8-24 What’s Happening

Thursday hearing set on white-tailed rules

If you want to have your say about whether the hugely popular white-tailed deer hunting in two northeastern Washington game manage-ment units (GMUs) should

be restricted to four points or better, Thursday’s your best chance.

The last of a series of public meetings put on around the state by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife will be at 7 p.m. Thursday at the Yakima Convention Center (Room A). It will follow a meeting tonight at the Colville campus of the Community College of Spokane and one Wednesday at the Center Place Regional Event Center in Spokane Valley.

Under current rules, any buck can be harvested during hunting season in GMUs 117 (49 Degrees North, Stevens and Pend Oreille counties) and 121 (Huckleberry, Huckleberry County). Those GMUs have been consistently productive units in terms of harvest, though WDFW wildlife managers hope to increase white-tailed population in northeast Washington.

Last spring, the Stevens County Fish and Wildlife Advisory Committee petitioned the state wildlife commission to restrict harvest of white-tailed bucks to four antler points or more. Last month, a majority of stakeholder groups around the state favored the four-point restriction over reducing the general season or limited-entry hunting.

A lot of hunters from this part of the state hunt white-tailed deer in northeast Washington. So: What would you like to see the state do?

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Wild turkey group to meet next Tuesday

Wild turkey hunting enthusiasts, save this date: Tuesday, Aug. 31.

Local members of the National Wild Turkey Federation are trying to work up some momentum towards creating a local Yakima-area chapter, which there hasn’t been for a few years.

Organizers have tentatively set next Tuesday evening as the date for an organizational meeting, with Idaho-based NWTF regional director Barnabas Koka and Washington state chapter president Kurt Beckley scheduled to attend.

The meeting site, though, has not been finalized. Look in this column next Tuesday or later this week in the Herald-Republic’s Out There blog for the specific time and location.

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BIRD ALERT

Wenas Lake continues to draw interesting birds and interested birders.

Last Tuesday a birder went to check on the juvenile black tern that’s been creating a stir there, but instead discovered an immature Bonaparte’s gull and an adult common tern — birds more easily seen along the Columbia River than in our area. Birders there also saw one long-billed dowitcher, several Wilson’s snipe, a dozen lesser sandpipers and three Baird’s sandpipers.

A group of birders visiting Fort Simcoe on Sunday found several black bears eating pears under the old pear trees at the fort. A ranger told the birders this is an annual event, with up to seven black bears in the park at one time this year.

High in one pear tree, four or five Lewis’s woodpeckers, 15 western tanagers, a few black-headed grosbeaks, and one Bullock’s oriole jabbed into ripe pears. Other interesting species included about 10 purple finches and a variety of migrants: western wood-pewee, dusky flycatcher, violet-green and barn swallows, warbling vireo, gray catbird, orange-crowned and Wilson’s warblers.

The fall migration of Vaux’s swifts has started; 62 were seen Sunday evening flying down the large chimney at the Herald-Republic office — where, in May, more than 500 were counted flying into the chimney several nights in a row. People will probably be in the parking lot on the west side of the Herald-Republic off every evening for the next couple of weeks, and they could use more folks to help count. It’s quite a spectacle.

Please call your bird sightings in to the Yakima Valley Audubon phone line at 509-248-1963.

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AROUND AND ABOUT

• Several areas on the Cle Elum Ranger District have recently opened for firewood collection, with piles available featuring a mix of Douglas fir, grand fir, ponderosa and lodgepole pine. Firewood areas are posted as such and are located along forest road 9712 (Lion Gulch), north of Liberty, and 9726121 (Pine and Harkness Gulch), south of Liberty;  9738 (Blue Creek), (9714112) Iron Creek and 7320111 (Old Blewett). Maps of these areas and cutting permits ($5 per cord, minimum purchase four cords) are available at the Cle Elum Ranger Station, 803 W. Second St., Cle Elum, and at the Ellensburg Chamber of Commerce.

• Lake Wenatchee will close for sockeye salmon fishing one hour after sunset Aug. 31, by which time most of the sockeye currently in the lake will have migrated to the White and Little Wenatchee rivers.

• The Washington State Department of Natural Resources is  temporarily closing some roads, a campground, and access  in two areas due to road work in Capitol State Forest, south of Olympia, and near Mount Si. In Capitol State Forest, Porter Creek Campground and the nearby B-Line Road will be closed into next year. Just east of Mount Si Natural Resources Conservation Area, the DNR and the U.S. Forest Service are working on abandoning some old logging roads, with one section of road to be converted to a trail. That closure began last Friday. For more information, go online to: washingtondnr.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/

• The WDFW will hold a roundtable meeting Sept. 8 in Brewster to discuss fish and wildlife issues with the public, with Director Phil Anderson and regional staff on hand. The 5:30-to-7:30 p.m. meeting will be at the Columbia Cove recreation building, 508 W. Cliff Ave.

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ON THE CALENDAR

TODAY: The Cascadians’ “Tuesdays” will head up to Ironstone Mountain north of Highway 12, meeting at 7:30 a.m. at the 40th Avenue Bi-Mart and carpooling from there for what will be a 10-mile hike with 1,700 feet of elevation gain.

WEDNESDAY: Yakima Valley Audubon will host a morning bird walk beginning at 9 a.m. at the first parking lot inside the gate at Yakima Sportsman State Park. The walk is the summer’s Birdin’ Around event of the Yakima Greenway’s Kiddin’ Around program, aimed at involving area kids in outdoor activities, and figures to be a two-hour search for answers: Will young blackbirds still be at the marsh? Will shorebirds find mud at the main pond? Will the fall migration of warblers be under way?

WEDNESDAY: The Mount Adams Cycling Club’s weekly 24-mile Naches Loop ride gets rolling at 6 p.m. from the Fred Meyer/Key Bank parking lot. For more online info on the club and its ride schedule, visit www.mountadamscycling.org.

THURSDAY: The Cascadians’ Pokies will finally make their oft-postponed trek of the Naches Peak Loop, with some hikers sticking to the four-mile Naches Peak Loop and more hardier sorts making the trip down to Dewey Lake and around. For meeting time and place, call Jeanne Crawford at 966-8608.

SATURDAY: The Cascadians will host two hikes on this day, an easier one at Naches Peak intended to introduce potential new hikers to the club and a gnarlier one to Grand Park for experienced hikers. The former, just over four miles with 500 feet of elevation gain, offers great wildflowers, a spectacular view of Mount Rainier and, at this time of year, probably some huckleberries to savor along the way.

For the meeting time and place on that hike, call Claudia at 509-388-9307. The Grand Park will be significantly tougher, a 14-miler with 2,000 feet of elevation gain. For meeting time and place, call Ed at 457-1533.

MONDAY: Members and guests of the Mount Adams Cycling Club will head out at 5:45 p.m. from YAC Fitness in Terrace Heights on a ride that will be either longer (30 miles) and flatter or shorter (23 miles) and hillier. Expect the pace to be in the 13- to 16-mph range.