Cab 2009 Feb

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DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND

NATURAL RESOURCES
ADVISORY BOARD MEETING
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
Location:
Date:
Time:
State Capitol Auditorium

600 Dexter Avenue,
Montgomery, Alabama
February 7, 2009
9:58 a.m.
Before:
Victoria M. Castillo, CCR #17
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Good morning

everyone, and I'd like to welcome you to the
February 7th Advisory Board meeting. Delighted to
have you here.
And at this time I would like to call
on Mr. Johnny Johnson to give our invocation,
please.
MR. JOHNSON: Let us pray. Dear
Heavenly Father, we're honored to come before you
asking for your guidance as we face each challenge
of our Conservation Advisory Board meeting today.
Teach us to handle each situation with the utmost
sincerity.
Lord, we thank you for the dedication
of Commissioner Lawley, Assistant Commissioner
Bill, Chairman Moultrie, and each of the other
members. They really make a great team.
We pray for all our local, state, and
national leaders to be strong in your word and a
witness to your ways. Help each of them to be
steadfast in faith and strong in the midst of
opposition and discrimination of any kind.
Lord, help us to enjoy the beautiful
and marvelous things you have created in this
world, especially in Alabama -- our natural
resources, our wildlife, the woodlands, the water
resources, and so forth.
Lord, help us to work to make the
natural resources and the conservation program of
Alabama enjoyable for today's generation as well as
for future generations.
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We thank you for all our service

personnel and our armed forces who are fighting in
harm's way for our freedom and peace. Please bless
and comfort them, Lord, for their dedicated service
for America. Please make it possible for them to
return home to their families soon.
As we leave this meeting today, Lord,
we place our lives fully in your very capable hands
to guide us in everything we do. In Jesus' name,
we pray. Amen.
(Audience responds "Amen".)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: I would like to
say from the onset that I would like for everyone
to give your utmost attention today. And all
speakers who are going to speak today, we will
limit you to three minutes as usual, and I will ask
you to speak distinctly and into the microphone so
that our court reporter does not have any problems
understanding you.
At this time I'd like to introduce to
you Commissioner Barnett Lawley.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Thank you,
Mr. Hatley. And of course we're excited to be in
Montgomery, Alabama.
At this time, Dr. Strickland, we will
start with you. Let's everybody introduce
themselves to the people and tell us what district
they are representing or -- George, is going to be
going.
George, we will start with you,
please, sir.
MR. HARBIN: I'm George Harbin.
I represent District 4.
DR. STRICKLAND: Warren
Strickland, and I represent Congressional District
5.
MR. JONES: Raymond Jones,
Congressional District 5.
MR. JOHNSON:
Johnny Johnson,
District 7.
DR. MAY: Wayne May, District 7.
MR. COLES: Lewis Coles,
MR. LYNCH: Grant Lynch,
MR. SELF: Ross Self,
DR. SMITH: Gaines Smith,
statewide.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Bill Hatley,
District 1.
Gentlemen, you have before you right
now a set of our minutes from our last meeting.
You had them in ample time to look over those.
The chair would entertain a motion
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that they be approved.

MR. COLES: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes.
MR. COLES: I have a correction,
please.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Coles, what
is your correction?
MR. COLES: My Page 51 -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes, sir.
MR. COLES: I believe it starts
on Line 17. If you give me a moment to digress, it
says, Mr. Chairman -- all opposed. This meeting
stands adjourned. Whereas the meeting adjourned at
12:50 a.m. It would be hard for me to explain to
my wife why I left the meeting early if that should
be a.m. I think that needs to be changed to p.m.,
12:50 p.m.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: That's so
noted, Mr. Coles, and it will be corrected.
MR. COLES: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: With the
correction presented by Mr. Coles, do I have a
motion to approve the minutes?
UNIDENTIFIED BOARD MEMBER: So
moved.
MR. HARBIN: Second the motion.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: And a second by
Mr. Harbin. Minutes are approved.
At this time is there any old
business that we need to take up at this time?
DR. MAY: I do -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. May?
DR. MAY: I do have something
that I -- I consider old. It's been eight months
since I requested it. If you remember I was going
to make a motion on supplemental feeding to correct
the area in which feed could be so the judges and
all law enforcement people would know what area
meant.
And I believe the Department was
supposed to let me know something within two or
three weeks of their ruling and whether they
thought that motion was legal, and I haven't heard
from them.
But since they didn't notify me, I
put it upon myself to visit a few attorneys and get
their opinion and they assured me it was nothing
illegal about it. I even talked to one judge. He
said anything you can clear up in the regulation or
law that will help me make an honest ruling that's
what I want.
I'm in the process of making a couple
of appointments with some other judges to get their
opinions. So I would like to know what all legal
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requirements are.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Who would like
to respond to Dr. May? Gary? Allen?
MR. SELF: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes.
MR. SELF: I don't understand the
question.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. May, would
you clarify that for Mr. Self, please?
MR. SELF: What is the question?
DR. MAY: At the time I wanted to
make a motion at the last meeting. The
Department -- members of the Department decided my
motion may be illegal, so they wanted to discuss it
with the legal department to decide if it was or
was not, and they were going to let me know in two
or three weeks, and I haven't heard from them. Now
I'm asking if they do have it.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. May, for
everyone's clarification, what was your motion, if
you don't mind repeating it, please?
DR. MAY: The purpose of my
motion was to eliminate making the decision as to
what the area means for the honor and law
enforcement personnel. I asked the Advisory Board
to approve the motion to amend the current
supplementary feeding regulation, 220-2-11,
Paragraph 7.
The motion reads -- no hunter and/or
hunting stand, climbing, shooting house, ladder,
ground, and so forth is allowed within natural
sight -- "sight" meaning blocked by natural
vegetation from rain and so forth -- or within
one-eighth mile radius of any city official, and
the animal to be harvested must be at least
one-eighth mile away from any feed or feeder.
MR. ANDRESS: Dr. May?
DR. MAY: Yes, sir.
MR. ANDRESS: Yes. David Dean
and I did get together and work up a report on
that. I understood that you had it. But if you
don't, I have do have a copy of it here. If you
would like it, I will -DR. MAY: I appreciate it.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Allen, do you
have a copy for everyone on the board?
MR. ANDRESS: I do not, sir.
MR. COLES: Ms. Nummy, could we
get -- do you have access to a copy machine?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Coles, if
you don't mind, address the Chair, please, sir.
MR. COLES: Mr. Hatley, do we
have a copy machine?
(Audience interference.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: (inaudible) we
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do not have access to a copy machine at this time?

MS. NUMMY: I can come back in a
little while. Is that okay, or we could get it out
to you-all?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: No. You can
just hand it out. It'll be fine. Thank you.
Dr. May, have you had an opportunity
to look at that?
DR. MAY: No, sir. I haven't.
I'm getting old.
Would you like me to?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Well, we'll
proceed, and then we'll come back to you at
whatever point you would like to address this group
again. Okay?
DR. MAY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Give you ample
time to go over it.
While we are on that subject, does
anyone else have anything else they'd like to talk
about in reference to that motion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Is there any
other old business that we need to bring up at this
time?
Mr. Coles?
MR. COLES: Point of order -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes.
MR. COLES: Is this the time that
we would bring up any carried over business from
the previous meeting?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: It would be.
MR. COLES: At this time I would
like to carry over any motions relating to Coffee
County until our March meeting, please, sir.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Is there any
objection to that being carried over?
MR. HARBIN: No objection.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: We will carry
over Coffee County until the next meeting.
Any other old business?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Hearing none,
then we will move right into our agenda for the
public hearing. And again, I would hasten to
caution you if you're going to speak, we would like
one person to speak from each group on a specific
issue. You will be limited to three minutes, and I
ask that you come to the microphone and speak
distinctly into that microphone. Take your chewing
tobacco out of your mouth, any other impediments,
so the court reporter can hear you.
At this time our first speaker in the
topic -- this would be referring to Marine
Resources --
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MR. SELF: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes?

MR. SELF: We never did call for
a vote to approve the minutes.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: No objections.
We passed it. If you don't mind, we'll -MR. SELF: We never vote.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: That's all
right. We've got -If we are ready, the first issue is
going to be the topic against gill netting.
And Mr. Dan Kolenich is our first
speaker.
MR. KOLENICH: Thank you. I just
want to speak on behalf of myself and all of the
other thousands of fishing guides in Alabama
regarding our concerns about preservation of our
resource of fish.
We make a living by taking visitors
that come to the state of Alabama fishing.
Although we like to fish ourselves -- we do enjoy
our work. And over the past ten, 15 years, and in
looking into the future, we are concerned about our
resources. We have seen a lot of decline in the
numbers of fish we see in areas where we fish -whether it be at the beaches for Spanish mackerel;
up along the causeway, the redfish and speckled
trout fisheries; or in the rivers in between.
We have also seen a lot of regulation
changes that we live with, as well as the
commercial people are expected to live with, and we
foresee a lot more changes in the future.
Ten years ago I would have never
thought that I would stand up here and say that
better than 50 percent of my customers that hire me
to take them fishing actually request to catch and
release fish rather than keep them. They're not
even concerned about eating the meal, which is the
second group of fishermen, which is about maybe 30
percent of the people I take fishing. Fifteen
years ago, everybody used to -- whether you filled
your cooler or not, including myself. And we've
had to come live with that in areas in years gone
by.
Who would have guessed ten years ago
that we would only be able to spend 120 days a year
fishing for red snapper, that grouper would
actually have a closed season. These things have
taken us by shock.
Who would have thought that Florida,
Texas, and the numerous other states up the
Atlantic and the gulf coast would totally eliminate
gill net fishing.
When we as guides take our clients
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fishing, we catch a fish with a hook. We can catch

bait with a cast net. By either means of how we
catch it or whether we buy our bait or fish with
artificial bait, we have the ability to put back
what we don't want alive. Over the past couple of
years Marine Resources has conducted some surveys,
and it was just last Saturday was the trip I
actually recorded that we released dead white
trout. They asked for the fish we released. We're
taking measurements. And anyway, over a total of
ten years I've been a professional guide, I don't
remember releasing many dead fish at all.
MS. NUMMY: Time.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Go ahead and
finish.
MR. KOLENICH: Okay. My point
being that for the future we understand that we may
even face a time when we have certain in-shore
season closures, but that the ability of fishermen
to use gill nets as a method of harvesting fish is
detrimental to whatever swims into the net, unlike
a cast net or other netting methods where you may
have a choice to release fish and preserve some
portion of that resource.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you very
much. I would like to remind each -- people, when
you come to the microphone, please state your name
for us, if you don't mind, and where you're from.
Next speaker is Mr. Edwin Lamberth.
MR. LAMBERTH: Good morning. My
name is Edwin Lamberth. I'm from Mobile, Alabama.
I'm here on behalf of the Coastal Conservation
Association of Alabama representing thousands of
recreational fishermen across the state, and a
member of an organization of literally over a
hundred thousand nationwide.
We come before you today to ask you
to adopt a number of proposals that have been sent
to the Commission and to the Board that I believe
you have in your packet. And they are strongly
supported by both science -- some of the
economics you heard from Captain Kolenich -- and
just in the name of conservation itself.
Just to give you an idea of what
recreational fishing means to Alabama and its
coastal community -- there are four-and-a-half
million visitors in the state of Alabama from
Mobile and Baldwin County. They spend one billion
dollars in those counties. And the top two reasons
they come to Alabama are sun and fish.
In your packets also and from the
previous meeting in May, there's a letter from the
Orange Beach Fishermen's Association. It's an
association of over two thousand guides and charter
boat captains, like Captain Kolenich, that support
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the measures you have before you today. They

support thousands of jobs literally in the state of
Alabama. Without the proposals that you have
before you today, they may literally go out of
business. Some of them are struggling every single
day because of the snapper regulations. And
without something done related to the fish
population that we've outlined in your proposals,
they will go out of business.
Marinas are near closure. Guides are
near going out of business. Each and every city
along Mobile, Baldwin County that you have in your
packets, supports these proposals. I'll be happy
to go through any of the specifics of the proposals
themselves or answer any questions. But
essentially we ask for game fish status for pompano
and Spanish. We ask for closure of certain areas
of Mobile Bay, some of the waters around Orange
Beach, to commercial and/or recreational fishing.
And one of those -- and I want to
talk about it specifically is the Grand Bay. Grand
Bay is a national wildlife refuge. As submitted in
the paperwork that you have with you, there is a
story about some illegal activity that's going on
in Grand Bay. It has gotten to the point to where
despite the heroic efforts by Marine Resources that
they cannot keep the illegal activity out of that
area. And because it is a national wildlife refuge
and because of the illegal activity, it's better
off being closed altogether, and we ask that you do
that.
We ask that you close the beach to
commercial and recreational fishing, again because
of the economics that I have mentioned, but also
because of declined Spanish stocks.
MS. NUMMY: Time.
MR. LAMBERTH: And again, I will
be happy to answer any questions, but I appreciate
the opportunity to speak.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Any questions
for Mr. Lamberth?
(No response.)
much.
Bob Shipp.
MR. SHIPP: Good morning, and
thank you for taking my testimony. My name is Bob
Shipp. I'm chairman of the Department of Marine
Sciences at the University of South Alabama and
Vice Chairman of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery
Management Council. I've had 40 years of
experience in fishery science and fishery
management.
And I'm here today requesting action
be taken for two of our most important coastal fish
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species -- Florida pompano and Spanish mackerel -based on sound science as well as economic
consideration.
First, Florida pompano. This is a
species that has the potential to be a tremendous
asset to our coastal tourism industry. It is one
of the few truly exciting and desirable fin fish
that can be caught directly from the shore while
surf fishing. And yet due to overharvest by net
fishermen, purse seiners, currently Alabama gill
netters, their abundance has declined
dramatically. In the 1923 publication, American
Food and Game Fishes, which was the standard
reference on the subject at the time, pompano were
described as follows -- on the gulf coast to the
mouth of the Mississippi, it is a common fish,
large quantities being brought to markets of Tampa
and Pensacola.
This is no longer the case. Although
the gill net ban in Florida has been followed by
resurgence of the species along the Florida west
coast, some of which appears to have spilled over
to our Alabama shoreline, a much greater
improvement in our stocks could result if we banned
gill netting of this species and declared it a game
fish.
As for the Spanish mackerel, we have
a similar, although much more recent situation.
For much of the last century, Spanish mackerel have
been abundant and well-managed both gulf-wide and
off the Alabama coast. But in the last several
years the commercial gill net harvests have
increased from several hundred thousand pounds to
nearly a million pounds. I had several of our
scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab run some
analyses of the stocks sustaining. Based on one of
the longest time series that exists in our area,
the catches of the Alabama deep sea fishes are
over.
I have provided you with two graphs.
The first is based on the size of the top three
winning Spanish over the 75-year history of the
rodeo. As you can see, this shows the stocks were
quite healthy during that period. But during the
most recent ten years, especially the last five
years, the top weights showed a significant
decline, as illustrated in the second graph. The
analysis indicates that there is a more than
98-percent likelihood that this decline is real and
not some random event.
Spanish mackerel are historically
most abundant off our coast with their prime
spawning area being the relatively clear waters
from Mobile Bay eastward to the Big Bend area of
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Florida. This information is contained in a peerreviewed research paper by Dr. John McEachran of
Texas A&M and John Finucane with the National
Marine Fisheries Service in Panama City, Florida.
I'm going to stop there. But just to
reiterate that those two species are the key to our
coastal tourism these days, and we really need to
do something about it. Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you,
Dr. Shipp.
Are there any questions of
Dr. Shipp?
(No response.)
Doctor.
The next speaker is Mr. Phillip West.
MR. WEST: Thank you for allowing
me to be here this morning. On behalf of the city
of Orange Beach, our mayor, and council, I'm here
to ask you to consider a measure -- not to
reiterate what Dr. Shipp and Mr. Lamberth have
already said -- but also to adopt a regulation that
would create a buffer, a distance off the beach for
gill netting around the gulf shorelines in Orange
Beach.
Last year we've had a couple of
capsizes because boats are coming in too close to
the shore, and that's a fairly dangerous
environment for boating. We believe there's an
incompatibility of uses that close to the
shoreline.
As Mr. Lamberth did say, we have
close to five million people visiting the south
Baldwin beaches every year spending upwards of a
billion dollars. We are there to sell an
experience, and we believe that proximity of that
use of that practice detracts from that experience,
and they adversely affect us economically -- and
therefore, the state.
So I will stop unless you have any
questions, and thank you again for letting us
address the Board.
Phillip.
The next speaker is Mr. Ernie
Anderson.
MR. ANDERSON: Ernie Anderson,
president of the Organized Seafood Association of
Alabama. I'm here actually to speak on behalf of
gill netting and commercial fishing in Alabama.
Briefly, I had distributed one of
these tables -COURT REPORTER: I am sorry, can
you speak a little louder and slow down a little
bit. Thank you.
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MR. ANDERSON: Some National

