Complex gun regulations led to owner’s violation, his attorney says
by Robert Anglen – Feb. 22, 2010 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

A Gilbert firearms manufacturer will cease its gun operations after the company’s owner pleaded guilty to illegally selling rifles, shotguns and handguns.
Cavalry Arms Corp. says on its Web site that it has been “engaged in an ongoing dispute” with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, or ATF, for two years over “regulatory and compliance mistakes.”

But in federal court last week, owner Shawn Nealon admitted that he and his company illegally sold as many as 40 weapons to an out-of state buyer, and he voluntarily surrendered his federal firearms licenses, meaning Cavalry will no longer be able to import, manufacture or deal in weapons or ammunition.
“This is not some individual setting up a stand at a gun show,” U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke said Friday. “These are the preliminary steps that individuals take to get around federal laws in order to traffic in illegal firearms.”
Although none of the Cavalry guns has been linked to a crime, Burke said such cases are a particular concern for the agency.
Illegal-firearms sales are steadily increasing in Arizona, with much of the market driven by demand in Mexico, said Burke, the U.S. attorney for Arizona.
“The activity – southbound guns into Mexico – is very robust,” he said. “We have (several) very active investigations going on now.”
Nealon’s lawyer, Mark Vincent of Chandler, called the charges against his client ridiculous.
“This is by no means a great victory for the government,” he said, describing federal gun regulations as arcane. “In my opinion, no gun dealer in the United States could comply with the myriad of regulations. . . . It’s almost impossible to determine what the law is.”
Vincent said as much as 90 percent of the government’s original case against Cavalry was dismissed, leaving his client pleading guilty to selling to an out-of-state buyer.
“It’s a minor problem. . . . If that had been the only (charge), I don’t know that they would have bothered with it,” he said, adding: “Nobody was hurt. Nobody was almost hurt.”
Nealon faces up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in April.
But authorities say the bigger victory in this case is stripping Nealon of his firearms license.
Cavalry’s primary gun operation involved creating a polymer mold of a part for the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle. The “lower receiver,” the piece between the barrel and the stock, contains the firing mechanism. It is defined by the government as a firearm. The receivers were sold to the public and to other manufacturers for commercial and law-enforcement use.
According to a memo from Cavalry’s lawyers included in court documents, Cavalry employed six people and sold as many as 6,000 receivers between 2000 and 2006.
In a criminal complaint in 2008, ATF agents accused Nealon of illegal-weapons manufacturing for making the receivers. In addition, he was accused of illegal sales and export of other guns and possession of unlicensed firearms.
“To cover up this widespread illegal activity, Cavalry Arms and Nealon have failed to keep records, falsified records and lied to ATF,” the complaint states.
The ATF cited violations dating to 2000, including failure to keep a weapons inventory, failure to conduct background checks on at least 25 purchasers and failure to report a multiple-handgun sale.
Another problem: The ATF said Cavalry had outsourced the production of its molded receivers to an unlicensed company.
Following a search of Cavalry’s offices and Nealon’s Mesa home in 2008, agents said Nealon had illegally sold weapons to out-of-state buyers, more than 40 of those to a California resident who often stored those weapons at Nealon’s home.
Those weapons included: nine 9mm handguns, five .45-caliber handguns, five .22-caliber handguns, five .223 rifles, three 12-gauge shotguns, two .38-caliber handguns, two .44-caliber handguns, a .380-caliber handgun, a .308 rifle, a 7.62x39mm rifle, a 5.45x39mm rifle and a .357 rifle.
“Given Cavalry Arms’ . . . willingness to falsify records to cover up illegal activities, including illegal sales, it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine exactly how many illegal sales Cavalry Arms and Nealon have made to out-of-state residents,” the criminal complaint states.
Nealon on Friday referred questions about the case to his lawyer. But he said Cavalry is not shutting its doors.
He said the company will sell off its inventory of weapons, which it will be allowed to do with ATF oversight, and concentrate on developing firearm accessories and medical products.
“The firearms portion of our business doesn’t make up a large part of what we do,” Nealon said.
However, news of the shutdown prompted posts of outrage and well-wishes on Cavalry’s Web page.
“CavArms has some righteous dudes working there and the ATF has screwed you over since they don’t have the guts to take on street and prison gangs,” one person said in an online post.
Burke had another take on the subject.
“This isn’t the first or the last time a defendant is going to try and redefine his culpability,” the U.S. attorney said. “For the rest of the gun industry, it’s a sign to other bad actors that we are going to focus on them.”

Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Pl, Suite 102
Springfield, VA 22151
http://www.goapvf.org
February 19, 2010

John McCain has gone out of his way to earn the ire of conservatives and gun owners in his 20-plus years as a U.S. Senator from Arizona.

Perhaps his crowning legislative achievement was so-called campaign finance reform, or the McCain-Feingold law. This law put the muzzle on organizations such as GOA, prohibiting any broadcast advertisements within 30 days of a primary election and 60 days of a general election that even mention the name of a candidate for federal office.

Not surprisingly, there is frequently a flurry of activity in Congress in the months right before an election, as politicians try to ram bills through at the end of a session. Forbidding criticism of sitting legislators during these crucial times (although media corporations were exempt) made McCain’s bill the perfect “Incumbent Protection” act.

McCain’s bill prohibited the most important form of speech the Founding Fathers meant to protect with the First Amendment — political speech — so it was welcome news when the Supreme Court recently repudiated much of the McCain bill as an assault on liberty.

But it should not come as a surprise that McCain does not want voters hear about what he’s up to in Washington, because the same person who holds the First Amendment in contempt would also like to run the Second Amendment through a shredder.

John McCain may have begun as a pro-gun legislator, but when he decided to become a gun control “maverick,” he went all out.

Since his conversion to a gun control advocate over the last ten years, McCain has favored a ban on small and inexpensive handguns and considered a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms (so-called assault weapons).

In what was his boldest move against American gun owners, however, McCain authored a bill to that could only have been designed to close down gun shows. In addition to regulating all private sales at gun shows, his bill would have placed onerous licensing requirements on gun show promoters and would essentially have registered the millions of people who attend gun shows. Under the burdens of the McCain bill, no promoter in the country would put on a gun show and, if they did, gun owners would likely not attend.

Thanks to McCain, the inaccurate and misleading phrase “gun show loophole” became a part of the anti-Second Amendment crowd’s lexicon. The truth is, there is no gun show loophole; firearms transactions are conducted the same inside a gun show as they are anyplace else.

In 2000, McCain became a spokesman for a gun control organization (now defunct) called Americans for Gun Safety, a group that advocated licensing and registering all gun owners. The group ran radio and TV ads with McCain supporting ballot initiatives in Colorado and Oregon that would impose McCain’s favorite restrictions on gun shows.

These ads were a way for McCain to “stick it” to gun owners, after a gun show bill stalled in the Congress. “I think that if the Congress won’t act, the least I can do is support the initiative in states where it’s on the ballot,” McCain said in an interview.

In 2001, the group ran advertisements in movie theaters featuring McCain urging people to keep their guns locked up “for the sake of the children.” In the ads, he greatly exaggerated the risks of children gaining access to firearms in the home, and at the same time completely ignored the danger of having guns locked away if they are needed to thwart a criminal attack.

After the 2001 terror attacks, when Gun Owners of America and tens of thousands of commercial airline pilots were pushing legislation to arm pilots as a defense against terrorism, McCain prepared an amendment that would have replaced “firearms” with “stun guns.” GOA pointed out at the time how stun guns would not be effective against the type of attacks that could occur in a cockpit.

John McCain may pretend to be pro-gun (especially in election years) but he has plunged his dagger deep into the backs of gun rights supporters. He may fancy himself as a “maverick” in shining armor, riding to rescue the American people, but all the while he has trampled the Bill of Rights underfoot.

Thankfully, this year gun owners have a choice. Former Rep. J.D. Hayworth, who was “A” rated by Gun Owners of America in his twelve years in the House of Representatives, is challenging McCain in the 2010 Republican primary.

J.D. respects the Constitution and understands that the Second Amendment was put there by the Founding Fathers to always ensure that the people would have the means to preserve their liberty.

During his time in the Congress, J.D. Hayworth did not vote one way in election years and another way when in nonelection years. J.D. consistently supported the Second Amendment, and that is just the type of leadership gun owners in Arizona will vote for in November.

Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund is proud to endorse J.D. Hayworth for U.S. Senate and urges gun owners and sportsmen from across America to help defeat anti-gunner McCain.

Please visit J.D. on the web at http://www.jdforsenate.com to make the most generous contribution possible. Working together, we can win this fight and gain a Second Amendment ally in the U.S. Senate.

Sincerely,

Tim Macy
Vice Chairman

________________________________________

Paid for by Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund is a project of Gun Owners of America.

