Photo gallery: Harsens Island
Take a look at Harsens Island with Free Press outdoors writer Eric Sharp in the Free Press photo gallery.

Contact:  Aiden McLearon 517-641-4903, ext. 225

Sept. 25, 2008
With the advent of the fall hunting seasons, and as the firearm deer season draws near, now is the time for hunters to sight in their bows, rifles and shotguns at one of the Department of Natural Resources' staff-operated shooting ranges.

The DNR oversees six shooting ranges in southern Michigan, including the Rose Lake Shooting Range in Bath (Clinton County); Sharonville Shooting Range in Grass Lake (Jackson County); Island Lake Shooting Range in Brighton (Livingston County); Ortonville Shooting Range in Ortonville (Lapeer County); Bald Mountain Shooting Range in Lake Orion (Oakland County) and Pontiac Lake Shooting Range in Waterford (Oakland County). An archery range is not available at Island Lake or Ortonville. Click here for hours and locations.

During October, the ranges are open six days a week, closed Tuesdays. From Nov. 1-15, the ranges are open daily.

Hours at the Bald Mountain, Pontiac Lake and Ortonville ranges are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Rose Lake and Sharonville ranges.

Range fees at Bald Mountain, Pontiac Lake and Ortonville are $4 per day for each shooter age 16 and older. Children under 16 are free. Rose Lake and Sharonville have no fee. The Island Lake Shooting Range is operated under contact by Michigan Shooting Centers, LCC. Please contact Island Lake for hours and fees at (248) 437-2784.

For more information on DNR-operated shooting ranges, please call the ranges. The telephone numbers are:

• Bald Mountain - (248) 693-0567
• Island Lake - (248) 437-2784
• Ortonville - (248) 627-5569
• Pontiac Lake - (248) 666-5406
• Rose Lake - (517) 641-7801
• Sharonville - (734) 428-8035
Information about the DNR shooting ranges, and other public and private shooting ranges, can be found on the DNR Web site at www.michigan.gov/dnr under Law Enforcement, and then click on Shooting Ranges on the menu on the left side of the page.

Shooters are reminded to bring eye and ear protection and approved paper targets with either a bull's-eye pattern or a depiction of legal game. Shooters under age 16 must be supervised by an adult.

All motor vehicles entering a state park or recreation area must display a Motor Vehicle Permit, available for purchase at the park entrance. Cost is $24 for a resident annual and $6 for a resident daily. A nonresident annual is $29 and a nonresident daily is $8.
Click here for entire article:
http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10371_10402-200674--,00.html

Michigan's First Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Detected at Kent County Deer Breeding Facility

Contact: Bridget Patrick (MDA) or Mary Dettloff (DNR) 517-241-2669 or 517-335-3014
Agency: Natural Resources
August 25, 2008
LANSING - The Michigan departments of Agriculture (MDA) and Natural Resources (DNR) today confirmed the state's first case of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) in a three-year old white-tailed deer from a privately owned cervid (POC) facility in Kent County.

The state has quarantined all POC facilities, prohibiting the movement of all - dead or alive - privately-owned deer, elk or moose. Officials do not yet know how the deer may have contracted the disease. To date, there is no evidence that CWD presents a risk to humans.

DNR and MDA staff are currently reviewing records from the Kent County facility and five others to trace deer that have been purchased, sold or moved by the owners in the last five years for deer and the last seven years for elk. Any deer that may have come in contact with the CWD-positive herd have been traced to their current location and those facilities have been quarantined.

"Michigan's veterinarians and wildlife experts have been working throughout the weekend to complete their investigation," said Don Koivisto, MDA director. "We take this disease very seriously, and are using every resource available to us to implement response measures and stop the spread of this disease."

CWD is a fatal neurological disease that affects deer, elk and moose. Most cases of the disease have been in western states, but in the past several years, it has spread to some midwestern and eastern states. Infected animals display abnormal behaviors, progressive weight loss and physical debilitation.

Current evidence suggests that the disease is transmitted through infectious, self-multiplying proteins (prions) contained in saliva and other fluids of infected animals. Susceptible animals can acquire CWD by direct exposure to these fluids or also from contaminated environments. Once contaminated, research suggests that soil can remain a source of infection for long periods of time, making CWD a particularly difficult disease to eradicate.

