Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/116174
3. FDA's data for use of antimicrobial drugs in food-producing animals in 2009 as broken down by class of animal. The FDA denied the second and third requests, citing Exemption 4 of the Freedom of Information Act, which allows an agency to "withhold trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person as privileged or confidential." After exhausting all possible methods, GAP filed a lawsuit against the FDA for the alleged wrongful withholding of agency records of animal drug data – a direct violation of the Freedom of Information Act. Most hunters need not worry about the outcome of the trial or the effects of tainted commercial meat. We've seen our animals from woods to table . . . literally. And for anyone who hasn't come up with a good resolution for 2013, we've got one to give – Eat Mor Venison! – Josh Wolfe A NEW GAMEBIRD? Many readers are aware of the staggering growth in the number of Eurasian collared doves in the U.S. over the past few years. Out in California, another imported bird is increasing, though most likely it won't experience the success of the collared dove. This bird is the mandarin duck, the beautiful Asian counterpart of our North American wood duck. The mandarin reproduces very well in captivity, and is popular with those who breed waterfowl. One such breeder was Lawton L. Shurleff, who owns Indian Meadow Ranch in Sonoma County in northern California. Several decades ago he established a large population of wood ducks on his ranch. To these he added mandarins. Being cavity nesters like the wood duck, they quickly began using the wood duck nesting boxes. Within a few years Shurleff had a lot of mandarins on his ranch. And from there they started to spread out. Mandarins are now breeding in three California counties. Several years ago Jeremy Kwolek, a California waterfowl biologist, told me he had seen a few to the south, in the Central Valley region. Perhaps some have come north. Five years ago, while running my beaver trapline in Oregon's Willamette Valley, I was amazed by a beautiful full-plumage drake mandarin in a flock of wood ducks I'd flushed. Later, while being interviewed on other species of birds by editor David B. Marshall, for the rewrite of Birds of Oregon, I mentioned the mandarin I'd seen. He told me of several others that had been observed in the Portland area. Then, via the duck hunter's grapevine, I heard of two being shot, again in the Portland region. While it will not happen quickly, perhaps in the coming years we will have a new species that will be certain to take center place on a duck strap. – Worth Mathewson of the world's waterfowl, mandarin T he most beautiful up all some marshes and streams in ducks have shown in California and Oregon.