Virginia Wildlife

editor

Rob was down in the mouth yes-
terday. Acted like a dog off its feed.
1 couldn't even get him to laugh
about our last deer hunting exploit
when he got distracted by a flock of
turkeys and tried sneaking up on
them in a field on his belly like he
was antelope hunting.

A friend of mine who is married
to one heckuva deer hunter started
fussing the other day when her
husband just up and left for the
woods on his day off. Didn't do a
single household chore set out for
him. And he didn't take his gun
with him, even though the season
was still open then. Just took off.
Typical.

It's an ache or a frown, or a sud-
den flash of temper. It happens
soon after deer season closes and
the snow starts falling. Ducks are
still in, geese and quail and grouse,
too. But you've lost heart. The sea-
son has stopped dead.

It's not just that a good thing has
come to an end again, as we know
things like that must. Because, I
think most of us could handle that
sort of situation in a dignified
manner with only a few minor days
of sulking. No, it's much more
than that.

It's having to let go of the cold
sunrises, and the single stars that
still hold brighmess at 7:00 a.m.,
and whispering to each other while
you're peering into the woods from
atop a hill, ready to see a deer slip
into a field on its way into cover.
It's being warm and still in the
morning, full up with coffee shared
in a farmhouse 10 minutes ago

with a new friend who is grinning
about the whole day laid clean out
in front of you. . .

Get yourself up into that edge of
woods that borders the clearcut and
runs do\Jun to the edge of that creek.
You might see something once the dogs
start running. Mapping out your
stand, you pace off the yards down
to the creek, then fix in your mind
the tree that marks your gun's
limit, beyond which you won't
shoot. And leaning up against a
tree, waiting, with the sun moving
up through the trees, you shift
positions so that the sun glinting
off your barrel won't spook that
two-step rustle in the leaves. . .

It's losing the midmorning re-
grouping, when everybody goes
back to the trucks for some coffee,
and then starts kicking around
ideas about exactly where the first
man drive of the day should be.
And those times when you find
yourself scrunched up in a tree
stand with your hunting buddy.
He's facing one way, you're facing
the other. Psstl hJudge me if you see
something. The hooting and holler-
ing of the drivers, the whoops and
groans when they hit briars and
tear their legs up, all so's you'll get a
deer this time.

And it's the loss of those quiet,
easy conversations at midday, sit-
ting on a log somewhere in the sun
and swapping sandwiches and Coca-
colas, and bringing up matters of
the heart and soul, and digging out
answers in the warmth of a Decem-
ber afternoon.

It's the ache of losing your grip
on those kinds of bonds made fast
with the season, hoping they'll hold
through another year, until the
buck rubs, the scrapes, and the
signs appear again. . .

It's gonruj he your last stand this
season. Make this one count. Don't
mess up. The light is fading, and the
deer step out, one first, then another
and another. One shot, and night
closes in cold and clear, with a pine
bough ritually placed in a doe's
mouth, and a blood-dipped pine
branch laid gently on a gray body
after the kill, because it all had to
do with thanks and respect and a
powerful love.

It's not an easy thing to accept
the end of something. And it's even
harder to tear yourself away from
the memories and face the fact that
you're just going to have to try to
find something else that will at least
make life bearable for the next
unmentionable number of months,
like buying a new rifle or scouting
some new land. But, it's easier to
despair.

And that's mostly what we do
till the leaves turn green and the
chill dulls and something stirs inside
us.

Still, we won't be right again till
September.

Volxune 49 Number 2

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GINIA

WILDLIFE

Dedicated to the Conservation of Virginia's Wildlife and
Related Natural Resources

Cover

Snow geese (Chen caerulescens); photo by R.C.

Simpson.

Back cover: Virginia mountain stream; photo by Jean

M. Fogle.

Bombers in the East by Joe Coggin

Ruffed grouse are being reintroduced into eastern
Virginia by the Game Department, and so far, the
results look promising.

Backing Our Brookies 1 Q

by Christopher Camuto
A management program for brook trout in Virginia.

Stalking the Snow Goose by Bob Gooch ^ ^

Hunters are learning fast how to hunt these birds, i i

22

26

On the WILD side by Nancy Hugo
Virginia's Project WILD is bringing v^dlife conser-
vation into our schools — and it's fun.

Fast Food For Frugivores by Nancy Hugo
Cedar berries come in handy for migrating birds
taking their meals on the wind.

From the Backcountry Planting for Wild- 30

life, boating safety tips, recipes, hunter education courses,

and more.

3t Virginia's Wildlife byjohnPagels

The Fisher

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opposite: photo try Gregory K. Scott

Many years ago, we at the
Game Department learned
that trying to establish wild-
life species in new areas by raising
them on a game farm and then release-
ing them into the wild was destined to
fail. However, research and experi-
mentation, especially with wild tur-
keys, taught us that capturing birds in
the wild and then releasing them in
areas of the state that appeared to have
good habitat could be extremely suc-
cessful. As a matter of fact, as the
result of our turkey stocking program,
we have only 16 counties in the state
left that do not boast a fall turkey
hunting season, and turkeys all across
the state are becoming a common
occurrence.

But what about ruffed grouse?
Except for the counties located just
east of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
there are few grouse to be found
throughout the state, and none in
Tidewater. Realizing this, we started
investigating the possibility of relocat-
ing grouse in eastern Virginia. We had
no firm evidence that the bird histori-
cally inhabited the region, although
reports have indicated that ruffed
grouse are naturally moving eastward,
with wild birds being sighted on Fort
Pickett Military Reservation in Not-
toway, Brunswick and Dinwiddie
counties.

Thus, in 1985, the Game Depart-
ment made the decision to attempt a
relocation effort of ruffed grouse into
eastern Virginia. We decided to con-
duct the research project on the
Chickahominy Wildlife Management
Area ( WMA) in Charles City County,
located approximately 30 air miles
southeast of Richmond. Since it is
Game Department owned land, we
would have control over timber cut-
ting and other management practices
to maintain and improve grouse habi-
tat there.

After reviewing the literature and
evaluating the experiments of grouse

FEBRUARY 1988

Bombers

in the East

Ruffed grouse are being
reintroduced into eastern Virginia

by the Game Department, and
so far, the results look promising.

by Joe Coggin

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relocation in other states, particularly
in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Arkan-
sas, we decided to attempt a relocation
of 60 wild trapped birds. That's when
the work began. Finding grouse is hard
enough, but trapping them is a mon-
umental effort. The Game Depart-
ment Wildlife Management Area
Supervisors located west of the Blue
Ridge Mountains were involved in the
trapping project that summer and fall
of 1985. Each supervisor constructed
20 traps, which gives you some idea of
the odds of capturing a bird.

By the last week in August, the traps
were complete, and with persistence
and hard work that lasted more than
two months, the men caught 66 birds.
Six of the birds died, mostly due to
injuries sustained in the traps or hold-
ing pens. Three escaped, and we were
left with 57 grouse (31 males and 26
females) to release on Chickahominy
WMA.

Once trapped, no bird was kept
more than 24 hours, and all were
banded and then released before 9:00
each morning. Prior to the release of
any birds, we identified a 600-acre
release area, chosen with the assistance
of our biologists and the Ruffed
Grouse Society. We were looking for
an area with small sapling size trees,
some conifers, and fairly dense under-
story near openings and clearings.
Cutover areas and drumming logs
were accounted for in our assessment,
along with important grouse food and
cover plants such as vaccinium, honey-
suckle, and smilax. Once we identified
the release site, we indentified four
areas, about l/8th to 1/4 mile apart,
for releases. Our feeling was that it was
better not to put all our eggs in one
basket, so to speak, by releasing all our
hard-earned trapped birds in one spot.
Thus, 1 5 birds were released at each of
the first three sites, and 1 2 birds at the
last site.