Marine Fisheries statistics that were currently
released in the last month or so regarding economic
(inaudible) you know, those impact both commercial
and recreational fishermen in Alabama and along the
gulf.
What you will see in there -- and as
you go forward and look at these decisions that
you -- that apparently are put before you -- that
you would be able to see the numbers as far as
employment, both commercial and recreational -both have a place in Alabama economically and also,
you know, for pleasure and recreational uses.
But one of the things that I keep
hearing -- and I've heard over the last few years
from the media and those folks opposing commercial
fisheries is that the science that they're basing
numbers -- they're saying -- well, you catch more
fish -- you must be -- the stocks aren't there.
But anyone would know -- even in land management,
you know, when wild animals -- deer, turkey, you
know -- you look at effort and relate that to your
production, and it's the same thing. The numbers
are showing -- yes. You see an increase in Spanish
mackerel. You see some -- but you -- and
commercial fisheries, but you are seeing a decrease
in the efforts -- the amount of fishermen, the
amount of folks that's been there, the time there's
decreased. In the lobby it says that those stocks
are healthy.
Now, you do look over on the
recreational fisheries, you will see a decline in
the Spanish mackerel and bluefish, and a couple of
other species. But you also see a significant
increase in up to four or five other species. So
that could say -- but you also have a 38-to-40
percent increase in the effort.
That could logically tell me that
there's one or two things happening. And one of
the things that I see there is that the target
species for recreational fishermen are moving from
those species to the drum and other large more
exciting fish to catch, and that's what these
numbers seem to say.
But in closing I would ask the Board,
as they go forward in making decision, is not to
make decisions -- or I think this Board should be
charged with making decisions that increase the
opportunity for all user groups to have access to
public lands. But also -MS. NUMMY: Time.
MR. ANDERSON: -- that they
should not be looking at this just as taking from
one user group and placing it to another user
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group. We need to find a way to make sure that all

these user groups remain here. Thank you.
Mr. Anderson.
The next speaker will be Mr. Pete
Barber.
MR. BARBER: I'm glad Ernie
didn't pull this all the way up.
My name is Pete Barber. I'm the
executive director of the Alabama Seafood
Association, and I will try to keep my remarks
brief.
Mr. Chairman -- the commissioner
left. He's heard me speak too many times, I
think. Board members -- first off, on behalf of
the gill net fishermen, I'd like to take this
opportunity to thank you for all the consideration
you've given us over the years. I think you've
been very fair, and you've heard our arguments.
Right now there is a proposal that
has been made that has a possibility of making it
impossible to make a living fishing with a gill
net, and I'm sure that that's probably the reason
it's being made. And in the economic times we're
in right now, I just don't think it's a wise thing
for a government entity to take actions that put
people out of work.
Having said that, I know we'll have a
chance to get our input, and I know this is going
to be a long meeting. But basically I just -- the
consideration we've always gotten from this Board
is well-appreciated, and I just hope it continues.
And lastly, on March 4th at the
Activity Center on Dexter Avenue is the annual
seafood bash. And if any of you folks are going to
be in Montgomery, we will provide invitations for
you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Is that all you
have?
MR. BARBER: Well, that's not all
I have. It's interesting that the people on the
other side of this issue are so concerned with
tourism. Maybe they need to talk to Eric
Malone(sic), who is the director of tourism in
south Baldwin County, who paints a completely
different picture.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you.
Anybody have any questions of
Mr. Barber?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Avery
Bates.
MR. BATES: My name is Avery
Bates. I'm from five generations of commercial
fishermen. I support the gill net fishermen
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fishing. These two species of fish in Law 9-2-80

are defined as seafoods. Everybody in the state
deserves the right to all our seafoods. They are
the property of the state, as in Law 9-12-20, to be
held in trust for the people of the state. Why
would you want to take something from all the
people of the state and give it to one user group?
There's no danger of gill nets
eliminating any species of fish. Some of the fish
that's been targeted, as Mr. Anderson said -speckled trout and redfish -- far exceed the effort
that some of the people say that Spanish mackerel
and pompano. And for the commissioner to even say
that he's going to make a regulation which would
hamper our seafood industry and our industrial
plants, Law 9-2-8 says he cannot make a regulation
or sign a regulation that would hamper or interfere
with any seafood plant.
There's many plants here that solely
at certain times of the year make their income from
these species of fish, especially mackerel. By
doing that, you will put businesses out of work.
And businesses -- if trucks -- versus Carnegie is
considered property. And that's one thing our
constitution does in the U.S. and in Alabama says
that we are entitled to property. And if you take
this property out of our fishermen's hands, you are
taking their life and their constitution and their
civil rights away from them to have access to that
fish.
We see 40, 50 trucks a day come in
our towns of Bayou La Batre hauling seafoods to all
over the country. Why would you want to interfere
with our truckings and the ability for them to get
the seafoods to the restaurants? Why would anybody
want to put people out of work in this day and time
when it's so important to not only keep five
generations, but 20 generations of fishermen
producing good, sound, and healthy food from our
waters, rather than play with them? They might
look pretty -- they might have fun to catch them,
but I want to tell you before this is over with, a
lot of people could go hungry. Let's not starve
our fishermen to death by taking more resources and
jobs away from us in this nation. Thank you.
Mr. Bates.
The next speaker is Mr. Ben Harvard.
MR. HARVARD: Ben Harvard, Mobile
County. I am a commercial fisherman.
First and foremost, all of you
probably know that we have spent the last two years
up here right across the street fighting to keep
our jobs, the way we support our families. And so
far by the grace of God and some good people across
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the street here, they have not seen fit to get rid
of us. They know that we've given up a lot.
They have an organization here that
has pretty much devastated the commercial
fishermen, like I said, around the country. They
have been a big part of why other states have
banned nets. Not because their governments or
their people seen that it was the fit thing to do,
but they are very powerful and they have a way of
manipulating words and things to get things done.
And it's been happening here. It's been happening
around this nation.
This morning before I left home I got
on the computer, and I punched in two species of
fish I was curious about. I punched in the
commercial landings of mackerel over the last two
years in this state. We've entered just barely
over 2 million.
I jumped on a recreational site, and
I thought what about the speckled trout that they
have total access to that we can't touch? And that
there are normal people that used to sit down in
our independent restaurants and eat speckled trout,
that don't have that access.
Actually they caught a little over
two million pounds in the same last two years of
speckled trout on this. They caught two million in
nets. We do this for a living. We are out there
fishing as hard as we can. We produced two million
pounds of mackerel. They were playing, which is
good -- good thing to play. They caught two
million pounds of speckled trout. That sounds like
good fishing.
First and foremost, we did have a
couple of meetings back where they divulged some
information about some regulations we were hoping
that maybe you'd look at and lighten up on a little
bit for us to do our work better.
But more important than that, that
what we would ask of you gentlemen is to really
keep in mind that our conservation department does
science, collects data all the time. They said our
stocks and fish are in good shape. We are
regulated right to our eyeballs. And all the time
with this organization I feel like their foot is on
the back of my head and the rest of these
fishermen. Their wives -- my wife is at home.
Today is my 25th anniversary. That's where I
should be. She's at home. And do you understand
what we go through every day when you get up and
you have somebody that's trying their hardest to
put you out of work, to shove you down, to shove
this -- not just me as a fisherman -- this is our
families. We fight this every day of our lives,
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and we need somebody -- if you've got the truth,

and you know that we have the resources, and they
are being managed for all of us, we need somebody
to stand up and say -- you know what, enough is
enough. These guys are fishing under pretty strict
regulations.
We have a ten-point system that will
put us out of business if we violate that. In
three years if we collect ten points, we're out
anyway. They discussed something passed, and their
attorney that was speaking here a while ago read an
article that they say that at least 70 percent of
the fishermen were going to sell out because they
are scared to death that they won't be here another
two years, that if something happens -MS. NUMMY: Time.
MR. HARVARD: -- if this Board -then we're out of business anyway.
I'm just asking for the support.
Please take into consideration families, homes.
There's not other jobs to get. We don't want other
jobs. This is what we do.
But I thank you for your time.
Mr. Harvard.
Some general comments on Marine
Resources, Mr. T.J. Marshall.
MR. MARSHALL: Thank you, sir.
Hard speaker to follow there.
I'm T.J. Marshall, and I've come a
pretty long way. I'm all the way from Miami Beach,
Florida. And kind of odd circumstances bring me
here. What I'd like to do is just read something
to you real quick, the real important thing that
happened in Florida earlier this week.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife
Conservation Commission approved the rule Thursday
that changes the recreational harvest for red
snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, state waters of
Florida. This action means that Florida's gulf red
snapper recreational harvest season will match the
currently established season in gulf federal
waters. In short, Florida locked off
two-and-a-half months in their state waters to kind
of go along and play team ball with all of the
other states in the Gulf of Mexico.
But what I think is really important
here is the quote from one of the commissioners.
He said -- red snapper are considered to be
overfished and undergoing overfishing in the
gulf -- said FWCC commissioner, Dwight Stevenson.
Shortening the fishing season in gulf state waters
will help rebuild healthy snapper populations and
hopefully minimize the need for further fishing
restrictions.
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Now, we can say whatever about the

overfishing. But what I think is the important
part is the messenger there, and that's why I'm
bringing this to you. You may recognize that name,
Dwight Stevenson -- he's one of my heroes. He is
the former Miami Dolphins offensive lineman and a
member of the pro football hall of fame, Class of
'98. And I quote from Bear Bryant -- Stevenson was
an all-American at the University of Alabama. He
was the best player I ever coached, regardless of
position.
When Dwight was appointed to the Fish
and Wildlife Commission by Governor Charlie Crist,
he said -- we all have to protect what's
important. That's why I'm serving on the
commission. Fish and wildlife are an important
part of life in Florida, and I'm happy conserving
and protecting them.
I know the red snapper issue is a
very controversial one. I know it brings a big
economic boom to the state, but our organization -I'm with the Ocean Conservancy. I like fish. I
eat a lot of fish. I am not a "tree hugger", or
what some people kind of call us is "fish
huggers". But what I would like to say is that our
organization is committed to getting all of the
states on board with red snapper. We're going to
Texas next. We've already spoken with their new
director, Carter Smith, who is the former nature
conservative director, and we're moving things
forward there so we can open up those waters and
get people out there catching more red snapper.
I appreciate the time. I will give this to
the secretary.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Marshall,
we sure appreciate you coming this distance and
addressing this group on this important issue, I
promise you. Thank you very much.
Mr. Ken Darnell.
MR. DARNELL: Good morning.
Commissioner Lawley, Mr. Chairman, members of the
Advisory Board, my name is Ken Darnell. I operate
a small company in Tallassee, Alabama by the name
of Bioactive Laboratories. We produce venoms from
snakes and other creatures, including the eastern
diamondback rattlesnake, which is a fairly common
snake in south Alabama.
I am here to recommend that we ban or
eliminate in some manner, regulation whatever, the
gassing of the gopher tortoise borrows in the state
of Alabama. You may be aware that eastern
diamondbacks utilize gopher tortoise borrows in the
winter time to get out of the cold. And on days -majority of the days like this one they come out in
the sun, like coeds on the dormitory rooftop used
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to back when I was in school. Too bad we didn't

have a better view of that. They come out and they
sun, and that is the time to catch them.
Sometimes when a snake is found in a
hole, gasoline is introduced. When I buy those
snakes, they don't last but a month or two. The
Opp Roundup, a rodeo in Opp, Alabama, also utilizes
snakes. My utilization and their utilization are
the top two uses of eastern diamondbacks in the
state. Their snakes will also last longer, because
their snakes were caught in February. They don't
have their show until the first week in April. So
we will all benefit from having snakes healthier.
As to people who catch snakes, no one
does this as a living. So banning the gassing of
gopher tortoise burrows to catch diamondbacks will
not impact anyone's income. It's an
environmentally sound policy. I believe that it
would also eliminate the harm done to other animals
which also uses gopher tortoise burrows as ways to
avoid the cold in the winter time, including the
indigo snake -- which there are programs to
reintroduce that snake into areas of Alabama.
So there are other ways to catch
them, and most of them are caught that way. And
the hunters that sell to me tell me -- well, it's
legal to gas, but if it wasn't legal, we'd stop
doing it. So I think this is a sound policy,
something that we do some benefit. It would enable
me to produce more venoms that are critically
needed.
As a matter of fact, you may not know
that the antivenom that's reached by Protherics,
Incorporated will not have enough venom for its
production without Alabama venom production. And
it's also used to develop new drugs. I have given
you a handout right here that tries to summarize
what I'm saying here and gives you an overview of
the kind of things that I and a few others, guys
down in Florida, and other venom producers do to
help us come up with better drugs to do things like
break up blood clots that cause heart attack and
stroke.
So I appreciate you looking that
material over. There's a lot of nice pictures, so
you can pass it on to your kids or grandkids.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: I am sure there
are some questions. Commissioner has the first
one.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I was just
under the impression that there were federal laws
from gassing -MR. DARNELL: No, sir, there are
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not.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: -- Opp
Rodeo and I thought they quit gassing years ago
because of federal restrictions.
MR. DARNELL: No. There are no
federal laws. The Opp Rodeo now owns -- buys from
one company, and he brings in all they need. They
no longer buy from the public. And so they're not
going to be impacted. I'd like to offer to let
them use some of my snakes if they ever don't have
enough. They realize now they only need 30, 35 to
do the kind of show they want to do. They don't
need hundreds. But there is no federal regulation
on gassing.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Harbin, you
had a question?
MR. HARBIN: Yes. I was going to
ask Mr. Darnell, what are the means of getting them
besides gassing when they are back in these holes?
MR. DARNELL: Well, you actually
find them outside the holes on days like this. And
most of the times I have ever been hunting and
hunting with the people that I work with who are
hunters, they find them laying outside the holes.
So all they have to do is walk up and pick them up
and put them in a bucket.
MR. DARNELL: Trust me, I have
six-footers in my laboratory right now, and I pick
them up and actually force-feed them. I put mice
down their throat and rub it down to palpate it
down into their belly. So they are actually easier
to work with than many people.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Doc, your
turn.
DR. STRICKLAND: How does gassing
affect the life expectancy of (inaudible) does it
cut it in half?
I -MR. DARNELL: Well, I have snakes

