THAT'S A FAIR QUESTION

Well, I've been absent for a couple weeks now but I have a good excuse.  I've been busy with the 2011 Kansas State Fair and our KDWPT display in Hutchinson.  It pretty much ties up the first few weeks in September for me.  It's one of the more popular displays and staffed primarily by our law enforcement division and employees from Pratt and other areas.  

I really don't mind the fair, but after 22 years hanging out there for the majority of the time, I'm really glad to see it go by the time it's over.  I enjoy chatting with people for the most part and visitors are genuinely interested in many of KDWPT's programs and projects.  Most questions are informational in nature, and some even offer up the occasional "atta boy" for something the department has done or is doing.  And of course, we get plenty of complaints, too.  That just goes with the territory. 

Questions run the gamut.  The two most popular are likely about hunter education requirements and license requirements for those 65 years of age or older.  This year there were plenty of questions about blue-green algae concerns as well as how the drought has affected the upland bird populations.  Sitting at the fair talking to landowners I get a bit of a feel for the latter and many areas may be down this year.  But the good news is bird numbers are resilient and under the right conditions don't take long to bounce back. 

And of course there's always mountain lion sightings and stories.  I would imagine over the years I've got reports from every corner of all Kansas' 105 counties.  People still seem upset that KDWPT won't "admit" their stories are true.  I don't know we've ever said they weren't, just that they couldn't be substantiated with any concrete evidence.  I don't know a single KDWPT employee who ever said Kansas had no mountain lions.  Fortunately, several lions have been documented in the last couple years and much of the talk of their presence, transient or otherwise, has died down.

One of the funniest questions I've ever received happened years ago.  We used to have live animals and would feature quail, fox, pheasants and even a fawn deer most years.  The animals were always popular and the young whitetail was always a hit.  Only a few months old it would generally still have spots and a gangly look to it.  One year a guy walked by and said, "Is that the same fawn you had here last year?"

And he wasn't kidding.  Now that's a fair question.