During the first week in April of
1986, six months after our relocation
effort, the entire release area was
sampled three times to locate drum-
ming males. Theoretically, one drum-
ming male indicates the presence of
one female, but realistically, other fac-
tors influence such a population esti-

So far, our grouse relocation efforts in Tidewater look promising, with at least one
brood reported in 1986. Above and opposite:Brooding hens; photos by Rob and
Melissa Simpson (above) and Gregory K. Scott (opposite). Below: Grouse chick;
photo by Rob Simpson.

FEBRUARY 1988

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Drumming logs are importam during the spring for male grouse, and Chicka-
hominy Wildlife Management Area has a gocxi number of suitable drumming
sites; Above ax\d oppodte: Grouse; photos by Gregory K. Scott.

mate. After all, it isn't too probable
that we would hear all the drumming
males in the area, plus; there may be
more than one female for every drum-
ming male. In any case, we located
nine different durmming sites in April,
though we did not approach the sites
for fear of disturbing the birds.

We repeated the drumming census
during the first week in April of 1 987 .
This time eight drummers were heard
and were located close to the same
sites they were heard "showing ofP'
last year.

The most heartening discovery is
that the birds have been reproducing.
One large brood was reported in the
summer of 1986, by a visitor to the
area, but few had been seen by Game
Department personnel. Thus, with the
use of dogs in August of that year, we
located three broods. The nvimber of
chicks in the broods could not be
accurately determined, but it appeared
that there were less than five chicks in
each brood.

Now where do we stand? We have
only two years' worth of data from
which to make an assessment of the
project, but judging from the number
of drumming counts and reports from
area visitors, the results look encour-
ageing. Based on the brood sightings
and tlie report of the Chickahominy
Wildlife Management Area Supervi-
sor David Brime, who saw two un-
handed birds at close range, we have
established that grouse can success-
fully reproduce on the area.

To hastily conclude that this exper-
iment is a complete success this early
in the game would be a mistake, but so
far, the project does appear to be
working. It will take at least two years
more, or even longer to determine
whether or not we have succeeded
with this attempt at grouse relocation.
But, we have already gained a wealth
of knowledge and experience from
this effort — and if it works, we may be
able to look forward to catching a
glimpse of this dynamic bird in Tide-
water Virginia. □

Joe Coggin is a supervising wildlife research
biologist in the iwestem region. He is heading
up the grouse relocation research project for the
Department.

FEBRUARY 1988

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Brookies

A management program

for hrook trout

in Virginia,

story & photos by Christopher Camuto

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VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

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FEBRUARY 1988

ho would have thought
that our native brookie,
fanning peacefully in a
remote Virginia mountain stream,
would incite foresters, biologists and
fishermen to wear themselves out try-
ing to protect a fragile thousand miles
of habitat where these small, but beau-
tiful fish live?

Well, it's true. Known to science as
Salvelinus fontinalis, the brookie is
perhaps Virginia's most distinguished
native species, with a strong claim to a
permanent, protected place in our
envirorunent. But, with logging, acid
rain, and increasing angler pressure on
our mountain streams, the manage-
ment of this our only native trout
poses complex problems for state and
federal wildlife officials, as well as for
citizens concerned about the preserva-
tion of Virginia's natural resources.

Until the mid-nineteenth century,
brook trout claimed a larger domain
in Virginia's rivers than they do today.
But, unrestricted logging of Virginia's
old growth forests of hemlocks, chest-
nuts, white oaks, mock-hickories, and
tulip trees, conversion of woodland to
agricultural use, and the discharge of
pollutants raised the temperature and
tubidity of many rivers that once sup-
ported populations of native trout. A
river is only as alive and healthy as the
watershed surrounding it, and the
brook trout has been retreating before
the progress of the axe, the crosscut
saw, and finally the chain saw for
almost four centuries.

The last bastions of brook trout
habitat in Virginia are in Shenandoah
National Park, where 110 miles of
wild trout water are permanendy pro-
tected from any encroachment on
their watersheds, and in the George
Washington and Thomas Jefferson
National Forests, where, unless na-
tional policy on public lands changes,
protection of brook trout habitat will
be achieved within the context of the
"multiple use" of forest resources.

There are approximately 900 miles
of coldwater trout streams in Virgi-
nia's two national forests, some of
which is exclusively wild trout water,
and some of which is "put-and-take"
water for hatchery trout. The National
Forest Service and the Virginia Depart-

11

ment of Game and Inland Fisheries
have joint responsibility for the native
brookies.

The suitability of Virginia's moun-
tain streams for brook trout has a great
deal to do with the fish's natural his-
tory. The genealogy of a brook trout
holding in the current of a Blue Ridge
mountain stream reaches far back into
the evolutionary past. One of the suc-
cessful Salmoniformes, the brook
trout's primitive ancestors evolved as
a migratory marine species in arctic
seas 100 million years ago. Driven
south by the cycles of Pleistocene gla-
ciation, the brook trout occupied the
cold rivers and shallow estuarine seas
that covered Virginia about 40,000
years ago. When the last ice sheet
receded from North America 1 1 ,000
years ago, the brookies stayed behind,
working their way toward higher ele-
vations and cooler water as tempera-
tures warmed. Going "up mountain"
was the brookie's only way of going
back North.

Ideal brook trout habitat reflects
the native's arctic origins. A char
rather than a true trout, the brook
trout thrives in clean, cold, well-oxy-
genated water — the kind of water that
tumbles down out of Virginia's moun-
tains. The brookie seeks temperatures

below 68°F and needs cool, sediment-
free water in which to spawn. It is
sensitive to all forms of water pollu-
tion and its reproductive ability is jeo-
pardized by water with a pH more
acidic than 5.2. Overhead cover from
forest canopy and instream cover from
boulders, logs, and aquatic vegetation
provide protection from predators as
well as the shade that keeps stream
temperatures tolerable. The natural
sequence of riffles, pools, and deep-
water runs of mountain freestone
streams provides the kind of stream-
scape in which brook trout can suc-
cessfully grow and reproduce.

The brook trout is a so-called "fea-
tured" species in the current George
Washington National Forest Manage-
ment Plan. Recognizing that brook
trout are a sought-after game species as
well as an ecologically significant indi-
cator species, this program seeks to
emphasize the "protection and enhance-
ment" of native trout habitat in addi-
tion to providing a relatively undis-
turbed environment for the fisherman.
The program provides special protec-
tion for 29 streams and 77.6 miles, or
18% of the coldwater stream mileage
on the George Washington National
Forest.

Although work is being done

through the featured species program
to improve Virginia's wild trout re-
source and, in some cases, increase
coldwater stream mileage, many of the
management practices directed toward
brook trout in Virginia's national
forests are designed to protect them
from the effects of logging and road
building. Poor timber practices can
quickly destroy a trout stream as well
as the wilderness experience many
fishermen seek from their days on
stream. Since considerable clear-cut-
ting and road building is allowed
under the multiple-use policy, trout
habitat must be managed defensively.
Such management practices include
providing filter strips in trout stream
watersheds to check erosion and sed-
imentation and shade strips along
stream banks to check erosion and
keep water temperatures cool enough
for trout. Given the vulnerability of
trout habitat, the future of much of
Virginia's wild trout fishery will de-
pend on the degree to which the man-
agement practices dictated by the cur-
rent Forest Service plans are carried
out in the field.

