23
MR. PARHAM: I'm Trae Parham.
0259
1 I'm a wildlife manager and a forest
2 technician. I manage about 8,000 acres
3 of the parks in Monroe and Baldwin
4 Counties.
5
I'm coming today with a
6 problem of dog hunting in the upper
7 delta of the wildlife management area,
8 Zone A. We've had a piece of property
9 that joins it from the north, and we've
10 been run through with dogs just
11 constantly.
12
I had 20 to 25 dogs on a
13 four-day hunt this year from a state -14 a state management area. They get in
15 our property, and they run all over our
16 property. They run all of our deer
17 everywhere. It causes complete chaos.
Page 138
18
I appreciate what the State
19 tried to do. They tried to put a
20 little small boundary line around up
21 there in the northern part. The
22 problem is, it's just too small. It
23 needs to be moved way back.
0260
1
We do quality deer management
2 on this land. We are trying to raise
3 mature bucks, and we cannot do it. I'm
4 spending most of my time riding around
5 chasing dog all over our property when
6 I'd like to be hunting and I'd like to
7 be taking my nephew out hunting.
8
So I would appreciate the
9 State realizing that this dog hunting
10 over in the management area is causing
11 me a lot of problems. If necessary, if
12 y'all don't do anything about it this
13 year, I'll bring a video of it, and you
14 can understand my frustration and my
15 problems with it.
16
I don't have a problem with
17 the dog hunter, but I have a problem
18 with the dogs because they are causing
19 a lot of chaos on our land.
20
I appreciate it. Thank
21 you.
22
MR. CHAIRMAN: That concludes
23 the public portion of the meeting.
0261
1
2 new business. Is there any new
3 business to discuss?
4
Mr. Harbin.
5
MR. HARBIN: Yes, sir. I
6 would like to make a proposal to make
7 it legal to hunt turkeys from March
8 15th until April 31st, starting this
9 year, with a crossbow. I would like
10 for the Board and the Commissioner to
11 discuss that between now and then.
12
MR. CHAIRMAN: Is there any
13 discussion today?
14
Dr. Strickland.
Page 139
15
DR. STRICKLAND: Thank you,
16 Mr. Chairman.
17
One of the things that I
18 would just like to bring up with
19 Mr. Harbin with regards to crossbows
20 and turkeys.
21
I have hunted with a bow and
22 arrow practically every big game animal
23 in North America, and I can tell you
0262
1 without a doubt the toughest to kill
2 with an arrow is a turkey. I'm sure
3 that we have quite a few archers and
4 crossbow hunters out there, as well.
5
My fear, even with a bow and
6 arrow, I'm not in love with the idea of
7 using it to hunt turkeys. First of
8 all, you have a very small kill zone;
9 and, even if you hit them perfectly -10 when I go turkey hunting now, I wear my
11 tennis shoes because I know when you
12 hit that bird, you're out running.
13 Very seldom do they ever go down.
14
The recovery rate for turkeys
15 with a bow and arrow I guarantee is
16 less than 50 percent. So my fear is
17 this: If we open it up for crossbows,
18 we're going to have more wounded birds
19 out there.
20
Now, I understand -- you
21 know, I'm not -- I realize that
22 crossbows are legal, you know, during
23 the nonseason; and it's not that I'm
0263
1 against crossbows; but, to tell you the
2 truth, I think any arrow for a turkey
3 is a potential problem.
4
They are extremely difficult
5 to harvest with an arrow, even a well
6 placed arrow. I'm sure you have quite
7 a few archers out here and bow hunters
8 out here who are pursuing turkeys with
9 an arrow, but that's my concern, just
10 more wounded birds out there.
11
MR. HARBIN: I understand
Page 140
12 your concern.
13
MR. STRICKLAND: Turkeys
14 are -- our turkey population is fairly
15 delicate. We don't want a bunch of
16 those wounded birds flying around.
17
MR. HARBIN: Well, I don't
18 think we'll have any more wounded birds
19 with a crossbow. There's not that many
20 crossbow users.
21
MR. STRICKLAND: Well, I
22 don't want one more wounded bird. I
23 don't want any.
0264
1
MR. HARBIN: I don't want
2 one, either. I'm not a turkey hunter.
