Tom Foote:

> Mike is no longer there..(moved to the Keys, or the Glades some
> place)..but, I wonder if restriction of use by people is still
> on the table?

Restriction is ALWAYS on the table at NWRs. Some are permanently closed
to all access, like the islands of the Oregon Coast. Most have at least
portions closed during nesting time, and those that host the Dusky Canada
Goose in the Willamette Valley are mostly closed during winter, in order
to avoid spooking the geese onto nearby farms where they eat like pigs.

If you're talking about changes at Nisqually in particular, I'm clueless.

There was recently an NRA-pushed bill belching about the dark underbelly
of Congress that would make new refuge acquisitions open to hunting by
default - in order to close 'em down to hunting, the USF&W would have
to build a case that hunting would harm the wildlife management goals
of the new acquisition (currently, hunting is "off" by default until
USF&W studies impact and determines that hunting will NOT harm wildlife
management goals).

Obviously, conservation types felt such a change was uncool - purchases
which are primarily for non-game conservation such as the "string-of-pearls"
Rio Grande NWR acquisitions would be open to hunting until USF&W could
give good reasons for stopping it (via a formal, defined process designed
to make it somewhat difficult to do so).

It went nowhere, but led to an interesting press conference earlier this
week by Babbitt, publisizing a list of refuges which have been acquired
in recent years and formally opened to hunting and fishing by the USF&W
this week (during appropriate seasons, of course!). Babbitt touted
the fact that the Clinton administration had opened more refuges in
its partial term of office than Bush had in his entire four years,
presumably to help hammer coffin-nails into legislative attempts
to change the rules based upon the USF&W's supposed opposition to
opening new refuges to hunters.

Isn't conservation politics fun? While the big, frontal assaults
keep folks worried and give us sleepless nights, the shitheads
try little sneak attacks around the edges hoping we won't notice
until a bit of our turf has been surrounded and captured.


- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, at http://www.xxxpdx.com/~dhogaza