This is no turkey of an urban legend

Spokane’s “Near Nature, Near Perfect” slogan is no longer a stretch, considering that a wild turkey was bagged last week in the heart of downtown.

Peregrine falcons have been hot topics of conversation among downtown office workers in recent years, but here at the Good Paper, we have outdone the Sprague Avenue raptor watchers by a good 15 pounds.

A jake (first-year male) flew toward The Spokesman-Review building Friday morning and smacked into a third-floor window. Imagine the surprise of the female employee who was a mere pane of glass away from a close encounter with a fella named Tom and maybe a peck on the cheek in her upstairs office.

Just as shocked was the driver of the pickup that tenderized the massive bird on Monroe Street as it tumbled from the sky.

Many questions remain unanswered.

Was this a high-flying society bird from the Spokane Club, or a castaway from under the Maple Street bridge?

Was it the blonde in the third-floor window that tempted the jake to fly so high?

Does this have implications for the type of decoys turkey hunters should set out to attract gobblers on opening day, or should we all get in line and schedule Janice to accompany us on our hunts this season?

One thing is certain: A turkey shot by a hunter will be treated with much more dignity than a bird dispatched by a Ford F-150 on a city street.

Before the professionals in The Spokesman-Review Outdoors Department could handle the turkey corpse with due respect, a basement worker disposed of the bird in an industrial trash compactor.

Gravy anyone?

I don’t think I’ll be buying pressed turkey anytime soon.

Humming along: A Spokane resident reported a fleeting glimpse of a hummingbird last weekend even as the chilly weather set in. She probably wasn’t seeing things.

Spokane birder Jim Acton has recorded a Calliope hummingbird arriving as early as April 3 in the past, and the earliest hummingbird sighting officially recorded by Coeur d’Alene Audubon was a Calliope on April 5, 2005.

“The normal window is April 13-15,” Acton said, “but with our mild winters, a lot of species seem to be arriving earlier. Strange things are happening.”

Elk on the fence: Lawmakers in Olympia are holding the purse strings to issues of major importance to wildlife – and wildlife enthusiasts.

For example, the recently released Senate budget proposal includes money for rebuilding 14 miles of elk fence destroyed two years ago by wildfires in the foothills of the Blue Mountains.

Since many non-wildlife interests will be trying to make a better case for that money, it’s important for sportsmen to back the Fish and Wildlife Department’s budget request for this and other wildlife projects.

The fence is needed to prevent elk from being driven out of the Wooten Wildlife Area and onto agricultural lands during extreme weather conditions.

“We’ve lucked out so far,” said Pat Fowler, department wildlife biologist in Walla Walla. “But if we have severe drought or a hard winter, those elk could head out all the way to the Snake River. If they do that, we’d never get them back to the Blues.”

That would leave wildlife mangers few alternatives other than reducing the herd.

This is no time for an elk setback. A helicopter survey last week counted 550 elk in the Tucannon herd, an increase from last year.

“Our goal is about 700,” Fowler said. “But we’ll never be able to get there if we can’t keep them off the croplands.”

Even bigger deal: While state budget requests are vital to wildlife in certain areas, the federal Farm Bill negotiations in Washington are of epic importance.

The 2002 Farm Bill, which expires this fall, was funded to the tune of $190 billion, including $70.1 billion for conservation programs that often are linked to improving wildlife habitat.

The importance of maintaining that level of conservation funding is steeped in countless details.

For example, the Conservation Reserve Program alone generates about $70 million in annual payments to farmers who plant permanent cover in croplands to improve air and water quality and provide wildlife habitat. Although the law says no more than 20 percent of the cropland in any county can be enrolled in CRP, exceptions have been granted.

New proposals would eliminate the exceptions that have been vital to protecting some wildlife, including Washington’s endangered sage grouse.

Douglas County currently exceeds the 20 percent quota by 45,000 acres of marginal cropland enrolled in CRP primarily to preserve sharptail and sage grouse habitat.

Without the exceptions provisions, those acres could be lost to cultivation, and so could the grouse.

This is just one of many details that deserve support.

What can you do?

“Sign up for Farm Bill updates and comment forms through the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, www.trcp.org.

“If you belong to a sizeable agricultural, business or wildlife group, consider booking a slide program on the conservation titles in the Farm Bill by Don Larsen, Fish and Wildlife Department agricultural liaison based in Spokane; (509) 323-2967 or e-mail larsedtl@dfw.wa.gov.