3
MR. CHAIRMAN: If there is
4 some data available to either of y'all
5 to support that issue one side or the
6 other -- I don't know if Mr. Yeargan is
7 still here. Do y'all have any data for
8 that?
9
MR. YEARGAN: No. I don't
10 have any data on that.
11
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. If
12 either of y'all could get that by the
13 next meeting and make sure it's
14 available for the board members so that
15 the Board can be well informed on that,
16 please.
17
MR. STRICKLAND: Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Hatley.
20
MR. HATLEY: Mr. Chairman, I
21 have one item of new business that I
22 would like to go on record, that we
23 allow youth archery hunts to have
0265
1 guidelines of the same regulations as
2 are present for hunting in archery
3 season.
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: What is the
5 difference there, Mr. Hatley?
6
MR. HATLEY: One animal a day
7 to two animals in the same day.
8
Am I correct, Randy?
Page 141
9
MR. MOULTRIE: Mr. Moody,
10 would you like to speak on that?
11
MR. MOODY: Just for
12 clarification, there are youth hunts
13 and not just youth archery.
14
MR. HATLEY: Youth archery is
15 what I meant. I'm sorry.
16
MR. MOODY: It's just a youth
17 hunt of any style, is what they're
18 talking about.
19
Right now, currently, on our
20 youth deer hunts, the limit is one deer
21 per day. It's not limited to archery.
22 It's just hunting.
23
MR. HATLEY: An all youth
0266
1 hunt?
2
MR. MOODY: The youth deer
3 hunts.
4
MR. CHAIRMAN: We will accept
5 that change.
6
MR. HATLEY: We will accept
7 that change, yes, sir. Thank you.
8
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Any
9 other discussion on that item?
10
Any other new business?
11
Mr. Coles.
12
MR. COLES: Yes. Due to the
13 conversations that I've had with the
14 game wardens and with the district
15 supervisors and after listening to
16 comments made today and also in meeting
17 with landowners that have been
18 affected, I will be bringing some
19 motions at our March meeting concerning
20 Coffee County and Butler County and
21 Pike County. I just wanted to make the
22 Board aware of that.
23
MR. CHAIRMAN: What is that
0267
1 concern again, Mr. Coles, so we can
2 clarify it a little more?
3
MR. COLES: It will be
4 concerning dog deer hunting in Coffee
5 County, Butler County, and Pike County.
Page 142
6
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any discussion
7 by the Board on that right now?
8
Okay. Mr. Hatley.
9
MR. HATLEY: Mr. Chairman, I
10 have one other item of business that I
11 would bring forward under new business.
12 This is from the Marine Resource
13 Division.
14
I would like -- each of you
15 has a copy of this. Also, the court
16 reporter already has a copy of it.
17 Rather than me reading each one of
18 these recommendations, since we do have
19 them copied, I do want it entered into
20 the record so that -21
22 just to be fair to the audience,
23 because they may want to be aware of
0268
1 the issue, I would ask you to read
2 those, please, sir.
3
MR. HATLEY: There are four
4 items.
5
"Recommend consideration of a
6 regulation to support the legislation
7 passed during the last legislative
8 session that allowed certain violations
9 that occur in federal waters to be
10 prosecuted in the District Courts in
11 Mobile and Baldwin Counties. This
12 regulation fulfills the requirements of
13 the Magnuson-Stevens Act to assure that
14 those violations can be successfully
15 prosecuted.
16
17 regulation that would enhance the
18 current 'Marine Turtle and Marine
19 Mammals' regulation so the mammalian
20 dolphins (porpoises), manatees, and
21 marine turtles are effectively
22 protected.
23
0269
1 regulation that would bring our current
2 'Saltwater Fish, Creel, Bag,
Page 143
3 possession, and Size Limits' in line
4 with federal regulations concerning the
5 bag limit for red snapper and the size
6 limit for gray triggerfish. At this
7 point in time, it is believed that the
8 creel limit for red snapper will be two
9 per person; and the size limit for gray
10 triggerfish will increase in federal
11 waters. This change will make
12 Alabama's regulation compatible with
13 the federal regulations.
