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Vern
Ross, Executive Director of the PA Game Commission announced
his retirement this week. Vern will be with us until
December 31. He will then blissfully spend greater time
with his wife and family. Vern concedes it is time for a
change.
Whether you loved him or hated him almost
everyone who knows him personally says he is a hell of a
nice guy. A peculiarity about Vern was that his personal,
deeply-held convictions about the tradition of hunting and
the independence of the PGC did not translate into defensive
or aggressive actions as our Executive Director. In other
words, Vern did talk the talk privately, but he didn’t walk
the walk, publicly. From what I can gather from sources
close to Vern, he defends himself by saying that he did all
he could to fend off the sharks and wolves continuously
poised to devour the PGC. He might be right. We will not
know in the short run. Later, history will put its own spin
to the past, five incubus years.
I will say Vern’s sense of timing is
impeccable. The Unified Sportsmen of PA lawsuit is mere
days from being filed. The US Fish & Wildlife Service’s
five year audit of the PGC is about to go public. I wrote
about the last USFWS audit and I don’t suspect this one will
be any different. Actually, it might be worse.
However, Vern’s true genius
shines by staying with us through this upcoming, disastrous
deer season. Dr. Gary Alt is still knocking around waiting
in the wings, writing editorials which sound like they were
written by Audubon or the Heinz Foundation. I predict our
buck harvest will drop below 100K regardless of what the PGC
estimates or calculates. Our doe harvest will take a
nosedive, as well. This deer season will be the final
chapter in the saga of Dr. Gary Alt becoming our next
Executive Director.
Interestingly, things have
changed enormously in my life, too. My radio show went
national about 20 months ago and I find myself with less
time every week. My network is approaching sixty stations,
broadcasting into sixteen states. In the national radio
business, I am a babe in the woods. National advertisers
with deep pockets want one hundred and sixty stations
broadcasting into thirty-six states. I have much work to
do. My goal is to become the second most popular weekend
show in the country. I would say “the most popular” weekend
radio show, but Kim Komando’s computer show has 400 stations
and I don’t think I will catch her. I also have plans to
write my first book.
Furthermore, this is the
third column of Month 77, which translates into six years,
five months and 307 columns. I have covered it all and now
find myself writing about the same issues for the second
time. As my good buddy Don Clemmer likes to say, “it never
ends”. The truth is I have done an excellent job of
informing and educating you to the real issues and their
core causes. I have not effected change.
Frankly, I am beginning to
feel like I am beating the proverbial dead horse. Deer
management is still in shambles, Sunday hunting is still
thrown out as a red herring and the US Fish & Wildlife is
about to issue a blistering report. Small game is all but
gone, bear and coyotes run roughshod over our deer herd,
DCNR is out of control, our commissioner system has been
undermined, acid rain continues and forestry rules the
roost. Adding insult to injury the PGC is seeking a license
increase. Actually, these quite fixable issues are the
precise reason why I started this column and almost seven
years later, we are in the same, exact condition.
I can’t dissolve this
column because people will accuse me of being a quitter. I
am not a quitter. But, at some point one must face reality
and intelligently manage their time. Unfortunately, I must
reduce my writing to a “guest columnist” producing one to
two critical columns per month. No longer can I write every
week.
As usual, there is great
irony in all of the above. I agonized for months on how to
handle this situation. I am certain Vern agonized for
months, as well. Vern and I are two completely different
people fulfilling completely different roles in the scheme
of things. Incredibly, at the almost precise time in
history we both realized it is indeed time for a change.
Jim
Slinsky is the host and producer of the "Sportsman’s
Connection", a nationally syndicated, outdoor-talk radio
program. For a station near you or to contact Jim, visit his
website at
www.outdoortalknetwork.com |