that I have had in my lab for over six years now,
and I have never kept a snake that was gassed -and you can tell when he's been gassed. I have
never kept one over two months.
DR. STRICKLAND: But you can
continue to collect venom?
MR. DARNELL: Yes. These snakes
I have had for years. I collect venom from them
every two weeks.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Any other
questions?
MR. HARBIN: Yes, sir. One more.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Harbin.
MR. HARBIN: How do they gas
them, Mr. Darnell?
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MR. DARNELL: Actually about a

thimble full of gas is introduced into a long
pipe. A hunter comes up to a hole, sticks about a
15-foot pipe down into the hole, and listens for a
rattle. And if he doesn't hear anything, he just
goes on to the next hole.
If he hears a snake down there, he
has a couple of options. He can dig him out, which
takes a lot of time and effort. Or he can put a
small amount of gasoline on the other side of the
snake, and the snake will crawl out. But even with
that small amount of gasoline, which in my opinion
does not destroy the whole utility -- I just mean
otherwise. I know that snakes will be in that same
hole year after year. That still affect the
snake's lungs. So he's not just not going to last
as long. And the Opp Rodeo has snakes that die
between February when they're caught and April, and
it's a real expense to them. They may not
appreciate it, but it is a real expense to them.
again. Mr. Self has a point.
MR. SELF: Yes, sir. What impact
does the gassing have on the gopher tortoise
itself, or do you have any data on that?
MR. DARNELL: There's data on
that. I personally have not conducted any studies
on that. I don't know that it has a terrific
impact on the gopher tortoise, but I know from data
I've seen it has an impact on indigo snakes -which is a snake that is not very common in
Alabama, if it's here at all anymore. And who
knows why -- could be habitat destruction. Nobody
really knows why. I have seen plenty of them in
Georgia in areas where gopher holes were gassed.
But we are going to have a
reintroduction of the indigo snake apparently, and
it would just be a real shame if gassing harmed
those populations we are trying to reintroduce.
MR. SELF: Does the gopher
tortoise, does it abandon its burrow once the snake
is introduced?
MR. DARNELL: No. It's sort of
like Yankee relatives that come down during the
winner to have -(Audience interference.)
MR. DARNELL: In the spring the
snake leaves, and the gopher doesn't seem to really
pay attention to him during the winter time.
MR. SELF: They still use the
burrow?
MR. DARNELL: That's right. They
are not natural enemies.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY:
Thank you,
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Ken.
Any other questions?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: I think we may
get some more answers to some of those questions
later.
MR. DARNELL: I appreciate you
giving me the opportunity to speak.
much. But I don't think anyone here is going to be
very receptive to helping you in catching those
rattlesnakes.
MR. DARNELL: I'd like to keep
the business to myself.
DR. STRICKLAND: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes.
DR. STRICKLAND: Just to address
the Board, where we will take this -- what's the
next step? I think that that's a very legitimate
concern that Mr. Darnell has brought to the Board.
What's the proposal here? What are
we going to do to address this?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Well, we could
entertain something today. We cannot vote on it
today. But I think it's a very serious problem,
and I concur with you that we do need to address
this issue. And I think that if we hear
Mr. Godwin's report next, it may enlighten us even
further on what we may need to do, Doc.
DR. STRICKLAND: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: But I think we
definitely need to take some type of action on
this.
Mr. Self?
MR. SELF: Mr. Chairman, to
answer his question, I think we could bring that up
to New Business.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Today?
MR. SELF: Today.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: I concur.
Mr. Godwin, you have the microphone.
MR. GODWIN: Yes. My name is Jim
Godwin. I'm a zoologist at Auburn University. I
have had over 30 years of experience in the
south -COURT REPORTER: I am sorry.
Could you speak up just a little bit into the
microphone.
MR. GODWIN: At least 15 of these
last years have been spent in Alabama working on
conservation of reptiles and amphibians. And
Mr. Darnell touched upon a lot of things that I
wanted to cover, so I will try not to repeat that.
But the gassing of the gopher
tortoise burrows affects not only the rattlesnakes,
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the tortoise, but a number of other animals that

use these burrows. They are important refuges for
animals because it provides a nice moderated
climate.
There have been other 300 other
species documented using these burrows -- everybody
from birds, mammals, other reptiles, amphibians,
and a whole host of invertebrates. And the
introduction of gasoline in these burrows is going
to be destructive to anything that is in there.
Now, a number of these are rare,
threatened, endangered species. Many of them are
protected by the states and by the federal
government, and he did mention the eastern indigo
snake.
Now, the eastern indigo snake has not
been reported from the wilds in Alabama since the
1950s. And currently there is a project with
Auburn University, the Alabama Department of
Conservation and Natural Resources, and then a
private conservation initiative known as Project
Drianne, and we've all come together and are
working to re-establish the eastern indigo snake
back into Alabama.
This is a very large project. We're
currently operating on a budget of a little over
300,000 dollars. We anticipate that this will be a
long-term project. We have absolutely no idea how
much money we may eventually spend with this.
Project Drianne has at their resources millions of
dollars, and they very dedicated and focused in
re-establishing the indigo snake. And of course if
this practice of the gassing of the gopher tortoise
burrows continues, it has the potential to
undermine our efforts.
Now, another point I want to make
about Project Drianne is that they are poised to
establish a facility in one of three states -Alabama, Georgia, or Florida. Georgia and Florida
currently prohibit the gassing of gopher tortoise
burrows. It doesn't look very good in their eyes.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you, Jim.
Anyone have any questions of
Mr. Godwin?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: No questions?
Dr. Strickland, you don't have anything?
DR. STRICKLAND: No. I am -after listening to Ken and Jim, I don't see -- and
of course I know this is something that the Board
and I feel like conservation officers need to take
a very serious look into. But I see very little in
the ways of pros of -- I really see no reason to
continue this act of gassing of the burrows, but I
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think it's something that we really need to

evaluate and bring back to the Board with the
commissioner's permission and consider voting on
it.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Well, I think
if we can get a motion out today to that effect,
then we can vote on it at the following meeting.
And we will, under New Business, entertain that
motion.
Our next speaker is Mr. Craig Guyer.
MR. GUYER: I am Craig Guyer.
I'm the herpetologist, the person who studies
amphibians and reptiles, for Auburn University.
And so I'm here to put the final bit of information
to you relative to gassing of gopher tortoise
burrows.
I've been at Auburn for 22 years.
And during virtually all of those years, I've had
research looking into book reports, biology. The
focus of that research is to try and provide the
population data that the state, federal agencies,
and agents need to manage this very important
species for the longest time -That research tells us that if you
want to maintain healthy populations of gopher
tortoises, a key component -- probably the key
component -- is producing adult tortoise
mortality. And so further information to help you
guide your discussions on the gassing issue tells
us that we know tortoises are reluctant to leave
their burrows. So if you put gasoline in the
burrows, snakes will leave, but the tortoises do
not.
I know of no scientific data to
present to you to say what that does to gopher
tortoises specifically, but I'm going to try and
convince you that we don't need to do that study.
There's abundant data that tells us that if an
organism's lungs gets a bit of gas, it does very
bad things to the lung tissue.
Any of us who have been unfortunate
enough to do that while gassing our car know that
happens. And so imagine what's like in a combined
area where you are reluctant to leave.
I think we have sufficient data that
suggest to us that gassing of burrows is going to
have detrimental effects to the key component of
the gopher tortoise population.
I'm also in favor of doing this,
again, to put us on par with our neighboring
states -- Florida and Georgia -- along with
Alabama. We share the lines, we share the
responsibility of conservation of tortoises and the
habitats they live in and all the organisms that
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live in those burrows.

As a final bit of information to help
guide your discussions, I will note that I'm on
groups that are dealing with gopher tortoises
range-wide. There is a very serious proposal from
the state of Florida to list the gopher tortoise
range-wide, rather than its current restrictive
range.
I'm a member of a group of scientists
who believes that is a mistake. I believe the
state of Alabama is on a trajectory to take a
leadership role in guiding those kinds of decisions
and having a rule on the books that says we're not
going to gas burrows in this state would help us to
win the argument that I would like us to win, which
is that we should follow the leadership of Alabama
where the state folks are going to be able to
maintain the gopher tortoise without any federal
regulations.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY:
Thank you,
Craig.
Any questions or comment from the
Board?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY:
Thank you very
much.
Our next speaker is Mr. William
Florence.
MR. FLORENCE: My name is William
Florence. I'm from Opelika, Alabama, Lee County.
I'm director with the Alabama BASS Federation
Nation, and I'm also the president of the Auburn
Bassmasters. I've been a tournament angler for
over 30 years, and a fisherman the most part of my
life.
I am here to represent the Alabama
BASS Federation Nation members and anglers across
the state concerning proposal Rule 220-6-60, speed
restrictions. The Alabama BASS Federation Nation
is opposed to speed-limit restrictions. It is our
belief to impose speed limits will push many
boaters and tourism dollars off of Alabama waters.
The idle speed only, your shoreline
restrictions do have merit, but will impose
hardship -- not only on anglers, but residents that
live on property in their tributaries. There can
be no distinction between property owners and
voters and rights on the water -- after all, we are
talking about public water, not private.
We also believe that the economic
impact will be great in cities such as Decatur,
Guntersville, and Gadsden. In 2008 and 2009, BASS
alone has seven tournaments on Alabama waters that
each one has an economic impact studies with over a
million dollars for each of these tournaments.
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Alabama has to compete with other

states for these tournaments. And if we put on
these restrictions, it's going to affect the state
of Alabama to draw these tournaments here. These
tournaments are televised on TV, and they are used
to promote our waters to bring people in from other
states to come visit us and utilize our facilities
also.
There is no proof that a regulation
will reduce boat wakes as a safety issue or
property structure issue. Boat wakes are caused by
the displacing of the water by the hull of the
boat. A bass boat with a modern hull design
displaces more water as it runs slower. With the
large amount of wake on a bass boat, most companies
are about a speed of about 30 miles an hour. But a
boat -- if it's a pontoon boat -- because it
replaces displaces more water, has a larger wake
than a bass boat running at idle speed.
As a statewide organization, we have
held tournaments for 20 years without incident. We
have supported safety legislation in the past on
items such as the youth life safety law and the
kill switch rule. Bassmasters are always generally
on the forefront of safety with helping with things
like the kill switch law. We did that before it
ever became law.
MS. NUMMY: Time.
MR. FLORENCE: I just want to
say, you know, I just -- I think you need to look
at this because we think there's a better solution
to educate people as far as like some people -like we have idle-only rules, but to a lot of
anglers -- a lot of people, idle means as fast as
they can run without getting on plane, and they
make bigger wakes like that. I think when they
take their test if we educate people that there is
a difference between idle and no wake -- if they
understand what "no wake" means, we think that's
the better solution than trying to -- just putting
in a law that our water patrol already has so much
that they can't keep up with now.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you ,
Mr. Florence.
Mr. Self has a question.
MR. SELF: Currently it's my
understanding Alabama does not have a speed limit
for boats, and I know of no proposal put forth for
a speed limit on boats. I don't understand.
Do you want a speed limit on boats?
What are you suggesting?
MR. FLORENCE: No, sir. No,
sir. See, we -- our organization has been told
that there would be a proposal for it.
MR. SELF: By whom?
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UNIDENTIFIED BOARD MEMBER:
By
who?
MR. FLORENCE: I don't know, but
we have the number and everything of a proposal.
(Inaudible -- board members speaking.)
MR. SELF: We don't have anything
like that.
MR. FLORENCE: Well, see,
evidently we're getting this information from
somewhere because -MR. SELF: You need to find out
where you are getting your information from before
we hear -(Inaudible -- board members speaking.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: One person
speak at a time, please.
And I think to clarify this, J.T., would
you like to speak to this issue for a minute?
Maybe we can clarify it.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Just real
quickly, all it is is there was a 100-foot rule
that came back, the numbers you are using were for
those proposals way back. After that went away,
there were some other groups that asked about some
speed limits, and how they -- our enforcement
people would think they'd work. There was a rough
draft sent out and a rough draft sent to each of
those groups that were getting the 100-foot rule -this was way back in August, and it just died. All
we will do is -- we will do it with anybody -we've provided the information they asked, and
that's all we've ever done.
UNIDENTIFIED BOARD MEMBER:
(inaudible) -MR. FLORENCE: The last
information I got that it was coming back, and it
was going to be brought up, and it was something
that, you know, we just felt like we needed to
voice out, to say.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Well, we
appreciate you voicing that opinion, but there's no
action to be taken, and there's no proposed rule.
MR. FLORENCE: Well, I am glad to
hear that.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: We appreciate
you coming.
Thank you very much. Our next
speaker is Mr. Robert Queen.
MR. QUEEN: I'm Robert Queen.
I'm from Cherokee County, Alabama, and I'm here to
today to ask the Board to make a change or a ruling
on the 30, 40 on the catfish law. I am a
commercial fisherman. Have been for 16 years, and
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have seen no decline in big fish since I have been

fishing for them.
I did some of the e-mails to the
commissioner. I think you-all sent out a copy of
it. But like I said, I have seen no decline in
where I fish in Gadsden, Cherokee County, or
Guntersville on this decline of the fish. And
that's basically what I usually fish for is from
two up -- two pound up on these fish. And that's
all I have.
much, Mr. Queen.
Anyone have any questions of
Mr. Queen?
Dr. May?
DR. MAY: You are fishing to sell
as meat, or selling to -MR. QUEEN: Yes -- No. I agreed
with you-all's law on the live fish. I don't haul
any live fish out of the state. It's just for
market only.
much, Mr. Queen.
Our next speaker is Mr. Anthony
Fillingim.
MR. FILLINGIM: My name is
Anthony Fillingim. My nickname is Skeeter, what
everyone knows me by. And what we've come here
today to ask you is -- we're dove hunters. We're
avid dove hunters, a group of us all, and we've
noticed over the years, first of September, the
middle of August, our area -- Baldwin County,
Mobile County, that entire district -- we are
covered up with birds early in the year. When the
south zone comes in first week of October, the
birds are gone.
So in speaking with the landowners
that we lease their land and that we hunt with,
they have told us this is not something that's just
happened, that this has been this way back since
their grandfathers were kids, that their feeling is
this is local birds that have raised and bred and
raised over the summer. And when it comes time,
it's just like turning the light switch on, towards
the end of September, they leave.
And we have done quite a bit of
research and have asked a lot of questions, and we
were told the proper way to try to change this was
to get a petition through the legislative
delegation, and we have all of their signatures
respectively, and we're asking that you take
Baldwin County and place them in the north zone
instead of -- we're not asking you to change any
dates -- whatever the north zone hunting date would
be when it comes in, that would be when Baldwin
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County dates would start.