The Forest Service and the Game
Department also cooperate in manag-
ing the mix of wild trout and hatchery
trout in Virginia's streams. Larry

12

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

Mohn, a Game Department fisheries
biologist, insists that the Department's
primary job in trout management "is
to protect existing native resources."
In most cases, hatchery fish are not
introduced into water with a self-
sustaining natural trout population,
since rainbow trout (Salmo gairdneri),
a species originally imported from
Rocky Mountain watersheds, and
brown trout (Salmo trutta), a native to
Europe and Asia, can in some cases
interfere with a brook trout popula-
tion. Fishing regulations governing
catch size, creel limits, and tackle res-
trictions are designed to encourage the
viability of native trout populations.

In addition, cooperation in the pro-
tection and improvement of trout
habitat in Virginia currently extends
beyond official channels. Increased
citizen concern with land use practices,
increased interest in fishing for wild
trout, and increased awareness of
environmental problems affecting fish
populations has led to greater citizen
involvement in fisheries management
and habitat protection.

The Virginia Council of Trout
Unlimited, which is dedicated to the
preservation of coldwater fisheries,
has joined with the Game Department

Native brook trout management in Vir-
ginia involves coordination betijueen the
Game Departmera, the Forest Service,
the 'National Park Service and the
cooperation of environmental groups
such as Trout Unlimited.

and the George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson National Forests in
a formal Parmership Agreement de-
signed to increase and maintain coop-
eration among trout fishermen and
state and federal fisheries personnel.
Although the agreement was signed in
January of 1986, Trout Unlimited,
the Forest Service, and state fisheries
personnel have cooperated on stream
improvement projects at least since
1981 . Considerable work was done in
the aftermath of the November 1985
flood to stabilize stream banks and
clear channels on Simpson Creek,
North River, Ramsey's Draft, and on
the South Fork of the Piney River in
Amherst County.

These cooperative efforts to protect
trout habitat set a precedent that was
formalized in the 1986 agreement.
The collective goal is to improve trout
habitat, increase public awareness of
the value of Virginia's coldwater fish-
ery and the environmental threats,
natural and man-made, to that fishery,
and to increase funds and labor for
habitat improvement work. Accord-
ing to Rich Standage, fisheries biolo-
gist for the George Washington and
Thomas Jefferson National Forests,
the agreement, only the second of its

kind in the country, has already had a
significant positive impact on Virgi-
nia's native trout fishery. So far. Trout
Unlimited has donated several thou-
sands of dollars worth of labor in the
construction and repair of habitat-
enhancing structures on the George
Washington National Forest, and plans
to increase its on-stream efforts in
1988.

Perhaps the most impressive expres-
sion of the current spirit of coopera-
tion and the role of volunteers in
resource management was the Virgi-
nia Trout Stream Sensitivity Study
conducted in the spring of 1987, an
effort which brought together aca-
demic, state, federal, and private
resources. A comprehensive two-year
study of the acid sensitivity of Virgi-
nia's wild trout water was conceived
by Dr. James Galloway of the Univer-
sity of Virginia's Department of Envir-
onmental Sciences, and the Game
Department agreed to fund the
$70,000 project. Acting in the spirit
of the Cooperative Agreement, Trout
Unlimited — along with the Float Fish-
ermen of Virginia, Shenandoah Out-
doors, and volunteers from organi-
zations like the Sierra Club and the
Virginia Wildlife Federation — put
more than 160 volunteers in the field
and collected samples at 400 sites on
370 wild trout streams during a 10-
day period in April and May of 1987.
A report on the acid deposition prob-
lem in Virginia was issued in the fall.

Managing wild trout and protecting
the environment they depend upon
has clearly come to be a broad-based
responsibility in Virginia. If coopera-
tion on the federal, state, and local
level continues, and if national envir-
onmental problems like acid deposi-
tion are adequately addressed, then
the continued residency of one of our
most distinguished native species will
be assured. Hopefully, it will always be
possible to spend a day carefully wad-
ing a mountain stream, flicking a small
dry fly to the likely lies of these wary
but hungry creatures, hoping for the
sudden rush of color and energy that
trout fishermen love. □

Christopher Camuto has written for Fly
Fisherman, Trout, Flyfishing, and Sierra.
He lives in Earlysville.

FEBRUARY 1988

13

Lesser snow goose (Chen caerulescens) blue
phase; photo by Charles Sdiwartz.

talkin.'

14

now goose?"

My question was barely a
whisper. My guide, hunk-
ered low in die Back Bay blind, glanced
quickly at me and turned his head in
the direction of my questioning gaze.

"Yep."

The big white bird was directly
overhead now, and before I could
swing into action it was angling away
from the blind, its long, black-tipped
wings fanning the misty January air.

I like to take my birds head-on as
they approach the blind. I seem to
have that shot down pat. Swing on the
bird, block out its head with the muz-
zle of the gun and hit the trigger. Usu-
ally a puff a feathers and a big bird
hitting the water with a splash is the
result, but 1 had picked up this bird's
approach before the guide had and its
big white body raised doubts in my
mind. Swans are also big and white.
They lack the black tips on their
wings, but I was having trouble spot-
ting them in the heavy mist that hung
over the shallow bay. Whistling swans,
or tundra swans as they are called in
North Carolina to the south, are illegal
in Virginia, and then the big white
birds were carrying a $500 price tag
for the hunter who bagged one. 1

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

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Hunters

are learning

fast how to hunt

these birds.

the Snow Goose

by Bob Gooch

would like to bag a swan, but not ille-
gally. That was why I had hesitated.

Now I was forced to take a going-
away shot, but fortunately the angle of
the bird's flight gave me a chance at its
head instead of its rear end. I was
loaded with high-brass number 6 duck
loads, not goose or swan loads, and I
needed a head shot. Beyond the shiny
muzzle of my battered Browning I
could see the bird's long neck and its
reddish bill and head. Swinging with
the bird I got slightly ahead of it and
touched the trigger. The range was
short, and the bird faltered and fell like
a brick.

"That's just the seventh snow taken
from our blinds this season," said the
guide as we stood up in the blind and
relaxed. "You were lucky a stray came
this way."

That statement gave me pause for
reflection.

We were hunting the Department
of Game and Inland Fisheries Poca-
hontas Waterfowl Management Area
that day, a friend and I. I had been
lucky in the drawing for blinds that
season and was enjoying the foggy day
on Back Bay. It was late in the season.
Why only seven snows from this pro-
ductive hunting area? Why, I had

never visited Back Bay during the
waterfowl season without seeing thou-
sands of the white geese. Admittedly,
none had ever come near my blind on
previous trips, but they were almost
always visible, usually in long, undu-
lating lines — and also high and far
away.

It was not until I met Jim Clark, a
Back Bay fishing and waterfowl guide,
that I began to solve the riddle. Clark
was my guide on one of those Poca-
hontas hunts. When the talk got
around to snow geese, as it inevitably
does on Back Bay hunts, he suggested I
come back after the duck season
closed, and hunt snows with him.

"We'll be fteld shooting,' " he said.
"You won't need waders or hip boots."

So that was the answer. While the
birds spend a lot of time on Back Bay
resting and sleeping, they feed mostly
in the fields to the west of the big body
of brackish water. This obviously
meant hunting private farmlands. I did
not have access to such lands, but
Clark did.

It was late January when I got back
to Back Bay. The snow goose season
ran through January that year, except
on Back Bay proper, where it had
ended with the duck season. We

would not be hunting the bay waters,
however.

It was still dark when, laden with
guns, ammunition, thermos jugs, and
other gear, we trudged down a long
farm road to a ditch that divided two
fields. The blind was there — deep in
the ditch. We climbed in and awaited
dawn and legal shooting time.

