Smoky Mountain News

There a few proposed changes being made to the state’s wildlife management and fishing regulations that would impact Western North Carolina.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission voted July 7 to take 55 proposed changes to public hearing, including one forum scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Sept. 14, at Haywood Community College in Clyde.

Proposed changes that would impact this region are:

• Classify Cedar Cliff Lake in Jackson County as hatchery-supported trout waters.

• Allow electronic calls for take of crows and coyotes.

• Add feral swine to the commission’s hunting rules with no closed season and no bag limit.

• Allow the executive director or his designee to waive the rule banning the importation of a cervid carcass or carcass part from any state where chronic wasting disease occurs for a deer or elk harvested within 20 miles of the North Carolina state line.

• Open the raccoon, opossum and bobcat hunting season in the Sherwood and Harmon Den Bear Sanctuaries in Haywood County.

For a full text of the proposed regulations changes, see the proposed changes in fishing and wildlife management regulations for 2012-2013 at www.ncwildlife.org/HotTopics/documents/2012-13_Proposals.pdf.