So we have discussed this with
several of the huge landowners in that area. We
have found no one there that has opposed. Everyone
is greatly in favor of it. We have had no
opposition to what we're asking you to do. And
Robin has copies of this petition with all of the
legislative delegation and all of the county
commissioners in that area's signature to state
what we're trying to introduce to you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Excuse me.
We've got a couple of questions down there.
Mr. Jones?
MR. JONES: Can we legally do
that? I thought these zones were set by the U.S.
and federal government, and I don't -- can we
actually change the line -- the line the of the
zone?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: At this
juncture your point is well-taken. We cannot -commissioner, you want to speak to that for a
second?
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Yes. It
went to pass, and we didn't take action on it
because we didn't know about it. But 2012, if you
want to change the south zone make it one zone, is
the next opportunity. But this does not preclude
this Board from setting the seasons the same. So
in effect, you have the same effect.
In other words, the north zone and
south zone would have the same dates. But problem
in Baldwin County, if you try to do it by zone,
it's not contiguous to a northern zone county, and
that's always been the rule of thumb. Is it?
MR. FILLINGIM: It is.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Monore
County is -MR. FILLINGIM: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Thank you.
MR. FILLINGIM: In fact it's
stated in the petition what counties it would do
contiguously.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Is that
something that we have to wait, Gary, until 2011?
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We are
still having problems in Baldwin County (inaudible)
north of Mobile County. And that makes Mobile
County jump directly from the southern zone
district.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Well, we
need to be (inaudible) with the six or seven
counties that will make up the southern zone and
see if it's not something they all want to do.
would make it a lot simpler on everyone.
It
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CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Commissioner,

yesterday Mr. Self and I met with this group in
south Alabama, and we expressed to them the same
thing that we are talking about today. Gary and I
would ask them to come today and present this to
the Board and that they understood there would be
no action taken at this time, but it will be on
record.
And there's a lot of things, Skeeter,
that have to be done before we can take any action
on this. But we do appreciate you coming today and
presenting.
MR. FILLINGIM: Anything we can
do to help you with the process, we'd be glad to.
And we appreciate any consideration that you can
give.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. May, did
you have a comment?
DR. MAY: Yes. I was just
wondering -- I know that the north zone along the
Tennessee border, we are having complaints about
ice storms moving in and running their doves out.
What do you think is causing yours to
leave?
MR. FILLINGIM: I've talked with
several of the farmers there. One speculation is
that when they start rolling their peanuts towards
the end of September, they scatter the birds.
The other is they migrate. They go
to Mexico, or wherever they might go to. But
wherever they go, they leave. And I mean, it's -I've talked to several of them, and they have
expressed to us there's nothing you can do. The
last week of September, the first week of October,
they are gone, and we've found that to be the case
every year.
DR. MAY: You don't think your
neighbors' topsoil has anything to do with it?
MR. FILLINGIM: I don't think
that's a case. We are running on a 3,000 acre farm
that is nothing but peanuts and (inaudible) I mean,
the agriculture is there. There's no reason for
the birds to leave. When they leave, there's still
plenty of harvest going on. I think it's more a
migratory time, just like the ducks coming south.
I don't necessarily think it's weather-related. I
just think that's the time of the year they leave,
and they concur with my thought.
Anthony. I appreciate you coming.
Okay. We're going to get into some
deer issues now. And I would ask the Board, if you
don't mind, gentlemen, when you are addressing a
speaker, will you please use your microphone? Our
court reporter is still having problems -- and the
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commissioner's doesn't work.

CHAIRMAN HATLEY: All right. Our
first speaker on supplemental feeding will be
Mr. Quinton Cummings from Clanton, Alabama.
MR. CUMMINGS: Good morning,
gentlemen, I am Quinton Cummings from Clanton -COURT REPORTER: Can you raise
the microphone?
MR. CUMMINGS: I come to talk to
you about supplemental feeding. I have 13 of -- my
brother-in-law and I have 1,300 acres leased at the
northern end of Autauga County, and we're the only
ones, other than the son -- who is a sergeant
marine -- that's hunting. And we killed seven deer
this year. And of the seven deer, six were full of
corn, and we do not feed corn.
And I have a good rapport with my
game wardens, Kenneth Williams, Officer Kenneth
Williams -- when I call him, he comes right away.
But I mean, there's just so much two men can do in
a county, and it's widespread to -- four of my
deacons in my church admit they feed (inaudible)
with corn. They are not ashamed about it.
All I'm asking is we have ten green
fields, and we spent $3,000 on ten green fields.
So we did all we can do. I don't know anything
else you can do to make grass any sweeter. And
when they start putting that corn right in in the
middle of December, the deer just leave. And all
we're asking for is the equal opportunity, I think,
to compete with them. I think it should be to put
out of feeders, automatic feeders, and it should be
over at least a half-acre well-maintained green
field, and it should be at least a hundred yards
from the property line.
of Mr. Cummings by anyone?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Quinton, we
thank you for coming.
We're going to get into an issue
that's really new to this Board. First -(Audience interference.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Maybe I should
not have made that announcement.
Our first speaker on the support with
dog deer hunting will be Mr. Philip Gable.
Mr. Gable.
MR. GABLE: Good morning,
gentleman. My name is Philip Gable. I'm from
Birmingham, Alabama. I'm a member of Good Old Boys
Hunting Club in Fayette County, Alabama. I'm also
a member of (inaudible) Creek Hunting Club in
Tuscaloosa County.
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We understand that a subcommittee has

been formed of the Advisory Board to deal with dog
deer hunting, and we'd like to know more about that
and how we can have some input into that. We are
very interested in trying to preserve the dog deer
hunting laws. We attempt to address any complaints
brought to our attention.
I have previously sent a letter to
each of you requesting that the Board adopt a
formal complaint so that when people are
complaining about hunters, we would have an
opportunity to try to address the complaint and
make sure that it's not rumor or innuendo. I've
not heard anything on that and don't know if
there's a system in place, but we'd like to see
something done.
I'd be happy to entertain any
questions.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Any questions?
MR. HARBIN: Mr. Chairman, I have
a question.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes, sir.
MR. HARBIN: So you are with the
Good Old Boys Hunting Club in Fayette County?
MR. GABLE: Yes, sir.
MR. HARBIN: I see here on the
2009 petition there's already two complaints
against you.
Are you in that area that was left
open?
MR. GABLE: What complaints would
those be, sir? We are not aware of any
complaints. If there was a complaint system -MR. HARBIN: I think it's been
out of Tuscaloosa -- the dogs that are crossing
over into the Tuscaloosa area that came out of
Tuscaloosa County. The dogs were crossing from
Fayette County into Tuscaloosa.
Are you in that little area that we
left open?
MR. GABLE: Yes, sir.
MR. HARBIN: Are you on
Mr. Sweeney -- do you know who he is, the
complainant?
MR. GABLE: I do not know
Mr. Sweeney. Now, he may have made a complaint to
some of the club officers. But what we find a lot
of times is if anyone sees a dog, they
automatically assume it's a dog hunter and that
somebody is doing something improper. And this is
frequently not true. For instance, just before dog
season started this year, we had a couple of dogs
come up to our fence, and we talked to Mr. Anthony
(inaudible) to come pick his dogs up. He came to
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get his dogs, said that he was a fox hunter, said

that he had 40, 50 dogs that he had turned them all
loose, and that they were all over the county, and
that he was exercising his dogs and getting ready
to go to a training.
MR. HARBIN: Well, he's going to
have to follow the rules like everybody else does.
MR. GABLE: And we understand
that. That's why we think that if there was a
formal complaint system that rather than us being
blamed for someone else's dogs that we could
address these complaints, because we do attempt to
resolve any complaints. We want to be good
stewards of our land. We want to be good neighbors
and to do everything that we can to do.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Gable, we
appreciate you coming today. We appreciate your
comments. Thank you very much.
The next speaker will be Mr. Dustin
Houston.
MR. HOUSTON: Good morning. My
name is Dustin Houston. I'm from Butler County. I
support dog hunting in Butler County. It's
friendship, comradery. The youth that is involved
in it -- we have numerous kids that come out and
enjoy the fellowship, gun safety, awareness.
Our hunting club has been -- it's
Long Creek Hunting Club. We've been established
for 30-some-odd years. I've got 35 members and
around 3,000 acres.
I own dogs -- fox dogs as well as
deer dogs. I know that's a great part of our
heritage. My grandfather and my father does it -my uncles, you know. We do our best to comply
with, you know, all the rules and regulations. I
know it's hard, but we do do our best to, you know,
try to abide by the laws.
And to even go as far as tracking
systems. You know, we spend thousands of dollars
on those to help us control our dogs or help us
catch our dogs.
Let's see, I am currently in three
clubs -- two stalk-hunting clubs and a dog hunting
club. I wasted about $3,000 -- I'm going to say,
personally -- on stalk hunting because I don't have
the comradery and the enjoyment like I do dog
hunting, and it's an exciting -- I've sat in tree
stands and seen nothing, and I have people that's
in these stalk-hunting clubs that they say -- man,
how I wish we could turn some dogs loose in here
and get these deer moving. And you know, it's -you know, I'm fortunate enough to say -- well, I am
a member of my club. I hunted most of my season
over there because we saw deer. We enjoyed it.
It's not about killing the game. It's about
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listening to the dogs.

And that's all I have to say. Thank
you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Coles?
MR. COLES: What part of Butler
County is the Long Creek Hunting Club?
MR. HOUSTON: We're not on the
106 West, which would be on the west side of I-65.
MR. COLES: You're on 106 or you
are north of 106?
MR. HOUSTON: We are on 106. We
are south of 106 actually, sir.
MR. COLES: And how many acres do
you have?
MR. HOUSTON: Around 3,000 acres.
MR. COLES: Are those contiguous,
or -MR. HOUSTON: Yes, sir.
MR. COLES: That's contiguous?
It all touches?
MR. HOUSTON: Yes, sir.
MR. COLES: Thank you.
Mr. Houston.
Our next speaker will be Mr. Don
Knight.
MR. KNIGHT: Good Morning. I'm
Don Knight. I live in Anniston -- excuse me. I've
got a cold. I hunt in Barber County and Talladega
County along with two different clubs. I'm also
the state president of the Alabama Dog Hunters
Association.
This year I'm proud to have less
calls during the season about problems than I have
had in quite few years. It was much improved. One
of the dog hunters called me and let me know what
the problem is they had, and they were way off this
year. We certainly hope you look at that and take
it into (inaudible) -I wanted to say one more thing. Our
club this year, we had on an average of -- on a
Saturday hunt, we had an average of 12 under 15
years of age hunting with us, and that's getting
youth involved. And it's really happening. It's
going to keep us hunting.
On that same line, I heard this
Board, I hear the commission, all of us, we want to
get more people hunting. We don't want to get less
people hunting. And with that in mind, I want you
to understand that dog hunting -- we can hunt more
people on a piece of property for less money.
That's becoming more important each and every day
to have quantity of hunters out there as well as
quality of hunters. I don't mean just let somebody
come in there and run your club. I mean, we want
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good, honest people, their families to come in

there and hunt.
And with that in mind, as we close
down these counties or any part of a county, we do
put people out of hunting. Some of them don't
think so. They think they put the dog up and go
hunt some other way. They don't. We probably lose
30 percent of a club when you shut the county
down. You probably lose 30 percent of the hunters
in that county, from the information that I can
just gather on the phone and all. That's really 30
percent with a decline in hunting license and all
today is very much.
I'd like to take this opportunity to
ask this Board, this commissioner, to consider very
strongly not closing down any more clubs, any more
counties, any more parts of counties until our
Board, our committee, has an opportunity to meet on
the permit system where we can get that in place on
the problem areas where we will have accountability
of who's causing the problems. We want them out of
business just as much as you do. We do not want
them killing our dog hunts, so we want them out
too. If we work on this permit system and get a
good one in place, then maybe we can stop some of
these problems or put the right people out of
business, not the good ones.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY:
Dr. Strickland?
DR. STRICKLAND: Mr. Knight -MR. KNIGHT: Yes, sir.
DR. STRICKLAND: As president of
the Alabama Dog Hunting Association, do you think
your organization would approve of a permit
system?
MR. KNIGHT: Absolutely. We
don't really -- I'll put it here. We don't really
want a permit system. We don't really feel like we
should have a permit system, but we are very
willing to take a permit system by far over
shutting the thing down. We will do what we need
to do to try to keep dog hunting alive and try to
keep people in the woods hunting.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Lynch?
MR. LYNCH: Mr. Knight, would you
think the Dog Hunter Association would also accept
a statewide permit system that just covers the
areas that are currently still open to dog hunting
and didn't try to reopen areas that have been
closed?
MR. KNIGHT: I don't -- well, we
don't want to lose any more counties, but we would
like very much, very (inaudible) to have the
opportunity to open up good clubs in those counties
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that have been closed down to get these people back

into hunting. There again, we come up with
quantity of people hunting. We need to get those
people back hunting that have not hunted since they
lost their deer hunting.
There again, I think the permit
system would come with accountability. We don't
want the bad clubs opened up. We want a good
legitimate dog deer hunting club to be able to run
anywhere they've got the land to run on and
continue to get people in hunting.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Any other
questions of Mr. Knight?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Don, we thank
you.
MR. KNIGHT: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: We've got to
take about a four- or five-minute short break.
We've got some technical equipment problems with
the court reporter. Five minutes.
11:26 a.m.
(Short break.)
11:34 a.m.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Our next
speaker will be Mr. Wynnton Melton.
MR. MELTON: I am Wynnton Melton
from Geneva County. And I told -- I'm kind of
proud. I wouldn't want a fellow analyzing too much
of what I say that can find a typo on Page 51.
But anyway, like Don Knight, I've
been associated with the dog deer hunting for a
long time. I wrote the constitution for the
Alabama Dog Hunters Association. I have been in at
least 40 counties lobbying for the ethical and
legal dog hunting.
You know, in these 40 years that I've
been here, I made a promise that if things didn't
get better in ten years, I was going to quit
hunting dogs and I was going to quit fooling with
it altogether. 40 years ago it was rough
(inaudible) I am not kidding you. It was road-toroad, fastest one could drive, CB radio, catch him
no matter where you went. That seemed to be the
tone of the way it went in south Alabama, but it
got better. It got a lot, lot better. It has -it's a lot better in south Alabama, and it can be
in other places. If you got reasonable people
working together looking for reasonable solution.
Now, you can't sit down with one party. It takes
both sides. It takes both sides. You have to work
out reasonable compromise, but it can be done. I
think we are doing it. I think we have reduced the
number of problems tremendously.
And it's been said about a number
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here today, more young people are involved. If you

stop it, you don't ever have the opportunity to
know what you've missed. Young people need a
choice. Landowners need a choice. Hunters need
the choice. And you'll be surprised how well it
can really work out if everybody works and works
hard to try to make it. If you got one group that
won't make a bit of a compromise here and one over
here that won't compromise at all, not much hope.
We're on the permit system. I think
it's working. There may be others here that think
it isn't, but I think it is. Now, as you look
statewide at the permit system, the only problem
that I see in areas where you have massive tracts
of land that is open to the public, including dogs,
the dog hunters will be hurt pretty bad. Because
they might lose all the open permit hunting.
In other situations it works great
because you are held responsible for what you do -as a club, as a group -- and you can have your
permit pulled -- as a club, as a group. So it
makes you very sensitive as to what you're doing.
It makes you accountable to your neighbors. It
makes you accountable to law enforcement, and it
makes you accountable to the other club members.
It can work.
One other thing, then I will sit
down. I asked Robin if she was armed. They
wouldn't tell me. But anyway, one fellow on the
flathead catfish and the Choctawhatchee and Pea
River, we really don't want. I understand from
some department people here that we have quite a
few, and our bullheads are about gone, our brim are
about gone. And 90 percent of the people that I
talk to really don't want them at all. So we
certainly don't support turning any of them back
in. They are absolutely destroying our fin fish.
Any questions of what I just
addressed?
(No response.)
MR. MELTON: I appreciate all of
you. I know what a difficult responsibility that
you have. I appreciate you willing to give your
time to listen to all of the pressure that you get
from the many user groups, and I know that it's a
massive amount. We're all out here to try to enjoy
these great outdoors, and we can learn to live
together. And that's the dog hunter, too.
Thank you so much.
Mr. Melton. We appreciate you coming in.
Our next speaker is Mr. Robert
Mitchell.
MR. MITCHELL:
That's what I
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wanted to say.
It's been answered by Don Knight.

