Show Page 14 — The Herald Journal Logan Utah Friday July 23 1999 Wildlife tolerance part of everyday life in Alaska TALKLLTNA Alaska (APi — Scl grax xxolxcs loost in Idaho and ou hear the ranelKTs' howls Allow wild lurkcx s about ('tinned icul and to ou get letters to the editor Release a prairie doe in Colorado and ou ha e the locals up in arms Literally Rut up here in the (ireat Lind talk of troublesome turkevs and pesk prairie dugs is met w iih a reat big awn Vhx’ Read the license plates fella This is Tlie Last Frontier The corner of America where critters outnumber peo(Onl critters larger than Dali ple Sheep are counted in Alaska) The land humans and hair) ones share and shate alike As a moose controller on the Talkeeina rail gang Sundix Rinnan! lap's job is to make sure moose don't become moose l anbanks meal when the Seward-l- o train passes through Mind sou moose control can be tricks spec mils if a d bull has taken a liking to a pirticulir section o track Rumanplap normills tnes the whistle hoh-ohh- and apples sedated it called the Fish and Game Department and returned to her rounds In Anchorage where half of human Alaska resides nobody is surprised to drive home from work and find a moose on the roof “Happens all the time" says Rick Sinnott a wildlife biologist le 1 At his desk at the Fish and Game Department the phone rings nonstop ot lMXI-poun- first No response’ lie blink blinks the headlights Moose didn't blink'’ Die foreman a ssaruinp shot with a hunlinp rille If Rullwinkle still doesn't pel the picture Rumanplup poes to I ’Ian I) lie wails Sometimes lot hall an lioui If passen-per- s stall to prumhle Rumanplup makes an announcement "We base a stubborn moose ladies and pentlemen" Hut's usualls enoupli to nun scowls to smiles "I mean this is moose counlrx" Rumunplup suss "We're pist puests in the mooses' fixing loom" In Alaska ciilicis aie exeixxxliere and humans do a piett) good oh of fixing inipht say alonpside them that's Ivcause luimmp nexer took rmit here and becmse the stale's so hip that humans and uiumuls don't tup oxer each other Rut folks lieic note that while the Paul Runyans o the Lower JX were scalpinp forests ami piishinp many animals low aid uhlixion Alaskans came to AP pinto A young moose takes a stroll through an Anchorage Alaska neighborhood in this 1998 file photo Moose coexisting with people can range from peaceful to deadly causing more than 100 traffic accidents in Anchorage every year appreciate their critters "The hush makes you a different person” says Steve Mahay an outdoors-ma- n in Talkectna an asscmhlape of lop cabins and house trailers in Susitna Valley He earns a livinp by tukinp visitors on trails and on his riverhoat to gawk at in the hush thinps In Saralopa NY where he was raised on a farm in the '60s Mahay loved catchinp muskrats in steel traps When suburbia came ercepinp he pathcrcd his puns and his wife and rode the “Alaska Highway” west in 1972 Mahay built a trapper's cabin and lived off pamc meat With a 44 mapnum and a 22 rifle he killed 1 hears durinp his first few years in the hush He doesn't do it anymore thouph “I don't pet any pleasure shootinp them” non-hum- an 1 Mahay says “Funny how that changed “ Now he counts how many hears he spots from his riverboat His record: 16 sinplc-da- y Carole Lloyd director of the Nature Center at Chupach State Park doesn't know Steve Mahay but insists she can explain his chanpe of heart “When you live in the wild” she says “you learn tolerance for all living thinps" This is a land where bald eaplcs lunch on poodles and dachshunds where flocks of Canada geese keep jetliners in holding patterns where an intruder in your home is likely to slobber and leave a pile on the rug In Juneau the state capital black bears poke through trash bins raid bird feeders even duck into supermarkets Eight years ago a cub entered the Barlctt Regional Hospital emergency ward Nobody called 911 Laura Stats a nurse found the hear silting on a bed She fed it some milk people calling to report critter capers: A porcupine falling out of a tree into some woman's new hairdo A squadron of ravens chewing up the windshield wipers on cars parked at a mall A moose dragging away a kid's swing set A bear mauling a bear-shape- d archery target “We still aren't sure if the bear was playing or trying to mate with it" Sinnott says If there is one misconception humans have about critter country it is that pets will feel at home here A couple on vacation from Georgia learned otherwise a few years ago after stopping at a Valdez gas station When AP photo Besides sand pits and water holes Canada Geese are part of a golf course's chal- lenges as they take up residence on a course in Anchorage Alaska the woman let her Chihuahua out to relieve itself a bald eagle swooped down snatched it by the scniiT and cled up and off cir- trail The boy was in surgery for three hours “This ain't the zoo" says Sgt Darlene Turner chief of state troopers in Kodiak “You should appreciate animals respect them But you can't romanticize them" Particularly not at a crime scene Investigators were taking photographs at a murder scene when a moose appeared — head down ears hack hackles up Then it chaigcd “We were diving over balconies running back and forth around parked cars trying to get away from that thing" Turner remembers The smile on her face fades “It sounds funny now but when a moose's on YOUR tail it's not that comical" After three times around the lot an idea struck The siren “Once he heard it" she says “Mr Moose was off like a shot" “The dog gave one yelp" Dennis Fleming the station attendant says “and that was it" Alaskans know wild animals arc not Disney characters Moose cause more than 100 traffic accidents a year in Anchorage They destroy fences eat shrubbery and “we tend to have a stomping every couple of years” says Bruce Bartley a spokesman at Fish and Game The last death by moose stomping in Anchorage was in January 1995 Myong Chin Ra 71 was walking on the University of Alaska campus when a cow moose charged He died hours later of multiple head fractures and internal injuries Last month in Hoonah a village in southeastern Alaska a grizzly attacked Cody Mills as he walked a Catching fish not reason to fish ' H RV s dominate road That ’s what a survey of Colorado anglers shows MANASSAS Va (AP) — In an age of conspicuous consumption nothing says rest and relaxation like a behemoth RV Thanks to a roaring economy By Ed Uontry baby boomers