14
"Recommend we support the
15 efforts of the Alabama Department of
16 Public Health in finding effective and
17 realistic strategies to address
18 increased concerns with Vibrio
19 parahaemolyticus (Vp) and Vibrio
20 vulnificus (Vv.) It appears, at this
21 time, the Health Department may ask
22 that we adjust the summertime allowable
23 harvest hours and maybe time periods.
0270
1 These issues would have to be addressed
2 by our current 'Oyster Season and Sack
3 Limit Regulation." The Health
4 Department will be working to assure
5 the food safety of our citizens and the
6 viability and the commercial harvest
7 and sale of oysters."
8
Do you have anything you want
9 to add to that?
10
11 your reg reading ability is in line
12 with your turkey hunting ability.
13
Is there any other -14
Mr. Johnson.
15
MR. JOHNSON: Mr. Chairman, I
16 have talked to Commissioner Lawley and
17 some others in regard to violations for
18 hunting from the road and the fine
19 being increased.
20
I assume that -- at the next
21 meeting, I would like to see our
22 Advisory Board go on record as
23 supporting this totally.
Page 144
0271
1
These fines, -- for instance,
2 trespassing, $25. This is
3 unbelievable. Also, shooting from a
4 road at night, $250. All we're doing
5 is slapping some hands and letting them
6 go ahead with whatever they want to do
7 out there.
8
At our next meeting, I'd like
9 for us to go on record supporting an
10 increase in fines out here that's
11 already supposedly being done.
12
Of course, this has got to go
13 before the legislature in order for
14 this to be passed; but I think our
15 Advisory Board should go on record in
16 support of that. Thank you.
17
MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Jones.
18
MR. JONES: I would like to
19 second what Mr. Johnson just said.
20
I was fortunate enough to
21 visit a place in Texas this winter to
22 deer hunt. They had a section of road
23 that had over 400 cases of road hunt.
0272
1 They passed some legislation making it
2 a very stiff fine. They had two this
3 last year.
4
So I think we need to go on
5 record as being able to raise these
6 fines.
7
8 could you please get a list of those
9 fines to the Advisory Board, just so
10 they can be aware of what they
11 currently are, just so everyone can be
12 cognizant of what those fines are.
13
Any other new business?
14
Dr. May.
15
DR. MAY: Does this take a
16 resolution from the Board?
17
MR. ANDRESS: That would not
18 be required.
19
MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Any
20 other new business?
Page 145
21
MR. ANDRESS: It would be
22 supportive.
23
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other new
0273
1 business, or discussion thereof?
2
Very good. The next order of
3 business is the announcement of the
4 next Conservation Advisory Board
5 Meeting. It will be at Guntersville
6 State Park.
7
MR. PUGH: We have a Marine
8 Police regulation to be dealt with and
9 two Wildlife and Freshwater Fishery
10 regulations, plus seasons and bag
11 limits.
12
MR. MOULTRIE: Thank you very
13 much, Mr. Pugh.
14
Let's start with that, then,
15 the DCNR Departmental Request for
16 Marine Police first.
17
MR. HUFFAKER: Captain Bob
18 Huffaker with the Marine Police
19 Division. I have a regulation that's
20 been in affect now. It's an emergency
21 regulation. We want to extend it on in
22 to a full-time regulation. It deals
23 with the closure of waters in and
0274
1 around the construction of a new pier
2 at Gulf State Park.
3
There's an exclusionary area
4 that will be established during the
5 time of construction. After the
6 construction is completed, then, the
7 regulation will be deleted. It will
8 just be during that time of
9 construction at the park area.
10
Also, to provide you -- at
11 the next meeting, we will be presenting
12 a regulation dealing with the Proximity
13 Law that was mentioned earlier by one
14 of your persons speaking restricting
15 certain areas out to approximately 100
16 feet from shoreline on all the waters
17 of the State of Alabama to deny the
Page 146
18 speed.
19
20
Next, will be Marine
21 Resources Division.
22
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: Mr. Hatley
23 put ours in earlier. I think he did a
0275
1 good job.