much. Appreciate you, Mr. Mitchell.
The next speaker is Ms. Susan Morrow.
MS. MORROW: Chairman, Board
members, I'm Susan Morrow. I'm from Mobile County,
and I'm here today to talk to you about we had 37
wildlife management areas. We only had four that
we can dog hunt. We had Boykin, Blue Spring,
Scotch, and the Upper Delta. Each one of you has a
copy of about 367 signatures supporting dog hunting
and would like more dog hunts on management areas.
Majority of these signatures come from the Scotch
hunt. The Upper Delta, the gates were closed on
most of the dog hunting this year. I didn't go to
Blue Spring, and the Boykin is at the same time
that we have the Scotch hunt.
And we would ask the Board, please
give us -- consider giving us more dog hunts on
management areas. We have large turnouts for these
hunts. Lots of the people that come don't have
dogs and don't support dog hunting, but they come
in hopes of killing a deer with our dogs. They
also complain if you don't see or hear dogs. We
dog hunters spend a lot of money on our dogs -- on
feeding them, vet bills, tracking system, dog
boxes, dog collars, a lot of money.
We would ask the Board to please
consider adding $15 to the Wildlife Management Area
license to be able to dog hunt these management
areas. This would cut down on the number of people
at these hunts, and true dog hunters would not mind
paying this to run our dogs. This would discourage
people that are not dog hunters from coming and
complaining about or not seeing or hearing dogs and
deer.
Also, we would ask for $5 of this
money to go to help with youth hunts.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you, Ms.
Morrow.
Any questions for Ms. Morrow?
(No response.)
much.
Mr. John Perkins.
MR. PERKINS: My name is John
Perkins. I'm from Danville, Alabama. I own Buck
Horn Hunting Club in Tuscaloosa County.
Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Lawley,
and Board members, you should have in your packet a
map that I sent to -- it was a letter to
Commissioner Lawley asking for a permit for our dog
hunting club. We've dog hunted this land for
years. I have a letter from the owner of the land
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with no reservation at all about us hunting dogs on

this property. We have nearly 10,000 acres. We
have 9,770 acres. Over 7,000 acres is owned by one
man. We're primarily surrounded with ways to cut
our dogs off. We realize there's a problem. Based
on the newsletter that came out after the last
meeting, you're looking at ways to get dog hunting
back into some of these areas, and I'm here asking
for a permit or an application at least to fill out
a permit.
We want our dog hunting back, and
Mr. Knight mentioned kids hunting. I have a
12-year-old granddaughter that would have been
here, but she's starting softball, and they are
already practicing. She had eight dogs. When we
lost it, she has hunted three times in the last two
years. She doesn't care a thing in the world about
sitting in a shooting house and watching a green
field. She'd rather take a stick and follow her
dad and go through the woods and listen to her dogs
run.
I spend over $2,000 a year just on
dog food for them. They're her dogs, but we feed
them. So everybody has got grandkids.
But we are asking for a permit. We
seem like we get a runaround every time we keep
hearing permit, permit, permit. Somebody step up
and do something. That's all we're asking. And
if, you know, if it's going to be county-by-county,
who do we get the permit from? Who do we see?
And that's all I'm asking, and I
appreciate your time.
much, Mr. Perkins. We appreciate your remarks.
And we will take the next speaker,
Dustin Schaefer.
MR. SCHAEFER: Hello, my name is
Dustin Schaefer. I'm from Huntsville, Alabama. I
also hunt at Buck Horn Hunting Club in Tuscaloosa
County, north of 82. I think I can accurately
represent the youth of Alabama. I mean, I am 18
years old. I'm enrolled at the University of
Montevallo. I took a youth hunter safety course
when I was 12 years old and I was not allowed to
carry a gun by myself even after I had taken that,
until I was 14 to hunt dogs by myself.
And I just want to -- I'd like to let
you know that the first deer I killed was an eightpoint deer when I was 14, the first year I started
hunting, and I got to hunt dogs for two years after
that. And since our dog hunting has been outlawed,
I've been to my hunting club to hunt three times in
the past two years. I went one time last year
during opening weekend, and then this year I went
twice. I went one time during Christmas and also
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opening weekend.
I just want to reiterate to you guys
that we just really need a permit system, just like
Mr. Perkins of our club said. All we want is a
permit system. We got so much land. The problems
are obvious, but with so much land, we have a
large-scale operation that's able to make sure that
we don't have problems with other landowners that
are surrounding us. We would be willing to have
meetings with anybody to get a permit system in
place.
That's all I have to say.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Johnson has
a comment.
MR. JOHNSON: How many youth are
in the hunting club?
MR. SCHAEFER: There's probably
around 15 that I know of, sir.
MR. JOHNSON: And a total that's
in the hunting club?
MR. SCHAEFER: Around 50.
MR. JOHNSON: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. May?
DR. MAY: Are you a member of any
other club in the Huntsville area?
MR. SCHAEFER: No, sir.
DR. MAY: Thank you.
Dustin.
MR. SCHAEFER: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Next speaker is
Mr. Steve Strickland from Enterprise, Alabama.
MR. STRICKLAND: I'm Steve
Strickland. I hunt with Red Oats Hunting Club
in -- actually in New Brocton, Alabama, (inaudible)
Coffee County. I'm the president of the Alabama
Dog Hunters Association Chapter in Coffee County.
Last year after the '07, '08 hunting
season, myself and the vice president met with
Mr. Coles. He had a list of complaints. We talked
with him about those complaints, told him that we
were going to try to meet with the hunting clubs in
our area. We only have probably about six hunting
clubs left. In June we meet with Mr. Pugh and
Mr. Andress in Elba and talked with them on some
things that -- the issues of the dog hunting. We
probably kept them longer than they wanted to stay
there. I think we met for about three hours that
afternoon. But we had some meetings with the
different hunting clubs in the county -- their
presidents and everything. We talked with them.
We had a couple of meetings discussing some of the
things that we thought that we could do ourselves
to try to limit the complaints.
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In our hunting club we have about

6,000 acres. It is contiguous. You can leave our
clubhouse, ride all over the 6,000 acres and never
get on a public highway. Some things that we have
done was limited our dog bins of turning out only
three dogs at a time. We were able to control our
dogs better. We had more hunts. We tried to limit
the time of day that we turned them out. We tried
to stay off the stalk hunters in the afternoon.
We had a meeting this past week with
all clubs. We think we did a better job than what
we did. We hope we did anyway, and we're going to
continue to try to do what we can to stop the
complaints.
There again, we just want to try to
keep our hunting. Whatever the state decides to do
with the permit system, I don't think we would have
any problem supporting it.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY:
Thank you very
much, Steve.
The next speaker is Mr. John Ward.
MR. WARD: Good morning, Advisory
Board. My name is John Ward. I am with the Good
Old Boys Hunting Club, and I am the CEO down
there. I know you said we had two complaints. We
got one resolved that I know of -- the one that I
know of. And the dog he said was over there was
not our dogs. We have 90 percent of our guys that
have tracking collars on their dogs (inaudible) -COURT REPORTER: Can you speak up
please, sir?
MR. WARD: And we try our best.
I try my best to do it right down here and hunt
right. I got quite a few young youth in my club.
The little girl sitting right there, she's in my
club. She loves to dog hunt. She don't care about
stalk hunting and everything. You know, we got a
few stalk hunters, like others, that hunt with us,
and I want to into consideration. I'm doing my
best I can. I will do more and leave it like it is
in Fayette County.
And like the gentleman said while
ago, if they got a complaint and they come to us,
we will sit down and talk to them -- man-to-man and
friend-to-friend. That's what's the matter with
the world today. Everybody in here will tell you
it's us, but that's not true. You got to work
together as a family. And every morning before we
meet, I always go over my rules with the guides at
hunting club. Nobody gets on nobody's land.
Nobody turn no dogs loose on nobody's land. We got
8,100 acres in there we are hunting on. We will
probably be able to pick up some more as soon as I
can.
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And take into consideration the

permit system comes up, we will be glad to work
with that, too. We are good people to hunt with.
I got five guys that (inaudible) even stalk hunt.
They like me. They've been (inaudible) so much,
they can't check on them. And I got some older
than 83-year-old guys in our club that can't get up
there hardly at all. But that's what we have got
down there. And we want to do right. Whatever the
Board decides is what we're going to do.
I want you to take that into
consideration, and I thank you very much for your
time.
MR. HARBIN: Mr. Chairman, may I
speak?
Mr. Harbin.
MR. HARBIN: I believe we
discussed that about the two dog complaints you had
that were crossing the line?
MR. WARD: Yes, sir.
MR. HARBIN: I believe I talked
with the commissioner on it.
MR. WARD: Yes, sir.
MR. HARBIN: And I think that's
been resolved.
MR. WARD: Thank you very much,
sir.
MR. HARBIN: Yes, sir.
MR. WARD: Thank you very much.
John.
Our next speaker is Mr. Tony Wynn.
MR. WYNN: Mr. Chairman,
Commissioner Lawley, members of the Board, I am
Tony Wynn. I am also the hunting master for the
Buck Horn Hunting Club. Dustin was a little bit
wrong on the youth. We have 38 senior members and
32 youth that hunt with us. Four of those are my
grandboys, and two of them wouldn't even go hunting
with me this year. Depends on the dogs, I ain't
going. One of them is nine -- the other is one ten
years old.
I don't know these people up here
working on complaints, what they are working them
for. We have never had a complaint in over 60
years, and we've got our (inaudible) -Less than two miles north of us you
can legally dog hunt in Walker County. Less than
12 miles south of us you can legally deer hunt with
dogs in Tuscaloosa County. 400 yards to the east
of us if you cross (inaudible) River in Jefferson
County, you can dog hunt. Why was our dog hunting
taken away from us?
If we had been in an outlaw club and
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had complaints over the years, I could understand

it. I don't know why. But what I do ask you is
some (inaudible) and we've tried to give them -Mr. Lawley has had a sit-down meeting with him,
Dr. May, and Mr. Johnson to find out what we can do
to get a permit or to get it reissued. We just
want to dog hunt.
Anything else you do, we appreciate
it.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Johnson,
you have a question of Mr. Wynn?
MR. JOHNSON: Yes, sir. In a
number of your letters that you have sent in one of
them I read here -- we saw a dog box on the truck,
and he would stop dog hunting. That is totally
untrue.
MR. WYNN: I did not write that.
MR. JOHNSON: Well, this is in
your -MR. WYNN: No, sir. It is not.
MR. JOHNSON: Thank you, sir.
MR. WYNN: If you will look, it's
Tom Wynn, not Tony.
MR. JOHNSON: It is Tom Wynn.
MR. WYNN: Thank you, sir.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Wynn, we
will as a Board look into this, and we appreciate
you -- I know you have come several times and
talked to us about this problem. And we all
appreciate it, and we will see if we can rectify it
if at all possible.
MR. WYNN: Thank you very much.
Mr. Wynn.
Our next speaker is Mr. George
Anthony, and he is a pro -- is against dog deer
hunting.
MR. ANTHONY: Hello, my name is
George Anthony, Clay County, Alabama. I have been
hunting for 30 years. It's always been my dream to
own land and my friends and family could hunt and
enjoy.
Since 2004 my friends and I have put
our heart and souls into building a home, putting
up tree stands, shooting houses, planting food
plots. And I am here to represent a group of avid
outdoorsmen and landowners. Unfortunately, we have
been overrun with dogs for the past five years. In
all my years of hunting, I have never experienced
such an aggravation. Something needs to change.
The dog deer hunting in Alabama is
out of control. In my frustration, I reached out
to my local game warden, Andrew Howell. Mr. Howell
was very helpful and professional. We need a lot
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more like him. He's a one-man show in one county.

After several conversations with him, he compared
our area to the wild west. He informed me that
there are no laws currently in place to protect
landowners from dog deer hunting in Clay County.
We are asking that laws be
implemented to regulate or stop dog deer hunting in
Clay County.
And thank you very much for your time
and consideration.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Lynch has a
question.
MR. LYNCH: Where is your land in
Clay County?
MR. ANTHONY: In Ashland.
MR. LYNCH:
Is it near the
national forest?
MR. ANTHONY: It's very close.
MR. LYNCH: But does it abut the
national forest?
MR. ANTHONY: It does not.
George.
Hold it, Mr. Harbin, you have a
question?
MR. HARBIN: I was just wondering
-- do you know what club the dogs that are causing
your problems? Have you caught any -MR. ANTHONY: The game warden
has -- had gone to an area where we thought the
dogs were coming from, and he did talk to them.
But since then, we've had several other incidents
with other guys' dogs, and it's just constantly
happening. They are just doing the hit-and-run,
throwing them off, and cutting them off on the
other side.
MR. HARBIN: Do these dogs have
collars on them, or are they -MR. ANTHONY: Yes. A lot of them
do have collars. I have a collection of the phone
numbers and pictures of the dogs.
Mr. Anthony.
MR. ANTHONY: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Next speaker is
Chiquita Baker.
MS. BAKER: I didn't sign up.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Somebody put
your name on my page.
MS. BAKER: I know.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Joseph
Bevels?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Joe doesn't
want to speak. Okay.
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In that case, we'll go to Graham

