Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida, Inc.

Welcome to the Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida, Inc., web site. For those of you who are viewing our page for the first time, we thank you for coming and encourage you to take a few minutes to browse our pages. You can find information about the organizations that are members of ASAF, upcoming events, and even how to become a member organization or individual supporter.

The mission of the Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida is to provide a statewide, unified voice for the concerns of all sportsmen and conservationist, to insure their rights and interests are protected, and to protect and enhance the environment and our natural resources. We accomplish this by working with Florida Legislators, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and other local, state and federal agencies.

One of our newest features on the site, and one that we hope you will come back often to review, is our Executive Director's Report. Here you will find updates from Lane Stephens, our executive director, on items of interest. Depending on the time of year, the reports may contain legislative information, items pertaining to the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission, reports on meetings that ASAF has participated in, or other useful information. The current report will show up when you click on the Executive Director's Report button, and previous reports will be available as PDF files. If you have a web site, we encourage you to place a link to us on your site, and if you are an individual sportsmen, we ask that you share our web address with your friends. Feel free to contact us by e-mailing our executive director at lane.asaf@comcast.net. Thanks for joining us and we wish you success in the field or on the water!

Update 2-22-10

Members,
I sent this letter out today to the City Manager of the city of Rockledge, FL, which is located in Brevard County. It is in response to the linked article, which I found yesterday. http://www.floridatoday.com/article/20100217/NEWS01/2170333/1006/news01/ Rockledge+neighbors+take+aim+at+hunters also, below is a link to the article I mentioned in the e-mail, which I failed to attached before sending to him. http://www.co.ho.md.us/rap/rapdocs/urbandeermngt.pdf

From: Lane Stephens [mailto:lane@scggov.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2010 12:10 PM
To: jmcknight@cityofrockledge.org
Subject: hog issue

Mr. McKnight,

I have been reading, with interest, the issue regarding hogs and hog hunting in certain neighborhoods within the city of Rockledge. As the executive director of Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida, I work closely with the Florida legislature, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and stakeholders to try and find reasonable solutions to issues that involve hunting and fishing. For example, I was reading about your issue while I was attending the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission meeting that was being held in Apalachicola.

As your city seeks to address the issue of hunters pursuing wild hogs in fringe neighborhoods, I would encourage you to read the attached article. It provides information on what can happen in urban areas when wild game over-populates an area. In the example I am providing, white tail deer is the game animal discussed, and the article discusses over-populations in urban areas in Maryland.

If left unchecked, your fringe neighborhoods that already have wild hog populations will see even further encroachment by the animal and destruction will be the result. In reading through some of the comments accompanying an article on the Florida Today web site, it appears some of these residents complained of just this activity some ten years ago. Of course, I cannot confirm that is the case as anyone can write anything on the web, but I can very easily seeing that happen.

If the city decides to outright ban hunting by bow within these fringe neighborhoods, in a short time you will start receiving complaints from those citizens, asking that the city do something about the wild hog population. This is exactly what happened in Maryland, and Maryland instituted urban hunting measures, with strict guidelines that must be followed in order to insure the safety of residents, pets, etc.

While I reside and work out of the Tallahassee area, my organization represents sportsman's groups from around the state of Florida. I would like to work with you, if possible, to formulate a solution that will benefit the residents that are being aggrieved (I do not condone trespass and believe violators should be prosecuted fully) while at the same time allowing for sportsmen who are willing to follow stringent rules to have the opportunity to pursue game. Sportsmen are the best conservationist in Florida, and with proper guidelines established and followed, they can help keep the wild hog populations in check.

I look forward to hearing back from you.

Respectfully,

Lane Stephens
Executive Director
Allied Sportsmen's Associations of Florida
201 S. Monroe St., Suite 301
Tallahassee, FL 32301

Update 2-21-10

Members,

Yesterday, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission took action on the fox/coyote pen issue that has been brewing since last fast. For those members that are not completely aware of the issue, I'll provide a brief recap.

