Outdoor Notes / Earl Gustkey : Wrightwood Man, 73, Charged in Bighorn Sheep Shooting

A Wrightwood man faces a maximum fine of $3,000 and a year in jail on charges that he killed a desert bighorn sheep in an Angeles National Forest canyon.

Game warden Dick Phillips found a freshly killed bighorn ram Oct. 7 in Vincent Gulch, just off California 2 near Wrightwood. The animal appeared to have been deliberately concealed in brush.

Phillips and other officers from the Department of Fish and Game began a stakeout that lasted 30 hours, on the expectation that whoever shot the ram would return. Alton L. Safford, 73, entered the canyon and was arrested when he emerged with a bighorn skin and a leg.

A later search of Safford’s home turned up the rifle wardens suspect he used to shoot the ram, along with illegal animal parts that included eagle feathers and talons. Safford is to appear in Antelope Valley Municipal Court in Lancaster Nov. 18 to answer charges of illegal possession of a bighorn sheep.

Game wardens reported heavy turnouts in several Southern California deer hunting zones on opening day last Saturday. Hunter pressure was described as heavy in Zone D16 (San Diego County and western Riverside County) areas north of Interstate 8. And in the Santa Ana River drainage areas of Zone D14, warden John Slaughter said that hunter pressure was the heaviest he’s seen in his nine opening days there.

Pressure was also reported heavier than last year in Angelus National Forest, Zone D11, but hunter success was described as slight.

Arizona game wardens are reminding hunters to observe a cardinal rule of gun safety, a violation of which cost an Arizona hunter his life recently. Rabbit hunter Paul Reece used the stock of his shotgun to flush a rabbit from a cholla cactus patch. The shotgun was triggered and the blast killed him.

Wardens cited numerous accidents over the years resulting from hunters using their shotguns or rifles as walking sticks, or pulling loaded guns out of vehicles barrel first.

In a few years, North America’s tallest bird, the five-foot whooping crane, may again be seen flying over the eastern United States.

Federal biologists are studying areas in Michigan, Georgia and Florida where new flocks of whoopers could be established. The birds once nested widely over the eastern U.S. but by 1850 were hunted to near-extinction for their feathers.

Today, about 180 whoopers exist in three flocks, the largest of which is the Aransas-Wood Buffalo flock which winters on the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast.

When a site is selected, biologists will begin a process called cross-fostering. They will take eggs from whooper nests in Canada and place them in the nests of sandhill cranes, which are not endangered. Canadian whoopers will then lay new eggs and start over while the sandhill cranes hatch the whooping cranes and raise them as their own.

Briefly The 3,427-pound great white shark caught by Donnie Braddick off Montauk, N.Y., last August has been submitted to the International Game Fish Assn. for world-record status. If accepted, the IGFA said, the shark will be recognized as the largest fish ever caught on rod and reel. . . . The National Coalition for Marine Conservation will hold its “Fish for the Future” barbecue Nov. 15 at Sea World’s Nautilus Pavilion in San Diego. . . . Pheasant hunters planning to hunt in Kern County and other counties north of Kern are advised to double check the state hunting regulations pamphlet, where a misprint may cause hunters to incorrectly believe there is an eight-bird possession limit. . . . Art’s Fishing Tackle in Gardena will be the site of a long-range fishing seminar Saturday with San Diego skipper Frank LoPreste present from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. . . . Saltwater fly fishing authority Alex Siemers will present a seminar on fly fishing for bonito and shark when he appears at the San Gabriel Valley Fly Fishers’ meeting Wednesday at the Legg Lake-Whittier Narrows Visitors’ Center in El Monte.