Guy Savage CEO

Sabre Defence Industries

NASHVILLE, Tenn., February 17, 2010 – Sabre Defence Industries LLC, an established manufacturer of firearms and weapon systems to the United States military, state and local law enforcement, and worldwide commercial markets, is fully cooperating with federal agents in an ongoing investigation into potential criminal misuse of certain non-saleable firearms produced by Sabre and purchased by some its employees. Sabre has received information that employee(s) involved in inventory control may have obtained and re-sold some items without appropriate licenses. Sabre is and has been cooperating with federal agents in this investigation.

Sabre has more than 120 employees in its Nashville plant. Sabre’s biggest customer is the United States military. Sabre products used by United States armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan include .50 caliber barrels and components of the M2 Browning machine gun, 7.62 mm mini-gun barrels, and M-16A3 and A4 rifles. Sabre is the only non-public company in the world ever to be awarded a contract for a military spec M-16 rifle. Sabre is dedicated to continuing to provide high quality firearms to the United States military, state and local law enforcement, and Sabre’s commercial customers.

By Ken Whitehouse

02-17-2010 10:39 AM —

Federal law enforcement agents, led by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, descended on Nashville’s Sabre Defence Industries this morning and closed down the facility for at least the day.

Sabre manufactures firearms and firearm parts and accessories. It is contracted by the U.S. armed forces for parts and mounts for the M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun and Minigun. In addition to its government contracts, it produces the XR15 rifle, non-standard M4 Carbines, and non-standard M16A4s.

Law enforcement officials were seen escorting employees one by one of the company out of their 35,000-square-foot facility on Allied Drive. Each employee was searched next to their personal vehicle, had their vehicle searched and, when cleared, were allowed to leave the premises. No individuals were witnessed being arrested.

After almost all of the employees had left the premises, agents brought in a trailer and backed it up to the company’s loading dock.

Reached for comment, federal law enforcement officials declined to comment on their actions and would not specify what the focus of their investigation is.

United Kingdom-based Sabre acquired the Nashville facility in 2002 but had been making military 0.50-caliber barrels and guns since 1979, as well as commercial rifle barrels for various companies. Guy Savage is the CEO and owner of the company, and the Nashville facility is managed by Charles Shearon.

In December of last year, Aerospace Manufacturing Services of Colorado filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee claiming that it is owed $1.05 million for 2,400 .50-calibre machine gun firing bolts.

According to previous media reports, the company employed approximately 85 individuals at its Nashville facility.

2/15/2010 Press Release

Dear Friends and Loyal Customers:

As you may be aware, we have been engaged in an ongoing dispute with the ATF for the past two years. While Cavalry Arms has at all times tried its best to run a lawful and honest shop, unfortunately, some regulatory compliance mistakes were made. We have now come to the point where we feel it is in our best interest to close our FFL and to cease all firearms operations. The owner of Cavalry Arms, Shawn Nealon, has elected to leave the firearms business and concentrate on firearms accessories instead. We are currently in negotiations with another company for that company to purchase the CAV-15 product line. Rest assured that any resulting purchase agreement will address the issue of providing service and support with regard to existing CAV-15 firearm products. We will continue to manufacture quality plastic components, grow our Medical products line, and work to bring new innovations to the relevant markets. Over the next several weeks we will be conducting a wind-down of our firearms manufacturing and FFL operations. Accordingly, please do not send us any firearms for repair or replacement. Instead, such issues should be addressed to the ultimate purchaser of our assets. Due to our limited personnel resources, during this transition/operation wind-down period, the final processing and shipping of firearm receivers already in our inventory will be our first priority.

We deeply appreciate your patience and understanding and anticipate that the relevant asset purchaser will begin operations in March of 2010. We sincerely thank you for your prior and ongoing support during these troubled times and look forward to better years ahead.

Thank you,
Cavalry Arms

By Dan Lamothe – Staff writer
Posted : Monday Feb 15, 2010 21:50:05 EST

The Marine Corps is dropping its conventional 5.56mm ammunition in Afghanistan in favor of new deadlier, more accurate rifle rounds, and could field them at any time.

The open-tipped rounds until now have been available only to Special Operations Command troops. The first 200,000 5.56mm Special Operations Science and Technology rounds are already downrange with Marine Expeditionary Brigade-Afghanistan, said Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan, commander of Marine Corps Systems Command. Commonly known as “SOST” rounds, they were legally cleared for Marine use by the Pentagon in late January, according to Navy Department documents obtained by Marine Corps Times.