The stormy Atlantic Ocean was out
there to the east. Invisible, but I could
smell it. And out there the gray light of
dawn slowly pushed away the blanket
of darkness that covered the two
fields. Gradually, they took shape and
for the first time 1 saw the big white
silhouette decoys. Made of plywood,
they dominated the spread of dekes.
The decoys took a variety of forms,
however, reflecting the ingenuity gen-
erated over the centuries by man's
attempt to outwit ducks, geese, and
other game. In addition to the sil-
houettes, there were also decoys
fashioned from sections of automo-
bile tires. Perfectly formed goose heads
and necks had been cut from plywood
and attached to the tire sections, and
then the whole decoy painted white.
The silhouettes and tire decoys were
built in Clark's basement, but there
were a few full-bodied plastic decoys

FEBRUARY 1988

15

that were obviously factory-made.
Together, they painted a scene of
snows feeding contentedly in the big
field.

"That sure ought to bring them in,"
1 whispered.

"Hopefully," came the answer.
"But, we could use some fog."

Snow geese were protected for over
40 years, for most of this century, but
they were put back on the legal list in
1974. As a consequence, there are not
many snow goose experts in Virginia,
but those who hunt them are learning
rapidly.

The sun was on the flat eastern

horizon now and we had good shoot-
ing light.

"Down!" whispered Jim Clark.

I held my breath and waited as a
small flock of snows appeared fi-om
behind the woods that bordered one
of the fields. At first they seemed to be
headed for the decoys and our bUnd,
but then veered off.

"Typical. The same old story," 1
mumbled.

But then another warning. "Behind

us;

I"

I didn't dare risk a glance, but kept
my eyes on Clark who had the birds
fixed in his gaze. The movement of his

16

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

head told the story. Apparently, they
were almost overhead.

"Now!"

I swung into position, and it was not
until then that I sighted the birds, four
of them, eyeing the decoys, and well
within range. I picked out a bird and
began to swing on it, but it folded as
Jim's gun fired. Then there was
another, frantically fanning the air for
altitude, but my load of 2's caught it
before it got far. My partner dropped
another, and then I had another shot,
missed, swung a bit farther ahead and
hit the trigger again. My bird this time.

The quiet that followed was almost

startling, but finally Jim spoke. "Four
dead snows out there."

"You need a feeding area and plenty
of decoys," Clark said as we climbed
out of the blind to recover our prizes.
"We were lucky. The birds don't feed
in the same place every day. That's one
of the problems, but they can rout up
a field and it's easy to see where they
have been feeding."

Calling also helps, but the better
callers use their mouths only to imitate
the high pitched yelp of the birds.

Snow geese are not nearly as predic-
table as Canadas, and they will not
stand much hunting pressure. They

FEBRUARY 1988

17

'•■"imr^-

j: ...Kf

-«i^'

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A

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l-^--

may abandon a heavily hunted field.
So, the better guides and hunters try to
have several locations.

A good feeding area, a blind, and
plenty of decoys is one approach to
successful snow goose hunting — and
calling helps.

Another approach is to locate a fly-
way close to a resting area so the birds
will still be low and within range when
they fly out to feed. One good exam-
ple is the Game Department's Har-
bours Hill Waterfowl Management
Area on Back Bay. Hunters who are
successful in drawing blinds there often
get good shooting right after legal

hunting time, as the birds leave the
Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge
and head out to feed. This is pass
shooting, of course, and it is usually
limited to a few minutes each morn-
ing. Many waterfowlers bag their first
snow geese out of those Barbours Hill
blinds.

Incidentally, it is the greater snow
goose that taunts waterfowlers over
those shallow Back Bay waters. The
estimated North American population
is between 1 75,000 and 200,000 birds,
and it's growing. TTiese are eastern
birds that winter along the Atlantic
Coast from southern New Jersey to

20

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

1

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^HMv ^i^^^^^l

Virginia's greatest concentrations of mmm^^^^gmm^^^^^^^^^^^^^

which are realhj just a ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|

color phase of lesser snow goose ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^|

race, occur in Chincoteague; photo by ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M

^^V^^^^^^flH^^^^^T ^mT^Lt 1^1

^^V^^^^^^^^^^P^^fl^pv ^^^^^^^H^^^^^^^^A^^P|k^^BJ^^HB^^^^^^^B^ ^^^^^PH^^H^^^^^Hi

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^^^H^Hd^HH

North Carolina.

Averaging seven to eight pounds,
snow geese are slightly smaller than
the better known and more popular
Canadas.

There are also a few lesser snows
mingled in with the more abundant
greater snows of Virginia, but not
many. Although the same species,
they are a different race of snows, not
normally interbreeding because of
geographical limitations. The lesser
snows are inland birds and their con-
tinental population far exceeds that of

appear in dark gray or blue color
phases, this is a rare occurrence among
the greater snows of the Atlantic Coast.
The best place to get a look at a "blue
goose" is at Chincoteague, where con-
centrations of the lesser snows in some
years can be considerable.

In any case, we are lucky to be able
to hunt the snow goose. Let's hope
their populations continue to prosper,
providing us with great sport and
memorable days, and something won-
derful to look forward to next
season. □

the greater snows.

While the lesser snows sometimes

^^ iP^

Bob Gooch is a newspaper columnist and con-
tributor to many outdoor magaziries.

FEBRUARY 1988

21

-s;

F^

On the

WILD side

Virginia's Project WILD is bringing wildlife
conservation into our schools — and it's fun.

Picture this. The gym floor is the
Chesapeake Bay. Plankton and
detritus cover the floor in the
form of tiny squares of colored paper.
Mysterious white squares dot the sur-
face, too. Into this ecosystem Susan
Gilley sends a flurry of teachers in the
form of insects, fish, and osprey.

"How many fish do I have now?"
she asks. Hands go up.

"You're not a fish, you're an insect,"
one teacher admonishes another.

Then the race is on. First the insects
dash in to feed on the plankton, gath-
ering as much confetti as they can in
the allotted 30 seconds. Into their
orange stomachs (plastic orange bags)
goes the confetti. Then the fish dash
in, tagging as many insects as they can
in the allotted time. The tagged insects
must head for the sidelines after sur-
rendering their stomachs to the fish.
Then the osprey swoop down on the
fish, capturing as many food bags as
they can. When it's all over, the sur-
viving insects, fish, and osprey gather
in a circle to examine the contents of
their bags. It seems they've gathered
more than they bargained on, since the
white squares were DDT.

"If more than one third of your diet

FEBRUARY 1988

by Nancy Hugo
photos by Cindie Brunner

is DDT, you're dead," says Gilley. In
this population, only one insect, one
fish, and one osprey survive.

Fortunately, Gilley is able to explain
that osprey populations in Virginia are
actually burgeoning, but the point of
the exercise has not been lost: pesti-
cides are dangerous when they accumu-
late in the food chain.

The activity is called "Deadly
Links," and it is one of dozens of activ-
ities presented as part of Project WILD
(Wildlife in Learning Design), a con-
servation and environmental educa-
tion program emphasizing wildlife. The
teachers in this case are 5 th to 8th
grade teachers at Stafford Middle
School, and they are participating in
an all-day workshop led by Gilley.

"Can you use this exercise in youi
classes?" asks Gilley.

"Definitely," is the chorus of re-
plies. A math teacher suggests stu-
dents could figure the ratio of DDT to
detritus and plankton; a P.E. teacher
envisions combining the food chain
activity with physical exercise; a science
teacher thinks this may be the only
way to channel energy into the class
after a rainy day recess.
Enthusiasm and appreciation are

23

A teachers group's fantasy bird evolved
out of the Project WILD activity ''Adap-
tation Artistry/' designed to identify the
advantage of bird adaptations and evalu-
ate their importance to the animal.

the hallmarks of the day as Gilley leads
teachers through the Project WILD
materials. Activity guides will be left
with the teachers at the end of the day,
and teachers will know how to use
them to supplement the classroom
curriculum.