Michigan's First Case of Chronic Wasting Disease Detected at Kent County Deer Breeding Facility: "Currently, one of our top concerns is to confirm that the disease is not in free-ranging deer," said DNR Director Rebecca Humphries. "We are asking hunters this fall to assist us by visiting check stations to allow us to take biological samples from the deer they harvest, so we can perform adequate surveillance of the free-ranging white-tailed deer herd in the area."

Deer hunters this fall who take deer from Tyrone, Solon, Nelson, Sparta, Algoma, Courtland, Alpine, Plainfield, and Cannon townships will be required to bring their deer to a DNR check station. Deer taken in these townships are subject to mandatory deer check.

The DNR is also asking hunters who are participating in the private land five-day antlerless hunt in September in other parts of Kent County to visit DNR check stations in Kent County so further biological samples can be taken from free-ranging deer for testing. The DNR is in the process of finding additional locations for check stations in Kent County to make it more convenient for hunters.

The deer that tested positive at the Kent County facility was a doe that had been recently culled by the owner of the facility. Michigan law requires sick deer or culled deer on a POC facility be tested for disease. The samples from the Kent County deer tested "suspect positive" last week at Michigan State University Diagnostic Center for Population and Animal Health, and were sent to the National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Ames, Iowa last Thursday for confirmatory testing. The positive results of those tests were communicated to the state of Michigan today.

Audits of the facility by the DNR in 2004 and 2007 showed no escapes of animals from the Kent County facility were reported by the owner. Also, there were no violations of regulations recorded during the audits.

Since 2002, the DNR has tested 248 wild deer in Kent County for CWD. In summer 2005, a number of those deer had displayed neurological symptoms similar to CWD; however, after testing it was determined the deer had contracted Eastern Equine Encephalitis.

More information on CWD is available on Michigan's Emerging Diseases Web site at
www.michigan.gov/chronicwastingdisease.

At discussion about this matter can be found at

http://www.michigan-sportsman.com/forum/showthread.php?t=248252.

BY ERIC SHARP • FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER • AUGUST 29, 2008

About 20 dead deer found by kayakers and canoeists along a six-mile stretch of the Clinton River centered on Bloomer Park in Rochester were not infected with chronic wasting disease or any other wildlife disease they have been able to identify, Department of Natural Resources officials said Thursday.

Tim Payne, a biologist for the DNR wildlife division in Southfield, said the deer apparently started dying about three weeks ago but that no freshly dead deer had been found in the past week.

"We sent three of the (carcasses) to our lab in Lansing, but only one of them was really fresh enough for a definitive necropsy," Payne said. "Two people saw deer die in front of them. Something obviously has affected them, but we don't know what it is yet."

The deaths preceded by a few days an announcement that chronic wasting disease -- a fatal deer ailment previously unknown in Michigan -- had been found in a deer on a private breeding ranch in Kent County.

Injured deer commonly develop fevers and stay near water after they have been hit by a car or a bullet. But Tom Cooley, the DNR's epidemiological veterinarian, said there was no evidence of those kinds of trauma in the deer he necropsied.

He said tests completed so far also have ruled out ailments like CWD, eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, several hemorrhagic diseases and poisoning.

Cooley said the cause of death for one buck was clear -- a fractured skull...

Click here for entire article:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080829/SPORTS10/808290321/1058

INSIDE THE OUTDOORS: Winter is a great time for kids to learn how to spot tracks

December 20, 2007

By ERIC SHARP

FREE PRESS OUTDOORS WRITER

Walking through a museum store the other day, I saw a book about animal tracks that was written for kids. It reminded me that winter is a great time to take your kids or grandkids out with a book like that and see what kind of tracks you can find in your neighborhood or a local park.

Friends who have done this have been surprised when they were able to identify the tracks of skunks, weasels, foxes, pheasants, raccoons, porcupines and other wild critters that they never dreamed lived right in town.

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A few years ago, a friend who took his two daughters out to search for tracks called with great excitement. They had come across the tracks of a large cat on a local golf course. They were way too big to be a domestic cat and too small to be a cougar, so they were thrilled to realize that a bobcat was living within a few hundred feed of their home.

Deep snow is not good for track identification. Ideally, you want to get out after a minor fall has left a nice dusting on the trails where you can walk as easily as the animals.

Click here for entire article: http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071220/SPORTS10/712200399/1058