In 2008, acting on information that FWCC received from its counterpart agency in Alabama, FWCC law enforcement initiated an undercover investigation into the illegal import of coyote into Florida. The coyote were reportedly being sold to owners of fox/coyote pens. The importation of coyote is illegal under any circumstance. Licensed trappers in Florida can capture coyote, and can sell such coyote to fox/coyote pen operators. Fox can also be sold to operators in Florida, again from licensed trappers. However, fox can also be imported given a lengthy list of conditions are met.

Fast forward to September 2009. While the undercover investigation was still going on, several concerned citizens attended an FWCC meeting to complain about what they perceived to be animal abuse occurring in a fox/coyote pen. These citizens brought with them disturbing pictures that showed cornered coyotes being attacked by large packs of hounds. Appalled by this pictures, the Commission directed staff to take some type of action. It was at this time that law enforcement had to end their undercover investigation in order to take action related to the citizen complaints.

In November, the FWCC Executive Director issued an order that denied the re-issuance of any fox pen permit (there were 6 permitted facilities in the state). One pen was allowed to continue to operate, as its renewal was not up until April 2010. Since November, FWCC staff has conducted additional open investigations into the pens. Yesterday, staff brought 3 options to the table for the Commission to consider.

Option 1 was to allow the 6 permitted facilities to continue operating and would direct staff to work with appropriate stakeholders to develop improved and more stringent conditions that would be brought back to the Commission for potential adoption as rule.

Option 2 was to suspend all fox/coyote pen enclosure operations and direct staff to work with appropriate stakeholders to develop improved and more stringent conditions that would be brought back to the Commission for potential adoption as rule. Option 3 was to immediately end all such operations and to ban such activities in the future.

The boards of ASAF and the Future of Hunting in Florida both examined the information that was made available, and representatives of each group also met with FWCC staff, legislators who have an interest in the issue, and pen operators. After considering all information available, both boards decided to ask the Commission to chose Option 1. Once this decision was made, I began contacting several members of the Commission in order to have one-on-one communications with them about this matter. I indicated that they know that ASAF does not condone any illegal activities and we fully support the prosecution of any individual who violated permit conditions or that purchased fox or coyotes illegally. However, I also stressed that it was our collective opinion that operators who were following the permit conditions and that have not broken the law should not be punished for the actions of others. I suggested that these operators should be allowed to operate until such time that new rules can be adopted, or a final decision was made by the Commission to end the practice.

At the meeting yesterday, some 60 members of the public spoke about this issue. About 45 speakers spoke in favor of allowing the pens to continue to operate and about 15 speakers spoke in favor of immediately closing the pens. Many of the speakers against the pens said they were not anti-hunting, but clearly a number of them were. In fact, the Florida Director for the Humane Society of the United States spoke as did the former head of the Defenders of Wildlife. John Fuller, director of Future of Hunting in Florida, and I also testified.

While I believe we scored key points with several commissioners, clearly several of the commissioners, including Chair Rodney Barreto, would like to see the practice stopped permanently. However, other commissioners were clearly in favor of allowing it to continue. Two other commissioners seemed to be on the fence.

The commission ultimately adopted Option 2. This option will stop any current operations, but will allow the operators to work with staff to develop a proposed rule that will be brought back before the commission in June. While many of the operators were upset with this action, many of them also understood that at least they are alive to fight another day.

We will continue to monitor this situation and to offer guidance to the pen operators on appropriate steps to take in bringing this to an acceptable conclusion for the operators. I will keep you posted as this moves forward.

Update Dec. 2009

At the December 2009 FWCC Commission meeting, the Commission will consider a number of rule changes that, if adopted, will go into effect for the fall 2010 hunting season. One of these proposals pertains to deer dog training. The proposed changes only affect the dates during which the training may occur. The changes are necessary in order to line up with the new private land hunting season dates, which will also be considered. Again, the proposed changes only affect deer dog training on private lands. If you have questions, feel free to contact us.

ASAF FINAL 2009 BILL REPORT

Please click here to view the report.