With the guides, teachers can choose
activities appropriate for each grade
level. The activities, which correlate
well with the State Standards of Learn-
ing Objectives (SOL's), will teach
required concepts and skills while at
the same time teaching about conser-
vation, wildlife and the environment.
Activities like "Grasshopper Gravity"
and "Environmental Barometer" can
be used in mathematics; "Muskox
Maneuvers" and "The Thicket Game"
can supplement P.E.; "Adaptation
Artistry" and "Forest in a Jar" suit
science; and "Shrinking Habitat" and
"Classroom Carrying Capacity" com-
plement Social Studies. Activities are
also listed by skills, so that a teacher
needing to stress evaluation, analysis,
listening, inference, or other major
skills can select an activity designed to
develop that skill. Whatever academic
skills the Project WILD materials
teach, however, their most important
lesson is an appreciation of wildlife

and of the environment upon which
all life depends.

Consider the activity "How Many
Bears Can Live in this Forest?" a favor-
ite of the teachers at the Stafford Mid-
dle School. The objective of the activ-
ity is to define carrying capacity, but
the teachers playing the bears learned
more. Each teacher took the role of a
bear in search of food on the forest
(gym) floor. Colored paper squares
represented the bears' food with each
color representing the proportion of
nuts, berries, insects, meat, and plants
in the bears' diet.

The bears were allowed to walk into
the forest, gather food one piece at a
time, and return it to their dens
(manilla envelopes stationed at the
edge of the "habitat"). Gilley pointed
out this was clearly un-bear-like be-
havior since bears would gobble their
berries on the spot, but adjustments
were necessary for the sake of the
game.

The complication factors were these:
one bear, blinded in an encounter with
a porcupine, would have to search for
his food blindfolded. Another bear,
injured in a tussle with another male,
would have to pretend he had a
broken leg and hop on one foot to his

food. A third bear, a mother with two
cubs, would have to gather twice as
much food as the other bears.

On Gilley's cue and following a few
warnings ("No pushing, shoving or
running" and "Bears do not steal food
from other bear's dens") the food
search began. Colored paper squares
disappeared like hall passes on Mon-
day morning. Only the injured bears
had a hard time gathering their food.

"I'm starving," one remarked in
desperation. "I'm not going to live
through the year."

24

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

He was right. As soon as all the food
was gone, Gilley had each bear exam-
ine the contents of his manilla enve-
lope. Based on research in Arizona,
each bear needed to gather the equi-
valent of 80 pounds of food to survive
for 10 days, but Gilley had put a little
less than enough food for each bear on
the floor. In this poor habitat, eight
bears had not managed to gather
enough food to keep them alive for 10
days, and the injured bears had
gathered barely enough to make it to
mid-week. Most desperate, however.

was the mother bear who needed 160
pounds of food to keep both her and
her cubs alive but had managed to
gather only 98 pounds.

"Here, Peggy," said one sympathetic
teacher/bear to the starving mother.
"You can have some of the food I
gathered."

That un-bear-like behavior became
the subject of much discussion, as did
Gilley's revelation that a real mother
bear would eat first, leaving her cubs
what was left.

Gilley explained that she might have
further limited the carrying capacity of
the land by throwing hula hoops
around some of the food to represent
shopping centers. Or she might have
used white paper scraps to symbolize
the styrofoam, plastic, and paper that
makes up a part of some bears' diets.
The opportunities seemed endless for
using "How Many Bears Can Live in
this Forest?" as a classroom teaching
tool.

All over the state Susan Gilley and a
score of trained volunteers have been
spreading enthusiasm for Project
WILD. Small wonder. The program,
which is free to teacher participants,
includes six hours of instruction. Pro-
ject WILD activity guides, folders of

instructional material including color-
ful pictures of Virginia's wildlife, and
follow-up newsletters. Not only school
teachers, but 4-H leaders, scout lead-
ers and environmental educators at-
tend.

"Anyone who works with kids
benefits from the workshops," says
Gilley, who emphasizes that Project
WILD materials are available only
after six hours of training in their use.
Gilley, along with volunteer facilita-
tors who have gone through a two-day
training process, offer WILD work-
shops to groups of 20 or more people.
An in-service day, a Saturday, or two
three-hour sessions after school pro-
vide the best blocks of time for
teachers.

Funding for the Virginia program is
supported by the Game Department's
Nongame and Endangered Species
Program and the Izaak Walton League
of Virginia.

In 1986, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service provided monies through the
Wallop-Breaux Amendment to the
Sport Fish Restoration Act for the
development of a Project WILD
Aquatic Activity Guide. The guide
features 40 new activities dealing with
aquatic wildlife species. In addition to
the new activities, there are 82 exten-
sions to the original WILD activities.
"There's a perfect tie-in with Virgi-
nia's emphasis on cleaning up the
Bay," says Gilley, who is particularly
excited about the new aquatic mate-
rials.

The Aquatic Project WILD guides
will be available through a four-hour
in-service teacher workshop beginning
in the spring of 1988. The materials
will be available along with the other
Project WILD materials in extended
workshops.

Teachers, administrators, environ-
mental educators and youth leaders
interested in a WILD workshop may
contact Susan Gilley, Project WILD
Coordinator, at the Virginia Depart-
ment of Game and Inland Fisheries,
P.O. Box 1 1 104, Richmond, Virginia
23230-1104; 804/367-1000. Partic-
ipants are guaranteed a wild — and
wonderful — experience. □

Nancy Hugo is a freelance outdoor writer who
lives in Ashland.

FEBRUARY 1988

25

by Nancy Hugo

FAST FOOD FOR

Cedar berries come in handy for migrating birds taking their meals on the wing.

What pops up beside every
new highway, serves low
quality food, and is visited
by flocks of hungry travelers?

It's the Eastern red cedar — the plant
world's equivalent of a fast food res-
taurant. Cedar trees pop up like weeds
along roadsides and in untended pas-
tures, but although we think of them
as invaders, they bring riches when
they come.

Cedar berries are an important
source of wildlife food, and their ever-
green foliage provides important pro-
tective and nesting cover. Cedar wax-
wings, bluebirds, robins, mocking-
birds, starlings, and yellow-rumped
warblers all feed on cedar berries. Jun-
cos, sparrows, hermit thrushes, mock-
ingbirds and cardinals use them as
roosting cover. Chipping sparrows,
robins, song sparrows and mocking-
birds use them as one of their favorite
nesting sites. They are one of the best
places to look for long-eared owls in
the winter.

Although in times of scarcity deer
will browse on cedar foliage, it is the
berries that are the tree's most valu-
able food. "Berries" is actually a mis-
nomer because the fleshy fruits of the
Eastern red cedar are technically cones.
(Red cedar cones are imbedded in a
fleshy growth that looks like a berry.)
It is the female trees that bear the blue
berries, although now and then a male
cedar will have a few berries. The ber-
ries are bom every year, and every two
or three years there is a bumper crop.

The berries mature in September
and October — just when many migra-
tory birds arrive. These flocks of avian
frugivores (fruit-eating birds) like cedar
waxwings can deplete an entire crop of
cedar berries in a matter of days, but
their impact is much like that of tour
buses at the local McDonald's — it's as

The Eastern red cedar is an excellent fast food stop for hungry birds on their way south;
photo by Rob Simpson.

26

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

FRUGIVORES

unpredictable as it is ravaging.

Biologist Anthony Holthuijzen, who
did extensive research at Virginia Poly-
technic Institute and State University
on red cedars and on the birds who
feed on them, found that it is not just
the flock feeders that are responsible
for removing cedar berries; it's regular
customers also who feed consistently
on the berries. It was single foragers
like the yellow-rumped warbler that
he observed most often feeding on
cedar berries. Resident birds like the
downy woodpecker, the Northern
mockingbird, and the Eastern bluebird
also feed slowly and consistently on
cedar berries.

