Tennessee Turkey Takedown Nets Six Convictions and $22K 👮‍♀️

I’m currently at the “it’s Thursday already?” phase of the workweek and am unsure as to whether or not that is a good thing as of yet.

With that in mind, let’s all take a minute to grab a coffee or whiskey (no judgement) and get this Thursday morning dispatch out the door.

Here's what's worth reading about today:

COME ON, BOYS
TENNESSEE TURKEY TAKEDOWN NETS SIX CONVICTIONS AND $22K IN PENALTIES

In another case of chuckleheads treating laws more like suggestions, a group of five men from West Tennessee and another from Oxford, Mississippi, have pleaded guilty to dozens of turkey hunting violations. Their crimes were dispersed across multiple counties, resulting in more than $22,000 in combined restitution, fines, and court costs, along with the forfeiture of firearms, bows, and dozens of turkey parts.

The boys and girls over at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency announced the convictions Wednesday morning, in what officials described as widespread violations of state bag limits, tagging requirements, and a plethora of other hunting regulations during recent turkey seasons…

🐻 Alberta Rural Municipalities Call for Regulated Grizzly Bear Hunt Amid Rising Human-Bear Conflicts. Rural municipalities in Alberta, represented by the Rural Municipalities of Alberta, have passed a resolution calling on the provincial government to go ahead and open a regulated grizzly bear hunt. The policy, proposed by Cardston County and adopted in late March, cites rising human-bear conflicts in southern Alberta, including bears damaging property, breaking into grain bins, preying on livestock, and posing safety risks to residents. The RMA proposes a draw-based hunt focused on problem bears, alongside ending the current Grizzly Bear Recovery Plan (which has been in place since 2008) and replacing it with a broader management plan that includes better funding for research, conflict mitigation, and property bear-proofing.

Grizzly hunting has been banned in Alberta since 2006, when the bears were later designated as threatened. The province's population has grown from roughly 800 to over 1,150 bears, all while expanding into more populated areas, though no formal survey has been done since 2018. The government currently uses a Wildlife Management Responder Network to allow selected hunters to lethally remove specific problem bears on a case-by-case basis. The provincial government has not yet committed to reopening a hunt and continues to lean on public safety, prevention, and the existing responder program.

🤒 Oklahoma Wildlife Officials Warn Against House Bill Allowing Captive Deer Releases into Wild Populations. Oklahoma wildlife officials are expressing strong concerns over House Bill 3270, which has passed the House and is now before the Senate. The bill would allow captive-bred white-tailed deer from the 96SS genetic line—claimed by supporters to be resistant to chronic wasting disease —to be released and co-mingle with wild deer populations. It would also shift authority to sell permits for these releases to private landowners. Current state law prohibits stocking captive game-farm deer into the wild, and if passed, Oklahoma would become the first and only state to permit such actions.

Experts from the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation and the U.S. Department of Agriculture argue that the 96SS deer are not actually resistant to CWD and that they can still contract and spread the disease. Officials warn that releasing captive deer could have devastating unintended consequences for Oklahoma’s thriving wild deer herd, potentially harming the state’s reputation as a top deer-hunting destination. ODWC’s Chief of Wildlife stated that, based on input from leading CWD experts, such releases are “not justified and not worth the risk.”

👨‍⚖️ Judge Put the Brakes On Bitterroot National Forest Logging Project, Orders More Grizzly Bear Analysis. A federal magistrate judge has paused a large U.S. Forest Service thinning and logging project in Montana’s Bitterroot National Forest after ruling that the agency failed to adequately analyze new evidence of grizzly bears in the project area. The Gold Butterfly Project spans more than 55,000 acres in the Sapphire Mountains and includes commercial logging on thousands of acres along with non-commercial tree cutting and prescribed burning. It was challenged in court by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and other conservation groups, who argued the Forest Service did not properly consider impacts on grizzly bears, whose presence has been newly documented in the region.

In a 59-page order, Judge DeSoto largely sided with the Forest Service on most claims but agreed that a supplemental Environmental Impact Statement is required due to the updated grizzly bear information. The project is now on hold until the agency completes the additional analysis.

🥊 I think he’s dead, bro! Watch as this rutting bull keeps going at his lifeless adversary.

Ain’t nothing like the rut…

🎣 Sparkplug Marlin: Many years I owned and operated several hunting preserves in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Now that I’m retired, my wife Rita and I spend our Winters in Rincon de Guayabito, a small resort village not far from La Paz on Mexico’s west coast. From Tioga, Pennsylvania, we pull a 31-foot Coachman trailer and my 15 1/2-foot Starcraft boat some 3,100 miles over the eight-day trip. We usually stay about five months, enjoying the balmy weather and fishing for yellowfin tuna, sailfish and dolphin.

I knew that marlin weighing up to 1,500 pounds had been taken in the waters outside of our Village, and during our visit in 1982, I thought it Would be quite a feat to catch one of these monsters from my own boat. Read the full story.

🦆 The Spot: The flock had locked onto our spread long before we saw them. I raised the barrels of my over-under from our well-concealed spot in the mangroves as the ducks came in feet-down and picked out a lone drake on my side. At the roar of the shotgun, he fell hard, slamming into the knee-deep water of the bay.

I held him up in admiration, a mature redhead drake, with a stark white belly.

“You putting that one on the wall?” My uncle asked.

“I swear, I’ll get a redhead mounted one of these days. I have to before I leave Texas.”

“You say that every time,” my uncle replied. “Look at him. He belongs on a wall. You can’t argue. Besides, you aren’t leaving Texas—you’d have to leave this.”

It was the same back-and-forth banter every trip. Read the full story.

🃏 Parking Lot Poker - Kenya Style: The sun hung high overhead, burnished rays illuminating the waves of dust lifting as each old safari-rigged Land Cruiser rumbled past. Whenever someone walked from their transportation into the small, tin-roofed ranger station the same dust clouds arose, only on a smaller scale, as fluffy puffs of red dust instead of the surf-like drafts crated by the vehicles.

The dirt coated everything: my skin, my hair, my camera, my duffel. After five days camping in the African bush without a shower, it had all taken on a slightly reddish tinge. The camera I’d cleaned religiously. The rest of it… eh. The job wrapped that night, and I’d see if I could find a quick shower before boarding the long flight back to Dubai and then on to the U.S.; if nothing else I’d haunt an airport lounge in Jomo Kenyatta, Nairobi’s international airport, and wash off the red before the flight. For the moment I just grinned, content in my griminess, feeling the dirt on my face crackle a bit with the motion. This—dirt and dust and a memory card full of images in my camera with more yet to come—was Africa at her finest, and I was happy. Read the full story.

Oh, and one more thing…