Two Minnesota men admitted they lied about poaching a deer in eastern Montana and agreed to pay stiff fines and accept a worldwide hunting ban for three years.

In return, a federal judge in Billings recently dismissed charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice against 35-year-old Daniel Dirksen of Montevideo, Minneosta, and 43-year-old Bryce Orwick of Clara City, Minnesota.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Wolff reached agreements with Dirksen and Orwick in which the men

SAVANNAH, GA -In a well-coordinated effort a young dolphin was set free after being entangled in debris along the Georgia coast near Savannah.

Members of the Southeast Regional Marine Mammal Stranding Network successfully captured the juvenile female bottlenose dolphin on Tuesday and removed a black rubber strap that was wrapped around its head, averting a life-threatening injury.  The origin of the debris and how it became wrapped around the dolphin are unknown.

 

Now in its 43rd year, the International BB Gun Championship Match (IBBGCM), sponsored by Daisy and the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce (Jaycees) is as exciting as ever before. If you ask today's best marksmen how they started in the shooting sports, often they will report that it was on a Daisy 5-meter BB gun team when they were ten years old. Certainly many young people who shoot competitively on college airgun teams were once a member of a 5-meter or 10-meter youth team.

There is no doubt that the program has impacted hundreds of thousands of lives. In Bowling 

BATON ROUGE - In the middle of one of the best south Louisiana fishing seasons in a decade, the Legislature made three moves that could change Louisiana hunting.

Gov. Bobby Jindal signed Act 22 and Act 51 in late June.

Act 22 expands the age of all youth hunting opportunities in the state: lottery hunts and the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries' ever-growing list of youth deer, waterfowl, dove and squirrel hunts. The new age limit does not apply to youth-only hunts on federal lands.

The South Carolina Department of Natural Resources convened the South Carolina Drought Response Committee on June 30, 2008 in Columbia and moved five counties to extreme drought.  Fourteen counties were upgraded or maintained at severe and 21 were upgraded or maintained at moderate status.  The committee recognizes that conditions around the state have deteriorated and drought is causing major adverse impacts to agriculture and forestry.  Streamflow levels are also at extremely low levels throughout much of the state.  The committee emphasizes that individually and collectively the citizens of South Carolina need to increase their water conservation efforts.

AUGUSTA – The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is urging beachgoers -- and their pets -- to stay away from the nests of Piping Plovers that are gracing a few beaches in southern Maine.

Piping Plovers are an endangered shorebird whose nesting success is at an all-time low. They were listed on the state’s Endangered Species List in 1997, and were federally listed as Threatened Species by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1986.

AUSTIN, Texas — Michael E. Berger, Ph.D., today announced plans to retire Oct. 31 as Wildlife Division Director for Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Berger capped a 40-year career by serving the last five as TPWD wildlife director, leading a team that greatly increased the acreage of Texas land under wildlife management plans, expanded public hunting and recreational opportunities, and improved science-based conservation.

"All those who love wildlife and wide open spaces should thank Mike Berger for a lifetime of service," said Carter Smith, TPWD executive director. "Mike will tell you that he led teams, that he

Moody County, South Dakota - During a contract signing ceremony Friday at brothers Jeff, Steve, Mike, and Brad Hemmer's farm, Pheasants Forever (PF), USDA, South Dakota Game Fish & Parks Department and elected officials celebrated the immediate success of a new Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) practice; State Acres For wildlife Enhancement (SAFE). As part of the event, PF requested an additional 500,000 acres nationwide for the program based on strong interest and demand for SAFE in multiple states.

"There is no question the agricultural climate has been changing before our eyes these last twelve

MORGAN, UTAH - Browning continues to expand its line of high quality, feature-filled line of flashlights for the avid outdoorsman with the addition of the new Night Seeker Pro Cap Light, Black Ice Long-Run Summit Headlamps, Pro Hunter lights.

The new Night Seeker Pro Cap Light has a very low profile, sleek design with a polymer housing in silver finish. One white 0.5 watt and two red LEDs have up to 10,000 hours of life. The clip-on design easily tucks under the brim of a cap and can pivot down for use or can attach to a pocket or pack strap. One AAA Alkaline battery gives up to two hours with 0.5 watt light and up to 6 hours with

“Geology! Rocks” this summer at West Virginia state parks and forests with special programs presented at 10 areas by the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey.

 A state since 1863, West Virginia was actually millions of years in the making. The mineral wealth and natural beauty of West Virginia owe much to geologic processes that began eons ago. Without geologic processes, there would be no rocks, rivers, coal, oil or gas, minerals, or scenic beauty.” Indeed, there would be no mountains in the Mountain State,” says survey geologist Ken

JEFFERSON CITY- Early summer is not a time you would expect to see trees with dead leaves, but Eastern and Central Missourians are seeing white oak leaves turn brown due to a high population of the jumping oak gall wasp. While the tiny, stingless wasps can greatly affect the appearance of white oaks, generally the insects do not cause long-term damage to the trees.

