It appears to me that the Conservation Advisory Board voted to classify feral hogs as nuisance animals back in 2009 and Barnett Lawley and Alan Andress changed the motion to fit into their permit system.
Here is one of Mr. Hatley's comments on his motion:
3 MR. HATLEY: What I want is to be
4 able to eliminate a feral swine that is wild in
5 this state at any time I want to kill him. And I
6 want coyotes to fall into that same category.
7 And so Commissioner, is that what
8 we --
9 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Yes.
10 That's pretty close to what I gave you this
11 morning.
12 What I'd like to suggest since I
13 can't make motions --
14 MR. HATLEY: Wait a minute, I
15 have the floor.
16 And the thing about it is,
17 Mr. Commissioner, I was trying to read what you
18 had, and it didn't go far enough. So I was asking
19 you would you expound on that and expand.
This is the entire discussion of Mr. Hatley's motion. Notice there is never any mention of our game and fish laws and how they affect the process:
Conservation Advisory Board
Minutes of Meeting March, 2009
CAB Meeting March, 2009 [beginning on page 62]
4 MR. HATLEY: Mr. Chairman, I'd
5 like to refer to Regulation 220-2.27, which refers
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6 to crop and property damage permits. This
7 regulation is already in effect, but I would like
8 to ask the Commissioner along with our permanent
9 staff to revisit this issue.
10 We have a tremendous problem in the
11 state right now for feral hogs and coyotes. I
12 would like to ask the Commissioner to invoke an
13 emergency room rule, which would say something to
14 the effect -- and Commissioner, give you the
15 discretion of course to use working with Allen in
16 reference to feral swine -- but I would like
17 something like -- feral swine and coyotes are
18 considered invasive nuisance species for which the
19 necessity of demonstrating specific damage is not
20 required.
21 And in the rest -- from my
22 understanding, Allen, that in the normal crop
23 deprivation under 220-2.27 that proof of damage is
1 required, right?
2 MR. ANDRESS: Correct.
3 MR. HATLEY: What I want is to be
4 able to eliminate a feral swine that is wild in
5 this state at any time I want to kill him. And I
6 want coyotes to fall into that same category.
7 And so Commissioner, is that what
8 we --
9 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: Yes.
10 That's pretty close to what I gave you this
11 morning.
12 What I'd like to suggest since I
13 can't make motions --
14 MR. HATLEY: Wait a minute, I
15 have the floor.
16 And the thing about it is,
17 Mr. Commissioner, I was trying to read what you
18 had, and it didn't go far enough. So I was asking
19 you would you expound on that and expand.
20 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Mr. Hatley,
21 now the Commissioner has the floor, please, sir.
22 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I think I
23 would suggest that you might want to add that this
1 Board would request that I issue -- since it's
2 springtime -- an emergency reg that -- since we
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3 don't vote on anything at the same meeting -- that
4 would be in effect, you know, immediately until the
5 next May meeting when you-all could vote on this
6 and establish it as a permanent reg or not.
7 MR. HATLEY: I thought that that
8 is what I said.
9 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: I missed
10 the emergency reg. But if that's your intent, I
11 think I know what to do with it.
12 MR. HATLEY: That is my intent
13 totally.
14 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: The
15 emergency reg would only last for 120 days so we'd
16 have to take action in May.
17 At this time, I want to give Allen
18 Andress the credit that he deserves. I tell you,
19 he is the best at working on issues and knowing how
20 it fits in -- cross-references with other regs or
21 other statutes to come up with a solution, and I
22 think he's come up with a great one on this issue.
23 And I applaud him, and I thank him for his time and
1 effort that he's spent on it.
2 And I make one other comment. There
3 was a study done by South Carolina at the Savannah
4 River Project, which is in North Augusta in South
5 Carolina on fawns.
6 And Gary, I don't know if you have
7 seen this or not, but it just came out. It's the
8 latest news.
9 And they were looking at the survival
10 rate of fawns because of additional (inaudible)
11 because of coyotes. And their study showed that
12 they are having a 25 percent survival rate of
13 fawns.
