By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

From eMediaWire:
Remington Arms Company Inc. . . . has just announced a multi-year marketing relationship with [Brett] Favre. . . .

Favre [will] represent Remington in national advertising campaigns, retail promotions and special events . . . with his focus being on hunter safety, wildlife conservation and youth programs.

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

From the Los Angeles Times:
State game agencies and private citizens would be allowed to kill federally protected gray wolves that threatened dogs or seriously decreased deer, elk or moose populations in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains, under a federal rule announced Thursday.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services officials said Thursday that the revised provision would allow for states to deal with areas where wolf activity is affecting wildlife populations while delisting is tied up in court.
Several groups, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and the Center for Biological Diversity are fighting the decision.

From the Helena Independent Record:
“The Bush administration is giving a blank check to the states to slaughter wolves for doing what they need to do to make a living — which is eating deer and elk,” said Louisa Wilcox with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “The government spent millions of dollars to reintroduce wolves to the wild in the Northern Rockies, and now it wants to spend millions more to kill them. That’s crazy.”

“Everybody’s crying wolf,” he said on Thursday. “We expect the number killed will be less than we currently kill now for livestock depredations. . . .”

Several news articles reporting this announcement hint at hunting opportunities, but do not confirm or describe them explicitly. So I called Ed Bangs this morning to clarify whether this rule allows the states to set open seasons. “No,” he said. “This absolutely does not open the door to a public hunt.” However, he confirms that states can conduct cull hunts and may enlist some private citizens to participate.

Your reaction?

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

From an Associated Press story in the Rapid City Journal:
A bill that would give landowners special big-game licenses that they could use to sponsor hunters has received its first hearing in the South Dakota Legislature.

Opponents say the measure would interfere with state game management and reduce the chances that some residents would draw licenses they want to hunt deer.

Good idea?

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Of all the presidential candidates, none seems more eager to talk to outdoorsmen than Senator John Edwards. The Democrat from North Carolina, who has a mediocre reputation on gun control and is perpetually in third place among Democratic primary voters, has talked to Field & Stream about his Hunting and Fishing Bill of Rights and is the only candidate with a "rural liaison," David “Mudcat” Saunders.

Saunders has been appointed by the Edwards campaign to talk about where Edwards stands on habitat (“John believes that wild and game animals belong to everyone, not just the people who can afford to fence in their land,”), gun ownership (“John's been around long enough to know that if someone comes into the house, you’re better off with a shotgun than a machine gun anyway,”), and promoting hunting and fishing (“When hunters die off now, all the kids go off to the city to live, where they don’t have the opportunities to hunt and fish”).

Field & Stream has been contacting other presidential candidates in order to ask them questions about hunting and fishing, but the Edwards campaign has been the most responsive. If you have a question for Saunders, post it below and he will respond this week.--Brian McClintock