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Patrick Durkin
Patrick Durkin
Outdoors writer/editor, weekly columnist for 17 Wisconsin newspapers, regular contributor to American Hunter magazine, and former editor of Deer & Deer Hunting magazine.

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Boating

Confidence Kills: How to Avoid Boat Accidents this Season
Experience alone won’t guarantee hunters and anglers safe passage on troubled waters, no matter how big your boat.
In fact, confidence can kill you.
Consider Ernest McSorley, who was 63 and commanded 10 ships during 40-plus years at sea and on the Great Lakes. And Edward John Smith, who was 62 and commanded ships for 27 of his 40 years at sea.
Both men were well-seasoned mariners who went down with their ships; Captain McSorley while commanding...

Wildlife Management

Isle Royale: Are the $2 Million Wolf Reintroductions Working?
Riddle me this: How can a male wolf be both father and half-brother to a female wolf?
Answer: By breeding their shared mother.
Just such an Oedipal pairing about a decade ago begat what became the lone surviving “native-born” wolf duo on Isle Royale National Park in northwestern Lake Superior. The male and his daughter/half-sister became the last wolves standing on the 9-by-45-mile-long island in 2018, the inbred remnants of a population that...

Whitetail Deer

When Hunters Find Dead People
People who disappear in woods and marshes are often found by those not looking for them—like hunters.
The hunters are seldom named in news reports. More often they’re identified by what they were hunting that day, be it deer, ducks, turkeys, shed antlers, mushrooms, or wild berries. The lead sentence in this 2007 Alabama newspaper article is typical: “A bird hunter found the body of a woman in a Macon County woods Saturday.”
A North Carolina TV...

Whitetail Deer

What is Killing America’s Fawns?
Many hunters picture coyotes scouring woodlots from May to June, snatching newborn fawns between sun-dappled trilliums, and heading home with a hindquarter clamped between their jaws.
Why wouldn’t we envision such scenes? Trail cameras across the U.S. often snap grip-and-grins of coyotes, bobcats, or black bears with freshly killed fawns. But those pictures seldom tell the full story. Recent research suggests fawn predation is much more about...

Whitetail Deer

Biblical Flood Causes Wildlife Apocalypse in South
Turkeys starved in treetops. Ravenous raccoons killed nesting turtles and newborn fawns. Countless other wild animals perished during a record 219-day flood last year in Mississippi’s Yazoo Backwater Project.
The Yazoo Backwater’s surrounding levees provided the only high ground for displaced wildlife, but all those miles of manmade barriers provided little sanctuary throughout the unprecedented deluge. The Backwater, or South Delta, covers about...

Wildlife Management

‘Incredible Waste of Money:’ America’s Most Ineffective Deer Management Program
New York City gave 1,719 whitetail bucks on Staten Island the “big snip” the past four autumns as part of an 8-year, deer vasectomy experiment. The program hopes to reduce the herd population, Lyme disease, browse damage, and deer-vehicle collisions. It has cost the city $6.6 million so far.
As of early March—before coronavirus devastated NYC—City Hall remained committed to the vasectomy program, which began in 2016 as a 3-year, $3.3 million...

Policy & Legislation

Deer Farmer Defies CWD Law, Faces Potential Jail Time
A Minnesota deer farmer defied a statewide quarantine in January by trucking three captive bucks to a hunting show in St. Paul. He will try on March 23 to convince a judge that the Department of Natural Resources lacked authority to impose the travel ban on privately-owned whitetails.
The case highlights Minnesota’s ongoing struggles with chronic wasting disease, which has been linked to captive deer or elk (cervid) farms in three of the state’s...

Wildlife Management

Rural Myths and Conspiracy Theories Die Hard
The only thing tougher to spot, stalk, and slay than the sources of outdoor folktales and conspiracy theories are the myths themselves, which seem to strengthen with each season.
That’s especially true of deep-seated conspiratorial yarns that claim insurance companies lobby lawmakers and pressure wildlife agencies to slash deer herds across whitetail country. Biologists simply strive to balance herds with the habitat or social tolerance, but some...

Freshwater

Human Catch and Release: Tales and Tips for Unhooking Anglers
Fishing guides and emergency room doctors can’t help but recall gory wounds and pasty faces when hearing the phrase, “get hooked on fishing.”
After all, those professionals must often remove fish hooks from the ears, hands, fingers, and other body parts of panicky victims. Guides are often the casualty or the extraction expert, given that they must constantly attach lures, net fish, and unhook fish; and then stand again in harm’s way as clients...

Predators

Grizzly Bear Meat: Is It Fit for Dinner?
When Idaho and Wyoming tried opening limited hunting seasons for grizzly bears in fall 2018, opponents instantly dubbed them “trophy hunts.” They claimed no one hunts grizzlies for their meat, and charged that hunters only want the big bear’s skull, claws, and hide for rugs and decorations.
Those who supported the low-impact hunts—one tag in Idaho and 22 tags in Wyoming—felt stung by the sweeping accusations. Grizzlies hadn’t been hunted in the...