Carroll.
MR. CARROLL:
My name is Graham
Carroll -CHAIRMAN HATLEY:

the microphone, Graham.
Stand closer to
MR. CARROLL: Okay. My name is

Graham Carroll. I am representing the Creekstand
Cooperative in Macon County. Submitted a packet
for distribution to Robin last week, should have
some pictures and a letter.
We have -- I think everything is
pretty much summed up in the pictures and the
letter, so I will be very brief. We have had a
problem with dog hunting and infringement of our
rights in Macon County for as long as I've been
alive. I spoke last year in Montgomery and
Eufaula.
Despite the efforts of Mr. Lynch, law
enforcement, myself, and others, this has been the
worst season we've had on record. As a
veterinarian and an owner of a squirrel dog, I hate
to see limitations placed on dog hunting, but I see
no other option.
We ask for your consideration of
Macon County.
of Mr. Carroll?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: If not, we
thank you for coming.
Mr. Frank Chirico.
MR. CHIRICO: Thank you,
gentlemen. My name is Frank Chirico. I am a
private landowner in north Coffee County. As
you-all are aware, south Coffee County has a
prohibition against dog hunting. I happen to live
in the northern part of the county.
That description that was just said
here of what things used to be like 40 years ago,
that sounds like my neighborhood. CB trucks, fourwheel drive trucks, eight of them in a row staked
out on the highway. And you walk for recreation
down the county road in front of your house, and
people are sitting there, 50 yards apart with fourwheel drive trucks. And they take their dogs five
miles down the road, turn them loose on the dirt
road, and then stake out five miles away. The dogs
run across everybody else's land. And then when
you say something to them, they look at you and
say -- well, the dogs can't read. I've heard that
-- dogs can't read -- until I'm sick of it. And
there's no excuse for it.
Now, we've had neighbors, just this
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year, wires cut and threatened. Mr. Bill Peters,

his back fence was cut. We got a neighbor here
whose gate was taken off the hinges and thrown off
to the side. We have other people, they are taking
electric fences and pulling them loose and shorting
them out on another post so the dogs don't get
burned.
Now, the fact is that if this isn't
settled at some point realistically -- and by the
way, I don't know if these people are in a club or
not. All I know is I see eight trucks going by my
house. Two or three of them with Florida plates on
them. Dog boxes. The fact is this is going on,
and if something isn't done about it, I'm afraid
somebody is going to get hurt. So we are talking
about a public safety issue as well as a hunting
issue.
Now, you ought to vote no with those
people sitting on the side of the road with the
door open in the pickup truck and a loaded shotgun
sitting on the seat. And they are standing all
five, six feet away waiting for the deer to run
across the road. It's worth your life to get
between them and that deer. There's no excuse for
it.
Our game wardens have done an
exemplary job, and they have written tickets and
arrested people. But the bottom line is that I am
not anti-gun or anti-hunting. I'm a retired Army
officer and a retired state investigator. And I'm
telling you right now, I'm all for hunting. But
the people that are dog hunting in my area fired
their musket with me, and that's an infantry term,
and you know what I'm talking about.
I just -- this cannot continue to go
on. If it's illegal in south Coffee County, it
ought to be illegal in north Coffee County. We are
being abused and our property rights are being
abused.
Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Coles, I'm
sure you have a comment.
Hang on, Mr. Chirico.
MR. COLES: Frank, how long were
you a livestock theft investigator?
MR. CHIRICO: Almost 20 years.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Harbin?
MR. HARBIN: Yes. I just
wondered how you felt about a permit system in
north Coffee County?
MR. CHIRICO: I don't know
anything about a permit system. I'm just telling
you right now I've owned my land for about 32
years, and over time --
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MR. HARBIN:
Would you support a
permit system?
MR. CHIRICO: I don't know.
Don't know anything about it. I'm telling you now
that over time the problem -- initially when I
owned my land, I was willing to work with people.
And I've heard a lot of that -- get along, get
along. Bottom line is that what's happened over
the years is they've alienated our property
rights. The people that own property in my
neighborhood now are hard-core in many cases.
Again, we brought you a petition
signed by 230 people. Most of them are property
owners in north Coffee County. That didn't happen
overnight, folks. Because most of them are in fact
hunters, but it's the dog hunting that's given a
bad name to deer hunting.
I will tell you another thing, too.
I trail-ride with horses, and I am in fact running
down roads in my neighborhood with my horses, and I
come across a culvert pipe with deer carcasses
laying in there with a back strap cut out, and the
whole deer carcass dumped in the ditch. That's not
sporting. That's not hunting. I don't care what
anybody says.
Mr. Chirico.
MR. CHIRICO: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: And your point
is very well made. Of course you can't -- I won't
even make that comment.
Our next speaker is Mr. Granger -Mr. Sonny Granger.
MR. GRANGER: My name is Sonny
Granger. I hunt and own land in Coffee County.
I'm here once again to speak for landowner's
rights. You know, I hunt at a club in Coffee
County. We've got -- we own a lodge and land
there. We lease a large tract from (inaudible)
we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in the
state of Alabama collectively. My club's got about
34 members. We always bring guests every weekend.
We have a lot of people that come up there and
really enjoy hunting. We enjoy our land.
I was going to tell you guys, you
know, you've heard it so many times about stories
about hunting and the conflicts that have happened
because of dog hunting, and things that happen.
But I actually have someone with me who's -- she's
going to stand up here in a little bit and tell you
that story herself.
In Coffee County we had 18 complaints
registered this year, as far as dog conflicts. We
definitely -- we saw a little bit of a reduction
this year. We've tried to work with the dog
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hunters, and there's a lot of them that are good.

But there's some that just don't care. They just
don't care. And you know, hunting is not about
killing. It's about enjoying the natural
outdoors. There's nothing natural about me sitting
in a stand and having dogs run across my property.
Not at all.
And you know, it's talked about that
dog hunting is a tradition. I understand that, but
you know, still hunting is also a tradition. And
by the dogs running across me, they are violating
my tradition. And to me, that's not acceptable.
I've been before the Board once
before last year, and that was Mr. Lawley,
Mr. Pugh, Chief Andress, Captain Herring, Officer
Cox. Everybody I can. I've talked about
everything. I signed the petition working with
some of these other guys. We are at our wit's
end.
I'm asking for help. Our motion
for -- the motion at hand or the issue at hand has
been deferred. I understand there was a legal
question regarding whether the permit system can
exist in a county that's already banned. I don't
know that answer. I'm asking the Board, what -you know, what do we do? What do I do next?
Mr. Coles, you and I have spoken many
times. I'm asking for help. We -- you know, if
the dog hunters could keep the dogs on their
property, we wouldn't have a problem. I don't have
a problem with dog hunting as it exists somewhere
else, but just not on my property. You-all have
heard that a million times.
I guess truly, you know, if I could
stand here and ask every member of the Board as I'm
looking at each one of you in your eyes, if you
could -- will you grant me permission to hunt on
the land of the dog hunters? If I ask you that
question, your answer is probably going to be no,
I'm sure. But by inaction and by not giving us the
help that we need and what we'ved ask for, that's
what you're giving to the other dog hunting clubs.
They're hunting on our property.
They're coming across. And my property -- if I
showed you a map of it -- the only place where dogs
come across are hard roads, and that's where the
dogs are lining up, on these hard roads. I'm
asking for help and some clarification and what to
do next.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Coles?
MR. COLES: Mr. Granger, how long
have you been a member of the Hit N Miss?
MR. GRANGER: Ten years.
MR. COLES: How long do you know
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that it's been going on?

MR. GRANGER: Ten years. The
club has been in existence for 23 years in that
current location, and it's been a problem since
I've been there. And I understand it was a problem
prior to that.
MR. HARBIN: Would you support a
permit system, or would you want it closed?
MR. GRANGER: Well, because I
don't understand exactly how the permit system
would work, I would want it closed. But at this
point, I'll take anything.
Mr. Granger. We appreciate you coming.
Mr. William Herren.
MR. HERREN: My name is Bill
Herren. I have been here with you for two years,
and I'd just like to say that I live in an area and
we own property in an area where the ban exists in
Fayette County. This season has been the best
season that I have known of since deer have been
introduced into Fayette County. And that took
place whenever the Wolf Creek Management, it was
stopped back somewhere in the '50s. Now, that's
roughly 50 years plus.
And as has been explained by several
people, deer hunting from the road and disregard
for the landowners of hunting illegally is based on
the arrests that were made last season, the number
of complaints last season. And again this season,
I think there were 23 complaints from Fayette
County.
But in our area there's nothing big
to complain about. We had a few dogs. We had
somebody to turn the dogs loose and heard the
vehicles stopped. The dogs start running deer in
just a few minutes. But we're not complaining. We
feel like that in a period of time that it's pretty
well going to be complaint-free in our area.
Just want to say that we appreciate
what you've done -- your diligence, your patience
with us, your understanding of the problems. And I
don't think that any problem that I've heard from
any other area is that much different than what
we've had in our area. We've heard them probably
for years, basically the same thing.
But we do appreciate the action that
you've taken. Now, it would be our hope that a
permit system is not implemented in our area where
the property is basically in smaller tracts. We
don't have thousands or two thousand acres or so
together. And it's kind of like one of the dog
hunters told me last year, said -- Bill, as long as
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we dog hunt, dogs are going to cross your

property. Well, that's a total disregard for our
guys, and you have taken action to help us, and we
cannot express the appreciation that we have for
what you've done.
Now, I don't know the solution in the
other areas, but the action that's taken in our
area of Fayette County was appropriate, and we
appreciate that.
much, Mr. Herren.
The next speaker is Miss Mallory
Howard.
MS. HOWARD: My name is Mallory
Howard, and I hunt in Coffee County. And I frankly
just think that dog hunting is wrong, and me and my
sisters have had enough of it. And literally
chased off one of my little sister's first deers.
And well, I think it's just an abuse of dogs, and
it shouldn't be allowed on our property. I just
don't think it's right.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you, Miss
Howard.
Does anyone have any questions of
her?
(No response.)
much.
Next speaker is Mr. Paul Jeffreys.
MR. JEFFREYS: Now how can I
follow that up?
My name is Paul Jeffreys, and I'm
from Lamar County. I'm a hunter and landowner in
Lamar and (inaudible) County, and I'm here to
represent the Alabama Sportsman's and Landowner's
Council.
In the year 2000 we started coming to
the Board asking for our ban in our northwest
portion of Alabama. About five years ago now -- I
think it's been about five years -- five years ago
now we received our ban. It has been nothing short
of a success story. I know I keep saying that
every meeting, but I just cannot say that enough.
It's been a success. Every season gets better.
This past deer season, my wife, who
accompanied me to the meeting today, harvested her
first deer, and she didn't grow up deer hunting.
But when she married me, it was kind of a
prerequisite. It had to be done. But she
harvested her first deer. And my son, who is nine,
he harvested his first one last year. So this deer
season, he took two. The last one he took was a
young deer. It was a small deer, but he was just
excited. I mean, it was just the world to him.
And I just want to ask you-all not to
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consider a permit system in these closed counties

because we have been -- in my county we have been
without dog hunting for five years now. It's
gotten better. One landowner approached me outside
of church one Sunday morning and said, you know,
some guy -- you can't even tell that it's open.
And we get to enjoy our property now. We get to go
out and hunt the way we want to. We get to manage
our deer the way we want to and do not have to
worry about a dog coming across our property,
spoiling our hunts, and ruining what we have worked
so hard for as landowners and paid for.
So I would just like to ask you-all
to not consider the permit system in closed
counties in the state of Alabama because it's going
to throw the landowners there that were abused
before the ban back to ground zero, and I'm afraid
we would be looking at what we have been without
now for so long.
Thank you.
Mr. Jeffreys. We appreciate those comments.
The next speaker is Mr. Roland Jones.
MR. JONES: Roland Jones,
Brantley, Crenshaw County. We've received a few
complaints this year about a hunting club. Here on
the map I have it highlighted. Green would be what
we leased or have permission. The yellow being
what we have as okay if the dogs cross. The red,
spots that they don't want hunters, dogs, nothing
on. Between (inaudible) we do not go on their
land. We don't go on the land in the yellow unless
accompanied by someone from that group.
Complaints -- it was mentioned
earlier several times that complaints went in. I
say three or four were not dogs of ours. One time
it was the man's buddy, hunting buddy and all, lab
and a half-beagle half-basset from down the road.
A couple of times it's the same beagle/basset and a
bulldog. The conservation officer came. He kept
saying no wrongdoing on our part.
Thank you for your time. I just
wanted to put that before you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Question,
Mr. Coles?
MR. COLES: Mr. Jones, I can't
read the map. Give me out some landmarks there?
Where is Brantley or Luverne or some of these
others?
MR. JONES: Burnout -- do you
know where Burnout is?
MR. COLES: Yes, sir. Where is
-- looks like an intersection?
MR. JONES: Covington County
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line -(Mr. Jones approaches Mr. Coles and speaks directly

to him.)
MR. COLES: Thank you very much.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Thank you, sir,
Mr. Jones.
Mr. Jack Martin.
MR. MARTIN: Good afternoon,
gentlemen. I know the morning has done passed.
Commissioner Lawley, Chairman Hatley -doesn't that sound good?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Not really.
No. But go ahead.
MR. MARTIN: I'd like to express
my thanks to you and the other Board members for
closing deer hunting in Fayette County. For the
past few years that we've hunted, I've heard the
similar expressions here that we've had our
problems, but this year the problems seem to
diminish more than they have in the past. And I'd
like to say this to you -- especially Mr. Johnny
Johnson, Mr. George Harbin, and Dr. May -- for
listening patiently as we burn your ears off with
all the problems that we've had.
Let me say this, and I will close.
We feel that we now have our land back to hunt as
we please. And because of your decision to vote no
this year, we've a seen a deer population
increase. And next year we feel it will be even
better.
Out of the 23 complaints that have
been turned in, the only thing that I don't
understand is that there's no arrests and no
fines. That still tells you that things are not
good, and they could be better.
Also, I'm not for setting the lines
as you stated here with the others. I feel that if
you do go to the lines that you are looking at,
that you set a buffer zone on it. Because people's
land that is joined, the dogs will still have an
opportunity to run on their land. Without a buffer
zone, it's no good.
Thank you, gentlemen. Thank all of
you again.
Mr. Martin.
Mr. Ben McKee.
MR. McKEE: Commissioner Lawley,
Commissioner Coles, other distinguished
commissioners, I'm Ben McKee from north Coffee
County. I'm not here to speak about any county
except Coffee County. I don't know anything about
what happens elsewhere.
I am a resident, a landowner, a
voter, and a pastor in New Brocton. And I hope I
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don't have any deacons that's hunting over baited

corn. I presented today a petition of 210
signatures along with a letter from an attorney -who owns land and has been interrupted by dog
hunting -- a police report from a landowner who had
$3,000 worth of damages done to his fence after he
was threatened by a dog hunter, photographs of my
property with a forced gate entry -- and the dog
was seen by my hired help who operates our chicken
houses, along with the hunters outside the fence.
He did not see them tear down the gate, but he saw
the dogs going on to the property. They had to
unscrew some stuff to get it off the hinge, because
you know how a gate goes one up and one down. It
was unscrewed so they could lay it down and the
dogs could get in.
Later that same hired help had to
take a broom because the dog was growling at him on
his front porch of the trailer of the mobile home
that he lives in that I furnish him. To get the
dog off -- he had a dog collar, and the deer
hunters were out on the road from there.
We would like to petition the Alabama
Department of Conservation and National Resources
and the Conservation Advisory Board to eliminate
dog hunting in north Coffee County, 84 -- Highway
84 north to the county -- Pike County line, so
we'll have our property rights restored and for the
safety and well-being of residents -- Mr. Chirico
spoke about -- general public, and us still
hunters.
I'm sorry to say I didn't buy a
license this year. My grandsons and my sons have
to go to Abbeville to hunt because our little 80
acres is bordered on two sides by leased land for
the dog hunting club, and the dogs are constantly
there running the deer out. So they have to drive
to Abbeville to hunt.
I gave pictures of the gate. I
received these pictures this morning. I did not
have time to make pictures last night. Here's
pictures of carcasses under (inaudible) River
Bridge of some ten or twelve deer. I don't think
any of us still hunters could have that many deer.
As far as conservation, we -- I
allowed the dog hunters on my property the first
two years I owned the property until they kept
hooking the fence back to the post instead of the
wire. I even showed one of the people that came up
from the city of Mobile and paid the $500 to join
the club how you hook it back to the wire. I went
back to work in my chicken houses and just happened
to go back -MS. NUMMY:
Time.
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MR. McKEE: -- and the gate was

