Four Winners Announced During June TWRC Meeting for State’s Second Managed Elk Hunt

NASHVILLE --- Four persons have won the right to participate in Tennessee’s second-ever managed elk hunt. The winners were announced Wednesday during the June meeting of the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Commission at the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency Region II Ray Bell Building in Nashville.

 

The four winners, all Tennessee residents, were selected in a computer drawing from more than 9,000 entries for the elk hunt scheduled Oct. 18-22, 2010 at the North Cumberland Wildlife Management Area.

 

The participants for this year’s hunt will be Jeffrey M. Burdick of Oakdale, Gregory Joseph Burns of Clarksville, Michael Duane Galloway of Corryton, and Joseph Edward McDonald, Jr. of Clinton. Greg Wathen, TWRA Wildlife Division Chief announced the winners.

 

The fifth participant will be the recipient of a permit that is donated to a Non-Governmental Organization which this year is the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. The RMEF auctioned the permit at its recent national convention and Randy Hoisington of Blocksburg, Calif., bid $11,000 to participate in the hunt. Proceeds from the bid are part of a fund-raising project benefiting future elk restoration in Tennessee and enhancing elk habitat.

 

In other business at the June meeting, the TWRC changed regulations to allow four weeks for the bear archery season. During May’s meeting, the commission reduced the bear archery season to three weeks from the agency’s recommended five week season. The bear archery season will now begin Sept. 25 and continue through Oct. 22 in Blount, Carter, Cocke, Greene, Jefferson, Johnson, Monroe, Polk, Sevier, Sullivan, Unicoi, and Washington counties. Statistics show that bear archery hunters have become an effective tool in controlling bear/human conflicts, including motor vehicle collisions.

 

Dwight Hensley, TWRA Engineering Division Chief, presented photos and an assessment of property damage to agency land during the recent storm and flood events in early May. TWRA personnel have been prohibited in many areas in middle (TWRA Region II) and west Tennessee (Region I) from the annual planting of crops for wildlife including waterfowl areas. Many of these areas suffered significant damage to levees, roads and pumping systems.

 

The TWRC gave the TWRA permission to submit a draft to the Mississippi Flyway Council in July concerning the possibility of a sandhill crane hunting season in 2011-12.

 

“The recent population boom of the sandhill cranes migrating through Tennessee has caused the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to issue depredation permits to private landowners in the vicinity of the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge,” said Dan Hicks, Region III Information and Education Coordinator. “After the cranes deplete the food sources at the refuge, they tend to be problematic for local landowners.”

 

If the plan is approved by the Mississippi Flyway Council, the door would be open for the TWRC to consider establishing a hunt next year. The TWRA will present opportunities for public input at a later date to tabulate interest and concerns in regard to a possible sandhill crane hunting season that would be limited to a zone primarily in the Tennessee Valley.

---TWRA---