"Jumping oak gall wasps are around all the time but in certain years we get very high populations in one or more parts of the state," said Missouri Department of Conservation Forest Entomologist Rob Lawrence.


 

For outdoorsmen and women who don't fish or just want more varied outdoor experiences in the Sunflower State, Kansas offers exciting hunting opportunities throughout the summer. Squirrel season provides that opportunity. The season opened June 1 and runs through Feb. 28. The daily bag limit is five, and the possession limit is 20.

Fox squirrels can be found throughout Kansas wherever fruit- or nut-bearing trees grow. They are at home in windbreaks and wooded riparian corridors, as well as larger forested tracts. Numerous large, leafy nests in trees are a good indication that an area may harbor good numbers of fox

A Colorado man with a history of wildlife violations pleaded guilty to numerous wildlife related-crimes in a New Mexico district court on June 23.
 
Kirt Darner, 69, of Crawford, has been convicted of wildlife violations in Colorado dating back to 1994. In 2000, Colorado Division of Wildlife officers started investigating Darner as a suspect in the theft of two bighorn sheep heads from a Montrose taxidermist. In Cibola County, N.M., on Monday, Darner pleaded guilty to transporting wild elk and receiving stolen property - specifically,

CONCORD, N.H. -- New Hampshire's deer hunting seasons have been established for this fall, and the outlook is generally good in spite of the challenging winter of 2007-2008. The impact of the cold, snowy winter on parts of the deer herd in New Hampshire suggests that 2008 may not be a record-setting season like last year. New Hampshire's 2007 hunter harvest of 13,559 deer was the second highest since record keeping began in 1922 -- exceeded only by a harvest of 14,204 in 1967 -- according to Kent Gustafson, Deer Project Leader for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department.
 

OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is inviting hunters, conservation groups and the general public to help shape state hunting seasons for 2009-11.

Through July 13, WDFW will accept public comments on issues ranging from general hunting hours to mule deer seasons.  A questionnaire on those issues is posted on the department's website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/game/seasonsetting/index.htm .

Hunters and others can also suggest their own ideas for future hunting seasons, said Dave

OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) is inviting hunters, conservation groups and the general public to help shape state hunting seasons for 2009-11.

Through July 13, WDFW will accept public comments on issues ranging from general hunting hours to mule deer seasons.  A questionnaire on those issues is posted on the department's website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/wlm/game/seasonsetting/index.htm .

Hunters and others can also suggest their own ideas for future hunting seasons, said Dave

More and more homeowners are becoming alarmed over the “worms” that are devouring the needles of their pine trees, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

“These aren’t worms, but larvae of the European pine sawfly,”
said Val Cervenka, DNR forest health program coordinator. “The name is misleading, as the insect is not a fly, but a small, stingless insect that is a relative to the wasp.”

European pine sawfly larvae have black heads and are gray-green with lighter stripes along the
 

Most people in this day and age get at least some of their news from the Internet and so it's not a surprise that a sizable portion of the information on the World Wide Web is incorrect. One such story floating around via e-mail is of a wild mountain lion being struck by a car and severely wounded recently near Greenwood in Saluda County.

The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has received numerous phone calls and e-mails regarding the so-called mountain lion and wants the public to be assured this is a hoax.

DES MOINES — The flood of 2008 was so bad that even fish had to be rescued.

More than 90 catfish, including many trophy-sized flathead catfish, were rescued from a tail-water area below the Saylorville spillway on Sunday. As the water receded, the fish were trapped in a pool. 

“There’s no doubt we would have eventually lost all of these fish if we had not moved them,” said DNR Conservation Officer Brandon Bergquist.

Sacramento, CA – The Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO) today called on Southern California recreational fishermen and boaters to participate in a survey to determine where recreational anglers fish along the south coast of California. 

This survey, conducted on behalf of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative (MLPAI), is designed to provide important socioeconomic information for the implementation of the MLPA. 

The purpose of the survey is to incorporate recreational fishermen’s knowledge into the deliberations

Calling it a “historic opportunity,” James Steele Jr. pledged Thursday that the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes will make the most of a new funding agreement that will return some responsibilities at the National Bison Range to the tribes.

Steele, CSKT chairman, and H. Dale Hall, director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, signed the agreement at a late-morning ceremony in Washington, D.C.

Among those in attendance were Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne and Montana Sens.

The Department of Fish and Game (DFG) has completed a record-breaking year by placing 20.2 million young salmon in acclimation pens for release. The number released is the most ever by any state agency on the West Coast for a single stock of salmon in one year. The young salmon were released this spring into San Pablo Bay and are expected to return to the Sacramento river system in two to four years.

“Ramping up the effort to raise, transport and acclimate 20.2 million smolts was an all-hands effort involving three major hatcheries and acclimation pens operated by the Fishery Foundation of