Turkey hunter faces manslaughter charges

Vermont State Police have filed manslaughter charges against the man accused of killing his son while turkey hunting.


Following a joint investigation by the Vermont State Police and Vermont Game Wardens, Kevin Kadamus, 44, was charged with manslaughter today.


He was processed at the State Police Barracks in St. Johnsbury and released pending an arraignment that is scheduled for July 6 at the Caledonia County Courthouse.


Kadamus is accused of shooting and killing his son, Jacob Kadamus, 18, while the pair were turkey hunting on the opening day of the Vermont turkey season May 1.


Jacob Kadamus reported was hunting in a different area, but moved into the area where his father was hunting when he was shot.


He died at the scene.


See my original blog post for more details on this turkey hunting incident by clicking here.

OutdoorsVT 5-22-09

Outdoor funding

Money flows into Vt. for outdoor recreation enhancements, wildlife

Vermont's outdoors will be in a little better shape thanks to an influx in funds from a variety of sources announced recently.

Gov. James Douglas announced $568,170 in funding for 24 trail projects in Vermont.

The money comes from Vermont's Recreation Trails Program, which is a matching grant program of the Federal Highways Administration.

The money will be used for the acquisition, development, rehabilitation and maintenance of trails and trail-related facilities for nonmotorized multiple-use recreational trail projects, according to a news release from the governor's office.

About half of the funding - $282,980 - will benefit the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers for winter grooming maintenance.

VAST clubs maintain Vermont's snowmobiling trail network with 120 groomers who take care of more than 6,000 miles of trails every winter.

Also on the list to receive funds is Pine Hill Park in Rutland, which will see $3,855 for trail maintenance and a trail skills training project.

The Moosalamoo Association North Branch Trail in Addison County, Robert Frost Interpretive Trail and Chandler Ridge Trail reconstruction will receive $19,150.

The Green Mountain Club will get $18,905 for reconstruction of 1.2 miles of the Long Trail in northwestern Vermont.

The Catamount Trail Association will get $17,673 for relocation of some trail in the Coolidge State Forest in Plymouth.

Local Motion, a group dedicated to developing trails, promoting walkable communities and fostering active lifestyles - primarily in the Burlington area right now - will receive $25,000 to expand its Trail Finder database of recreation trails.

The database expansion is slated for Rutland, Orange, Windsor and Washington counties.

Hartford's Kilowatt Trail system will get $19,257 to link the North and South Park.

Shaftsbury's Linda Tilgner Memorial Nature Trail will get $12,223 for reconstruction.

The Woodstock Billings Park Commission will get $7,000 for restoration efforts on the Faulkner Trail.

And Vermont's Trail and Greenways Council will see $10,000 for statewide educational outreach.

This is just a sampling of projects throughout Vermont that will receive funds from the grant, which can fund up to 80 percent of the total project cost and requires a match, which can include donations, in-kind support and other nonfederal funds.


Stimulus money

The Department of Interior also announced more than $1.7 million in Vermont as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The money will be used to rehab a fish hatchery, fund a fish passage, and repair and rehabilitate carriage roads at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will receive more than $1 million of the funding to fix the electrical system and main hatchery outfall at White River National Fish Hatchery, as well as work toward removing or bypassing barriers to fish movement at Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Resource Complex.

The National Park Service will receive $518,000 for the historic carriage road restoration at Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park and to help rehabilitate the Appalachian Trail Little Rock Pond shelter.

The U.S. Geological Survey will receive $216,000 to catch up on some deferred maintenance as well as upgrade stream gauges.

To see the entire list of projects planned in Vermont, log on to recovery.doi.gov/VT.


Wildlife funds

Wildlife will also benefit from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service appropriation aimed at conserving and recovering imperiled wildlife through the State Wildlife Grant Program.

Vermont's share of the more than $61 million will be $610,704 - or right at 1 percent of the total funds available.

Money is allocated to states based on the formula of one-third for land area of the state and two-thirds on population. Each of the 50 states is guaranteed a minimum of 1 percent.

The funds, which come from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, are intended to benefit wildlife species and their habitat, including nongame species.

Darren Marcy is a local outdoor enthusiast. His Web site is www.DarrenMarcy.com. E-mail him at darren@darrenmarcy.com.

OutdoorsVT 5-15-09

Pine Hill Park
A Droopy Muffin can nourish a hungry soul

Early this week I spent some time trekking around Pine Hill Park in Rutland in what may have been absolutely perfect conditions.



Temperatures were in the 60s Monday and the sun was bright overhead as I walked the trails in this recreation gem.