14 Now, Auburn is starting the same
15 study at Fort Rucker on a two-year study to see the
16 effects in Alabama on coyotes, but we are not
17 waiting on that. We want to take action. I think
18 each and every one of us knows the damage that
19 coyotes do.
20 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Thank you,
21 Commissioner.
22 Gary, under that same subject, before
23 we get to Mr. Hatley's motion, do we have any
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1 estimates of fawn survival rates in Alabama, or
2 does it vary county by county? I'm sure it does
3 with the coyote populations, I guess.
4 MR. MOODY: A variety of factors,
5 yes. But we don't have any.
6 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Mr. Hatley,
7 is there a motion to what you just spoke on?
8 MR. HATLEY: That is correct.
9 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Would you
10 reread the motion, please, sir?
11 MR. HATLEY: That would be very
12 difficult for me because I don't have it written
13 down.
14 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Would you
15 allow me to paraphrase it for you?
16 MR. HATLEY: Yes. But I also
17 want to make certain that we include coyotes. I'm
18 not talking just about feral swine.
19 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: It is my
20 understanding that it would be that the coyotes and
21 feral swine be allowed to be taken without a
22 deprivation permit at any time.
23 Is that correct?
1 MR. HATLEY: That's correct.
2 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Hold on. I'm
3 going to let the Commissioner --
4 COMMISSIONER LAWLEY: You will
5 still have to have a deprivation permit. You can
6 call and get it as a short form that you would fill
7 out, but it does not require any crop damage to
8 issue this permit. The cost is nothing.
9 But basically why they have to have
10 it if a neighbor or someone says somebody is
11 shooting out there at night on your property, and
12 you're out there coyote or hog hunting, that it
13 would be on our records that -- yes, John Smith has
14 a permit to be hunting swine or coyote.
15 So that helps us and it helps us keep
16 control of it.
17 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: All those in
18 favor, raise your hand.
19 MR. HATLEY: I didn't hear
20 anybody second it.
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21 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: I'm sorry.
22 Gaines said he'd second it, Mr. Hatley.
23 Any other discussion then again?
1 (No response.)
2 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Mr. Hatley,
3 since you corrected us on the format, we have to
4 reread the motion again.
5 Would you concur that it was what the
6 Commissioner said previously?
7 MR. HATLEY: I do concur.
8 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Now, all
9 those in favor raise your right hand or left.
10 (Board members raised hands.)
11 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Motion
12 carries.
13 All those opposed, let it be shown.
14 (No response.)
15 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Motion
16 carries.
17 DR. SMITH: Let me --
18 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Go ahead.
19 DR. SMITH: -- make a comment to
20 that. I was going to do it later, but while we're
21 on the feral pigs, let me call your attention to
22 some work that the folks in the Department here are
23 doing, our folks on campus at Auburn Extension and
1 Federal Wildlife Service and several others.
2 There's a flyer on the table back
3 here about some seminars that's going on, and I
4 think two of them have already been held out across
5 the state. There are two yet to come.
6 If there's one in your area, I'd
7 encourage you to get there and get involved in it
8 because this thing -- that's a cause that we don't
9 hear about at the public hearing, and I think we
10 should be hearing about because this is a serious
11 threat to our whole wildlife -- our ecosystem out
12 there. And I think all of you as hunters and
13 landowners and all your companions back home to be
14 aware of what the potential of this is. And I
15 think this would be a good way of doing it.
16 Also, each of these agencies that
17 have a Web site that you could go to. And most of
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18 them are going to have information on these
19 critters that should be available to you and help
20 you there.
21 CHAIRMAN MOULTRIE: Thank you,
22 Gaines.
Assuming that all the discussion on the motion took place in this public meeting in accordance with the Open Meetings Act, the motion was to reclassify feral hogs and coyotes as nuisance species. No depredation permit would be needed to kill them.
Obviously, we didn't hear all the discussion. The commissioner speaks of something he gave Mr. Hatley earlier that didn't match the motion Mr. Hatley made. Hmmmmm!!! Looks like the minutes don't reflect the whole story here. The regulation doesn't match what was proposed by Mr. Hatley in his motion at all.
