April 3rd: Town Wide Clean-up - Picnic to Follow

Saturday, April 3 : Town Wide Clean-up ~ Tired of seeing that rotting mattress on the back road from Norwich? ...or the smashed up computer monitor in front of the old town landfill on Route 151?
     The Moodus Sportsmen’s Club, and the East Haddam Scout Troops are sponsoring the Annual East Haddam Town Wide Clean Up Day to be held on Saturday, April 3, 2010. The goal of these organizations is to coordinate an annual effort to pick up the streets, lakes, streams, and other public access areas in the Town of East Haddam. Would your organization or individuals in your organization be willing to participate? We are still in search of families and groups to pick up sections of the streets in which they live on. Is there a section of town that you or your group would like to take over the stewardship? Could you and your neighbors adopt a street?
     The Sportsmen’s Club members will concentrate on State and Town boat launches and Babcock Wildlife Management Area. The Scouts will be working on Rte 82 from the East Haddam swing bridge to River Road. East Haddam Scout Troops have also been contacted to assist in picking up these other designated areas.
     Pickup starts at 8:00 a.m. If you wish to join our groups, meets us at the East Haddam Town Hall on Town Street at 8:00 a.m. or start from your own street.
     Lunch starts at noon at the Moodus Sportsmen's Club. Traditional picnic items such as hot-dogs, baked beans, coffee and iced tea and lemonade will be served along with the seasonal bounty only a sportsmen’s club could serve.
     We can inventory the items collected and talk about ways to reduce these problems. We'll also have educational information about the Town’s natural resources and outdoor recreational opportunities.

PHOTOS: Recycling containers in Eagle Lake, Maine; Litter piles in another town.

Doubled hunting fees causes more problems; yet solves none

Friday's Hartford Courant had a thoughtful article in it by Dale May, certified wildlife biologist, recently retired from state service with the DEP. In it he says:

"...the changes affect sportsmen most directly, [and] the public should understand that license and permit fees paid by recreational fishermen and hunters, in combination with federal excise taxes they also pay, represent nearly all of the revenue devoted to Connecticut's fish and wildlife, including non-game species. For nearly a century, this user-pay model has been enormously successful in generating predictable annual budgets that have been used to restore and manage our wildlife.

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"The public should understand that license and permit fees paid by recreational fishermen and hunters, represent nearly all of the revenue devoted to Connecticut's fish and wildlife, including non-game species".

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"In the face of an aging sportsmen demographic and broadening wildlife-related mandates, state and federal initiatives have been underway for nearly two decades to expand and strengthen the model by including other constituency groups. Less than a handful of states, however, successfully direct other sources of funding to wildlife — and Connecticut is not one of them. With the gloomy fiscal forecast, it appears Connecticut's wildlife will depend almost solely upon sportsmen for the foreseeable future.

"So, now is not the time to discourage hunting and fishing in Connecticut. Given the budget crisis, most sportsmen would have accepted (albeit unhappily) a fee increase of 20 percent to 25 percent. The 100 percent increase, however, is indefensible. [You can find the complete article here]

Seems he's being immensely diplomatic, while our politicians chose not to be. Now there is an effort being put forward to correct this rank injustice. Contact the governor's office as well as your local legislator [even if he or she is not in favor of hunting] and make your voice heard on this important matter. [here's a set of guidelines on speaking before the legislature.

Don't know your local state representatives? Fird them here.

IMAGE CREDITS: 1- How Stuff Works, with an entry about hunting licenses, special regulations, poaching, and other hunting lore; 2- Terrirman's Daily Dose, the image was used there to a link where one can purchase hunting licenses for most of the lower 48 states.