SOCom developed the new rounds for use with the Special Operations Force Combat Assault Rifle, or SCAR, which needed a more accurate bullet because its short barrel, at 13.8 inches, is less than an inch shorter than the M4 carbine’s. Using an open-tip match round design common with some sniper ammunition, SOST rounds are designed to be “barrier blind,” meaning they stay on target better than existing M855 rounds after penetrating windshields, car doors and other objects.

Compared to the M855, SOST rounds also stay on target longer in open air and have increased stopping power through “consistent, rapid fragmentation which shortens the time required to cause incapacitation of enemy combatants,” according to Navy Department documents. At 62 grains, they weigh about the same as most NATO rounds, have a typical lead core with a solid copper shank and are considered a variation of Federal Cartridge Co.’s Federal Trophy Bonded Bear Claw round, which was developed for big-game hunting and is touted in a company news release for its ability to crush bone.

The Corps purchased a “couple million” SOST rounds as part of a joint $6 million, 10.4-million-round buy in September — enough to last the service several months in Afghanistan, Brogan said. Navy Department documents say the Pentagon will launch a competition worth up to $400 million this spring for more SOST ammunition.

“This round was really intended to be used in a weapon with a shorter barrel, their SCAR carbines,” Brogan said. “But because of its blind-to-barrier performance, its accuracy improvements and its reduced muzzle flash, those are attractive things that make it also useful to general purpose forces like the Marine Corps and Army.”
M855 problems

The standard Marine round, the M855, was developed in the 1970s and approved as an official NATO round in 1980. In recent years, however, it has been the subject of widespread criticism from troops, who question whether it has enough punch to stop oncoming enemies.

In 2002, shortcomings in the M855’s performance were detailed in a report by Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane, Ind., according to Navy Department documents. Additional testing in 2005 showed shortcomings. The Pentagon issued a request to industry for improved ammunition the following year. Federal Cartridge was the only company to respond.

Brogan said the Corps has no plans to remove the M855 from the service’s inventory at this time. However, the service has determined it “does not meet USMC performance requirements” in an operational environment in which insurgents often lack personal body armor, but engage troops through “intermediate barriers” such as windshields and car doors at security checkpoints, according to a Jan. 25 Navy Department document clearing Marines to use the SOST round.

The document, signed by J.R. Crisfield, director of the Navy Department International and Operational Law Division, is clear on the recommended course of action for the 5.56mm SOST round, formally known as MK318 MOD 0 enhanced 5.56mm ammunition.

“Based on the significantly improved performance of the MK318 MOD 0 over the M855 against virtually every anticipated target array in Afghanistan and similar combat environments where increased accuracy, better effects behind automobile glass and doors, consistent terminal performance and reduced muzzle flash are critical to mission accomplishment, USMC would treat the MK318 MOD 0 as its new 5.56mm standard issue cartridge,” Crisfield wrote.

The original plan called for the SOST round to be used specifically within the M4 carbine, which has a 14½-inch barrel and is used by tens of thousands of Marines in military occupational specialties such as motor vehicle operator where the M16A4’s longer barrel can be cumbersome. Given its benefits, however, Marine officials decided also to adopt SOST for the M16A4, which has a 20-inch barrel and is used by most of the infantry.
Incorporating SOST

In addition to operational benefits, SOST rounds have similar ballistics to the M855 round, meaning Marines will not have to adjust to using the new ammo, even though it is more accurate.

“It does not require us to change our training,” Brogan said. “We don’t have to change our aim points or modify our training curriculum. We can train just as we have always trained with the 855 round, so right now, there is no plan to completely remove the 855 from inventory.”

Marine officials in Afghanistan could not be reached for comment, but Brogan said commanders with MEB-A are authorized to issue SOST ammo to any subordinate command. Only one major Marine 5.56mm weapon system downrange will not use SOST: the M249 squad automatic weapon. Though the new rounds fit the SAW, they are not currently produced in the linked fashion commonly employed with the light machine gun, Brogan said.

SOCom first fielded the SOST round in April, said Air Force Maj. Wesley Ticer, a spokesman for the command. It also fielded a cousin — MK319 MOD 0 enhanced 7.62mm SOST ammo — designed for use with the SCAR-Heavy, a powerful 7.62mm battle rifle. SOCom uses both kinds of ammunition in all of its geographic combatant commands, Ticer said.

The Corps has no plans to buy 7.62mm SOST ammunition, but that could change if operational commanders or infantry requirements officers call for it in the future, Brogan said.

