Document text
37 °F Forecast | Road Cams Friday, November 26, 2004 Today's News | Classifieds | Autos | Homes | Jobs | Tempo | Health | Community | Home Delivery SECTIONS Home Page Local News Sports Business Obituaries Life Opinion - Politics Tempo AP News Weather Classified Archives Site Map SPECIAL SECTIONS Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Menu Guide How To Guide Wellness Connection Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Wedding Guide Passport to the Rogue Valley EXTRA Newspaper in Education Personals Movie Times TV Times E The People MARKETPLACE Find a Car Find a Home Find a Job Classifieds Place an ad eSouthernOregon Automotive Communities Entertainment Publications Recreation Calendar CUSTOMER SERVICE Frequent Questions Advertising Information Home Delivery Employment Contact Us Media Kit Network Affiliate Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend November 25, 2004 This hen turkey that Eagle Point resident Steve Nicovich photographed recently sports an unusually long black beard similar to that of a tom. Gumshoe cracks wildlife case of the bearded lady Outdoors Commentary By MARK FREEMAN Mail Tribune With wingtip wading shoes on the desk and my best fedora pulled over my eyes, I’m snoozing away one of those afternoons when work gets slower than dog slobber in a frozen duck blind. But this is life in the outdoor detective business. When I first hung my shingle as Southern Oregon’s only fish and wildlife gumshoe, I knew new cases wouldn’t come rushing in like coyotes to a crippled-rabbit predator call. But it’s never been this slow. My mentor, Mike Hammer, always had some troubled dame with a wad of cash waltz in and hire him on desperate days like this. But lately, no one’s come for me to solve outdoor imponderables like why do salmon jump, or how do jackalopes hop with those big antlers stapled to their heads. Advertisement I’ve banked on a string of doe deer in here during the rut, begging me to track their bucks to see if they were getting a little blacktail on the side. But nothing. I‘m one more overdue bill from becoming just another spawned-out carcass floating belly-up in the eddy of life. Then that pinup of a 20-pound steelhead that I use as a screensaver disappears. In its place comes a box. "You’ve got mail." I snatch the mouse faster than a Cooper’s hawk on the Atkins diet. An e-mail. From "Hunter146." He’s a snitch of mine. Also goes by the name Steve Nicovich. His cover is that he lives in Eagle Point and works the outdoor counter at G.I. Joe’s. But really, he’s an assassin. Rumor is he rubbed out a Canadian moose once in broad daylight. When I asked him why, he said: "Because I drew the tag." Nobody messes with Steve. "What would you think if I told you there’s a hen turkey in my backyard with a seven-inch beard?" Nicovich writes. "That and a buck-thirty gets you 12 ounces of Mellelo’s black, with room for cream," I write back. "Gimme pictures." I get up, pour my last shot of hooch and wait. Finally, it comes. With attachments. "Here’s some pics I shot with the help of some Nikon binoculars," he writes. I click on the jpeg, and there she is, plain as the white on an elk’s butt. It’s a female turkey all right, but jutting from its breast is a long line of thick, coarse black hair normally found on a nice big tom. She’s a bearded hen. I once heard of a female whitetail that went to Denmark and came back a doe named Buck. But this is different. A cross-dressing Rio Grande turkey. And on Thanksgiving, to boot. You can cut that irony with an electric knife. I button my best double-breasted neoprene and beat feet to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office. The Fish Dick is on the case. At the ODFW, I find Mark Vargas, a wildlife biologist with a pretty big brain. I give him the skinny. "It happens more often than you think," Vargas says. "Who said I was thinking," I reply. He says the hunting regulations even say hunters during spring and fall seasons can shoot male turkeys or a turkey with a visible beard. He doesn’t know what makes this mother hen look like Abe Lincoln. "It’s some kind of hormonal thing or a genetic thing," Vargas says. "Maybe it was an old hen." "You mean, like my grandmother’s mustache?" I ask. "I didn’t say that," he replies. "You did." Clearly, this is something electrolysis or a bucket of hot wax won’t solve. I need a bigger brain. I head to the Oregon Hunters Association. John Thiebes, the OHA field coordinator, just took a job as a field biologist for the National Wild Turkey Federation. The bird kind. Not the bourbon. I give Thiebes the details. "I’ve seen a couple, but with really short beards," Thiebes says. "Not seven inches." I guess his brain’s not so big after all. I hot-foot back to the office. Like an alcoholic who stays sober on New Year’s Eve, I’ve given the amateurs their one chance for the year. I need a real heavy brain. And I know exactly where all the heavy wildlife brains are in the Rogue Valley. I dial the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Forensics Laboratory in Ashland. I ask for Pepper Trail. He picks up the phone. "OK, your name’s not Pepper Spice, so let’s cut through the song and dance," I say, lighting a cigarette. "You’re Pepper Trail, and everybody knows you’re the best bird-brain in this town." I give Trail the 4-1-1. "It’s certainly not unheard of, but it’s certainly unusual," Trail says. Like all big brains, he goes for the books. Every turkey has a little fleshy nub, called a papilla, on its chest, he says. The beard grows out of the papilla, but the whiskers in females are usually so sort they remain covered by feathers. "I think they even have a name for that in turkey lore," Trail says. He pulls out a book called "The Wild Turkey — Biology and Management" published by the NWTF. Depending upon the subspecies, 1 percent to 29 percent of all female wild turkeys have visible beards of under three inches, but rarely over seven inches, the study shows. So, it is like Grandma’s ‘stache. "Where was that study done?" I ask. "The Ozarks," he says. Case closed. I hang up the phone, walk over to the window and light my last smoke. "The Ozarks," I exhale. "Shoulda known." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life Opinion - Politics | AP News | Archives | Site Map E Southern Oregon | Classified Copyright © 1997-2004 Mail Tribune. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions Website Feedback ADVERTISERS A D V E R T I S E R S SPECIAL SECTIONS Auto Finder Job Finder Home Finder Joy Magazine Homelife Magazine Tempo Readers' Choice Real Estate Showcase Since We Asked Outdoor Journal Moving to Southern Oregon? Volunteer Opportunities