I hoofed it from the Giorgetti parking area on Upper Giorgetti to Trillium to Svelte Tiger. I hooked up with Droopy Muffin over to Underdog to Rocky Pond and on up to the Overlook where I sat for a bit enjoying the view.



This is such a great spot in Pine Hill Park and anybody who hasn’t invested shoe leather into reaching this spot should certainly do so.



But darkness was fast approaching. I had hit the trail well after 6 p.m. and, despite having an el cheapo headlamp with me (just in case) I really didn’t want to risk tripping over a rock or root in the trail in the dark, so I reluctantly moved on.



Following Overlook Trail over the new suspension bridge I hit Jersey Trail and then hooked up with Santa’s Helper back to Droopy Muffin.



I hate coming back the way I went in, however, so I did my best to retrace as few boot prints as possible, choosing a few trails I had never been on before.



I continued on Droopy Muffin over to the Upper Ledges trail and down to Tim’s Vista to the Birches and back out on Trillium and Upper Giorgetti.



I did find myself wondering as I walked, “where in the world did Svelte Tiger and Droopy Muffin come from?” Particularly Droopy Muffin. I couldn’t remember ever walking on a trail with a cooler name.



Whatever their names, those trails guided me through a few hours that couldn’t have been better spent.



After a lengthy outdoor dry spell, I’ve finally managed to get off the pavement several times lately and the Pine Hill Park trek was the ointment I needed to soothe my chapped soul.



The only thing that went wrong was when I pulled my camera out and watched the battery indicator go from “full” to “empty” in one press of the shutter button.



But while I didn’t manage to capture the photos I planned to take, I went home contented and with a greater appreciation for all that Pine Hill Park offers.



Pine Hill Park continues to be something to boast over and is quickly becoming one of the area’s best not-so-secret attributes.



Monday, on Svelte Tiger, I ran across Michael Smith — the one-man trail- and bridge-building hotshot who continues to be the driving force in the park.



With help, Smith has been the force behind much of the park’s growth and improvement in the last few years.



That day, Smith was working on the decking of a new bridge — a cool, serpentine-looking boardwalk that arcs around trees and flattens out a part of the trail that had suffered from runoff in the past.



He said the coming summer brings plenty more work with five planned bridges, more trail building and the always constant repair and improvements.



But Mike’s not alone in his work and many others have helped, and continue to help, in large and small ways.



This Saturday is the last work day of the spring and a good chance to do a little bit toward upkeep in the park that offers so much to so many.



The work day will kick off at 9 a.m. Plans include work on free ride trails, improving water bars on Giorgetti, “digging the Suez Canal” on Lonely Rock, as well as working on Rembrandt’s Brush, according to a press release.



Show up for whatever time you can offer. Bring water and a snack. Bugs weren’t too bad Monday, but bug spray isn’t a bad idea.




Darren Marcy is a local outdoor enthusiast. His Web site is www.darrenmarcy.com. E-mail him at darren@darrenmarcy.com.

OutdoorsVT 5-8-09

Losing the battle for our kids

This should scare the willies out of all of us. Every time I read another study about our decreasing participation in the great outdoors I get more and more nervous.

I’m afraid that the way things are going, we could be at risk of losing our connection to the outdoors in just a generation or two.

We simply aren’t doing enough to foster an appreciation for outdoor recreation in our kids.

Because of that, our grandkids may not ever get a chance to lay in a sleeping bag and listen to the rain against tent walls before falling asleep, sit by a campfire with a burned marshmallow at the end of a stick, round a bend on the trail and happen upon a doe and two fawns standing in a field or feel the tug of a feisty rainbow at the end of a fishing line.

Most likely you’ve already experienced these simple pleasures — or something very similar — in your own outdoor adventures. Hopefully, you are passing on these opportunities to your kids or grandkids.

Too many of us aren’t.

More and more of us are living in urban areas and the only nature many kids experience is the wild cats that live in the abandoned building down the street.

Even in rural areas, more and more kids are growing up without the outdoor experiences that we used to take for granted.

Entering my fifth decade, I see a big difference. If you’re anywhere near my age or older, I’m sure you don’t have a problem recognizing all the things that compete for attention among today’s youth that didn’t exist when we were kids.

Television has 250 channels today as compared to the 12 I grew up with, and we had cable television. There were no satellite dishes with 24-hour cartoon networks. My kids have half a dozen channels that play an endless loop of animation. Heck, we didn’t even have a VCR until I was in high school.

