Many will remember the dismay caused by the Ohio Division of Wildlife's recommendation to extend deer gun season to overlap with the traditional Christmas Bird Counts period this past winter. A decision at last week's Wildlife Council meeting--where public comment is not allowed, and ODOW recommendations seldom disagreed with--continues this practice next winter: see http://www.ohiodnr.com/wildlife/Hunting/deer/huntingregsapproved.htm?j=32831 Has anyone heard a word from ODOW justifying continuing this new conflict with the CBCs? It would put many birders at increased and unnecessary risk, likely alter the course of routes in CBCs, and skew final counts. I have seen no public statements from the ODOW that even acknowledge that many hundreds of birders will be afield during these days, or that this fact was taken into account by the Wildlife Council in scheduling the hunt. Last winter, hunting was newly permitted for days when 39 of the 64 Christmas Bird Counts took place. It's ironic that the Christmas Bird Counts, originated to counter local traditions of shooting birds during the holiday season, should themselves be compromised by gun seasons newly expanded into established count days. This is not a message objecting to hunting. I object to an apparently heedless decision to start sending gunners abroad on a weekend CBC counters had always regarded as safe, and to a lack of communication with the birding community by the ODOW. If Wildlife has anything to say on the subject, this forum might be a good place to start. The ODOW seems to attend to its client groups--deer hunters, in this case--more than to other citizens, and to devote more attention to game species than others. Still, complaining about this conflict will probably have no more practical effect than it ever does. My suggestion would be simply to re-schedule all the 15-16 December 2007 CBCs for later dates. Warming climates make this earliest weekend less appropriate for censusing winter birds, anyway. Birders will be safer, and able to more thoroughly assess their assigned areas, thus resulting in more reliable and comparable data. If necessary, some counts could be undertaken on 5-6 January. Any thoughts out there? Bill Whan Columbus ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]