Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/496918
S P O R T I N G C L A S S I C S 1 4 volume, the Blue Book of Gun Values is available through an online subscription. Visit the website at www. bluebookofgunvalues.com. Permission Granted At its 2014 convention Dallas Safari Club auctioned a permit to hunt a specific black rhino in Namibia. Earlier this week the US Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the Texan who won the auction has received from the federal government a permit to bring home his trophy from the planned hunt. The FWS—which administers the Endangered Species Act and regulates Americans' wildlife-associated activities—approved the import permit based on the scientific and financial validity of managing rhinos through hunting. DSC says the federal approval is vindication for biologists in Africa who prescribed the hunt as way to manage rhino populations. Old, non-breeding male rhinos are known to charge and kill younger bulls, cows, and even calves. Such behavior, well documented in scientific literature, jeopardizes the future of a herd. With so few black rhinos in the wild, one rogue male can wreak irreparable damage on the overall population. Removing these animals enhances the herd's productivity. The permit sold at auction for $350,000—reportedly the highest price ever paid for a big-game permit in Africa. One-hundred percent of the proceeds will go to Namibia for rhino conservation, habitat, and anti-poaching initiatives. "Animal-rights extremists bashed the scientists, threatened the buyer, and harassed DSC," said Ben Carter, DSC executive director. "Now that the world's leading conservation agency has approved the hunt as a way to help rhino populations and issued an import permit, some of the naysayers need to make an effort to understand what they were protesting". Namibia is authorized to sell up to five rhino hunting licenses a year. With hunting as part of its wildlife management plan, the associated funds help finance conservation and law enforcement programs. The result is that the country's black rhino population has grown from 60 animals in 1966 to about 1,500 today. To review the full Fish & Wildlife announcement, visit http://tinyurl.com/dsc-blackrhino. Mass Marijuana Growth Impacts California Trout The California Department of Fish & Wildlife recently issued a report that explores the effects of large-scale marijuana production on the state's fish populations and waterways. More specifically, the study focuses on the amount of water needed to sustain marijuana crops in California, where the drug can be grown with special permits, and the subsequent demands placed on local streams. For insight, officials studied four watersheds in northern California over a three-year period. They totaled the amount of marijuana in the watersheds and calculated that each contained an average of 20,500 plants. Likewise, officials deduced that each plant requires six gallons of water a day and a staggering 900 gallons a season. Given the amount of marijuana in the watersheds and the plant's hydration requirements, CDFW officials concluded that mass cultivation of the crop consumes between 20 and 30 percent of the area's stream-water flow at different times each year. During extremely dry seasons in particular, the report asserts, watering marijuana could even completely drain streams in three of the four watersheds if not properly monitored. During the course of the study, the number and size of marijuana operations in the watersheds increased between 68 and 104 percent, which compounds the issue. Unfortunately for fishermen and wildlife, marijuana production and its demand for water is speculated to have lethal or severely negative effects on native fish species, namely salmon and steelhead, which are extremely sensitive to changes in stream conditions. Read CDFW full report at http://bit. ly/1NjzE3I. —JR Sullivan Despite a campaign by major media to smear Dallas Safari Club and hunters, the US Fish and Wildlife Service sided with science and economics and issued a permit that allows an American hunter to return from Africa with his rhino trophy. iStock