I never saw a computer until I was 10 or 12 years old and I didn’t know anybody who had one for another decade. I got an Atari when they first came out but with the few games that were available, I grew bored with it after a few months.

But what I did have was a passion for the outdoors. From camping and fishing from a very early age, hunting with my dad as soon as I was old enough to tag along, and plenty of other outdoor fun, I caught the bug early.

As I grew older, my friends and I would go on “expeditions” into places my parents never knew we went. We would take our rod and reel and a few pieces of stolen fishing tackle from my dad’s tackle box to a local golf course pond. We went rabbit hunting. My cousins and I even camped out in the backyard throughout the summer because the few trips to the mountains we took just didn’t cut it.

In junior high I discovered Jim Kjelgaard and his 40-plus books about a boy and his dog, wildlife, survival and outdoor adventure. I bet I read darn near every single one of those books within a couple of years.

Quite often those books, or the outdoor magazines I stole from my dad and took to school, got me in trouble as I read about the outdoors or lusted after the gear I saw advertised on those pages instead of paying attention to a teacher.

When I wasn’t reading about it, or doing it, I most often was dreaming about it. Trust me, my grades bear this out.

Who am I kidding? I’m still doing it today.

While I may have been an extreme case, there aren’t enough kids daydreaming about the outdoors. Too many of them are deep in thought about how to get to the next level of the latest video game or what they’re going to do to their Facebook page.

If they’re not playing video games, or watching television, they’re on the Internet, which isn’t a bad thing all by itself, but too much of it certainly feeds the cycle.

But, guess what folks? We can’t blame our kids.

It’s our fault. It’s your fault if your kids spend too much time online. It’s my fault my kids watch too much TV.

We have to end this cycle now, before it’s too late.

Studies show that a kid who isn’t introduced to the outdoors at a relatively early age is much less likely to stay involved later in life. I’m not blowing smoke.

Why do you spend time in nature? Why do you hunt? Fish? Hike? Bike? Ski? Camp? The overwhelming majority of you are muttering to yourself that it’s just something you’ve always done.

You can’t remember not being active in the outdoors. If you think hard, however, there was an adult somewhere back there who took you into the outdoors — probably many, many times.

If we don’t build an appreciation for nature and outdoor activities now, they won’t pass it on to their kids. The chances of them picking it up later are much, much lower.

A recent survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows the number of kids 6 to 15 who fish has decreased to 12.3 million, the lowest number in 29 years.

A nationwide University of Maryland study found that the number of kids 9 to 12 years old who spend time in the outdoors has dropped 50 percent since 1973.

Visits to National Parks and our national forests are down.

A 2006 study shows that beginning between 1981 and 1991, there was a decline in per capital nature recreation at a rate of 1.3 percent per year. The study looked at a wide variety of outdoor recreation.

That’s not acceptable.

Without new blood joining the fight for sound wildlife management practices, to protect habitat, to battle for clean water and for open trails, we’ll begin losing those fights.

Other interests will take over and land management agencies will make different decisions. Funding will head in different directions.

An administration that wants to privatize the National Parks System, or give preference to the extractive industries over wildlife considerations, will have little opposition.

Many outdoor groups have recognized this and there are many new initiatives being launched to combat the decreasing participation rates.

All the programs in the world won’t matter if we don’t take advantage of them.

We have to take time out of our busy schedules and set aside some time for our kids.

We can no longer sit back and hope they develop an interest in the outdoors naturally. There are too many obstacles and competing interests.

Get them involved now.

Do it for your kids. Do it for the future.

Darren Marcy is a local outdoor enthusiast. His Web site is http://www.darrenmarcy.com/. E-mail him at darren@darrenmarcy.com.

NEOWA Spring Safari

I am excited to attend the New England Outdoor Writers Association's Spring Safari the weekend of May 16 in Killington, Vt.

It will be my first chance to meet some of the outdoor writers, photographers and various other outdoor communicators since joining NEOWA.

Sent my registration in today. Looking forward to it the event.

Vermont teenager killed while turkey hunting

Vermont Fish and Wildlife game wardens and State Police are investigating what appears to be an accidental shooting that has left a 17-year-old turkey hunter dead.

The incident occured at about 6 a.m. May 1, the opening morning of the Vermont turkey season.

According to a press release issued by the Vermont State Police, authorities responded to a report of a shooting at 7206 S. Wheelock Road, in Wheelock, Vt.

Rescue personnel and Game Warden Dave Gregory arrived to find Jacob Kadamus, 17, suffering from a gunshot wound and his father, Kevin Kadamus, 45, trying to render aid, according to the press release. CPR and rescue efforts failed and the teen died at the scene.