It is uncertain how long the Corps will field the SOST round. Marine officials said last summer that they took interest in it after the M855A1 lead-free slug in development by the Army experienced problems during testing, but Brogan said the service is still interested in the environmentally friendly round if it is effective. Marine officials also want to see if the price of the SOST round drops once in mass production. The price of an individual round was not available, but Brogan said SOST ammo is more expensive than current M855 rounds.

“We have to wait and see what happens with the Army’s 855LFS round,” he said. “We also have to get very good cost estimates of where these [SOST] rounds end up in full-rate, or serial production. Because if it truly is going to remain more expensive, then we would not want to buy that round for all of our training applications.”
Legal concerns

Before the SOST round could be fielded by the Corps, it had to clear a legal hurdle: approval that it met international law of war standards.

The process is standard for new weapons and weapons systems, but it took on added significance because of the bullet’s design. Open-tip bullets have been approved for use by U.S. forces for decades, but are sometimes confused with hollow-point rounds, which expand in human tissue after impact, causing unnecessary suffering, according to widely accepted international treaties signed following the Hague peace conventions held in the Netherlands in 1899 and 1907.

“We need to be very clear in drawing this distinction: This is not a hollow-point round, which is not permitted,” Brogan said. “It has been through law of land warfare review and has passed that review so that it meets the criteria of not causing unnecessary pain and suffering.”

The open-tip/hollow-point dilemma has been addressed several times by the military, including in 1990, when the chief of the Judge Advocate General International Law Branch, now-retired Marine Col. W. Hays Parks, advised that the open-tip M852 Sierra MatchKing round preferred by snipers met international law requirements. The round was kept in the field.

In a 3,000-word memorandum to Army Special Operations Command, Parks said “unnecessary suffering” and “superfluous injury” have not been formally defined, leaving the U.S. with a “balancing test” it must conduct to assess whether the usage of each kind of rifle round is justified.

“The test is not easily applied,” Parks said. “For this reason, the degree of ‘superfluous injury’ must … outweigh substantially the military necessity for the weapon system or projectile.”

John Cerone, an expert in the law of armed conflict and professor at the New England School of Law, said the military’s interpretation of international law is widely accepted. It is understood that weapons cause pain in war, and as long as there is a strategic military reason for their employment, they typically meet international guidelines, he said.

“In order to fall within the prohibition, a weapon has to be designed to cause unnecessary suffering,” he said.

Sixteen years after Parks issued his memo, an Army unit in Iraq temporarily banned the open-tip M118 long-range used by snipers after a JAG officer mistook it for hollow-tip ammunition, according to a 2006 Washington Times report. The decision was overturned when other Army officials were alerted.

Tuesday, February 09, 2010

On February 22, a new law on guns in national parks takes effect. The law repeals a National Park Service rule that has long prohibited Americans from lawfully possessing firearms in national parks for self-defense.

The new law, passed last spring by an overwhelming bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate, will allow people to possess, carry and transport firearms in national parks, in accordance with state law.

However, many details remain to be worked out. Reports indicate that National Park Service officials are debating issues such as the definition of “federal facilities,” where firearms will remain prohibited under a different federal law.

NPS officials are expected to issue further information as February 22 approaches, and some parks have already published information on their new policies. Because state laws vary greatly, before you visit a national park, you should check the park’s website or call the park headquarters for more information. NRA will also provide updates as they become available.

Copyright 2010, National Rifle Association of America, Institute for Legislative Action.

SEATTLE, WA – A King County Superior Court judge has ruled in favor of a lawsuit filed by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association, striking down a ban on guns in city parks because it violates Washington State’s long-standing preemption statute.

Judge Catherine Shaffer ruled from the bench that the gun ban, adopted under former Mayor Greg Nickels, violates Washington’s law, which placed sole authority for regulating firearms in the hands of the State Legislature. That law was adopted in 1983 and amended in 1985, and has served as a model for similar laws across the country.

SAF and NRA were joined in the lawsuit by the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Washington Arms Collectors and five individual plaintiffs.

“This is a great victory for the rule of law and Washington citizens,” said SAF Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Greg Nickels was so blinded by his personal hatred for firearms owners and his own arrogance that he imagined the city under his control could simply ignore state law. That arrogance cost Nickels his job last year. We repeatedly warned him not to push a gun ban, but he refused to listen.

“It is also a victory for the Legislature,” he observed, “because this case affirms the intent of lawmakers in 1983 to prevent cities like Seattle from creating a nightmare patchwork of conflicting and confusing firearms regulations. The ruling solidifies the legislature’s authority and sends a message to city and county governments to stop meddling with the rights of Washington citizens.”

