QDMA Press Release
PRESS RELEASE ON 8/10/04
Tim Lilley
(800) 209-3337
tlilley@qdma.com
Kentucky Agency Earns National Recognition
Watkinsville, Ga. – The Quality Deer Management Association (QDMA) has named the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources as its Agency of the Year. Wildlife Division Director Dr. Jonathan Gassett accepted the award during QDMA's 2004 Convention recently in Grand Rapids, Mich.
“This award recognizes the state or federal agency that has made the most significant contribution during the previous year to Quality Deer Management, the QDMA or the preservation of the deer- hunting heritage,” said QDMA Executive Director Brian Murphy. “Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources is deserving for many reasons; but perhaps the most significant is its innovative ‘Archery in the Schools' program.”
Led by Roy Grimes, Principle Assistant to Commissioner Tom Bennett, the agency launched the program in 2002 to address the decline in shooting-sports participants statewide. Its first-year goal for the program, which incorporates Olympic-style archery within the physical education program of middle schools, was for 60 schools to adopt the program. More than 110 did.
“The results of the program are exciting to say the least,” Murphy said. “Of the first 1,600 participants, 89 percent enjoyed the class. While 73 percent did not own a bow and 62 percent had never even shot one, 59 percent wanted to become a target shooter after the class, and 45 percent wanted to own a bow.
“Importantly,” Murphy added, “almost 40 percent of students indicated a willingness to try bowhunting after taking the class. Clearly, this may be the modern equivalent of yesteryear when young kids developed their passion for hunting and the outdoors while chasing rabbits and squirrels with BB guns and .22s in local woodlots.”
Kentucky's efforts have sparked more than a dozen other states to adopt the program, which is now known as the National Archery in the Schools Program.
“Kentucky's Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources deserves this award for many reasons,” Murphy said. “Hunters there recorded more than 45 Boone & Crockett (record book) bucks from the 2003 season, and the state also is a leader in the effort to restock wild elk to their former range in the eastern U.S. The statewide elk population now numbers more than 4,500.
“These facts are testament to the quality of the state's management efforts and those leading them.”
The QDMA is a national non-profit wildlife conservation organization headquartered in Watkinsville, Ga., with members in all 50 states and several foreign countries.
The QDMA is dedicated to ethical hunting, sound deer management and the preservation of the deer-hunting heritage. To learn more about the QDMA and how it can help your hunting, call (800) 209-DEER [(800) 209-3337] or visit www.qdma.com .
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