Thursdays IDNR Advisory Committee meeting is critical
Posted: Mon Apr 19, 2004 7:31 am
As we come down to the wire on the Advisory committee meeting this Thursday at Ft. Harrison in Lawrance (northeast side of Indinapolis) its important that every Indiana sportsman and dog owner make arrangements to be presant. The meeting starts at 10:00 am.
This is the meeting that the committee will make its reccommendation to the Natural Resource Commission. If you ever take a day off work or cancel other important plans to attend a meeting, this is the meeting to be at. The NRC almost aways goes with the committee reccommendations. The committee was not buying IDNR's "intuitive feelings" offering as a reason to make dog training changes, and an extremely large turn out is needed to keep them dog friendly.
The fact remains that we already have severe restrictions as it is. Only 2.8% of the state lands that allow hunting are open to dog training. factor in the state parks and other non hunting state areas and we really dont have access to much of the state land.
We need everyone present at the meeting to tell the committee to reccommend that no changes be made to the dog training areas until credible research can show that the presence of dogs on the dog training areas has a negative impact on the nesting and rearing practice of small game and upland birds on the other 97.2% of the state lands our dogs are not allowed on. One would expect that pressure would be higher on areas designated for dog training and therefore could not expect to enhance populations 100%. Also when we are asking IDNR for better small game and upland populations, we are asking for more land purchases and better habitat management on those properties. We are not asking for more restrictions and regulations along with less areas to work our dogs.
Jack Hyden
Indiana Beaglers Alliance
This is the meeting that the committee will make its reccommendation to the Natural Resource Commission. If you ever take a day off work or cancel other important plans to attend a meeting, this is the meeting to be at. The NRC almost aways goes with the committee reccommendations. The committee was not buying IDNR's "intuitive feelings" offering as a reason to make dog training changes, and an extremely large turn out is needed to keep them dog friendly.
The fact remains that we already have severe restrictions as it is. Only 2.8% of the state lands that allow hunting are open to dog training. factor in the state parks and other non hunting state areas and we really dont have access to much of the state land.
We need everyone present at the meeting to tell the committee to reccommend that no changes be made to the dog training areas until credible research can show that the presence of dogs on the dog training areas has a negative impact on the nesting and rearing practice of small game and upland birds on the other 97.2% of the state lands our dogs are not allowed on. One would expect that pressure would be higher on areas designated for dog training and therefore could not expect to enhance populations 100%. Also when we are asking IDNR for better small game and upland populations, we are asking for more land purchases and better habitat management on those properties. We are not asking for more restrictions and regulations along with less areas to work our dogs.
Jack Hyden
Indiana Beaglers Alliance