New Benelli MRl Is Varmint-Hunting Ready

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predator and prey species alike.
Several years back Colorado
biologists, egged on by activists
and bunny buggers, decided the
state couldn't get along without a
viable population of lynx. Under
U.S. Forest Service and Fish &
Wildlife regulations, to bring back
the lynx they had to prove that
lynx were at one time indigenous
to the state of Colorado. Enter
the infallible computer, where
they found that a local trapper,
Pete Shearwood, had indeed
trapped a lynx in the Vail area
years earlier. Proof enough to
validate a multi-million dollar
fiasco similar to that carried
out by the USFWS with wolves
in the Yellowstone area. At the
same time the anti's figured by
introducing the lynx and getting
it classified as endangered they
could close the bobcat season
because it was a look-alike species,
and work on getting other predators
protected under the guise
of enhancing the lynx habitat.
There were a few pertinent facts
their underfed computers didn't
have. Pete was a good friend of
mine and he was a real woodsman
who talked the talk and
walked the walk, making his living
in the outdoors. Pete was an
expert trapper that had trapped
every foot of the country surrounding
his hometown of Ragle,
including the nigged high country
around the ski Mecca of Vail,
for many years. Pete and I had
spent many evenings haggling
prices over his furs and cussing
and discussing hunting, trapping
and the game management
situation in depth. He called me
right after catching the lynx in
one of his cat sets and stated with
no uncertainty that he felt the
lynx he'd trapped had been in
captivity and turned loose near
Vail. According to Pete the lynx's
whiskers were worn down, a
sure sign of having been recently
caged, and its pads had the circular
wear patterns found on critters
pacing on concrete or expanded
wire mesh in a cage or enclosure.
In all the years he'd trapped and
traipsed that country he'd never
seen sign of lynx living in the area
that was well-populated with native
bobcats and coyotes. If lynx
had been present, he felt sure he'd
have cut sign or caught them.
Years later when the computer
spit out the questionable data
seemingly verifying the existence
of lynx being indigenous to the
mountains of Colorado, that was
proof enough to get the biologists
off and running on their quest
to reintroduce lynx where the
lynx never were and probably
didn't need to be. It's been over
10 years since the first of 218 lynx
were released into the mountains
of Colorado. Millions of dollars
have been spent and the Colorado
l)OW biologists still can't
say for certain if the lynx is here
to stay and the recruitment or
reproduction rate is high enough
to offset the mortality rate.
There is no doubt we are living
in a world being dominated
by computers more and more
each day and many facets of our
lives have been buried in their
depths and, worse yet, controlled
by them. I make use of
my computers on a daily basis
and it's a love/hate relationship
to be sure. Feed a computer
accurate, factual information
and you have a valuable tool for
modern critter management.
Indiscriminately feed it garbage
and you're going to get exactly
the same thing out of it. Unfortunately,
that spewed garbage
seems to be the basis for some of
our state's modern predator and
game management programs.
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