locked to the post. Our youth cannot hunt. I want
to add these pictures, closing, that I got this
morning to the ones Mr. Coles -- I was told to give
it to Mr. Coles, and I did Robin a copy. So here
is a picture I would like to add to the carcasses.
much, Mr. McKee.
Mr. Coles?
MR. COLES: How long have you
owned property in north Coffee County?
MR. McKEE: 1986. Been here
since '76, but '86 forward.
MR. COLES: And how long has the
intrusion of deer dogs been your experience?
MR. McKEE: After the first two
years I let them hunt there until my grandkids got
old enough to hunt, and we wanted to hunt
ourselves, and they started locking the gates to
the post. And then I asked the president of the
club not to keep -- put them back on there.
And we have caught, and reported to
the game wardens after that, some of the dog
hunters that were on the property. Not in the last
two or three years.
Three years ago when I had part of my
colon removed and blood clots, ten weeks I was
down. During the tenth week, I heard a dog go by
my hospital bed window. I got up with my nephew.
He drug me to the door and walked outside, and the
trucks were parked under my posted "no hunting"
posted sign on my telephone pole there. And they
had turned the dogs loose to go down to the chicken
houses. Now, they haven't done that in the last
two years because I told them to get them off. If
they cost me and my chickens pile up -- and any of
you that raise chickens -- they pile up, you lose
500 at a time. And they were going right down
between the chicken houses, when I got them to get
their dogs and get out.
But it's been since '88 I've had
problems with them.
Mr. McKee. We appreciate it very much.
Mr. Johnson?
MR. JOHNSON: Am I correct in
saying that part of Coffee County is already closed
to dog deer hunting?
MR. McKEE: Yes, sir. They've
had a good time -- my friends down in south Coffee
County. They like to still hunt. We went from 137
deer killed the first year they were hunting when I
bought that property -- 114 the next year -- 87 the
next year. Now, the last -- I don't get invited to
the barbecues anymore because I don't go down to
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hunt. But I've heard it was 30 to 40 deer killed a

year by the hunting club.
The conservation -- we have lost. I
came from Oklahoma originally. Retired Army
officer, married an Alabama girl. I am not going
back to Oklahoma. I love Alabama.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Harbin, you
have a question?
MR. HARBIN: Yes. I would like
to ask Mr. McKee, would a permit -- would you like
a permit system, or would you rather have it
closed?
MR. McKEE: As far as I'm
concerned, we have a permit system in order to hunt
the property. They've leased the land, and they
got permits. But certainly I wouldn't give a
permit to the dog hunters to hunt my land.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Mr. Johnson?
MR. JOHNSON: Are you proposing
-MR. McKEE: A ban?
MR. JOHNSON: A ban for the rest
of Coffee County?
MR. McKEE: Yes, sir, that's
exactly. These 210 names, we didn't take kids. We
took voters, landowners to sign this in a two-week
period. We did have seven that we refused to
sign. They were business people that were afraid
somebody might not come into their business. And
everybody else that was asked signed that
petition. In two weeks we collected it.
Mr. McKee. We appreciate it.
Mr. Donald Nelson.
MR. NELSON: Mr. Chairman, Board,
Mr. Coles, I am Mayor Don Nelson from Creola,
Alabama, and I want to thank you-all for the
opportunity to come and speak to you today.
Three minutes for a mayor is kind of
short, so I'm going to try to move through this as
quickly as I can here.
For the past 45 years I've been
blessed with privilege and opportunity to hunt in
Butler County, and I've seen our club when it first
started to where it is today, and I was raised with
that club -- like the gentleman right behind me,
Mr. Don Sutton, who is 78 years old. Our club is
35 members. About eight of them are in excess of
70 years old, and we are dog and stalk hunting.
Two years ago I had the privilege to
meet and talk with Mr. Coles about concerns and
issues about him in northwest Butler County, and I
committed to him that we would work forward
resolving those issues, and we would handle them as
they were here or there. We talked to the -- we
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met with the landowners. We get invited to hunt

with different clubs. Allen Gentry of Sweetwater
Lodge in Butler County and Billy Cochran with a
riffling club.
We work talking with our landowners
to continue the privilege of having dog hunting and
stalk hunting in that part of the county right
there.
I think two weeks ago I sent you a
letter, Mr. Coles, and I hope you received it,
addressing concerns I may have -COURT REPORTER: He needs to slow
down. He's talking too fast.
MR. NELSON: Okay. I am trying
to have three minutes for a mayor, and I am a
deacon, and I have not hunted (inaudible) -But our concern is that we want to
continue to have the privilege to dog hunt, and I
know it's a contentious issue there amongst a lot
of different areas of the county. But we have
worked toward hopefully eliminating those issues,
concerns in our area. And our commitment -- I
retired 30 years as a Marine colonel -- Desert
Storm, and during Freedom. To me and integrity,
honor, commitment, dedication are cornerstones of
what I live by, and I made that commitment to
Mr. Coles, and we are working toward keeping that
commitment. And if there's a problem or issue in
our area -- the gentleman mentioned about having
maybe a complaint system -- then I would like to
see something like that if that would help make
you-all's jobs easier.
As a mayor, I understand what you are
up against. Your job is harder. I deal with five
councilmen every month or day, but you have got ten
people trying to make very, very, hard decisions,
and I appreciate what you are doing.
But as a dog hunter and a stalk
hunter, I would just like the opportunity to
continue to do that. I have a young man that's
eight years old, and I appreciate that young lady.
We have four young men that's less than eight years
old. I am watching them grow up with their dads
hunting. And I take one of them, eight years old,
and he follows me as I go through the woods. He
doesn't have a gun or anything, and I have enjoyed
that privilege there. I got a grandson coming in
about two weeks, so I'm hoping he will have the
privilege to be able to see and enjoy that as I
have over the years.
It is a privilege. And you-all have
got a hard decision to do and job to do. But I
hope you-all will allow us to continue to dog hunt
in Butler County and work toward that direction
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because I have committed. We don't allow any

things that's not proper to occur at our club, and
we won't allow it. Because like I said, we know
that you-all have got a hard decision and we
appreciate what you-all do.
Thank you very much, and you-all have
a good day.
Any questions for me?
(No response.)
much, Mr. Nelson.
The next speaker is Dawn Plant.
MS. PLANT: Good afternoon. I'm
from north Coffee County, live in Elba, midpoint
over New Brocton. I am against dog hunting. If it
was up to me, you-all wouldn't have to worry about
deer hunting at all. I think it's cruel. I think
it's cruel for the dogs to be chasing the deer. I
don't like that.
We live in amongst from Red Oak
Hunting Club. They have land and all the way
around our 130 acres, so they take their dogs out.
Their dogs are constantly in our yard. I'm pretty
good to them because we have CB radio, and I'm
constantly calling them to tell them to come get
your dog.
They are eating our dog food. My
dogs are tied. They are eating my dogs' food.
They are jumping on my dogs. They have growled at
me. My mother-in-law lives down the road from me,
and she's 88 years old today. They have jumped on
her dog. They have growled at her. I do not
appreciate it, and I'm tired of it. We are
landowners. We pay our taxes, and we're just tired
of it.
My husband hunts. He cannot sit in
his stand and hunt due to -- and stalk hunt -- or
hunt out of his stand for the dogs. They even
followed him home one day in his truck. He got
tired. They were all around his stand. And when
he got in his truck, all the dogs followed him home
into our yard. He had all their deer dogs
following his truck. It's ridiculous.
We are landowners. We ought to have
the right -- there was the gentleman that said
landowners ought to have the right to dog hunt. We
ought to have a right not to have their dogs in our
yard.
We're taxpayers. Give us the right
not to have their dogs in our yard, please.
Thank you.
Ms. Plant.
Mr. Harbin?
MR. HARBIN: Ms. Plant, would a
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permit system help you in that part of the county,

or are had you rather have it banned, or -MS. PLANT: I would rather have
it banned. As someone else said, they've already
got a permit.
MR. HARBIN: Thank you, ma'am.
MS. PLANT: Thank you.
Ms. Plant.
The next speaker is Mr. Bryce Smith.
MR. SMITH: How you-all doing? I
appreciate Mr. Johnson and Dr. Strickland by
looking at our (inaudible) report the other day.
We've got kind of a unique problem.
We've had some serious threats, and they're not
idle threats. I have a tape in my pocket that I
was asked not to play for you at the time, although
it will take more time to play this than it would
be to tell you about it.
But we've had a man that's threatened
me where -- he's the president of the hunting
club. He said -- we -- and I really don't like
talking this way -- we's going to come down there
and work on your ass. It's going to be rough on
your road because one of his dogs got killed and
poisoned last year. And his reasoning behind his
decision it was me was because there's a little
country store where all the hunters meet, and we
bought 120 acres in 2007 up there. And some -- you
go around talking about hunting. Well, you killed
anything? No -- I've been too busy catching dogs
and trying to get them out the front of the
property where maybe people will come pick them up.
We don't have a chance to hunt. And
because somebody says something against -- there's
a dog club on two sides of you. And because
somebody says something negative about their dog
hunting, even though it's all on your land -- their
dogs just constantly run through your land -you're the person that's guilty.
Now, we don't -- we hunt legal. We
try to do everything right. And every single time
we have been up there this hunting season, this guy
in this club -- I'm not talking about -- wasn't
this time -- they have run their dogs straight
through our land. If my truck is parked at our
house, those dogs are coming that day, every single
day.
And you know, everybody says -- oh,
we ought to all work together. Yes. We should.
When these calls came into my phone with the
threats and all that on them, I had a sheriff come
out and make a report. I had the game warden come
out the next morning and talked to both of them.
The game warden went around and tried to get a --
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visit with the man, talk to him. He wasn't there.

Well, he called back and left another little
message that -- there's probably another guy that
was leasing some land beside you is the one I was
looking for. Well, we caught the dog of his the
next week after that, called him on the phone,
wasn't home. Few minutes later saw his truck go
by. Because they pick -- these two clubs, every
time they dog hunt, driving 30, 40 yards of our
house on County Road 20, paved road, in Choctaw
County, and that's where they sit with their
antennas out trying to pick up their dogs.
It's constant harassment. And you
know, I'm asking you-all -- I don't want to see -I don't want to see anybody losing rights, but you
can cut out enough of a county to make them stop
and realize all you-all are not going to run over
everybody all the time.
Bryce. I appreciate you coming.
Anybody have a question or comment?
Dr. May?
DR. MAY: I'd like to just make a
comment. The time I visited down there and we met
with an elderly lady and her husband at that I put
the letter that she had written into this packet
because she didn't want to sign it because of fear
of repercussions. And so it is a verified letter,
and she did write it.
Thank you.
Dr. May.
Mr. Smith, we appreciate you coming
with those comments.
Mr. Gene Tibbets.
Yes?
MR. SMITH: My wife wanted to
speak. They told us we didn't have to fill out
two.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Let me get
Mr. Tibbets, and we -MR. TIBBETS: Commissioner,
Mr. Chairman, gentlemen of the Board, I'm here
today to thank you. Five years ago you gave us a
restriction in Butler County. I'm a deer hunter
representing these people in Tallapoosa and Butler
County.
I'm a landowner in Butler County.

You wouldn't believe how nice it is.
Just a quick story. This year we have had no
problems. In the past four years since the
petition, it's the quietest it's ever been.
We had some young folks in. We had
ten hunters out, and in two days on three hunts
they killed six deer. The smallest one was a four-
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point, but it weighed 200 pounds. The rest were

nine and 12-points. And you just don't know how
much these people appreciate -- and I appreciate
it, and that's why I'm here, to thank you because
this restriction has really meant a lot to all
these people in Butler County. And that southeast
side has been very quiet.
And I don't need to take two more
minutes. I just want to thank all of you for what
you did.
much, Mr. Tibbets. I appreciate those remarks.
Ms. Smith, would you like to say
something?
MS. SMITH: We're landowners in
Choctaw County, and it's a crying shame that you
have to be threatened over the answering machine.
And I am deathly afraid now to even go on my land
by myself without my husband and without a gun.
Because when you have people that threaten you,
it's scary.
And that's all I have to say.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: I have a
question. Have you ever reported these threats to
the sheriff?
MS. SMITH: Yes, sir. We have
filed a police report. Yes, sir.
We have sent the Board a copy of the
-- we sent copies of everything.
much.
Mr. John White.
MR. WHITE: Thank you very much,
Board members. My name is John White, and I
appreciate the opportunity to discuss with you my
problems.
My neighbors -- Mr. Granger, Mr. Ben
McKee, and Mr. Chirico -- have stated 100 percent.
And I'd like to just affirm what they have said and
told you. The getting of these names on this
petition was the easiest thing that I have ever
done. The hardest thing was catching people at
home. And I would like for you-all to look at this
petition, look at the pictures in this petition,
look at the letters that Attorney Matt Ronson(sic)
wrote, and this is what we're concerned with.
And it's your decision. We will
abide by your decision. And I'd like each one of
you to ask yourself a question: What would you do
if you was in our place?
Thank you very much.
Mr. White.
This concludes the public hearing
portion of our meeting.
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Now we will go into the business of

department reports -- and Commissioner Lawley.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: We're going
to be very brief in our reports. What we're going
to do is state each division. The director will
tell you of any regs that they are asking the Board
to consider and also any legislation that we may be
taking forward to the legislature.
DR. STRICKLAND: Under New
Business could we add on the agenda for the gopher
tortoise burrow to be discussed?
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: We haven't
gotten to it yet, but the Board will be on the
agenda also.
DR. STRICKLAND: Okay.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: The first
thing I would like to do -- we've got a man who is
retiring who I have certainly enjoyed the
relationship with, and it's Steve Pete, the Marine
Resources -- he's given a wealth of information to
me. He's retired effective March 1st. Has 32
years of service with Marine Resource and Wildlife
chief marine biologist. He's been a leader in the
Marine Resource Division. He's worked hard to
establish protocols with shrimp monitoring in
Alabama and crab monitoring. Has been instrumental
in development and operation of Alabama's
artificial reef system, which by far is the best in
the country. Has served as representative for
Alabama on many committees engaging with fisheries
around the Gulf of Mexico.
So Steve, if you will please stand
and let us show our appreciation.
(Audience applause.)
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Chris, do
you have anything of Marine Resources as far as a
reg or as far as the legislation that you'd like to
share with the Board?
MR. BLANKENSHIP: Yes, sir.
Commissioner, Board members, I am Chris Blankenship
with the Marine Resources Division. I'm here this
morning on behalf of our director, Vernon
Mitchum(phonetic), who is out today after having
some recent surgery, and he's unable to be here.
The Marine Resources Division has
three regulations that we have put forth before the
Board. One is the commercial -- I mean, the
saltwater fish creel bag and possession size
limits. The changes there would be to conform to
federal regulations on certain species that are
either going to be changed or have been changed
this year through federal regulations to make those
current with theirs and would also add a provision
for fish to be rendered with heads and fins
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intact. That was near the federal regulation and

