ROAR V3N10 Primetime Safari Wish This Saturday on The Outdoor Channel at 8:30 p.m EDT., the USA Outback cable television show hosted by Denny Snyder will profile an SCI Foundation Safari Wish hunt. Outback cameras follow Safari Wish hunter Mike Adams as he pursues a 10-point buck at Griffith Brothers Whitetail Ranch in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Adams, who has spina bifada, realizes his life-long hunting wish thanks to this carefully orchestrated hunt organized by SCI’s Allegheny Mountains Chapter. This USA Outback primetime feature on The Outdoor Channel also showcases the SCI Foundation’s Sportsmen Against Hunger and Sensory Safari programs. Check your local listings. For information about Safari Wish hunts call 800-377-5399. Support Celebrity Hunters Repeated calls by business groups for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to lose its nonprofit status because it has given money to ecoterrorist groups in the United States, have done little to stem PETA attacks on hunters and anglers. Most recently, Sports Illustrated noted that PETA asked NBA star Shaquille O’Neal to stop going on hunts, and both Western Outdoors and Bassmaster Magazine published editorials outlining PETA’s ongoing attempts to ban sport fishing. Celebrity hunters and anglers should be applauded for their efforts to maintain the outdoor tradition that the latest USFWS survey shows to be a $70 billion industry in the United States. Frankly, more sportsmen should join O’Neal, his friend and fellow NBA great Karl Malone, pop icon Madonna, actors Gerald McRaney and Joe Mantegna, and other VIPs in speaking out for hunting and fishing. For more information on how PETA and other activist groups spend their funds, go to www.ActivistCash.com. To express support for angling, visit www.FreedomToFish.org. Rats With Antlers The Dallas Morning News recently published a survey on deer population explosions across the United States with this telling quote: “They’ve really become like a pest,” said Princeton Township Mayor Phyllis Marchland. “People in our town call them (deer) rats with antlers.” Among the survey findings underscoring the importance of community support for professional wildlife management involving legal hunting are: 1) Nationwide, deer numbers have jumped 30 percent in the 1990’s to about 33 million animals today. 2) Texas has on average three times the deer of other states, with some 3.7 million deer. 3) In Pennsylvania alone, deer destroy $70 million-worth of crops annually. More Nuisance Wildlife & Attacks Reports of nuisance wildlife and wildlife attacks continue to fill the news, showing how critical it is for wildlife management professionals to have the decisionmaking freedom necessary to keep populations in balance: 1) A Bradenton, Fla. man was forced to move because his one-bedroom apartment became the favorite roosting spot of bats, reports FOXNEWS.com. 2) CBSNEWS.com announced that 12 people were killed on both sides of the India-Nepal border after a rogue elephant went rampaging through several villages. 3) The Boston Globe reports that Maine’s bear population increases 8-10 percent a year, and that police in Worcester were forced to cull a black bear that had scampered up a neighborhood tree. 4) The New York Times reports a woman luckily escaped with only minor injuries from a grizzly bear attack in Yellowstone National Monument. Forest Fire Impact In the wake of Colorado’s summer forest fires, state Division of Wildlife officials are working hard to measure the fires’ impact on the state’s wildlife. DOW, the US Forest Service and other agencies have formed the Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) coalition. Using data collected on the ground and in the air, BAER will determine the extent of damage to wildlife and wild habitats. “We’ll be creating a plan for reseeding, stabilization, and restoration of habitat,” said DOW Manager Ron Zaccagini. “The old age forest will be replaced with a new forest and growth. The food supply and habitat that was in short supply will be better – we’ll probably see an increase in deer and elk in the next few years. Our biggest concern is impact on water supply.” SCI salutes all the agencies and communities currently addressing ecosystem challenges caused by draught and forest fires in the United States and Canada. Lyme Vaccine Pulled According to the latest issue of North American Hunter, pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, the nation’s only Lyme disease vaccine maker, has pulled its vaccine from pharmacy shelves, despite warnings by health officials that Lyme disease cases (ROAR 1.3) are rising. Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread to unsuspecting people primarily by the deer tick, has increased 25 fold since 1982 and now accounts for 95 percent of all vector-borne illness. SCI urges GlaxoSmithKline to reconsider its decision. Poor sales for Lymerix, and an expectation that fewer than 10,000 people would seek vaccination this year, might be addressed with a stronger education effort aimed at tens of millions of hunters. East Mojave Water Sources Outdoor writer Jim Matthews of The Daily Press reports a diverse coalition of sportsmen’s and conservation groups, of which SCI is a part, was successful in preserving East Mojave cattle water development resources that were scheduled to be shut down as the desert’s cattle allotments are retired. The water developments have supported cattle and wildlife for the past 100 years. “We got a lot of people together who should be on this issue,” said coalition leader Cliff McDonald. “I feel that we made a point – that we’re not going to roll over and just let this happen.” SCI salutes the efforts McDonald and the coalition, and encourages sportsmen to in its efforts to preserve these important wildlife water sources. IWM Museum Helps Threatened Fish The SCI Foundation’s International Wildlife Museum in Tucson is helping the Arizona Game & Fish Department and The Nature Conservancy preserve two of Arizona’s threatened indigenous fish species. The Museum’s pond, which for year has been a habitat for the Desert pupfish (Cyprinodon macularins) and the Gila topminnow (Poeciliopsis occidentalis occidentalis), is now also housing a group of Gila chubs (Gila intermedia) and the entire known gene pool of a breed of Sonora suckers (Catostomus insignis). According to Heidi Blasius of Arizona Game & Fish, “the International Wildlife Museum is playing an integral role in the survival of both species by providing temporary habitat until they can be returned to O’Donnell Creek. The partnership between the International Wildlife Museum and Arizona Game & Fish has proven to be invaluable in the management and conservation of Arizona’s imperiled native fish fauna.”