THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 27, 1996 TAG: 9610270324
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 99 lines
Melvin Brinkley still recalls every detail of the day, 35 years ago, when he shot the black bear that was destroying his corn field.
It wasn't the first - or last - bear killed by Brinkley, now 79. But that animal, ground into 300 pounds of bearburger, fed his family all winter.
Brinkley's memories of a lifetime almost within walking distance of the Great Dismal Swamp are as bright as the sunlight on Lake Drummond on an autumn day. But the image of the lake is beginning to fade.
First, after the swamp was taken over as a wildlife refuge, Brinkley was told he could no longer drive his mule and cart back to the lake. Then, he was banned from driving his pickup truck back there.
A couple of weeks ago, a local hunt club got a dog-retrieval permit in Brinkley's name so they could take him to Lake Drummond. The $25 permit allows hunters to enter the swamp to find their dogs. But the gate leading to the lake was closed and locked, the road over-grown.
It's not just Brinkley who is being kept from enjoying the Great Dismal Swamp Wildlife Refuge, some local hunters say, but hunters and fishermen as well.
The swamp is being mismanaged, said Jerry Bass, a member of Bass Hunt Club: Roads have grown over with brush and saplings. Locks on drainage ditches dug originally to haul out timber have been closed, causing the swamp to flood after this past rainy summer. And refuge officials are making it increasingly harder for hunters to get into the swamp.
So Bass and hunt club president P.J. Bradshaw have organized a meeting for 3 p.m. today to discuss ways of making the refuge more open to the public. The meeting will be on Bass' farm, which borders the swamp.
Refuge manager Lloyd Culp was unavailable Friday to comment about the hunters' concerns, and he did not return phone calls made to the refuge.
For years, Brinkley recalls, he spent every Saturday rising early and driving his cart to the lake for a day of fishing and wilderness solitude.
But soon after the swamp became a wildlife refuge, he was notified by the Department of Interior that he no longer could take horse or mule onto the land.
That was a blow for the man who owns most of the road leading to the refuge entrance and who had granted the government an easement for the road. Another blow came when he later was notified that he couldn't drive his pickup truck to the lake either.
It's eight miles to the lake from the refuge entrance - an impossible distance to walk for Brinkley, who is partially crippled from a stroke of several years ago and who has arthritis.
When Bass and Bradshaw were recently unsuccessful in getting Brinkley back to the lake, that was the final insult, said Bass, whose ancestors founded the hunt club in 1876. Bass said his club members feel that the refuge has been mismanaged since the federal government took over.
Years ago, he said, hunting season in the swamp was the same as for the rest of the state. In a good year, members of Bass Hunt Club alone could harvest more than 100 deer from the Great Dismal Swamp - about the same number harvested overall last year.
Brinkley recalls when there may not have been that many deer in the entire swamp. Before hunters started moving the herds and trying to keep the vegetation in check, he said, deer were rare in the area surrounding his farm.
In his den, not far from the bear, Brinkley has the head of a deer he shot at age 16. Deer then, he said, were so rare that he invested $27 - a fortune at the time - to have the deer mounted.
Hunting the swamp helped to increase and improve the wildlife population, he said. Hunters kept the brush cut and trails clear.
With wildlife management, hunting days were decreased to no more than a dozen throughout the season.
And, if conditions are allowed to continue as they are now, Bass said, vegetation will grow thicker, the water in the swamp will continue to rise, and wildlife - bear, deer, bobcat, raccoons - will filter out into housing developments around the edges of the swamp.
As if not being able to get Brinkley to his beloved lake weren't enough, the hunters found more reasons on hunt day last Friday to protest the way the swamp is being managed.
``They are using tax money to do away with our natural heritage,'' Bass said. ``They treat us like trespassers out there. Last Friday, the water was so high you couldn't get out there 60 feet without being up to your knees. Bass Hunt Club isn't going to stand for it anymore.''
So Bass and his entourage of hunters moved into the check station and copied telephone numbers from the registration book. Since then, they've been on a phone campaign to win support for their cause.
``We're paying very dearly for that refuge with our tax dollars,'' Bradshaw said. ``Where we used to hunt, there are trees in the road as big as my leg. Every manager who has been out there has failed to do his job.''
When Bass and Bradshaw met with Brinkley earlier this week to tell the old man about their plans, Bass had one final message for his friend:
``Don't you worry, Melvin, we're going to get you back to that lake one more time,'' he said. ``We'll do it.'' MEMO: To get to Bass' farm, follow Route 13 through Whaleyville to the
sign marking the entrance to the Great Dismal Swamp National Wildlife
Refuge. Take the next right past the entrance onto Adam's Swamp Road.
The next right is Cherry Grove Road. About 3/4 of a mile down, brick
columns and a chain-link fence on the right mark the entrance to the
farm. For more information about the meeting, call Bass at 757-986-4092. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
MICHAEL KESTNER/The Virginian-Pilot
For years, Melvin Brinkley, 79, spent every Saturday at Lake
Drummond. Then the swamp was made a wildlife refuge. A couple of
weeks ago, he found the gate leading to the lake closed and locked. by CNB