also the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries
regulation that they have.
We'd ask to make some changes to the
use of nets and harvesting mullet that would add
Old Fowl River and all of the oil and gas rigs and
wellheads in Mobile Bay to limit gill nets within
300 feet of those -- of those areas, and then add
some clarifying language and changes to our
regulations to clarify changes that were made by
Act 2008-467, passed in the legislature last year.
And it also would ask to require all entangling
nets to have cords, to change that where they -all nets have to have those cords.
And then the third regulation would
be a miscellaneous and public access regulation,
changes to that regulation that would enhance the
ability of our division to control the use of our
public access areas and road maps and to ensure
that the areas are safe and clean for the public
and to be used for their intended purposes. Those
would be the regulation changes we put forth.
And then legislation that we have
proposed this year would be some language to
clarify and add certain gears to the commercial
hook-and-line license, to add the gears of cast
nets and gears and some other things to that
license.
And then the last item would be an
increase in the fines for certain offenses -shrimping without a license and some other things
-- where the maximum fine currently is $100, and we
would ask that those be increased to be a Class C
misdemeanor.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Thank you
very much.
At this time I would also like to -MR. LYNCH: Do we need a motion
to pass these?
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: At the next
meeting. He's bringing it up under New Business so
we can discuss the changes.
Jim Griggs is, as you-all know is our
land director, has retired. And we're very, very
fortunate to have (inaudible) Powell as his
replacement, who has done an excellent job.
And Becky, please come to the
microphone and share a little good news with the
hunters.
UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Thank you,
Commissioner. I appreciate the introduction, and I
look forward to working with the Board in the
future.
I wanted to take just a moment today
to -- because I'm pleased to announce that through
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the support of the Federal Wild Program, we have

been able to reach a tentative agreement to
purchase a 93-year lease securing 66,000 acres for
the public in the Mulberry (inaudible) and Cahaba
WMAs. I just wanted to pass out information along
to the Board and hope that we will be able to
update you at the next meeting.
Thank you.
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: This is a
big deal to get that.
(Audience applause.)
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I see Mark
Easterwood is here with Parks, but we don't have
any legislation that I know of.
But Mark, if you will take just a
second and update everyone on the fishing pier.
MR. EASTERWOOD: Thank you,
commissioner, members of the Board. That's
probably the hottest topic we have going on right
now is the fishing pier out at Gulf State Park.
It's coming along very well. It was due to
Hurricane Gustav come along, and they were almost
to the end of it. Actually they had set pilings -about half the pilings on the very end of it, and
the wave action, since it was not tied back to the
rest pier, damaged a lot of those pilings. So we
had to go back -- get those out of the water that
broke off, get them out of the water. And a lot of
them were cracked and damaged, so they had to get
all those out.
They are putting back in now, but the
biggest problem is that the water is not
cooperating very well this winter. They have had a
lot of rough conditions. But they tell us if they
can get ten or twelve days of good weather, they
can get the pilings in, and then the water won't be
an issue anymore and they can work on top and
finish it up. They still feel like they should be
able to do it or have it ready to open hopefully by
May or June. So a lot of people are looking
forward to it.
Mark. This pier is going to be 1,512 feet. It
will be the longest pier on the Gulf of Mexico and
something that the people of Alabama can be very
proud of and utilize.
John Thomas Jenkins, Marine Police.
Not pushing the speed limit.
MR. JENKINS: We have no
recommendations on regulations.
We actually have two bills this year
in the legislature that actually support a
resolution. We have one bill that would increase
the amount of property damage to $2,000 from $50
when an accident report has to be filed. This
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would bring us in line with the Coast Guard

requirement of other states.
We also have a bill that we have
talked about for several years which is our Boat
(inaudible) Bill, which we're excited about that
hopefully will be able to move forward. And we
actually have a joint resolution in the legislature
that would recognize the 50th anniversary of the
Alabama (inaudible) -COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Thank you.
Corky Pugh, Wildlife and
Freshwater Fisheries.
MR. PUGH: Freshwater Fisheries
Division has five regulation changes we will
recommend to you. One of them deals with the
wildlife exhibitors regulation, an update to that
reg.
Another would deal with the buying or
purchasing of game fish taken from public waters.
At present it's illegal to sell game fish that are
taken from public waters, but it's not illegal to
buy them. So this would take care of the demand
side of that.
Another proposed regulation change
would deal with the taking of suckers for bait,
four specific species. And it would prevent the
use of seines in waters where endangered species
exist.
Another regulation change would deal
with adding a 17-mile stretch of the Alabama River
to the prohibited areas for taking mussels.
And then the last reg change would
deal with adding four species of endangered fish to
the non-game species regulation.
As far as legislation that we would
ask for your support of, we're going to seek an
update to the commercial fowl hunting preserve
statute, updating the scientific collecting permit
statute, and authorization from the legislature to
enter into the wildlife violators compact.
I'd like to call on Assistant
Director Fred Harders to deal with the proposed
seasons and limits.
MR. HARDERS: Commissioner, Board
members, in your package you have the 2009, 2010
proposed seasons and bag limits. The changes are
highlighted in yellow.
Briefly, any date changes, generic
date changes, opening dates, changes due to
calendars are not marked. An increase in
(inaudible) deer season on several counties, the
National Forest Service lands, the alligator season
in the Eufaula area, area has been expanded, days
expanded, and permits issued expanded. And the
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water fowl season dates that you have on your

proposed seasons and bag limits are subject to
federal approval.
And lastly, proposing an exemption on
the catfish limit for certain waters of the state.
Fred.
Mr. Hatley, I will turn it back over
to you for comments from the Board. I think
Dr. Strickland may have one.
COMMISSIONER HATLEY: He's been
anxious all morning. We are under New Business.
Dr. Strickland, the Chair would be
receptive to a motion at this time.
DR. STRICKLAND: Before we go
into the motion, Mr. Chairman, could I have the
conservation officers give a little bit of input
just on as far as gopher bearing (inaudible) I
think you-all have done a little bit of research
into that. Just advise the Board.
MR. MOODY: Yes. We have. And
not us specifically, but Auburn University and
others have done a lot of work on this. And we're
quite excited about some of the work that's going
on -- the guy that spoke earlier that mentioned
some things. Mark Sasser on our staff, our
non-game coordinator, has been working for several
years now with the gopher tortoise community, and
the richness of the habitat that is provided by the
gopher tortoise, and specifically indigo snakes.
And working with Auburn University, we have helped
establish a breeding population of snakes, and
there will be some young that will be reintroduced
into the wild this year. And working in Conecuh
National Forest.
So you have heard how important these
gophers are to a lot of species, and we feel like
that anything that can be done to help protect that
community is a positive thing. And we don't see
any negative consequences to prohibiting something
that could be environmentally damaging and damaging
to species, so we feel like it's a positive thing to do.

DR. STRICKLAND: Thank you.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Any further
discussion?
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Dr. Strickland?
DR. STRICKLAND: As a result of
the discussion and the input from the conservation
officers, Mr. Chairman, because of the potential
negative environmental and negative impact on
snakes and other reptiles, I would like for this
Board to entertain a motion at our next meeting to
consider banning the introduction of any hazardous
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substance in gopher tortoise burrow for any

purpose, but particularly for the purpose of
harvesting snakes or other reptiles.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: We have a
motion. We cannot vote on that motion today, but I
would like to have a second to that.
Mr. Jones gives kind of a sense of
the Board in what direction we want to take, and we
will take action on that, Dr. Strickland, at the
next Board meeting.
DR. STRICKLAND:
Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
MR. HARBIN: I have a proposal
I'd like to make before the Board.
MR. HARBIN: I would like to
bring before the Board at the March meeting a
proposal to implement a ban on a permit system
associated with dog deer hunting. My proposal will
only affect counties or portions of counties where
dog deer hunting is currently allowed.
My proposal will also have a
limitation on acreage, minimum of acreage,
associated with it. And I would like that
amendment to this Board for their input on that ban
or permit system.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Commissioner,
do you have any comments?
COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: No. But I
will agree with Mr. Harbin and second it.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Fine.
Mr. Self, do you have a comment?
MR. SELF: Yes. I want to make
the Board aware that I received the petition from
all the -- the senators and representatives and
county commissioners from Baldwin County to
consider bringing Baldwin County into the north
zone for dove hunting. And I would like to request
that while our freshwater fisheries look into this
and report back to the Board as to whether this is
feasible or practical to be done.
And I think we have already discussed
the fact that we are going to talk to some of the
other counties to see if they want to participate
in such a practical -And also the Department, specifically
Commissioner Lawley, has received a letter from the
(inaudible) Conservation Association addressing a
number of issues that they would like Marine
Resources to pass new regulations regarding, and I
think we need to look into these as well. I'm
going to ask MRD to report back to us on this
letter that's dated May 15th to the commissioner in
time for our next meeting so that we may or may not
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take action on that particular proposal.

CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Let it be noted
that Mr. Self has entered these two agenda items
into the record, and it will be discussed and
brought up at the next meeting.
Mr. Lynch.
MR. LYNCH: Just as a point of
clarity, I again want to, in the New Business
portion of the meeting, state that I continue to
have concerns about landowner rights, dog deer
hunting rights issues, in three of the counties in
my district, and that would be Macon County,
Talladega County, and Clay County -- especially of
the area of the two counties I just mentioned
around the Talladega National Forest.
I have been speaking with Kent
Evans(sic), who is the district ranger up there,
for over a year about the issues that he's faced
with up in the national forest and want to go again
on record on what could be possibly some type of
vote coming out for those counties before the end
of the year.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: So noted.
And thank you Mr. Lynch.
Dr. May?
DR. MAY: I'd like to get clear
on what -- if you-all agree if Allen, the legal
department, the way I read it they agree with me
that I what I have stated is legal?
MR. ANDRESS: The conclusion was
that it is legally feasible to define an area for
the purposes of that statute. Yes, sir.
DR. MAY: But you-all would
prefer that it be designated to for what species of
animals?
MR. ANDRESS: Due to the
differences in daily movement, food habits, hunting
practices, and those sorts of things, it would have
to be done species-specific. And I think my
comments were that I felt like deer, turkey, and
feral swine were similar enough in those things to
be considered together.
DR. MAY: They could be
complicated in -MR. ANDRESS: Yes.
DR. MAY: In other words, I could
be prepared to bring a motion at the next meeting?
MR. ANDRESS: It is legally
possible to define area, it was our conclusion.
Yes, sir.
DR. MAY: Okay. I appreciate
it.
One other thing I had, Mr. Hatley,
was we will probably -- either I or Mr. Johnson
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will bring some type of motion on Choctaw County

that we heard from Mr. Smith today.
So if there's any more discussion on
it, or if there's any that anybody wants to discus
the area situation on the supplemental feeding,
I'll be glad to answer any questions.
Dr. May. So noted.
Mr. Jones, do you have something?
MR. JONES: I was going to ask
Dr. May in particular on the defining the area.
Dr. May, are you going to present at
the next meeting what your definition, or what your
recommended definition of area is for us to
consider for the vote in May, or would it be for -DR. MAY: Yes. That's what I
want. I want it on the agenda that we will discuss
it, and I will bring a motion to recognize what I
say is the area -- what Allen has agreed and the
Department has agreed.
MR. JONES: But we would actually
vote on that in May, is that what you are saying?
DR. MAY: March.
MR. JONES: Okay. Is there any
way that we can see the language prior to that
meeting is what I would like to -DR. MAY: You can see it today.
MR. JONES: Okay. In order to
give public -- you know, they need to be able to
see that as well.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: You got that
clear, Mr. Jones?
Dr. Strickland, do you have
anything?
DR. STRICKLAND: This may be
shifting directions, but I've had quite a few
hunters to approach me about the three-buck limit.
In our congressional district it's really been
considered a positive move that the Board and the
Conservation Department has made. But there's a
lot of concern about validating the buck kill, and
this is just something that I would like for the
conservation officers just to take up and maybe
bring back to us.
Is there some kind of way that we can
come up with a tag system or a proposal for a tag
system, something to validate the kill? It makes
it pretty difficult too for the conservation
officers in the field when they approach a hunter
who's tagged a buck, you know, to -- if this is the
third or fourth buck.
And I'm totally against having check
stations. But if there's some mechanism that we
can have to validate that that buck has been
harvested. In Texas you know they have tags on the
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hunting license. In other states they have tags

you take off, and just when you buy a license, you
peel it off. Once you kill that buck, you sign it,
you date it, you punch it, put on the animal.
But if we -- just some discussions
for the next meeting.
Dr. Strickland. That's a good point.
Mr. Johnson?
MR. JOHNSON: Would that same
thing apply to turkey hunting?
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: He's not
talking about turkeys at this time. You are out of
order, Mr. Johnson.
Mr. Harbin, you have anything you
want to say?
MR. HARBIN: No, sir.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: How about it,
Mr. Coles? I'm sure you have something.
(No response.)
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: No. That's a
switch.
Gaines, do you have anything you'd
like to -- anyone else?
MR. HARBIN: No. We can go home.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Our next
meeting is scheduled for March 7th here in
Montgomery at the Mann Museum, which is at the
Montgomery Zoo.
March -- what did I say, May -- March
7th.
DR. STRICKLAND: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes.
DR. STRICKLAND: Robin has
instructed us that the reason why we have been -we have selected Montgomery the last couple of
meetings was to cut down on travel time. Well, it
hadn't helped me at all.
CHAIRMAN HATLEY: You can thank
the commissioner and Mr. Moultrie for that and not
myself.
Gentlemen, this meeting stands
adjourned.
1:09 p.m.
*********************
CERTIFICATE
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STATE OF ALABAMA
COUNTY OF MONTGOMERY)
I hereby certify that the above and
foregoing deposition was taken down by me in
stenotype and the questions and answers 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.
__________________________________
Victoria M. Castillo, Commissioner
Certified Court Reporter
ACCR#17-Expires: 9/30/09
Commission Expires: 5/19/10

Cab 2009 Feb

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0001

DEPARTMENT OF CONSERVATION AND

State Capitol Auditorium

Victoria M. Castillo, CCR #17

CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Good morning

We thank you for all our service

that they be approved.

do not have access to a copy machine at this time?

MR. SELF: Mr. Chairman -CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Yes?

fishing, we catch a fish with a hook. We can catch

the measures you have before you today. They

MR. ANDERSON: Some National

group. We need to find a way to make sure that all

fishing. These two species of fish in Law 9-2-80

and we need somebody -- if you've got the truth,

Now, we can say whatever about the

to back when I was in school. Too bad we didn't

I -MR. DARNELL: Well, I have snakes

MR. DARNELL: Actually about a

the tortoise, but a number of other animals that

think it's something that we really need to

live in those burrows.

Thank you very

Alabama has to compete with other

UNIDENTIFIED BOARD MEMBER:

have seen no decline in big fish since I have been

County dates would start.

CHAIRMAN HATLEY: Commissioner,

commissioner's doesn't work.

We understand that a subcommittee has

get his dogs, said that he was a fox hunter, said

listening to the dogs.

good, honest people, their families to come in

that have been closed down to get these people back

here today, more young people are involved. If you

It's been answered by Don Knight.

with no reservation at all about us hunting dogs on

In our hunting club we have about

Thank you very

And take into consideration the

had complaints over the years, I could understand

more like him. He's a one-man show in one county.

In that case, we'll go to Graham

Carroll -CHAIRMAN HATLEY:

MR. CARROLL: Okay. My name is

year, wires cut and threatened. Mr. Bill Peters,

Would you support a

hunters, and there's a lot of them that are good.

that it's been going on?

we dog hunt, dogs are going to cross your

consider a permit system in these closed counties

line -(Mr. Jones approaches Mr. Coles and speaks directly

don't have any deacons that's hunting over baited

MR. McKEE: -- and the gate was

hunt. But I've heard it was 30 to 40 deer killed a

met with the landowners. We get invited to hunt

because I have committed. We don't allow any

permit system help you in that part of the county,

visit with the man, talk to him. He wasn't there.

I'm a landowner in Butler County.

point, but it weighed 200 pounds. The rest were

Now we will go into the business of

intact. That was near the federal regulation and

the support of the Federal Wild Program, we have