DENTRY: Hunting slumps in region

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Hunter numbers have slipped faster in the Rocky Mountain West than anywhere in the United States, according to a federal survey that takes the nation's hunting and fishing pulse.

Preliminary results from the Fish and Wildlife Service's "2006 National Survey of Fishing, Hunting and Wildlife-Associated Recreation" show the number of hunters in the mountain region has withered 15 percent in five years.

The decline in hunting nationally since 2001 was only 4 percent. Two regions - the upper Midwest and southeastern coastal states - actually showed slight increases in hunter participation.

The mountain states are Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.

Despite the declining interest in hunting across the region, the FWS says Colorado still attracts the most hunters, anglers and wildlife watchers.

According to the survey, 677,000 people fished and 265,000 people hunted in Colorado in 2006. More than half of Colorado hunters, however, are from out of state.

Montana leads the U.S. in state residents who hunt, 19 percent. Only 4 percent of Colorado's population hunted.

The FWS has conducted the survey about every five years since 1955. Its final report on the 2006 survey is due out this month.

The survey also reveals a 12 percent decrease in anglers nationwide since 2001, with the biggest drop - 26 percent - in the Pacific region.

BLM LEASES: Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal has added his objections to those of Colorado conservationists who want the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to tone down its rapidly accelerating gas drilling plans for headwaters of the North Platte River.

Freudenthal sent a letter to the BLM on Thursday asking the agency to lay off leasing 28,000 acres in the Saratoga Valley that the agency plans to lease to gas drillers in December.

"More thorough analysis is warranted prior to leasing as the acreage in question contains important sage grouse habitat, crucial mule deer winter range and elk and pronghorn crucial habitat," Freudenthal told the BLM.

The disputed land lies about 20 miles north of Colorado, near Encampment and Riverside.

Last week, Colorado residents and conservationists protested BLM's plans to sell drilling leases at the headwaters of the Colorado and North Platte Rivers.

Accused of using outdated habitat information, ignoring state wildlife officials objections and proceeding with little or no public input, the BLM withdrew 31,000 acres in Grand County and 26,000 acres in Jackson County.

LIKE EVERYONE ELSE: Carbondale resident and trout fisherman Ken Neubecker asked members of Congress on Wednesday to repeal a Bush administration measure that exempts gas and oil drillers from rules other developers must follow to prevent erosion and pollution.

Neubecker, who has been a land developer for 30 years, testified in Washington before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, on behalf of Trout Unlimited.

He said the Energy Policy Act of 2005 foolishly exempts the energy industry from federal Clean Water Act rules that apply at other construction sites.

The exemptions are troubling, he said, in that much drilling in the West takes place in "smaller, usually steep-sided tributary drainages, some of which are among the last refuges of cutthroat trout."

Neubecker said sediment from drilling pads also can choke municipal water supplies and irrigation ditches, smother vegetation and destroy fundamental fishing- and hunting-based economies.

"Nearly all land development in Colorado and the West is required to comply with storm water discharge regulations," he said. "The fact that the oil and gas industry is not simply defies logic."

dentrye@RockyMountainNews.com