A popular wildlife resident of Southern Nevada died on June 30, 2008. Mojave Max, a desert tortoise that served as the icon for local conservation efforts, resided at the Red Rock Canyon visitor center and helped to educate thousands of children and adults on desert ecology before his demise. The male tortoise apparently died of old age, with experts estimating his age at 65 years. Some desert tortoises can live up to 80 years or more.

Mojave Max came to the Red Rock Canyon visitor Center in 1991 where people visited him at a special tortoise enclosure, which demonstrated typical tortoise habitat and interactions between

ANCHORAGE, AK — Alaska State Troopers say two men who were hunting along the Susitna River in southcentral Alaska drowned.

Denver, Colorado - Colorado and Wyoming Pheasants Forever (PF) and Quail Forever (QF) chapters are partnering with Bass Pro Shops to host the First Annual Upland Bird Hunting Weekend on August 16th and 17th at the Bass Pro Shops store in Denver. Public demonstrations and informative seminars on upland hunting and habitat will be held throughout both days.

The Upland Bird Hunting Weekend will include members of local PF and QF chapters, national vendors, local dog trainers and bird dog clubs on hand to answer questions, offer tips, share techniques and to give seminars and demonstrations on upland bird hunting. Rich Wissink, PF/QF

AUSTIN, Texas — The Gulf of Mexico commercial shrimp season for both state and federal waters will open 30 minutes after sunset Tuesday, July 15, 2008. The opening date is based on an evaluation of the biological, social and economic information to maximize the benefits to the industry and the public.

In making its determination, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Coastal Fisheries Division used the best available scientific information including samples collected by using trawls and bag seines in routine TPWD data collection..

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ fisheries biologists recently completed fish population surveys of lakes at risk from winter kills and found most had less impact than originally feared. 

Meyers Lake, in Black Hawk County, and Silver Lake, in Delaware County, each suffered significant winterkill events following near record snowfalls during 2007-08.  The purpose of these netting and electro-fishing surveys was to determine if fishable populations still existed in these lakes or if stocking would be necessary to reestablish fish populations.  

HURRICANE ALLEY, Virginia -- With the first storm of the year, Hurricane Bertha, lurking offshore, Boat Owners Association of The United States (BoatU.S.), with 40 years of experience gained from post-storm recovery efforts and thousands of hurricane-related insurance claims files, has four tips that can help your boat make it through this storm season.

· Make your hurricane plan now, before hurricane warnings are posted. Year after year, some boaters are lulled into believing a storm won't come their way and fail to make a serious effort until a hurricane is forecast. However, by then there may be no one available to haul their boat ashore 

ANNAPOLIS - With the unpredictable weather during this three day July Fourth holiday weekend, the men and women of the Maryland Natural Resources Police (NRP) were kept busy making over 5,900 boating contacts on state waterways and over 5,000 public lands contacts.

"Operation Big Bang is another example of the commitment the Maryland Natural Resources Police has towards public safety and environmental conservation enforcement," said Col. George F. Johnson IV, Superintendent of the NRP.

YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK - During the final month of the 1988 fire season, as flames marched across more than a third of Yellowstone National Park, at least one scientist hoped just a little more of the forest would burn.

“I had the neatest job in the universe, I think, during 1988,” said Roy Renkin, a vegetation specialist for the National Park Service.

North Dakota’s pheasant harvest in 2007 was the highest in more than 60 years, according to statistics released by the state Game and Fish Department.

“To sum it up, we had an outstanding hunting season last fall,” said Stan Kohn, upland game management supervisor. “We carried a large breeding population into spring. We predicted a good number of broods and chicks last summer, and they were there. And good fall weather brought out the hunters.”

Colorado Division of Wildlife (DOW) wildlife managers are asking residents and vacationers to take extra care to avoid attracting hungry bears to homes, cabins, campgrounds and picnic areas.
 
The amount of natural food for bears is very localized in Colorado.  In some higher elevations, plants got a late start because the snow cover was late to recede.  In other locations, there has been no significant rainfall this year.  In either case, it adds up to a shortage of natural forage for bears.

OLYMPIA - Washington farmers have a new opportunity this year to enroll acreage in the U.S. Department of Agriculture's popular Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) through an initiative that focuses specifically on wildlife - State Acres For Wildlife Enhancement (SAFE).

USDA's Farm Service Agency (FSA) has teamed with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), the Colville Confederated Tribes and other groups and agencies across the country, to address high priority wildlife habitat needs through the new program. 

JEFFERSON CITY-If you ever wished you could choose the name of a new species, now is your chance. Television personality Jeff Corwin and Amphibian Ark are offering naming rights for five newly discovered and as-yet-unnamed frog species to the highest bidder.

Corwin, host and executive producer of The Jeff Corwin Experience and Corwin’s Quest on the Animal Planet cable television channel, is cosponsoring the "Five for Frogs" campaign to raise awareness of the worldwide decline of frogs and other amphibians.

 

DRY TORTUGAS NATIONAL PARK, Fl - Reeling in a 45-pound grouper used to be just an average day on the water in the Florida Keys. The abundance of behemoth fish attracted anglers from around the world in the early 1900s, including adventurers such as Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey, who pulled in monsters from the clear, warm depths off Key West.

But as Florida's population boomed, the attraction that drew them began to vanish. Anglers were snapping up the larger fish by the thousands. An average grouper caught in the Keys now is about eight pounds.

FT. BENNING, Georgia - Matt Emmons, Keith Sanderson, Jason Turner and Brenda Shinn, who will all be representing the U.S. on the 2008 Olympic team, each earned the National Title in their respective event today at the 2008 USA Shooting National Championships for Rifle/Pistol.

Emmons (Browns Mills, N.J.), the 2004 Olympic gold medalist, captured the national title in the Men's Prone Rifle event after shooting a score of 597 in his first match, followed by a perfect 600 in his second match and secured the win with a final of 105.1. Emmons finished with a total score of 1302.0. U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit (USAMU) member Eric Uptagrafft (Spokane, Wash.), a 1996

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