with money to Sciipps1 Howard News Service “ Anglers luxe been saying it for generations Decuxles ago Robert Travcr mystery ami fishing author from Michigan's Upper I’cmiisiiln might luxe said it best for trout fishermen in “Testament of A Fisherman" "I fish Ihyuusc I love to because 1 love the enx irons xxhere trout are found which because trout do aie inxuiiMx beautiful nol lie or cheat and cannot he bought or hnlvri or impressed by power hut respond only to quietude and humility and endless k'cause in a world where most patience men seem to spend their lives doing things they lute my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an ad of small rebel" lion Nowhere in the essay is there a mention of catching limits of fish — or catching any fish at all Anglers long ago recognized the angling experience is qualitative not quantitative and that a myriad of natural social and psychological factors far beyond the creel determine the xalue of a trip l inallx a surxey might hie helping at least one state's fishery managers get a due Catching a limit of fish is immaterial and unnecessary Colorado anglers have told snrxeyors A large majority also said it isn't important to catch any fish at all to have a successful fishing trip The revelation calls into question Colorado's lilvral Eastern Slope daily limit of eight (rout almost certainly due for reduction when the next round of fishing regulations are forged in the coming year Tlie surxey also gixes the Colorado Divi- - Anglers long ago recognized the angling experience was qualitative not quantitative and that a myriad of natural social and psychological factors far beyond the creel determine the value of a trip" sion of Wildlife a needed philosophical wake-u- p call in the area of consumptive fishing vs resource management: About 70 percent of surveyed anglers said fishery managers should expend more effort to protect and restore fish habitat The surxey conducted by the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station asked fishing questions of 4000 Colorado resident anglers based on their 1997 angling experiences Eighty percent disagreed that a fishing trip would he successful only if they caught a limit of fish and 77 percent said a trip could he successful if they caught nothing Only 14 percent said the main reason they fished was for food Fifty-tw- o percent described themselves as avid anglers Almost half said fishing is their most important recreational activity and 71 percent said they fished mostly for trout Apparently the point of the surxey was to determine whether anglers would he willing in the face of whirling disease and reduced stocking of rainbow trout to make some sacrifices if necessary including keeping fewer fish or tolerating some closed seasons ' Apparently the answer is yes This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone living in the current millennium Almost 75 percent of those surveyed agreed bag limits for trout should be lowered if needed to protect trout populations Seventy-tw- o percent would go along with any needed season closures and 66 percent would agree to a daily bag limit as low as two trout a day to protect the resources You are an average Colorado angler by the way if you look 16 trips in 1997 which is an increase over past years Although license sales arc holding steady the same number of people apparently are fishing more days Crowding at some fishing sites was a concern for more than half of anglers About 63 percent of license holders said crowds decreased their enjoyment and 61 percent said they stayed away from some places where they would like to fish because they were too crowded Robert Travcr touched on the crowding issue in the '50s and '60s when he was hiding out along brook trout streams in the Upper Peninsula woods because “only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness" But at least one of the author's observations on trout fishing might be a little outdated He said he fished “because mercifully there are no telephones on trout said And ownership among 45- - to has grown by 25 percent since 1993 — more than any other age bracket Small towable units cost as little as $3300 while the largest motor homes can cost more than spend and Americans' love affair with sport utility vehicles more people are buying the lumbering vacation homes on wheels “You have the ability to go anywhere" said Gayle Putt 42 who traverses America's byways with her $300000 and offer basement storage washers and dryers Celente head of the Trends satellite dishes VCRs and even hot tubs Some have walls that with the touch of a button expand several feet Through the 1970s and early 1980s motor homes were generally looked down on said Gerald husband three children and dog “It’s great family time” RV ownership is at an all-tinational high There are 93 million on the road accounting for nearly 10 percent of all vehicleowning households in the United States according to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association Once viewed largely as housing for seniors RVs are now being sought by a younger set The average age of an RV owner is boomers now 48 and with families now outnumber the traditional core market of those older than 55 the industry group Research Institute in Rhincbeck NY “They were for middle-Ameri-retired blue-collworkers" Celente said “After you did your time on the assembly line heaven was driving around in your portable home" Now with sport utility vehicles crowding the roads it's cool to own a gas guzzler he said The SUV craze means more people can opt to tow an RV on their trip ca ar RV-owni- waters" Sadly that is no longer the case — Ed Dentry is a reporter tor the Denver Rocky Mountain News s eesgowaft ©peiaa gofflpaam — a ‘ FRI'SAT J J '- ij' i ji OR SUN DINNER COUPON Expires 8199 Phase present this coupon to cosh cr Discount good for each adult meal purchased Mot valid (or cetenng hoi doys or enth other ducwrs Mot re product Ole tiOfyCB Pinecrest OXER) 0 MON -- Village Logan THUR DINNER COUPON Expires OFF -- THURS DINNER 72999 Phase present this roupontocash er DiScoun good for each adult meal purchased Mo valid forban quels cater ng holidays o' with ether discounts Not reproducible Pinecrest BREAKFAST COUPON 5PECIAL The Csche Citizen The Herald Journa K8LQ (092) KKEX (Kin 96) KIGN (MemorFes -1390) KGNT 1039 (The GIANT’) 1049 (The KVNU KAfn KVFX KUTN-Chann- (945 12 SADI $A99 ! 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