Not that i could tell
BEAR HUNTERS HAVING A PHENOMENAL SEASON
I hunted the first two days and saw nothing. Last two years someone (not me) took a bear on the tract i hunt. This year, no one saw anything. That was a bit of a surprise since there were signs and scat all over the ridge for most of the fall as well as a couple of live sightings by our neighbors.
I'm not bummed, though. It is something of a miracle that there are bears to hunt in Somerset county at all. The Game Commission has done a great job on that score. The numbers are way up and their range has expanded out of the big timber up north to cover most of the state.
Thursday, November 20, 2003
Of course i agree
If I could only have one handgun to last a lifetime, it would be a .357 revolver with a four inch barrel, adjustable sights, in stainless steel.
Just one of the many fine entries over at Shooters' Carnival.
If I could only have one handgun to last a lifetime, it would be a .357 revolver with a four inch barrel, adjustable sights, in stainless steel.
Just one of the many fine entries over at Shooters' Carnival.
Friday, November 14, 2003
Yes Indeed
Kim du Toit features the Browning A-5 as today's GGP. A good choice.
Mr du Toit writes:
The Auto-5 still belongs in every serious shooter's safe, for its heritage if for no other reason. And some day, a Sweet Sixteen will be in mine.
Yes indeed. And carefully stored right now in my safe is an A-5, a Sweet Sixteen no less. It's a shooter, not a collector, but its there.
Kim du Toit features the Browning A-5 as today's GGP. A good choice.
Mr du Toit writes:
The Auto-5 still belongs in every serious shooter's safe, for its heritage if for no other reason. And some day, a Sweet Sixteen will be in mine.
Yes indeed. And carefully stored right now in my safe is an A-5, a Sweet Sixteen no less. It's a shooter, not a collector, but its there.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Nature and Myth
Gregg Easterbrook makes a good point about forest management and our perceptions of nature:
Why is Southern California burning? Because it's supposed to, as far as nature is concerned, at least.
Before people began interfering with forests in the arid Western United States by "managing" them--and research shows that indigenous Americans were engaged in significant forest management long before Europeans arrived--a natural cycle of forest fire and regrowth was standard.
***
When men and women settled the American West in large numbers in the nineteenth century, they began fighting wildfires. One result was that forests became denser, because the periodic minor conflagrations that occurred naturally in the West, removing brush and tinder ("fuel," to foresters) stopped occurring. When Lewis and Clark and others of the period arrived at West Coast forests in the nineteenth century, they described open woodlands through which anyone could easily stroll. Today, most forest areas of the West are so thick you can't go off-trail without a machete. Periodic small fires no longer take out underbrush and "understory," the medium-sized vegetation that dies, dries, and provides fuel to heat trees to the temperature at which they burn. Stopping periodic small Western forest fires allows fuel to accumulate, increasing the chance of an eventual fierce, uncontrollable fire that heats trees to the flame point across a large area. Stopping periodic small fires, and thus allowing the woods to grow dense, also means the condition people think of today as "natural" for Western forests--thick growth and lots of very old trees--is in most cases artificial.
A little known but important fact about the western ecosystem is that the abundance of wildlife observed by Lewis and Clark was an anomaly. Prior to Columbus, the Native-Americans held animals numbers in check through hunting. But when European diseases wiped out most of the indigenous peoples, game numbers exploded.
Gregg Easterbrook makes a good point about forest management and our perceptions of nature:
Why is Southern California burning? Because it's supposed to, as far as nature is concerned, at least.
Before people began interfering with forests in the arid Western United States by "managing" them--and research shows that indigenous Americans were engaged in significant forest management long before Europeans arrived--a natural cycle of forest fire and regrowth was standard.
***
When men and women settled the American West in large numbers in the nineteenth century, they began fighting wildfires. One result was that forests became denser, because the periodic minor conflagrations that occurred naturally in the West, removing brush and tinder ("fuel," to foresters) stopped occurring. When Lewis and Clark and others of the period arrived at West Coast forests in the nineteenth century, they described open woodlands through which anyone could easily stroll. Today, most forest areas of the West are so thick you can't go off-trail without a machete. Periodic small fires no longer take out underbrush and "understory," the medium-sized vegetation that dies, dries, and provides fuel to heat trees to the temperature at which they burn. Stopping periodic small Western forest fires allows fuel to accumulate, increasing the chance of an eventual fierce, uncontrollable fire that heats trees to the flame point across a large area. Stopping periodic small fires, and thus allowing the woods to grow dense, also means the condition people think of today as "natural" for Western forests--thick growth and lots of very old trees--is in most cases artificial.
A little known but important fact about the western ecosystem is that the abundance of wildlife observed by Lewis and Clark was an anomaly. Prior to Columbus, the Native-Americans held animals numbers in check through hunting. But when European diseases wiped out most of the indigenous peoples, game numbers exploded.
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