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Mark Freeman Commentary With the lead flying, kids� hunt dangerous By all accounts, Sept. 18, 1999, was a bad day for the youngsters and adults hoping for a happy hunting memory at the Deep Canyon Hunting Preserve near Redmond. First, a woman escorting her 12-year-old son took home the unlikeliest of souvenirs. She was hit by 13 shotgun pellets fired at a flying pheasant by two overly exuberant boys 60-100 yards away. A short time later, one of those young shooters from that incident turned victim. A shotgun pellet, fired by a 13-year-old boy shooting at an airborne pheasant yards away, struck him in the neck. All the shooters, and all the victims, were taking part in a special September Youth Pheasant Hunt conducted by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to get kids hooked on the upland game-bird hunting. The shooters all had passed a hunter-education course; the shootees all had blaze-orange caps on. Despite these conventional safety measures, their special days all ended with the wrong kind of marked impression � the kind left by buckshot on human skin. "If you leave without a flesh wound," state wildlife biologist Mark Vargas groans, "then you�ve had a good experience." But Vargas and others hope that will change this fall under a new, tougher set of safety requirements intended to keep the flesh wounds on the bird side of upland bird hunting. Stung by a spate of firearms accidents during the special state youth hunts each September, agency biologists have proposed a set of new safety measures that trade some of the family togetherness in exchange for the likelihood of fewer firearms accidents. ODFW hunting managers are proposing that youth-hunt participants wear blaze-orange vests along with the bright-orange hats that had been required. Also, fewer young hunters will be allowed in a hunt area at one time in the hopes that thinning out the crowd will reduce accidents. But perhaps most important is the proposal to reduce, from two to one, the number of youths an adult may supervise at one time in the field. The rationale is that, of the four firearms accidents reported in the past two years during the special youth hunts, a couple fewer kids in the field and having less supervisory responsibilities for each adult likely would have prevented accidents. "Most of the accidents seem to be related to overcrowding and supervision," says Tony Burtt, who manages the ODFW�s hunter-education program. "That�s where we�re focusing our efforts." Also, the kids will get a short refresher course in hunter safety, and the adults will have to sign a card saying they discussed additional safety measures with their kids. The proposed changes are set to go before the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission at its Aug. 11 meeting in Portland. Ted Kruggel, like many adults who have chaperoned kids on the fall youth hunt, understands that youthful exuberance of shooters sometimes not as tall as the grass they�re in can lead to pellet showers in the field "There�s a lot of little guys there, 12 to 16 years old, and they get excited when they see the birds fly," says the 45-year-old Kruggel, who has escorted kids at Denman Wildlife Area youth hunts in White City for more than 20 years. "It�s a little bit harder to control them. "There�s been a few times we�ve absorbed a little shot out there," Kruggel says. Kruggel likes much of the new proposal, especially the addition of blaze-orange vests and the reduced hunter densities. He also believes the one-on-one supervision is probably a good idea as well. But Kruggel worries that it will make it harder on adults and could trim the numbers of kids who get a chance to take part in the youth hunts at Denman and other wildlife areas. Brothers and sisters will no longer be able to go afield together with their dads, and adults will be less likely to bring along their child�s cousin or friend � someone whose parents perhaps cannot take them � to the wildlife area. Ironically, these are some of the same youngsters the ODFW reaches out for in these youth hunts. "I can definitely see the safety factor," Kruggel says. "But at the same time, I think it�ll cause a lot of people to say the heck with it." But biologists like Vargas, who manages the Denman Wildlife Area, hope adults instead accept these upcoming changes for their safety-first benefits and not use them as reasons to miss passing Oregon�s hunting tradition to the next generation. "Dad is going to have to get someone else to go with them," Vargas says, "or make the kids take turns." (Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. 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