Virginia ornithologist Jerry Via,
who kept an injured cedar waxwing in
captivity for several months and fed it
cedar berries, found that his bird lost
interest in the berries after they'd been
hit with a heavy frost, and he believes
the resinous berries become much less
palatable to birds after the first frost.
Holthuijzen found, however, that it is
in winter that the bulk of a red cedar's
fruit crop is removed. Although he
observed that flock feeders consume
cedar berries in September and Octo-
ber, Holthuijzen found that the bulk
of most red cedar berry crops is not
removed until late November-January,
when other food sources of higher
quality have been depleted.

It should come as no surprise to a
species that chooses Big Macs over
brussel sprouts that researchers have
found that factors governing food
selection are complex and incompletely
understood. It has generally been
assumed that animals will uncon-
sciously choose the foods that meet
their nutritional requirements, and
most reported observations suggest
that high quality fruits like dogwood
berries (rich in carbohydrates, lipids,

Cedar waxiiings (above) and yellow-rumped warblers (belcnv) are two of Virginia's
birds that feed on cedar berries; photos by Rob Sivnpson. Next page: Virginia has no lack
of red cedar tree stands, especially at the foot of the Massanutten Mountains in the
Shenandoah Valley; photo by Rob Simpson.

FEBRUARY 1988

27

and proteins) are eaten by birds before
low quality fruits like cedar berries.
However, when you consider which
foods yield the most nutrients per unit
search and handling effort, the most
profitable fruits are not always taken
first.

Just how important a food source
cedar berries are was emphasized by
William Van Dersal of the U.S. Soil
Conservation Service in the 1930s.
After his review of several thousand
records on plants and animals (includ-
ing stomach, crop and scat records as
well as observations in the literature).
Van Dersal compiled a list to repres-
ent the "Utilization of Woody Plants
as Food by Wildlife." ]unipeTus virgi-
niana (which is the botanical name for
Eastern red cedar), appeared at the top
of the list as used by more birds and
mammals (71 species) than any other
woody plant. That ranking can't be
entirely accurate, because foods like
"acorns" not specifically identified in
the literature were not ranked, and
because red cedar is probably over-
represented due to the relative ease of
observing animals feeding on red ce-
dars as opposed to other plants, but
the listing was enough to suggest that
cedars were a more important to wild-
life food than previously believed.

Alexander Martin, Herbert Zim and
Arnold Nelson compiled a more
comprehensive guide to wildlife food
habitats in 1951, and their American
Wildlife and Plants: A Guide to Wildlife
Food and Habits (1951) is still the
standard text on the subject. In their
star rating system which ranks food
sources according to their value to
wildlife, cedar (all Juniperus species)
ranks eighth among woody plants in a
national listing. Only oak, pine, black-
berry, wild cherry, dogwood, grap»e
and poison ivy precede it. This is a bit
misleading for our area because cedar
berries are used more extensively in
the prairies, in the Pacific region, and
in the western mountain and desert
regions than here, but cedar ranks 2 1st

28

VIRGINIA WILDLIFE

FEBRUARY 1988

and 24th among woody plant usage in
the Northeast and Southeast respec-
tively.

Martin, Zim and Nelson identify 44
animals and birds who rely on cedar
berries. Cedar waxwings stand out as
the gluttons among the group. Cedar
berries make up 25-50% of the cedar
waxwing's diet, and Holthuijzen found
they can consume an average of 53
berries an hour.

Red cedar berries are not only a
boon to birds, but the birds help the
trees as well. Birds that feed on the
berries help disperse the cedar seeds.
The typical line of cedars along a fence-
row is often "planted" there by birds
who fed on cedar berries and then
excreted the seeds where they p)erched.
Holthuijzen found evidence that pas-
sage through the bird's digestive sys-
tem actually enhances the seed's ger-
mination. Birds are also instrumental
in the red cedar seeding of pastures
where seedlings often form a "shadow"
of decreasing density the farther you
get from the parent tree.

Cedars are so easy to grow that they
should probably be the mainstay of
any landscape designed for wildlife.
They will grow in poor dry soil where
little else will grow, and they actually
improve the soil on which they grow.
Researchers have found that worm
activity and other beneficial processes
increase under cedars, and since their
litter is high in calcium, they raise the
pH of the soil on which they grow.

Sun is the main requirement. In
shade they grow thin and ragged, but
in the sun they grow fat and full. Left
where they can grow to a ripe old age
(sometimes as old as 300 years), they
become handsome specimen trees with
fluted trunks and beautiful peeling
bark.

The next time you see a cedar, give it
the respect it deserves. Think of it as a
treasure in the landscape, as welcome
to birds as a golden arch. □

'Nancy Hugo is a freelance outdoor writer who
lives in Ashland.

29

Safety For
Boaters

by Jim Meuninck

Boaters who fall overboard into
cold water, 65°F or less, can survive
for surprisingly long periods of time.

Once you hit the water you have
two primary concerns: One, avoid
drowning until rescued. And, two,
avoid hypothermia by lessening the
heat wicking action of cold water
against your skin.

By wearing your life vest, of course,
you may avoid drowning, but what
about hypothermia? Your first judge-
ment call is to measure the swim to
safety. If you believe, beyond a doubt,
that you can swim to shore, or to your
drifting boat with littie difficulty —
then do so quickly as possible. If,
however, the distance to safety and the
extreme cold of the water makes it
suicidal to swim, you must — until
rescued — practice one of the follow-
ing maneuvers to stem the loss of heat
from your body.

According to Ron Stewart, M.D.
(from the book Management of Wil-
demess and Environmental Injuries, Mac-
millian Publishing) you can cut your
heat loss in half by folding your fore-
arms across your chest and pressing
your upper arms against your sides.
Then draw your legs up to your chest
and cross your feet at the ankles.
Avoid treading water or swimming.
This cold water survival posture is
called H.E.L.P. (Heat Escape Lessen-
ing Posture). It is obvious, in order to
maintain this position you must be
wearing a life jacket.

We found the H.E.L.P. position
difficult to maintain with some types
of life jackets. Some life jackets cause
you to roll to your chest or stomach,
dunking your head under water (With
your head vinderwater, heat escapes
most rapidly from your head into the
water, thereby defeating the purpose
of H.E.L.P.). So, be certain to test
your life vest to determine if it will

From

the
Backcountry

Oops!

keep your chest up and face out of the
water in the H.E.L.P. position.

When two or more persons are
overboard in cold water, the Huddle
technique may be used to lessen heat
loss. First, put your life jacket on
backwards so you can hug the other
person. Press your chests, groin and
legs inward against each other. Place
small children in the middle of the
huddle. As the name implies, this
looks much like a football huddle, but
more intimate. Try to make as much
body contact as possible. Refrain from
swimming and treading water.

As mentioned, H.E.L.P. and Hud-
dle may double your survival time in
cold water when compared to merely
treading water. The Ufe saving pos-
tures decrease body surface area and
protect the groin and abdomen.

But, both systems of survival should
be practiced beforehand. Once in an
emergency situation, no one will be in
the mood for instruction. Also, keep
in mind that what you are wearing will
increase your survival time in cold
water. Certainly, high-tech clothing
like polypropylene (or thermolactyl,
Damart; capilene, Patagonia) long
imderwear and vapor barrier clothing,
covered by a synthetic pile shell will
provide additional protection from
heat loss in cold water. On the other
hand, any fisherman worth his salt will
be wearing an uncombed, oily, virgin
wool outer garment. Now, there's an
old time remedy that holds in the heat,
even when soaking wet. □

In the October 1987 issue, we
incorrectly credited Lynda Richard-
son with the photo on page three. Our
apologies to the photographer, Kevin
D. Shank, for the mistake.