Officials said the pair were hunting turkeys in two different areas, but Jacob Kadamus left his area and moved toward where his father was hunting. Kevin Kadamus fired a shot at what he believed to be a turkey, hitting Jacob, according to the press release.

State game wardens are processing the shooting scene and State Police detectives are continuing the joint investigation. The Caledonia County State's Attorney will review the facts.

No charges were immediately filed, according to the press release.

An autopsy will be conducted by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to determine conclusive cause of death.

OutdoorsVT 5-1-09

Checking for ticks

Spring is a beautiful time of the year. As the temperatures warm the air, green creeps back into the picture, flowers bloom, animals birth their young and another year of battling ticks begins.

I guess spring can’t all be beautiful.

Dealing with ticks is just part of being outdoors in the spring.

Unfortunately, because of the dangers of contracting Lyme disease, ticks aren’t just an annoyance, but can prove to be a serious risk to your health.

As outdoor enthusiasts, we are going to run into ticks, which are most often found in wooded and bushy areas with high grass and leaf litter on the ground.

Fortunately, while we seem to have a growing problem with ticks and Lyme disease, the situation isn’t as bad as it may seem.

Health officials say the number of cases of Lyme disease grows every year.

Some of that is certainly due to an increase in the number of ticks as well as the number of ticks carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme disease.

But some experts say that the increased number of cases certainly has something to do with increased vigilance on the part of people who get symptoms checked out and a medical community that continues to get better at diagnosing Lyme disease.

Still, if you’re the one who gets infected, it doesn’t matter what the statistics say so prevention is critical.

Happily, every tick bite doesn’t result in a person contracting the illness and there are things people can do to reduce the chances of being infected with Lyme disease.

If bitten by a tick carrying the Borrelia burgdorferi bacteria that causes Lyme disease, quickly removing the tick reduces the chance of it being conveyed to the person.

It takes 24 hours or more for the disease to be transmitted as the tick feeds so if the little critter can be removed the same day it attaches, the odds improve that you won’t suffer any ill consequences, according to health officials.

Country crooner Brad Paisley sings about trying to convince a barroom conquest to let him check her for ticks.

Despite the humorous nature of this silly song, checking yourself — or having someone help you — is a good idea.

Early detection is key to treating Lyme disease.

Anyone who ventures into the outdoors — even if it’s just the backyard or a local park — should conduct a thorough inspection to ensure they haven’t picked up a tick.

The problem with tick bites is that the person being bitten quite often has no clue they have a tick unless it is seen.

Most often, tick bites go unnoticed at the time of the bite.

And spotting a tick on your body isn’t always easy. The black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick, which is responsible for carrying the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, are little bitty.

They may not be much larger than the period at the end of this sentence. A tick will also search out a warm, moist place on your body, which often means armpits, groin, between the toes and even behind the knees. But they also tend to bury themselves in hair-covered places, which again points toward armpits and the groin area along with the head.

The upshot of all this is spotting ticks isn’t always easy and getting a little help isn’t a bad idea; parents should check their kids every day when they come in from playing outdoors.

But while finding a tick after it bites is important, preventing the tick bite in the first place is even better.

Avoiding tick bites is relatively easy, although far from 100 percent effective.

One thing people can do is wear long-sleeved shirts, long pants and tall socks and tucking the pant legs into the socks will better prevent ticks from crawling up your legs.

Add another layer of defense by using an insect repellent.

Products containing high percentages of DEET or Permethrin are favored, but there is a big difference between the two products in the application.

DEET-based products can be — and should be — applied directly to the skin, as well as the clothing.

But Permethrin-based repellents should only be applied to the clothing, and clothing should be allowed to dry before putting on.

On children, use lower concentrations of the active ingredient, using concentrations of less than 30 percent.

Be sure to read the label carefully and follow directions closely.

Also, keep the product away from the face and off of hands, which your little one might use to rub an eye, handle food or otherwise come in contact with the mouth.

There are natural products that are, in my experience, generally less effective but still offer some protection and are safer for children.

This season is turning out to be a busy one for ticks already.

I’ve talked to many different people who have found ticks on their bodies and I’ve already pulled ticks from an animal at my house, and we’re only at the beginning of May.

Unfortunately, tick season really doesn’t peak until June or later every summer.

Darren Marcy is a local outdoor enthusiast. His Web site is http://www.darrenmarcy.com/. E-mail him at darren@darrenmarcy.com.