Hello,

The Scoters are a game bird. The WDFW game pamplet says you need written permission to hunt some sea ducks, probably the Scoter also. From what I hear the Scoter tastes like crap so I've never paid much attention to them.

Bryan Owens
Tacoma Wa.
obryan214 at yahoo.com

Pjgumbo at aol.com wrote:
Tweets:

I have spent some enjoyable hours over the past few weeks perusing some of the interesting and colorful (almost gawdy, in some cases!) printed materials produced by groups involved in monitoring and agitating for improvements in the quality of the Puget Sound marine ecosystem. These include documents like State of the Sound and Puget Sound Update put out by various subgroups and committees that appear to be part of or affiliated with the Puget Sound Action Team (http://www.psat.wa.gov/) and Puget Sound Partnership(http://www.pugetsoundpartnership.org/). I don't recall specifically which document had a rundown on the Endangered Species Act status of various marine birds, but I was shocked to read a statement to the effect that the Surf Scoter, while in pretty dramatic decline recently, is not a candidate for ESA ranking as it is considered a "game bird!"

Can anyone here enlighten me further on this? It seems completely nuts in light of the progress that has been made in recent years for a number of species through careful management including use of ESA.

First of all, I cannot conceive what characteristics of the scoter would be considered even a semi-logical basis for treating it as a hunt-able bird. Secondly, what sort of backasswards thinking is involved in allowing what seems a pretty preposterous categorization in the first place to trump proper species management actions, including consideration of ESA issues?

Am I completely misunderstanding something here?

Paul Johanson
North Beach, Seattle
pjgumbo at aol.com




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