Last Day to Speak Up: Don’t Drain the Duck Factory 🦆

The weekend might not be here just yet, but your favorite dispatch from the great outdoors is. 

So grab your coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and let's get caught up on the outdoor news and views from the past 24-or-so hours.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

LEND YOUR VOICE IN OPPOSITION
LAST DAY TO SPEAK UP: DON’T DRAIN THE DUCK FACTORY

Today is the final day to lend your voice in opposition to what is a quiet but high-stakes federal review that could very well reshape the future of North America’s most important duck-producing landscape. 

In what’s known officially as the Prairie Pothole Region, the “Duck Factory” produces more than half of our continent’s wild ducks in its shallow glacial potholes scattered across the Dakotas, Minnesota, Iowa, Montana, and into Canada. Serving as the engine behind those fall flights that fill North America’s flyways, this area has long been protected by hunters and conservationists through permanent wetland easements paid for primarily through Duck Stamp dollars.

As was announced in late July, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service is now taking a fresh look at the rules that keep those very wetlands from being drained by nearby agricultural drain tile.

The public comment window closes tonight at 11:59 p.m. Eastern…

 Winner of Florida python hunting contest nabs 96 snakes: ‘I was on a mission’: The winner of this year’s annual Florida Python Challenge hunted down and eliminated 96 invasive Burmese pythons from the Everglades national park, as part of an initiative to remove hundreds of the snakes from the area every year. Read the full story.

Wisconsin man convicted of illegally hunting deer in Green Lake County:  The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources announced Monday that a Green Lake County court convicted a 55-year-old man of illegally shining and harvesting multiple deer. Timothy Tiedt, formerly of Fond du Lac County and now living in Taylor County, was found guilty in Green Lake County Circuit Court. The court sentenced him to 60 days in jail, revoked his hunting, fishing and trapping privileges for six years, and imposed financial penalties. Read the full story.

SCI, Tennessee Wildlife Federation join the legal fight over Sweetwater duck hunting case: Two conservation organizations have filed an amicus curiae brief urging the East Tennessee Court of Appeals to reverse a lower court decision that upheld the City of Sweetwater's ordinance prohibiting the discharge of firearms within city limits as applied to lawful duck hunting on private property.  Read the full story.

Canadian-Led Operation Reveals Scope of Illegal Fishing in North Pacific: At sea, the crew monitored hundreds of fishing vessels and conducted 30 high-seas inspections, which turned up 52 violations of international fisheries requirements. These included shark finning, use of prohibited gear to catch sharks, and misreporting or inaccurate reporting of catch, bycatch and discards, including of prohibited species. Violators also failed to take measures to protect seabirds while setting fishing gear. Read the full story.

72-year-old woman seriously injured in grizzly bear attack in remote area of B.C.: A 72-year-old woman was seriously injured in a grizzly bear attack near Goldbridge, B.C. The Conservation Officer Service received a report from the RCMP in Lillooet on Aug. 2 that a woman had been attacked in a remote area near the small community, which is about a one-hour and 45-minute drive west from Lillooet. Read the full story.

Louisiana black bear hunting lottery open through Aug. 28 with 42 tags available: A total of 42 tags will be issued through the lottery. Bear Management Area 4 will have 19 permits, Area 1 eight permits, areas 2 and 3 four permits each and areas 5, 6 and 7 two each. There will also be an LDWF Secretary's permit to be auctioned. Population estimates and vital rate data specific to each Bear Area were used to determine the number of harvest permits to be issued. Read the full story.

Plan to wipe out Catalina Island deer herd enters final hunting phase: A California conservation group’s state-approved plan to kill roughly 2,000 nonnative deer on Catalina Island is moving forward, with applications for what officials say will be the island’s final deer-hunting season now open. Read the full story.

🚘 Driving up on a big cat who just found his dinner. Watch as this fella drives up on a cat trying to get a deer off the road in Arnold, CA.

The pull of the weekend.

📸 by @fish_a_day

 Oh, and one more thing…