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Disabled Moose Hunt

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By Tim Mowry
Fairbanks Daily News-Miner
Published: September 27, 2006

FAIRBANKS -- Ron Hoskins looked pretty much like any other moose hunter in Alaska.

Dressed in camouflage from head to toe, he sat in a hunting blind at the edge of the woods on a seepage channel within the Chena River Lakes Flood Control Project, waiting for a bull moose to appear.

For Hoskins, who has been confined to a wheelchair for 30 years as a result of a car accident, it was therapeutic. The birds and squirrels didn't know he was paralyzed and neither would a bull moose if it happened to show up within shooting distance. The fact he was in a wheelchair didn't matter. He was a hunter in the woods.

Hoskins, a Vietnam veteran from Pennsylvania, is one of three wheelchair-bound hunters from the Paralyzed Veterans of America who took part in a special moose hunt on the Chena Flood Control Project in North Pole. Through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the PVA has offered some of its 30,000 members a chance to go moose hunting in Alaska each of the last four years.

Hunters are selected by random drawing from a pool that has grown to about 2,000 applicants over the last four years, said Doug Warren, program director for the PVA. Winners must pay their own way to Alaska and buy their own license and tags.

Tommy Baugh, 37, of Georgia, and Cory Heit, 32, of Minnesota were the other two lucky hunters who won the chance to come to Alaska. All three men were paralyzed in car accidents. Both Baugh and Hoskins are paralyzed from the waist down while Heit is a quadriplegic.

But all three continue to hunt, refusing to let their impairments take away something they loved to do before their accidents. The chance to come to Alaska was a dream come true for all three men.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity," said Hoskins, who is also a national director for the PVA.

Early Start

It was still dark at 5:30 a.m. when corps ranger Mike Insko backed a Polaris Ranger up to the wheelchair door on the VanTran. Hoskins rolled his wheelchair backward into the bed of the four-wheeler and rangers secured the chair using tie-down straps that were attached to the wheelchair and frame of the four-wheeler.

"Its quite an operation," said John Schaake, manager at the flood control project, while looking on.

A few minutes later, after a short drive along the dike, Insko turned down a trail that led to a blind on the seepage channel. He backed the four-wheeler up to a drop door on the side of the blind that also functioned as a ramp and he and Tim Gallagher, who was serving as Hoskins' hunting partner for the day, pushed him into the blind.

"This was the hot blind last night," Insko said, handing Hoskins his rifle, a .280 Remington.

The night before Baugh and his partner had spotted seven moose from the blind but none of them were bulls. This morning, though, the action is considerably slower. Hoskins and Gallagher spend almost six hours in the blind without seeing a moose before coming in for lunch. Another six hours in the blind in the afternoon and evening produce similar results.

Though the PVA hunters have killed only one small bull in four years, the hunts have been a huge success, said Warren. Even if they don't bag a moose, hunters can go back home and say they had a chance to, something that most hunters in the Lower 48, paralyzed or not, can't do.

Even for an able-bodied individual, though, it's not an easy hunt.

Hunters are up at 3 a.m. for a 4:15 a.m. pickup in Fairbanks. They drive to North Pole and are in the blinds before 6 a.m. They come in around noon for lunch and a rest break before heading back out to the blinds for another six hours around 3 p.m. If they get back to their hotel by 10 p.m. they are lucky.

"Its physically exhausting," said Heit.

Community effort

The hunt is a team effort.

The corps provides the land to hunt on in the form of the Chena Flood Control Project, transports hunters to and from the field and feeds the hunters lunch each day.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough provides transportation to and from North Pole in one of its handicap-accessible VanTrans.

Using materials provided by the corps, the Borealis Kiwanis Club built three new blinds this year that can be hauled in and out of the field. The 8-foot-by-8-foot blinds are elevated off the ground and have drop-down doors all the way around, as well as a bench to serve as a shooting rest.

A cadre of volunteers serve as backup shooters and spotters for the hunters, sitting in the blinds with them from sunup to sundown.

Ken Krieg has volunteered for the PVA hunt all four years. He originally got involved as a member of the Fairbanks chapter of Safari Club International, which has since folded, and has been back every year since.

Krieg is the one who arranges for volunteer backup shooters and spotters and handles many of the logistics involved in the hunt. This year, he recruited nine volunteers to accompany hunters during the five-day hunt. Some were veterans who liked to hunt while others were just hunters who wanted to help out other hunters.

The hunt has come a long way since the first year, Krieg recalled. There were no cushy blinds for the hunters back then.
"We had them all wrapped up in sleeping bags and camo material and they just sat out in the rain," Krieg recalled. "Boy, it was miserable that first year."

Alaska could be more friendly to disabled hunters, according to Heit, the quadriplegic.

In New Mexico, where he drew an elk tag last year, the state devotes five of 1,000 elk permits to disabled hunters, he said. In his home state of Minnesota, disabled hunters who draw a deer tag can shoot either a buck or a doe.

Heit said he spent years searching the Internet for an opportunity to go moose hunting somewhere but couldn't find an outfitter who would take him. When he stumbled across the PVA hunt, Heit called Warren to inquire, even though he had never been in the military.

He was pleasantly surprised to find out that military service wasn't required to be a member of the PVA and that he could apply for the hunt as an associate member. While the PVA's No. 1 priority is health care for veterans, the organization is dedicated to helping all paralyzed men, women and children through its programs.

"If we don't give them the opportunity they won't get the opportunity," said Hoskins, a member of a PVA trapshooting team that includes five nonveterans.

http://www.adn.com/outdoors/hunting/story/8239370p-8136384c.html