Kevin Woster, Journal staff | Posted: Monday, August 13, 2007 11:00 pm
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STURGIS - Looking
back on those tense moments before the crash, Tony DeCino still
doesn't know how things went so wrong so fast.
The airplane was
running fine. The wind was light. A low pass over the brown
pastures of the Cheyenne River breaks put him and gunner Dan
Turgeon within 50 yards of the furry targets below.
And the 12-gauge
shotgun bucked repeatedly against Turgeon's shoulder, firing
clusters of heavy steel shot that sent two coyotes tumbling into
the grass.
To that point, it
was a perfect run.
"We'd killed both
coyotes. We'd already pulled up, cleared the terrain and were in a
descent to go back and check on the animals," DeCino said. "Over
the course of a couple of seconds, things changed from perfectly
fine to me trying to maneuver that airplane and us being in the
dirt."
It was the first
crash landing for DeCino, a seasoned 54-year-old pilot with 17
years experience as a flight instructor. He walked away with minor
injuries and understandably nagging questions about its
cause.
Turgeon, a state
Game, Fish & Parks Department trapper from Wasta, walked away
as well. But it would take 56 stitches to close a gash in his
head.
And when the
state-owned Christen A-1 Husky skidded into a sun-baked pasture in
the rolling pastures near Wasta early on a sizzling July 30, it
shook the foundations of the state's aerial-hunting
program.
Aerial hunting -
which is banned by federal law except for approved government
predator-control programs - is an inherently dangerous game
requiring airplanes to fly too low and too slow in order to put
gunners within range of coyotes in the often-rough terrain
below.
Because of DeCino's
crash, the second in two years by a GF&P pilot during a coyote
hunt, state officials are now beginning an internal review of the
aerial-hunting program. They hope to determine whether aerial
hunting by state pilots in state airplanes is worth the human risk
and the economic cost, as well as whether different planes or
different procedures could make it safer.
GF&P officials
have suspended their aerial-hunting operation pending the outcome
of the review. The one operational state airplane in the program,
another Husky, is grounded in Pierre while officials decided
whether to replace the fully insured Husky that was totaled in the
July 30 crash.
"We have grounded
the fleet, which is a fleet of one right now," GF&P spokesman
Art Smith of Pierre said. "We have suspended our own aerial
activities. We're not looking to blame anything. We're just looking
to learn from it so we can proceed without this happening
again."
The review will
take at least two months and examine the safety and cost-benefit
ratio of the GF&P aerial-hunting program. It could also become
the focus of the criticism from some who say GF&P would be wise
to contract with private pilots for aerial hunting, as well as
others who oppose the practice altogether.
Wendy
Keefover-Ring, a spokeswoman for the Boulder, Colo., wildlife
advocacy group Sinapu, said the July 30 crash was typical of
similar accidents that happen regularly in aerial-hunting
operations across the nation. Although her focus is on federal
airborne predator control, Keefover-Ring argues that South Dakota's
control program suffers from the same problems: It is expensive,
dangerous and, over the long haul, ineffective in improving the
bottom line of livestock producers.
In fact, she said,
killing coyotes by air might lead to more predation problems by
disrupting coyote packs and killing some animals that don't feed on
livestock.
Ranchers and states
would be better off spending money on livestock practices that
reduce predation, she said. Those include strobe lights and sirens,
the use of electric fences and penning to help protect sheep during
lambing and the use of dogs, burros and llamas to stay with sheep
herds and protect them from coyotes.
"If we would just
invest in this stuff up front, it would save money," Keefover-Ring
said. "With coyotes, the more you kill, the more you get. They're
very adaptable. It's a battle against mythology we're fighting,
that killing predators helps these ranchers. But if you look at the
big picture, it doesn't."
Most ranchers in
western South Dakota tend to disagree, especially if they raise
sheep. Although coyotes can and sometimes do kill calves, sheep and
especially lambs are the most vulnerable to coyote
attacks.
Smith, who
coordinates GF&P's animal-damage control program, admitted that
aerial hunting is a dicey way to kill coyotes. It is also expensive
when figured on a per-coyote-killed basis. But it's effective, too,
in ways that clearly benefit livestock producers, Smith
said.
"It's extremely
effective. It is the most effective - minute for minute, hour for
hour - method of removing coyotes," he said. "If it didn't work, we
wouldn't be doing it."
Last year,
GF&P's aerial-hunting program was budgeted for $173,772, or
about 10 percent of the agency's overall $1.7-million animal-damage
control budget. The program is funded by a mix of money from
GF&P, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and an assessment to
counties based on livestock numbers.
The overall ADC
program includes 19 GFP trappers who operate primarily on the
ground but in some cases also act as gunners for state pilots.
That's what Turgeon was doing July 30 when the Husky went
down.
In full operation,
GF&P runs two of its own planes and has two pilots on staff for
aerial predator control, almost all of which is aimed at coyotes.
In addition, a few private pilots contract with GF&P and with
local predator-control districts to kill coyotes. A few other
pilots - typically ranchers - have permits for limited aerial
hunting in their areas.
In the past,
GF&P had ADC airplanes and pilots stationed in Sturgis and
Faith. But in 2005, Faith pilot Gary Hansen and trapper Mel Utter
crashed during a coyote hunt near Lodgepole, a situation similar to
the one involving DeCino and Turgeon. Utter escaped with minor
injuries. Hansen suffered a concussion and lingering vision
problems that have so far kept him from returning to the
air.
The Faith airplane,
an A-1 B Husky, has since been replaced with another Husky, which
was then moved to a new station in Pierre. It remains grounded as
GF&P begins its investigation.
One of the issues
to be examined is whether the Husky planes are the right model for
aerial hunting. Camp Crook rancher and permitted aerial hunter
Clark Blake has doubts about that. Blake said he has never flown a
Husky, but other pilots have told him they can be tricky to handle
at low speeds and low altitudes.
That's what aerial
hunting is all about.
"They're a good
plane for a lot of things, but I don't think aerial hunting is one
thing they are good for," Blake said. "They're heavy, and the
controls are stiff on them, and you can't slow them down like you
can a (Piper) Super Cub."
Blake said the
crash involving DeCino might simply have been a case of a good
pilot who was "in the wrong plane and got in a bad
place."
DeCino, who joined
GF&P five months ago as the animal-damage-control pilot in
Sturgis, said he never noticed handling problems with the Husky at
low altitudes and low speeds. The airplane had been professionally
modified to improve its handling in those situations, he said.
DeCino said he had regularly flown within 50 yards of the ground at
speeds down near 50 mph to give his gunners good shots at coyotes
below, with no handling problems.
"It always handled
real well," he said
Blake said aerial
hunting is effective and essential to providing coyote control that
ranchers need. But GF&P might be able to save money and be more
efficient by turning the responsibility over to local
predator-control districts and contract pilots and their planes,
Blake said.
"We work on a
shoestring budget," he said. "I think they'd be better to fund the
predator districts with no-strings-attached money, and let us do
it."
That issue is one
of many to be examined in the agency's review of the aerial hunting
program, Smith said. But safety will be the central
issue.
"We're going to
look very hard at that," he said. "Our major emphasis is protecting
our own resources, that being the staff of Game, Fish &
Parks."
DeCino will be a
big part of that review. And he's looking forward to the process.
He still can't figure out what went wrong when he suddenly lost
altitude and control of the airplane.
"Looking back, I
don't know what I'd change or do different," he said. "The gunning
run went great. The engine was running fine. The wind was no
factor. I would have done just what we did. Many, many times I'd
done the same thing."
Contact Kevin
Woster at 394-8413 or
kevin.woster@rapidcityjournal.com