2
3
Mr. Pugh, I appreciate you
4 bringing that fact back up. I had
5 taken it for granted. I thought
6 Mr. Hatley had a motion for that, but
7 we missed some. If you would, finish
8 up here with the Wildlife and
9 Freshwater Fisheries, please.
10
MR. PUGH: We have two
11 regulations that we're recommending a
12 repeal of. One of them is a metal wing
13 tag affixed to all commercial pen14 raised quail carcasses before sale.
15 The other is repealing the prohibition
16 on trolling of certain bays in the
17 Mobile Delta during duck season.
18
You've got in your packet the
19 proposed seasons and limits. I'm going
20 to call on Assistant Director Fred
21 Harders to address that.
22
MR. HARDERS: Mr. Chairman,
23 board members, in your packets, you
0276
1 have our proposed changes. As Mr. Pugh
2 mentioned, the changes are highlighted
3 in yellow.
4
I'll give you a quick
5 rundown. We do recommend: Liberalized
6 daily deer limit during the special
7 youth hunt season; liberalized doe
8 season for several counties;
9 established muzzeloading deer season on
10 Conecuh and Tuskegee National Forest
11 lands; to open the previously closed
12 portion of Lauderdale and Morgan
13 Counties to turkey hunting; and then we
14 just clarified the hunting methods and
Page 147
15 times for fox, bobcat, coyote, and
16 feral swine.
17
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any discussion
18 on that?
19
UNKNOWN SPEAKER: You didn't
20 go over the dove season, did you?
21
MR. CHAIRMAN: What is
22 proposed on the dove season?
23
MR. HARDERS: Those date
0277
1 changes due to calendar are not listed
2 in there. We took the previous seasons
3 dove dates and adjusted them as they
4 would be with this year's calendar.
5
MR. CHAIRMAN: So is that
6 like one day difference?
7
MR. HARDERS: Just a few
8 days. I can give you those.
9
This year, the North Zone was
10 September 15th to October 7th. This
11 year, we recommended September 13th to
12 October 5th. In the South Zone, this
13 year was October 6th to November 4th.
14 We're recommending October 4th to
15 November 7th.
16
DR. MAY: Before, Mr. Hatley
17 asked you why did you change from the
18 third Saturday in the North Zone to the
19 second Saturday.
20
MR. HARDERS: There's a two21 day difference from the 15th to the
22 13th. That was the closest weekend
23 date we could get.
0278
1
DR. MAY: Well, datewise,
2 you're moving it actually a whole date
3 when you move it from the 3rd to the
4 2nd because it's going to continuously
5 move forward from now on.
6
If you leave it at the third
7 Saturday, you will rotate from the 15th
8 back to the 21st. That will be as fair
9 as you can get as a north planting
10 season and central planting season.
11
We may be slacking off a
Page 148
12 little biologically in what's correct
13 by moving it that far forward, but the
14 third Saturday is most correct, and I
15 would request that y'all reconsider
16 that and put it on the third Saturday.
17
MR. HARDERS: We have to get
18 with our wildlife people to see if
19 there's a problem with that.
20
MR. CHAIRMAN: Any other
21 discussion?
22
Thank you, Mr. Harders.
23
Any other new business before
0279
1 we move on?
2
Okay. The next order of
3 business is the announcement of the
4 next Conservation Advisory Board
5 Meeting. It will be held at the newly
6 opened Guntersville State Park on March
7 8th, 2008.
8
Being that there is no
9 further business, this meeting is
10 adjourned.
11
(Whereupon, the Conservation
12 Advisory Board meeting adjourned at
13 2:00 p.m., February 9, 2008.)
14
15
--o0o-16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
0280
1
CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF ALABAMA )
3
4 COUNTY OF JEFFERSON )
5
6
I hereby certify that the above and
7 foregoing deposition was taken down by me in
8 stenotype and the questions and answers
Page 149
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
thereto were transcribed by means of
computer-aided transcription, and that the
foregoing represents a true and correct
transcript of the testimony given by and
witness upon said hearing.
I further certify that I am neither of
counsel, nor kin to the parties to the
action, nor am I in anyway interested in the
result of said cause named in said
caption.
Susan Bell, Commissioner
Certified Court Reporter
ACCR#14-Expires: 9/30/08
Commission Expires: 10/10
Page 150

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