Attention all Tennessee hunting license holders! Once again, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency is burning hundreds of acres of prime Wild Turkey and other ground dwelling game bird nesting and forage habitat in the Bridgestone Centennial Wilderness Area. I have exhaustedly attempted to find any justification for the burning by contacting the head of the T.W.R.A. in Nashville, TN. on several different occasions with my concerns. Not only do they burn the area every year, but often repeat the same areas year after year.
As most hunters and wildlife enthusiasts know, but seems to elude the T.W.R.A. is that Wild Turkey, Quail, and Grouse, nest on the ground, and seek their nesting spots weeks before they actually mate and start laying and setting on the nest. With Wild Turkey season opening in just three weeks, no reasonable hunter would plan to hunt in these burned out thickets.
I am enraged that part of my $160 I pay as a Sportsman License holder is paying the T.W.R.A. to actually make hunting less available on public hunting lands. The agent overseeing the area, has actually responded when asked by a hunter; why do they keep burning? He stated that he likes the aesthetics of “open ground”. I was under the impression that T.W.R.A. agents were supposed to protect wildlife and wild habitat, not their own interests. At least, that is, that’s the line of hogwash that you see and hear when they advertise or try to solicit money from the public.
When I inquired of the T.W.R.A. headquarters about the statistical and observational decline in game in the W.M.A., the agent gave me a bunch of bull crap that Native Americans used to burn the land to find game. Since I am an educated person, and not some ignorant Appalachian hillbilly, I felt it necessary to explain the facts to him that the Native American tribes that used those practices were of the northern plains, such as The Blackfoot, Comanche, and Cheyenne, to more easily hunt Buffalo in the tall grasslands, not the indigenous tribes of the woodlands in this region, like The Cherokee, Paiute, and Shawnee, they never would have taken the risk setting fire to their own woodland villages and drive the game they relied on from the forests. What’s even more absurd is that a lot of The Bridgestone Centennial Wilderness Area was a ranch that was owned and cleared by none other than country music legend Jim Reeves, and has nothing to do with Native American Indians.
In my opinion, The T.W.R.A. is an underworked overpaid bunch of blundering buffoons, and there are probably far more examples of these blunders than successes, if one takes the time to uncover them. Here are just a couple of the more blatant ones in addition to their annual burning:
- The T.W.R.A. put Alewives, a type of minnow into the waterways. Unfortunately these fish contain an enzyme that inhibits the spawning ability of Walleye, a prized edible game fish revered by fisherman everywhere. Of course now more money and resources have to be used by The T.W.R.A. to capture spawning Walleye, artificially spawn them, and raise them to be later reintroduced to maintain adequate populations.
- The Agency introduced Muskellunge, a northern large predatory fish into some of the waterways at the request of lobbyists that relocated here from northern states and formed a “Muskie” club. These fish have all but consumed the once plentiful Rock Bass, White Bass, Yellow Perch, and Crappie from the Upper Caney Fork and Collins rivers, great for the “Muskie” club, for the rest of the fishermen, not so much. They also introduced River Otters in the same waterways, another fish eating glutton.
Yes, what The Tennessee Resources Agency needs most is some responsible oversight, perhaps at the federal level.