>
> Another argument in favor of the Conservation Permit for access to WA State
> lands. Building a consituency with money is step #1. MAKING THAT
> CONSTITUENCY
> VISIBLE is step #2.
>
> I'm saddened by the loss of that field. From a conservation POV, clearly
> it was
> better managed as raptor habitat than goose habitat

At the risk of starting a dreaded conservation thread, I'm going to
follow up on this:

I lived in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas until I was 20, and used to
work for the Texas Parks and "Wildlife" (read that game animals and
birds) department. I used to be an avid waterfowler. I've lived up
here for the last 30 years, and now and again I make it back down to
the Valley to go birding. That area and that department was always
hunter oriented, but I can say unequivocally that the Valley is now a
much better birding area than it ever was in the "old days". Credit
that mainly to changing farming practices (less aerial spraying, no
more DDT) but also to a few very active and vocal local birders.

Clarice and I just went back down for one of the Valley birding
festivals and a couple of points really struck me. One was that the
festival included NON game biologists from the Parks and Wildlife
department who were personally active in setting up the festival,
leading trips, and handing out maps to the Wildlife department owned
lands. Another was that some of the old Wildlife department owned
lands, near my old house, where I once would not have dared to entire
without a shotgun-- are now great birding areas. They are still good
hunting areas-- the difference is a noticeable toleration for birders
on "our" lands.

Texas has really jumped on the "birding bandwagon" with birding
"trails" set up by the Highway department (meaning brochures with
detailed directions to birding areas and even road signs with numbers
keyed to the maps in the brochures) and good toleration and help for
birders by the Parks and Wildlife department. (I almost fell over
when one of the state biologists gave me a book of maps to each of
their wildlife areas in the Valley, showing legal access points,
where the trails are, and-- gadzooks! actual bird censuses). The
whole thing is very visible, very chamber of commerce friendly, and
very oriented to making economic "sense" out of birding.

You could really see it working in the festival. My brother, who is a
gun nut with a baseball cap that says "If it flies it dies", was even
there selling binoculars. Pete Dunne gave him a lot of good advice on
how to get birder's business into his gun shop. People were selling
bird prints (some of the illustrators for several tropical field
guides had booths) for real money, the fellow who designed the new
Bausch and Lomb Elites was there with a booth, there were major trip
leaders (like VENT) and booths from the likes of Eagle Optics, as
well as live raptor exhibits and stuff about Red Wolf reintroduction
and the like. Of course, there was the usual friction (One fellow was
selling T-shirts with a print of a crow and the words "Brownsville
Dump" on them. The fair City of Brownsville was incensed, and the
mayor demanded an apology, because he didn't call his "state of the
art" facility a "landfill".) My point with all this is that the
birders had a great festival AND the community got behind it big time
(even with convention discounts and the like). Believe me, this is a
recent and dramatic change of attitude from the past.

It got that way because of a few dedicated and active birders. You
could count the real leaders on two hands, and they got lots of
showcasing at the festival.

I know, now that I've preached about
this-- am I willing to take on any such P.R. campaign out here? Of
course not. But really-- the WOS convention is coming up soon in the
Skagit, and it too is being handled by some dedicated birders. The
hunting land I started talking about at the west 90 is right there
and bound to be a trip destination. Couldn't some dialogue about that
spot be started at the WOS convention? Is there anyone who knows some
appropriate people in state government who could come?

It could be a start-- no?
Jerry Broadus
P.O. Box 249
Puyallup, WA. 98371