Maine Fish and Wildlife Magazine Now Online

AUGUSTA – Maine Fish and Wildlife, the quarterly magazine of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, now is available in an online version only – and is free!

The magazine can be viewed at http://www.flipseekllc.com/maine2009winter.html or from the IF&W website at www.mefishwildlife.com. Read the story »

Commercial Wind Power & Wildlife

Guest blog by David Miller

Does industrial wind and wildlife really mix well? I would suggest no. There has been much research into the affects of industrial wind turbines and its deadly affect on bats and birds, but little to none on mammals.

The effects on both livestock and wildlife are starting to be realized by land owners, and by hunters and trappers. The effects of wind turbines on domestic animals are thankfully starting to be recorded, such as 100 goats dying in Taiwan because they could not feed. The turbines noise kept them “instinctively on alert” for predators to the point they could not eat. The livestock of an Ontario cattle rancher having many still born and what few calves were born were attacked by their mothers who kicked and bit them, others refused to nurse their young as a result of the affects of newly installed industrial size wind turbines. These are but two recorded and reported examples. Domesticated animals cannot escape the noise and shadow flicker of wind turbines because of their restricted (fenced in) range resulting in these types of incidents. Read the story »

Who Says You Can’t Call in Fall Gobblers!

Maine reintroduced turkeys into it’s wildlife population successfully in the mid-1980′s, opened it’s first ever “experimental” turkey season in 1986 in a tiny little area of the state, and in the Spring of 1996, it had expanded to include our area of the Midcoast. Back then, turkey hunting was open only by chance lottery drawings and for the first several years I was unable to draw a tag, though I was out there still, trying to listen and learn from the master himself, Old Tom Gobbler. By the time 2002 rolled around, we had a solid enough population of turkeys that the state decided to open it’s first Fall turkey hunt, bow-hunting only, so I ran out, purchased a bow, and hit the woods with vigor, only to learn that turkeys were not going to be easy to kill during the Fall of the year… That was eight years ago and since then the Wild Turkey has taught me a lot and I’m happy to say I still love class, because I’m out there every Spring and every Autumn, enjoying the chase. Read the story »

Bethel, Maine Native Takes First Ever Moose

Jane Ryerson, a native of Bethel, Maine, collected her first ever moose while on a hunt with her husband and son in the Upton area around C Pond. Jane relays the brief sequence of events to me in an email:

“1st picture is of myself with my very first moose. We were at this cutting in Upton near C Pond, when this moose that was bedded down got up. We were 200 yards away. I spotted it while Craig and Keith were glassing in the other direction. When I got their attention, Keith could see he had antlers and told me “It’s a bull, shoot it”. Craig was on my permit with me. So he said “get down on one knee, and use it to steady your shot”. I did, I focused in right behind the right shoulder and shot the 300 mag which was his. He said “reload”, and by that time, he had gotten two shots off. The moose was hit with my first shot, but Craig wanted to make sure he didn’t go anywhere. Read the story »

Bear Attack! – Nearly Mauled

by Rod Davis

One hour before dusk, the small bear made his way into the tiny clearing in the North Maine Woods and with no small degree of caution, tipped over the bait barrel. The smell of chocolate bars and slurry of peanut butter was just more than he could stand.

It was the last night of an eventful week at bear camp at the Libby Camps’ location on Lake Millinocket. I had seen a total of nine bears this week, none that I could shoot, and this little guy, a two year old, would make a nice small rug for the hunting cabin back in West Virginia. He looked to be about 100+ lbs and while I would have preferred about 50-60 more lbs on him, it was after all, the last night and there were no guarantees that a larger bear would show up before the end of legal shooting hours. Read the story »

No Better Way To Bag First Turkey Than With First Gun

Editor’s Note: The following story was sent to me by a lifelong friend. The story is of her brother’s first wild turkey hunting success.

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Take a minute for yourself!

After 65 hours of work last week, at 04:30 this morning I started out on my first wild turkey hunt. As I pondered which one of just a few shotguns I should take to the forest, I had a strange feeling come over me; it was like one of these guns was reaching out to me. “Take the old Stevens single-shot 12-gauge”, I could sense.

Well, that one comes with just a little history. Just after W.W. II my father gave this shotgun to then his farther ( Robert Gilbert) for his birthday. My Dad had once told me that the last time he saw his father alive he was carrying that gun into his house after an October grouse hunt. The hunt had been good and my grandfather said, “Shirley, you keep the game tonight.” Dad had told me several times that was the last words spoken with his father. Read the story »