Killarney Lake Launch Available

The lower Coeur d’Alene River boat launch and campground at Killarney Lake, a popular staging area for North Idaho waterfowlers, has been closed for about three weeks.

But waterfowlers will get a brief reprieve for this weekend’s opening of the duck hunting season.

Contractors are repairing flood damage to the shoreline and preparing the area for eventual paving, said officials from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management, which manages the site.

Because the launch is important to waterfowlers who hunt the area, BLM has made an agreement with the contractor for a temporary opening of the launch on Saturday and Sunday. The contractor’s main request, BLM officials said, is that hunters avoid disturbing survey stakes in the area.

The site will remain closed to overnight camping.

The site will close again on Monday and remain closed until about Oct. 15.

Info: (208) 765-1511.

Colville issue on agenda

Consideration of a proposed agreement with the Colville Tribe, license simplification efforts and briefings on the Department of Fish and Wildlife’s 1997-99 budget highlight the agenda for Friday’s Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission meeting in Ellensburg.

The meet is scheduled for 11 a.m. in the Great Northern Room of the Best Western Inn, 1700 Canyon Road.

The Colville issue focuses on non-Indian hunting and fishing opportunities on the tribe’s reservation.

WDFW Director Bern Shanks is scheduled make presentations on the department’s budget, including its top five priorities for the biennium.

Other items on the agenda include:

An automated system for selling hunting and fishing licenses.

Status of the state’s developing Wild Salmonid Policy.

An amendment to the Hunter Education Training Program that would simplify requirements for purchasing a hunting license.

Geese open Oct. 11

Eastern Washington waterfowl hunters will have an unusual opportunity to open their general hunting seasons with the rising sun.

In recent years, waterfowlers have had to wait for the season to open at noon, with the upland bird seasons.

This year, the Eastern Washington duck hunting season will open half an hour before sunrise Oct. 4.

The general goose hunting season opens a half hour before sunrise on Oct. 11. The date was incorrectly reported in the Hunting ‘97 special section on Sept. 25.

Pheasant and quail hunters will, as usual, have to wait until noon on Oct. 11 for their season to open.

Grizzly bear hearings

Public hearings on an environmental impact statement on a proposal to introduce grizzly bears in the Bitterroot ecosystem of Montana and Idaho will be held in seven communities this month.

Meetings will include a Thursday session in Lewiston from 4 p.m.-8 p.m.

The alternative preferred by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services, and described in the draft, calls for the annual introduction of 3-5 bears into the Selway-Bitterroot ecosystem as a non-essential experimental population. A 15-member citizen management committee appointed by the Secretary of the Interior in consultation with governors of the two states and the Nez Perce Tribe, would oversee the project.

With bear reproduction occurring only once every three years, recovery of grizzlies in the system, based on reintroduction of at least five bears per year for five years, may take as long as 100 years.

Jail, fine for poacher

What began as an elk hunting trip into Idaho’s backcountry has ended with a trip to the Ada County jail for a Washington man.

David Ray Hoxie of Bremerton recently pleaded guilty to 10 wildlife violations spanning two years, including the fraudulent purchase of resident licenses and tags, and must now pay at least $5,500 in fines and restitution to the state of Idaho and spend 20 days in jail.

In 1995, Hoxie moved from Ada County and established residence in Washington. The following year, and again in 1997, he returned to Idaho and used an expired Idaho driver’s license to fraudulently purchase a resident hunting license and resident deer, elk and bear tags.

Idaho agents assembled enough evidence for a solid case against Hoxie and forwarded their information to Washington fish and Wildlife officer Brooks Carmichael, formerly of Spokane. Carmichael, with the aid of a search warrant, found several documents in Hoxie’s home that established Hoxie’s Washington residency, including a 1997 Washington fishing license.

, DataTimes