Gottlieb suggested a review of local ordinances may now be in order, so that city and county governments can be compelled to remove old gun regulations or face legal consequences.

“This ruling puts anti-gun local officials on notice that legally-armed citizens have rights, too,” Gottlieb stated.

The Second Amendment Foundation (www.saf.org) is the nations oldest and largest tax-exempt education, research, publishing and legal action group focusing on the Constitutional right and heritage to privately own and possess firearms. Founded in 1974, The Foundation has grown to more than 650,000 members and supporters and conducts many programs designed to better inform the public about the consequences of gun control. SAF has previously funded successful firearms-related suits against the cities of Los Angeles; New Haven, CT; and San Francisco on behalf of American gun owners, a lawsuit against the cities suing gun makers and an amicus brief and fund for the Emerson case holding the Second Amendment as an individual right.

By Brian McVicar | The Muskegon Chronicle
February 05, 2010, 6:30PM

Chris Larson of Grand Rapids took this picture of what appears to be a cougar while visiting a friend in the village of Rothbury.Chris Larson had just finished pouring a bowl of dog food at a friend’s home in Rothbury Friday morning when she witnessed an unexpected sight — a cougar prowling in the woods.

“I called the DNR,” said Larson, a Grand Rapids resident who e-mailed the photos she snapped of the cougar to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. “It was bigger than a bobcat.”

Whether or not cougars live in Michigan has generated intense debate in recent years. The DNRE couldn’t immediately confirm whether the animal Larson saw was a cougar but a representative from an independent wildlife agency says the animal fit the description of a cougar.

Scores of Michigan residents say they’ve spotted cougars, with some wildlife groups calling on the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to recognize a breeding population and implement a plan to ensure their survival. But while the DNR has acknowledged cougars have been spotted in Michigan, the agency says there is no evidence of an established breeding population.

Larson says she’s confident that the animal she saw was a cougar, which typically weigh between 90 and 180 pounds and measure 5 to 6 feet from snout to the base of the animal’s tail. She’s seen the animals on a trip she took out west and on TV.

“I was able to take a picture of the footprints,” Larson said, adding the animal’s paw print was about two inches wide and nearly two inches long. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”

Tim Lyon, a wildlife technician at the DNRE’s Baldwin office, says staff will investigate the scene and ask wildlife experts to review the photos.

He says cougar sightings aren’t unusual. His office, which oversees six counties, including Oceana and Newaygo, has received reports of a dozen sightings in the past six months.

“We want to find out if these animals are out there,” he said, adding cougar paws are usually 4 inches wide and 4 inches long. “We want to know that and we take it as a very serious report when these come out.”

Cougars, also known as mountain lions, are most commonly found in the western United States, Lyon said. While the DNRE has confirmed that cougar tracks have been spotted in the Upper Peninsula, there’s no evidence the animals have an established population, he said.

“We’re not saying they’re not here, we’re just saying we can’t find them,” Lyon said. “If they are here, we would like to confirm that.”

Dennis Fijalkowski, executive director of Michigan Wildlife Conservancy, said the animal’s black-tipped ears, muscular frame and thick tail are all characteristics of a cougar. He said he could not confirm the photographed animal as being a cougar until the site could be examined.

“The coloration and configuration of the animal is certainly consistent with a cougar,” Fijalkowski said.

Michigan Wildlife Conservancy researchers claim to have found cougar DNA in scat from seven counties and have documented evidence of cougars from several other sites. The nonprofit organization works to restore and conserve wetlands, streams and grasslands so that wildlife can thrive.

NRA is proud to host the 2nd annual Women’s Wilderness Escape scheduled for September 23 – October 1, 2010 at the Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico.

The cost of this nine-day retreat is $1,250 and is open to women 18 and older. Fee includes housing, food and all event activities. Transportation is not provided.

No experience is necessary, and all firearms and ammunition are provided. Participants will learn to shoot rifle silhouette, long range high power rifle, black powder rifle, pistol, trap, skeet, sporting clays and archery. Other activities include map reading, camping, survival training, game calling, hunter education and Native American history.

Register now as space is limited!

To find out more about the Women’s Wilderness Escape and read what some of our 2009 participants had to say about the event, visit our website at: www.nrahq.org/women/wilderness_escape.asp.

If you want to learn more contact Patty Zollman at (703) 267-1378 or pzollman@nrahq.org.

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