U.S. Shooting Competition Winds Up

Don Nygord of La Crescenta won the national standard pistol shooting competition this week at the U.S. International Shooting Championships at Prado Tiro.

Earlier, Nygord finished second to Don Hamilton of Kingston, Mass., in the free pistol competition.

Competition winds up at the Prado Tiro--the Olympic shooting venue in Chino--event today and Saturday, to determine team selections for U.S. teams competing internationally through next June.

Nygord scored 1,716 out of a possible 1,800 to win his national title. Runner-up Hamilton shot a 1,709.

In standard pistol shooting (.22 caliber), 20 shots are fired in each of three timed stages: timed fire, slow fire and rapid fire.

In free pistol (.22 caliber), won by Hamilton, a gunsmith, competitors fire 60 shots at a bull’s-eye target 50 meters away.

According to a report in the Anchorage Daily News, nearly as many Alaskans die each year in small boat accidents as in aircraft accidents.

The Coast Guard recorded 14 small boat fatalities in 1984, but an official in the state’s Boating Safety Office estimates another 12 to 15 small boat deaths went unreported. By comparison, private aircraft accidents in Alaska last year killed 31.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to cut the annual harvest of mallard and pintail ducks by 25% in this fall’s hunting seasons.

Populations of the two species are near 30-year lows due to prolonged drought conditions in their Canadian breeding areas. U.S. Fish and Wildlife, in cooperation with Canadian authorities, hasn’t changed its migratory bird hunting regulations in the past five years while the two countries conducted population studies.

Last fall, U.S. hunters shot an estimated 3.8 million mallards, 14% less than the previous year, and 665,400 pintails, a 19% decline.

A motorcyclist who unlawfully removed three desert tortoises from the Mojave Desert has been cited by the Department of Fish and Game and could be given a $1,000 fine and six months in jail.

Robert Sharp, 29, of Lakewood, was cited by DFG game warden Tony Mattias at his home recently when neighbors complained Sharp had the tortoises in his front yard. Mattias confiscated the tortoises, which will be reintroduced into the wild, then filed a formal misdemeanor complaint against Sharp in Long Beach Municipal Court.

Desert tortoise populations have been declining for years, due to loss of habitat and the taking of the animals from the wild.

Five years after 10 California bighorn sheep were transplanted to the Warner Mountains in eastern Modoc County, the herd has grown to an estimated 41.

Alturas-based DFG biologist Doug Thayer says he’s seen 10 new spring lambs in the Warners recently.

Briefly California upland game bird hunters will have to do without a sage grouse season again this year, under a recommendation by the DFG to the Fish and Game Commission. The DFG said a low grouse population that forced a statewide closure last year continues to be skimpy this year. . . . A DFG trout-stocking airplane recently dropped 750,000 fingerling trout into 248 high elevation lakes in eight northern counties. . . . About 100 California shooters will compete in the International Handgun Silhouette Shooting Championships Saturday and Sunday at the Inland Fish and Game Sporting Preserve in Redlands. . . . More than 500 activities are listed in the current Sierra Club activities schedule book, available for $4.50 from the Sierra Club. . . . The Forest Service reminds visitors to Angeles National Forest that Stage 1 fire restrictions are in effect, meaning campfires are allowed only at designated camp and picnic grounds in stoves provided. . . . Gary Thomas of Tracy, Calif., won the recent U.S. Bass Delta Invitational tournament at Stockton, but Don Iovino of Burbank won the organization’s Angler of the Year title by finishing 13th.