ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, April 26, 1996 TAG: 9604260055
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOORS EDITOR
WILDLIFE OFFICIALS ignore a request by the Natural Resources office to delay the $4 million plan.
The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries approved a five-year, $4 million quail management plan Thursday that is designed to stop the population decline of this popular game bird.
``There is absolutely a crisis situation in quail,'' said Charles McDaniel, chairman of the department's board.
Wildlife biologists say bobwhites declined 62 percent across the Southeast from 1966 to 1993. In Virginia, that has resulted in a $35 million loss to the state's economy, said McDaniel.
The plan emphasizes quail habitat improvement through the planting of warm season grasses rather than fescue.
Board members balked at a request from the Secretary of Natural Resources' office to delay the plan until several questions could be addressed.
``We need to do it now, during the growing season,'' said Catharine Tucker, board member from Richmond.
The board also approved regulations to establish a Sept.1-March 31 season for live-trapping and stocking of foxes on foxhound training preserves. Fox hunters said the preserves give them a safe place to run their hounds at a time when the countryside is being sliced up by highways and posted signs.
``Foxhound pens are cruel to foxes,'' said Heidi Prescott, the national director of Fund for Animals. She said the preserves should be eradicated rather than regulated.
. But hunters classified their sport as fox chasing, not fox hunting or fox killing. They said the foxes seldom are harmed.
``I have to tell you, from my opinion, not many people care for the fox like the fox hunter,'' said Gerald Simmons, a spokesman for the hunters.
The board moved to broaden the use of crossbows during the deer season by proposing that disabled hunters be able to use these weapons on private land with the written permission of the landowner. Current law limits the use of crossbows to disabled hunters on their own property. The proposal is scheduled for a vote at the board's next meeting in July.
LENGTH: Short : 47 linesby CNB