By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

The Bush administration wants to hold a fire sale on our public lands. Will your grandchildren have places left to hunt? A report by Field & Stream conservation columnist Bob Marshall:

Even for an administration that takes perverse pride in sneering at the term "conservation," this latest news is a shocker: President Bush's 2007 budget includes an order to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to sell off as much as 800,000 acres of national lands to generate money for public schools.

The proposal directs the agencies to raise nearly $1 billion for the federal treasury by selling more than 300,000 acres of national forest and up to 500,000 acres of BLM lands, mostly in western states. The sale was ordered to help fund a federal program that since 1908 has sent revenues from timber sales to rural counties to support, among other things, school programs. But as timber sales have steadily fallen over recent decades, the funding has dried up - so the administration wants to sell pieces of public recreation land to make up the difference.

Forest Service and BLM officials maintain most of the lands in question are small, isolated parcels, usually surrounded by private property and,... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

With avian flu having now spread from Asia to Europe, U.S. health officials say they expect the disease to reach North America perhaps as early as this spring, possibly reaching the western continental U.S. this fall. In preparation, the departments of Agriculture and Interior, along with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, will test up to 100,000 migratory birds starting this April. Some scientist, however, contend that the flu is unlikely to be spread through wild birds, but rather through the pet or poultry trade.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-03-07-bird-migration_x.htm [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

In this country, we have the incredible luxury to fish for fun and relaxation. Take a look at this Reuters story about Iraqi anglers who while trying to make a living catching carp on the Tigris River are turning up more and more tortured corpses. Then count your lucky stars.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IBO764813.htm [ Read Full Post ]

By David E. Petzal and Philip Bourjaily

More on “The Father of Ten Million Rifles.” It’s been a long, long time (maybe 70 years) since Field & Stream had any kind of article on military small arms. In the years before World War II, and during the war, we covered the subject regularly, courtesy of our two gun columnists, Captain Paul Curtis and Colonel Townsend Whelen. Curtis wrote about shotguns and Whelen about rifle, but military guns were a subject close to their hearts.

Our readers at the time felt the same way. Everyone knew the war was coming, and that it was going to be a doozer, and millions of men were either veterans of World War I or getting ready for World War II, so military stuff was of major interest to them.

Why we stopped is a mystery to me. All guns are interesting, as are the stories behind them, and I was glad to see General Kalashnikov and his rifle get their due in print.

Kalashnikov is a gun-design genius. If you go back and read the old issues from the 1930s and early 1940s, you can read about another genius named John Garand,  whose M-1 rifle was called (by no less an authority... [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

Five-gallon buckets are standard equipment for many ice fishermen. You can use them to carry equipment to the lake, to hold fish, to sit on . . . and to save your life, according to 78-year-old Harry Wantulok. The Cody, Wyoming, ice fisherman used his plastic pail to steady himself and eventually move to safety when sudden high winds separated the frozen surface beneath his feet from the main body of ice and pushed him toward open water. "That bucket was my anchor," said Wantulok. "Without that bucket I would have been blown into the water. I probably wouldn't be here now."
http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2006/03/07/news/wyoming/20-ice-fisher.txt [ Read Full Post ]

By Dave Hurteau & Chad Love

When the Pacific Fishery Management Council meets this week in Seattle, federal regulators will consider an unprecedented ocean fishing ban on Chinook salmon along 700 miles of the California and Oregon coasts. Proposed to address plummeting fish stocks, the action could financially sink area fishing fleets and prompt consumer price jumps. Angry commercial fishermen blame the Bush administration for managing the river in a way they say favors farmers, dam operators, and timber companies at the expense of fish

http://www.juneauempire.com/stories/030606/sta_20060306011.shtml [ Read Full Post ]