Upcoming
Hunter
Education
Classes

Below are the hunter education
classes being offered this month as of
our press date. However, some classes
may have been added to this list since
that time. Call the Game Department,
Hunter Education Information, at
804/367-1000 for more details.

The courses offered below fulfill
the current mandatory hunter educa-
tion requirement for all new hunters
and those 16 years of age and younger.
District 1— Central and South
Central Virginia
Location: Chesterfield Court House,

Central Library
Date: February 16, 17, 18
Time: 6:00 - 9:30 p.m.
Contact: Chesterfield County Parks
and Recreation Department
Phone: 804/748-1623

Location: Rescue Squad Building,

Powhatan
Date: February 27 and 28
Time: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m. and

2 p.m - 6 p.m.
Contact: BillBritton
Phone: 804/379-1364

District 4 — Northwest Virginia

Location: War Memorial Building,

Madison County
Date: February 7 and 14
Time: 1 p.m. - 6 p.m.
Contact: Steve Hoffman
Phone: 703/948-4453

j^

Planting for
Wildlife

by Nancy Hugo

One of the first things we did when
we moved into our house was to cut
down the brier bush next to the front
porch. Surely anything so thorny was
a weed, and a good gardener would
want to get rid of it. It wasn't until
several years later that I realized I'd cut
down a Japanese barberry, a shrub
that's not only of value to wildlife, but
a beautiful garden shrub as well.

Fortunately, nature recovers from
our mistakes, and my barberries have
grown back. At the moment, they are
a dense tangle of thorny branches with
delicate tear-shaped red berries and a
few crimson leaves leftover from fall.
They're particularly beautiful in the
snow because the stems bear the weight
of the snow and the red berries hang
like jewels beneath them.

It seems inconceivable to me now
that I ever wanted to get rid of my
barberrry, but often when we're
"cleaning up," thorny plants are the
first to go. If we considered their value
for wildlife cover and nesting sites,
they might be the plants we value
most.

"The gardening slob is the bird's
best friend," I read in a gardening
book once, and the author made a case
for letting more of our ramblers and
thorny hedge plants grow without
pruning them. There's some truth to
that because we often ruin the value of
our shrubs for wildlife by clipping
them before they can bloom and set
seed or by clipping them so severely
they become impenetrable. Barberries
and other thorny hedge plants will
offer the greatest value to wildlife
where they can be left to grow with as
little pruning as possible. Actually, the
barberry's natural shape is beautiful,
and judicious pruning will easily keep
it in bounds.

Berberis thuvhergii, the Japanese bar-
berry, is a deciduous shrub with yel-

low wood that usually grows to about
five feet. In the spring it has bright
green foliage and dainty yellow flow-
ers. The stamens of the flowers are
sensitive to touch and will spring
toward the center of the flower if
you — or a bee — touches them. The
shrub is native to Japan but has natu-
ralized here where it can be seen grow-
ing along roadsides, in pastures, open
woods, and gardens.

The barberry is not only great as a
hedge plant, but it's good for comers
and as a filler shrub in the border.
Barberries will put a stop to pedestrian
traffic wherever they grow, because
the branches are not only thorny, but
they're closely spaced — the very rea-
son birds love them so. They're fast-
growing (three years after I cut mine to
the ground, they were back to their
original size, about four feet), and
they're easy to grow. "If the Japanese
barberry won't grow in a trying spot,
no other woody shrub will," writes
Wyman in his gardening encyclope-
dia. They'll grow in poor soil and
although they prefer full sun, they do
fine in partial shade.

Mockingbirds, waxwings and spar-
rows eat the bright red fruits in winter,
although many of the fruits can still be
found clinging to the plants in the
spring. Sometimes they provide food
to returning migrants. The European

barberry, B. vulgaris, and the Darwin
barberry, B. darwinii, reportedly have
greater appeal to birds as food than the
Japanese barberry, but B. vulgaris is
one of the most susceptible of the bar-
berries to a wheat rust that's a bane to
grain farmers. There are also several
varieties of evergreen barberries.

Another member of the barberry
family of value to wildlife is the Oregon
grape holly or Mahonia. It's a beautiful
shrub that has no thorns but it does
have intimidating spines on its glossy
evergreen leaves. Bees love its May-
blooming clusters of small yellow
flowers, and many small birds and
mammals eat the grape-like black fruits
that ripen later in the summer. Its
dense foliage provides protective
cover.

Mahoruas prefer moist acid soil,
and they thrive in the shade. They are
one of the few shrubs that enjoy the
company of walnuts.

Both barberries and mahonias can
be propagated from seeds or from
softwood or hardwood cuttings. It's
also easy to divide mahonias with a
sharp spade. Young plants are avail-
able at most nurseries. Once the plants
are established, birds will spread the
seeds, and you'll find new plants pop-
ping up all over the yard. Fight the
urge to remove them, and the birds
will thank you for it. □

Letters

December Editorial

It's been two weeks since I received
my first copy of Virginia Wildlife and
my concern for sensible hunting and
sane hunters hasn't abated.

How many animals are killed need-
lessly? How many nincompoops are
adequately trained or self-educated to
use weapons? How many cows, auto-
mobiles, no hunting signs, as well as
barns (not to mention hunters) are
shot every year?

It seems frivolous to me to intro-
duce a magazine dedicated to hunting
with a discussion of "proper attire"
when there are important issues about
life, safety, sanity and respect for
mother nature.

I work for the ski patrol at Massa-
nutten and find the "ski set" more
polite, more conscious of safety, and
more sensible than most of the hun-
dred of hunters that have violated our
no hunting signs, trespassed, shot holes
in my car and bam and generally either
have been rude or devious when
confronted.

LenJ.
Madison

Your most recent editorial (Decem-
ber, 87) hit the bull's-eye again. You

really do have a gift for writing in that
rare fusion of both the professional
and the personal. Perhaps you are so
able to do this because your profes-
sional opinion is backed by your per-
sonal experience. Whatever the rea-
son, I hope you continue to instruct us
all so gently and persuasively.

Gerald P. McCanhy
Virginia Environmental Endowment

Richmond

Tribute

Your October 1987 cover editorial
tribute to Latane Trice was an excel-
lent testimonial to a personal friend
and neighbor. Your message to the
readers about the tradition of "Brother
Latane," as he is known to many of us
in King and Queen, reflects quite
accurately many of the traditions of
Southern hospitality, good sports-
manship and love of the land that he
has tried to live by and instill into the
younger generations.

Robert Shackleford, ]r.
Newtown

A New Idea

I believe there is a means to substan-
tially increase the number of subscrip-
tions to Virginia Wildlife.

I became acquainted with Virginia

Wildlife during a visit to a doctor's
office. A copy of the publication was
available on the magazine table. This
was many years ago and I have sus-
cribed regularly ever since. Recently, I
began saving a few copies in order to
have a few on hand should a neighbor
child need reference for a composition
at school or if I visit a doctor's office
and not find a copy of Virginia Wild-
life available in the supply of maga-
zines. I not only mention the availabil-
ity, but I hand him a copy and make
sure there is a subscription form
included. You would be surprised at
how many are not only receptive but
appreciative.

You have a tremendous publication
and one that is very much in need as a
means to promote conservation of our
resources and respect for life that is in
danger of being eradicated in some
instances. I know of no magazine that
does more to build respect for these
creatures of the wild than does this
type of publication. I feel very sure
there are many people who would be
glad to help in this way if it were but
suggested to them.

