Page 2
The
The
INDEPENDENT, August 21,1996
INDEPENDENT
Serving the upper Nehalem River valley. Published
twice monthly on the first and third Wednesdays of each
month, by Public Opinion Laboratory Ltd., 725 Bridge
Street, Vernonia, OR 97064, as a free newspaper.
Editors and Publishers, Dirk & Noni Andersen (503)
429-9410.
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If military action matters,
take a good look at Kemp
A Letter to the Editor in this issue compares Sena
tor Bob Dole’s actions during World War II to President
Bill Clinton’s actions during the Vietnam war. The let
ter stimulated some questions.
If a candidate’s military record is a valid measure of
character”, should the method used by a candidate to
defer or eliminate a call to active duty also be consid
ered? If that is a valid consideration, would it also be
valid to look at what the candidate did during the peri
od covered by the exemption?
Jack Kemp, Dole’s vice-presidential running mate,
is a case in point. Kemp was a private in the Army Re
serve at the time his unit was called to active duty, in
1961 during the Berlin crisis.
As a quarterback in the National Football League,
Kemp was a wealthy, noted athlete in superb physical
condition, but he didn’t join his unit. Instead, he ob
tained a medical exemption on the basis that an in
jured shoulder made him unfit for duty. Then he played
football, throwing the ball for 2,686 yards and 15
touchdowns, leading the San Diego Chargers to a di
vision title the same year.
Let’s review Clinton’s deferment.
As a student, Bill Clinton was neither wealthy nor
well-known, but he qualified for, and obtained, a stu
dent deferment. He was a good student who earned a
Rhodes Scholarship for exceptional academic accom
plishment, then used it to attend Oxford University. As
a student, he - and many thousands of American stu
dents - demonstrated against America’s involvement
in Vietnam.
The comparison: Clinton had a student deferment
and worked hard as a student. Kemp had a medical
exemption and worked hard on the football field.
Interesting.
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B y Dale Webb, m em ber
Izaak Walton League, Nehalem Valley Chapter
My last column seemed to stir up the dan
der of our local district wildlife biologist. We
had a two-hour discussion over the phone and
I believe we came to the conclusion to agree
to disagree. I’m not saying that our district
wildlife biologist is a slacker, because I feel he
is a dedicated biologist who is trying to do a
very difficult job. Our differences pivot on my
need for facts and figures; when things don’t
add up, I need facts and figures to show me
why. So far, ODF&W hasn't been able to sup
ply valid answers to the questions.
Here’s another mathematical problem for
you p ro b le m -so lv e rs out there. ODF&W
claims that there are over 8,000 elk in the
Saddle Mountain Unit. They also say this ex
ceeds the objective for the unit (how they
came up with 8,000 I do not know) and this is
their justification for cow hunts. The brain
teaser is that the ODF&W count of the elk
herd for 1995 showed the following composi
tion: bulls per 100 cows-20, calves per 100
cows-44. Herd composition counts are con
Anyone who is toying with the idea of running for ducted after bull season so the bulls that are
mayor or city council in Vernonia or Banks needs to counted are spike bulls that are protected by
get down to City Hall now and pick up the nominating the 3-pt. rule, plus the branch antlered bulls
that escaped harvest. I feel it is safe to as
petitions.
It doesn’t cost anything to run unless the candidate sume that most of these bulls would live until
spends money on signs and ads, but the value to your the next hunting season, barring a bad winter.
If I remember my algebra correctly, the for
community is incalculable if you have the desire and mula of X=20/164 x X should give me the
time to study issues facing small towns today.
number of bulls that exist in any given popula
In Vernonia, City Hall is open Monday through Fri tion for X. My calculator says that for a herd of
day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Papers must be completed 8,000 animals, there would be 975 bulls walk
ing around in the woods come hunting sea
and returned no later than 5 p.m. on Aug. 26.
In Banks, City Hall is open Monday through Friday son, with most of them being legal for harvest.
from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m., or call 324-5112 to make oth That sounds great, but we are harvesting only
about 400 bulls a year. If we include poaching
er arrangements. Papers must be completed and re and crippling loss, and estimate that total bull
turned no later than 5 p.m. on Aug. 27.
harvest was actually around 600, that would
If you’re curious, check it out. It is sometimes hard still leave us with an annual gain in bull popu
lation of 375 animals. The flaw is that, in just 2
work, but it’s also a good education.
years, the bull population would be nearly
double the 975 bulls we began with! We would
be harvesting many more bulls and a lot of
older bulls - and that is not the case.
Audean Wagner is the person whose name was
Data I just received on the bull elk tooth
supposed to be here last issue, so: Thank you Au surveys done the last two years in the Saddle
dean, for your efforts on behalf of flood victims.
Mountain Unit, supports that claim. The age of
an animal can be determined by counting the
File now for mayor, council
Ooops!
rings on an incisor root tip, much like rings on
a tree stump. This has to be done by a lab,
though. The data results show that 73% of thé
bulls harvested are tw o years of age or
younger. That leaves only 27% escapement
for bulls past their first hunting season and, if
one assumes that very few bulls died of old
age, then we would annually recruit 263 bulls
into the 3-year-old category if we used the 975
bulls from a population of 8,000 animals.
Again, this data doesn’t work; 263 animals
is more than half of the legal annual harvest
and does not correspond with the tooth survey
data. If we change the population size to
5,000 animals in the above equations, the
numbers start to correspond to the tooth sur
vey data. This would result in an annual bull
recruitm ent of 609 bulls, post-season, of
which 164 would be branch antlered. This
would also correspond to an annual mortality
of 600 bulls of which 162 (27%) would have
been older than 2 years of age. I expect I will
get another phone call.
To leave you on a humorous note, here are
a few footnotes from a trip that some of our
extended family (Bernardis, Wellers, Tituses
and Webbs) made to the Three Creeks area
near Sisters. To start with, any gathering of
such characters all in one spot is a recipe for
trouble. Envision my father, the fisherman,
oaring an inflatable raft on a beautiful lake
with the Three Sisters mountains for a back-
drop-and the fish are biting really well. Now
envision him with two grade school girls in the
boat: He says, “Set the hook" as the poles arc
from biting fish, and the girls turn to him ask
ing, What's that?" The fisherman’s ultimate
nightmare!!
Campfires are always the center of evening
activities, with roasted hot dogs and marsh
mallows and occasional sparks that burn
through the lawn ch a irs. T his g ro up of
campers, not wanting to be outdone by neigh
boring campers, sacrificed a perfectly good
awn chair to the fire gods. Well, okay, maybe
th e wind had something to do with it.
Maybe that was the c h a ir th a t bit my
nephew Rob. You didn’t know chairs can bite?
W© just ask Rob, I heard it bit him so bad
that he passed out from the pain. Luckily,
cousin Steve (the fire chief) was there to catch
him before he hit the ground.
Please see page 3
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