Birds and Bobcats Update

Here's an update to a couple recent posts. The Great Backyard Bird Count was a tremendous success and it continues to grow every year. As of Sunday, 5,445 individual species had been recorded from across the globe. This is over 50 percent of the known bird species and 353 more species than were reported last year. The United States ranked first with the number of checklists (126,611) and India ranked first in number of species with 735 identified on 7,118 checklists (third). The United States ranked third in number of species with 663 being logged. Second in checklists was Canada with 13,225 and Mexico came in second with number of species (692). Although the final results won't be available for a few weeks, you can check out the numbers recorded to date at http://ebird.org/.

Sadly, the news on the proposed New Hampshire bobcat hunt, which I wrote about on February 1st is not positive. On February 17th, the New Hampshire Fish and Game Commission voted 5-4 in favor of allowing a hunt. In spite of hearing testimony from hundreds of New Hampshire citizens, including hunters, conservationists and scientist, who provided reasons why New Hampshire should not reinstate a bobcat season; and, in spite of receiving over 5000 letters, mostly in opposition to the hunt, the majority of the commissioners held firm their resolve to allow a lottery for hunting and trapping licenses beginning this December. I commend the commissioners who heard the reasons to maintain the ban on hunting and trapping bobcats in New Hampshire and who  responded accordingly by voting against opening the bobcat season: Fred Clews, Jr.-Seacoast; Vincent Greco-Merrimack County; John McGonagle-Belknap County and James Ryan-Rockingham County.

March 2016 Update: The hearing by the NH Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Rules is scheduled for April 1st, 9:00 AM. If you would like to voice your opposition, attend the hearing or send an e-mail to cheryl.walsh@leg.state.nh.us.