Fred Molzhon
Newport News

Thanks so much for "spreading the
word." — Editor

13th Mid-Atlantic Wildfowl Festival

Art, Carvings and Photography

$8000.00 Carving Competition

Auction

Buy, Swop and Sell Area

Duck and Goose Calling Contest with Prizes -$1200.00

Friday: Hands-on Decoy Painting Seminar- by Jim Sprankle

Saturday: For Children 12 and under: FREE Decoy Painting Seminar with
decoy and materials furnished. Co-sponsored by The Virginia
Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. • 77^7117, — \

For information contact:

Dr. C. Alison Drescher
105 N. Plaza Trail, Suite D-5
Virginia Beach, Virginia 23452
(804)481-5157, (804) 340 1153

M\RG(N/4

Department ot Ga

13th ANNUAL

MID ATLANTIC

111!

RWIUON

VIRGINIA BEACH, VA
MARCH 4,5,6, 1988

Striped Bass Cookery

by Annette Bignami

This is the season to catch striped
bass in our lakes, and more than few of
us might need to know what to do
with the "little ones" that don't end up
on our walls. Annette Bignami shares
some ideas:

Cook's Treat Stripers

I /3 pound fish fillets or steaks per person''
I cube butter or margarine, melted
1 medium onion, chopped
3 stalks celery, diced
I tsp. each of thyme, sage and parsley
I cup raw rice (makes 2 cups cooked)
1 small can green olives, drained
salt and pepper to taste
*rest of ingrediervts serve 4

Set oven at 350 degrees. Fillet or
steak striper one-half to one-inch
thick. Then wash and pat dry with
paper towel. Steam or boil rice. Melt
butter or margarine in a skillet and
saute' onion 5 to 7 minutes or until
tender. Add celery and saute' 4 min-
utes more before stirring in cooked
rice and and seasonings with a fork so
rice stays fluffy.

Either move ingredients to buttered
ovenware or simply put the skillet in
oven after adding single layer of fish
and topping with olives.

Cover with foil and cook in 350
degree oven for 20 minutes or until
fish flakes with a fork. Serve with
vegetable and salad. Leftovers can be
reheated for the next day's lunch.

Stripers in Red Wine &
Mushrooms

IY2 pownds leftover poached or baked

striper fillets
3 uMespoorxs butter or margarine
I rr\edium onion, chopped
I cup fresh mushrooms, sliced

3 tablespocms flour

I garlic clove, minced

1 cup fish stock or clam juice

2 tablespoons tomato paste

1 cup red wine

2 tomatoes

4 or 5 potatoes, boiled and mashed for
piping

3 tablespoons butter or margarine for
topping

14 cup bread crumbs
parsley to garnish

Cut striped bass into one-inch
chunks. Melt butter over low heat and
add onion, cover and cook 2 minutes.
Add mushrooms, raise heat and cook
until tender. Remove pan from heat,
stir in flour, garlic, stock or clam juice,
tomato paste and salt and pepper to
taste. Bring to a boil, lower heat and
sinuner 3 minutes. Reduce wine in a
separate saucepan to one-third cup,
then stir into sauce. Peel, quarter and
boil potatoes, then mash with butter
and a little cream. Add striper to stock
pot with wine. Simmer 5 minutes.
Slice tomatoes into 8 wedges. Add to
pot and toss until well coated.

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Spoon
fish and sauce into individual baking
dishes or scallop shells. Pipe hot
mashed potatoes around edges. Melt
remaining butter and quickly brown
bread crumbs. Sprinkle on fish, gar-
nish with parsley and set dishes on a
baking sheet to catch spillovers in the
oven for 5 to 7 minutes. We serve this
with green beans, homemade soda
bread and coffee cream parfaits for
dessert.

Consider the fisher.
They're so unknown to
most of us that we feel just
about as comfortable dis-
cussing a tree hyrax. Even
the name fisher is strange.
A student asked me, "Why
fisher — Does it feed on
fish?"

The average fisher prob-
ably never sees a fish in its
lifetime. I found in a publi-
cation by fisher specialist
Roger Powell that though
the origin of the common
name, fisher, is unknown,
chances are Dutch settlers
noted the resemblance of
the fisher to the dark phase
of the European polecat.
Among the names for the
polecat are fichet, ficheus,
and /iitcheu;— derived from
a Dutch term meaning
nasty.

Like the European pole-
cat— which is our pet shop
"ferret," the fisher, Martes
pennanti, is a member of
the carnivore family Mus-
telidae. Along with skunks,
weasels, minks and river
otters, the fisher is one of
seven species of mustelids
in the Commonwealth.

Too, like other members
of the family it possesses
anal glands that produce
odoriferous secretions for
marking territory and com-
munication— but not for
the spraying kind of pro-
tection that has reached its
maximum extreme in
skunks.

Although an adult male
fisher is about fox-size, it
has the nearly ground hug-
ging build of most members
of its family, but not as
highly pronounced as in
the highly carnivorous wea-
sel. The fisher, both in form
and function, is more of a
generalist than the weasel
and is at home in burrows,
on land, and in the trees.

Items in the fisher's diet
are variable and include

VIRGINIA'S

The
Fisher

by John Pagels
photo by Leonard Lee Rue, III

WILDLIFE

both birds and mammals.
The snowshoe hare is ex-
tremely rare in Virginia,
but to the north where it is
more abundant, the snow-
shoe hare is common prey
of the fisher. But talk about
sore gums! The fisher is
among the very few mam-
mals to prey on the porcu-
pine. The porcupine doesn't
occur in Virginia but it's an
interesting story. The agile,
short-Umbed fisher repeat-
edly attacks the head area
of the porcupine where it
lacks quills. Both are good
climbers, and in tree situa-
tions, the fisher often at-
tacks from above. When
the porcupine dies of shock
or blood loss, feeding be-
gins from the ventral side,
also devoid of quills and
the fisher neatly "skins"
the porcupine from the
inside while consuming all
but the largest bones and a

few other parts.

According to Powell, the
average fisher eats the equi-
valent of from one to two
squirrels or seven to 22
mice every day. As you
would expect, there are very
few fishers per unit area.
Probably only about one
per every five to 10 square
miles. Fishers are solitary
animals.

Certainly, a couple of
adult fishers have to get
together at least once a year.
As a result of that, one to
five (usually three) kits are
bom in the spring. The kits
are very dependent on the
mother for several months,
but at about five months
the young disperse as the
result of intrafamihal aggres-
sion. And mom is alone
again for the winter. Pop is
alone and probably far
away. And so are the young.

Like several other kinds

of mammals that have life
styles that keep them gready
spread out for most of the
year, the fisher has a special
reproductive strategy. It
involves the female being
pregnant for about 350 days
a year, including the time
that she is nursing and car-
ing for a litter.

Fishers mate only a few
days after giving birth, but
the zygote develops only to
an early stage known as the
blastocyst, which consists
of only a few hundred cells.
Growth of the blastocyst is
arrested for 10 months or
more, and it floats around
in the uterus until late win-
ter until it finally implants
and development ensues in
a typical mammalian fash-
ion. About 30 days after
implantation the young are
bom and we're back at the
beginning of the story.

But why such a special
strategy? Why not mate in
late winter? Well, think
about hanging around with
a partner in the winter and
having to come up with
about 40 mice every day.
Or 40 squirrels every 10
days. Another hint. TThink
about the end of a long,
winter. It's still cold, the
animals are thin and hungry,
the prey population is low,
but the males and females
still have to find each other.
After all if they didn't mate,
then the young would be
bom too late in the spring
to grow and prepare for
winter.

Now it's clear. They don't
have to mate too early, or
later because the female is
already pregnant — has been
for almost 10 months or
more. Another of the neat
adaptations up Mother Na-
ture's sleeve. □

John Pagels is a biologist at Vir-
ginia Commonwealth University
who specializes in Virginia
mammab.

*■ ♦\

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