Page 65 - Flathead Beacon // 7.27.16

MOUNTAIN EXPOSURE
OUTDOORS IN BRIEF
Elser to Deliver Talk on Future of Flathead Lake Bio Station
Jim Elser, the new director at the Flathead Lake Biological Sta- tion, will deliver a presentation on the century-old eld station in Yellow Bay at an upcoming open house.
The bio station is welcoming the public to attend a free event on Wednesday, Aug. 3 from 1-5 p.m. The gathering will including live raptor presentations at 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m. and 2:15 p.m. There will be boat tours and research demon- strations at 1:10 p.m., 1:45 p.m., 2:20 p.m., 2:55 p.m., 3:30 p.m. and 4:05 p.m. Nature walks and guided tours will be held at 1:45 p.m. and 4 p.m.
Elser will speak at 3:15 p.m. Elser previously served as regent’s professor at Arizona State Univer- sity and is a distinguished scien- tist and scholar. Among his many notable quali cations, Elser was president of the world’s largest water-science society, the Associ- ation for the Sciences of Limnol- ogy and Oceanography, and has been published in more than 220 scienti c journals.
The bio station is loated on the east shore of Flathead Lake at Yel- low Bay on Highway 35, about 14 miles south of Bigfork. For more information, visit http:// bs.umt. edu.
25th Annual Climb Big Mountain
This popular event celebrates its 25th anniversary on Saturday, July 30 at White sh Mountain Resort. Participants climb the Danny On Trail to raise funds for Flathead Industries, a local orga- nization that provides services for hundreds of individuals with dis- abilities. The event welcomes fam- ilies, teams, couples or individu- als. Sign in is anytime between 7 a.m. and 12 p.m., though pre-reg- istration is recommended. Cost is $30 per person, while each mem- ber on teams of 10 pays $25. Chil- dren under 10 are free. In addition to free shirts, there will be give- aways and a silent auction. For more information, visit www. at- headindustries.org, or call Sarah at (406) 858-0897 or email her at info@ atheadindustries.org.
Email outdoors news to news@ atheadbeacon.com.
OUT OF BOUNDS ROB BREEDING THE POWER OF WORDS
YOUR WORD IS YOUR BOND. I GET that on good authority from Mela- nia Trump ... or was it Michelle Obama? Sometimes it’s hard to keep these things straight.
Words – both big and small – also have meaning. It matters the way we string them together into phrases, sentences and paragraphs. If we don’t choose words carefully, we alienate those we need to bond with in the shared mission of wild- life conservation.
I ran headlong into a word being used in the wrong context the other day. I was at the Outdoor Writers Association of America annual conference in Billings, and one panel discussed the models used to fund wildlife management. The panel’s conclusion: The model that has served us so well for so long – hunters and anglers funding wildlife management through license fees and excise taxes on guns, ammo and shing gear, the so-called user-pays system – still works.
The problem was that they followed up that conclusion with the wrong word, a pesky little conjunction that steered the discussion o course and left me wonder- ing if the conservation community will ever come together with a united front. And what was that troublesome word?
But.
Those of us of a certain age remember “Schoolhouse Rock” and one of its most popular episodes, “Conjunction Junc- tion.” That Saturday morning cartoon taught us that the function of conjunc- tions was “hooking up words and phrases and clauses.”
And that’s what the panel was doing, hooking up a century-long wildlife suc- cess story with the challenges of main- taining that progress in a new century.
If they had just chosen the right word.
“But” indicates contrast, and the word served as a pivot point in the discussion. By their word choice, the panel suggested that the future might be di erent, that the work of hunter conservationists in the 20th century might not be neces- sary in the 21st. Wildlife management
reformation was required, we were told, and the folks who’ve been at the manage- ment table for the last century better pre- pareforsomecompany.
I welcome the help. Hunters and anglers have been on the hook for the cost of wildlife management since, well, we started managing wildlife. Additionally, we’ve had to endure the endless sniping from the anti-hunting crowd that cares little about what it takes to keep wildlife populations healthy and vibrant.
I also welcome the money of newcom- ers. Antis in organizations such as PETA and the Humane Society of the United States might even gain a shred of cred- ibility if they would buy a hunting and shing license each year. They don’t have to use them, but they would at least have some skin in the game.
The folks on that OWAA panel should have used another conjunction. The word they were looking for is “and,” as in, “The model is still working, AND we want to build on the success of hunters and anglers to nd new funding for the complex wildlife issues in the future.”
It bears repeating that the restoration of wildlife in this country in the last cen- tury is the greatest example of ecological restoration in the history of the known universe. That restoration was based on a newfangled thing called science, imple- mented by trained wildlife professionals, and was funded by hunters and anglers. It’s called the North American Model and it resulted in the restoration of the conti- nent’s elk, deer and other game animals, as well as the rousing success of wolf recovery in the lower 48, which worked only because we rst restored the prey animals wolves eat.
Is there more to do? You bet. Just don’t start that discussion with a three-letter word that suggests you might discard the system that made this restoration so. Hunters and anglers are rightfully proud of their legacy of conservation.
Conservation: it’s more than a word to hunters and anglers. It’s a bond that can’t be broken.
Now is the time to service your HVAC. You take a shower after your workout, not before. Same is true for your heating system. Get it cleaned now!
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JULY 27, 2016 // FLATHEADBEACON.COM
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SPRING CLEANING!