There is good satire, and there is bad satire.
Bad satire appeared Thursday in the Spa City Chronicle about a mountain lion being captured in Hot Springs. Naturally, this lit up the social media world and ignited conspiracy theorists who are convinced the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will go to any length to cover up a mountain lion sighting.
According to the article, a homeowner on Cedar Glades Road called the Garland County Sheriff's Department to report a large dog trying to break in to a domestic rabbit pen. Deputies arrived to discover it was actually a mountain lion, which ran up a tree. Deputies were said to have called the Game and Fish Commission, which initially refused to respond.
An unnamed source was quoted as saying, "They kept saying they didn't think we were funny. Who's trying to be funny? We've got a [expletive] mountain lion up a damn tree. Get someone up here now!"
The article said the cat was shot with a tranquilizer dart and taken away.
There were also photos.
Myron Means, the Arkansas Game and Fish wildlife biologist who specializes in large carnivores, said without hesitation that the story was a hoax.
"If something like that happened, you'd think the state's mountain lion biologist would have heard about it," he said.
Brad Carner, chief of the AGFC's wildlife management division, said he had not heard about the story and questioned its veracity.
We were suspicious, as well, but since the article contained no satirical elements we felt it merited a follow up. The fact that nobody was quoted or attributed in the article was a red flag. Also, the first photo in the article showed a mountain lion near a Jeep with an Arkansas tag that reads "OUR BAD." The lettering is not the correct size or typeface for a license plate and it is out of scale, which strongly suggests it was doctored.
Lastly, the article appeared in the Chronicle's entertainment section.
"I don't know why somebody would feel compelled to run something like that," Means said.
PERMIT PROBLEMS
It's such a dependable story that we'd be surprised and maybe even a little disappointed if something didn't go wrong with the Game and Fish Commission's surplus wildlife management areas hunting permit sale.
The string of misfortune continued this week when the commission sold 507 additional permits for 24 WMAs that should not have been for sale. That included 80 extra permits for Fort Chaffee WMA and 54 permits for Wattensaw WMA.
"It happened," said Keith Stephens, chief of communications for the AGFC. "There were some on there that shouldn't have been on there. It was evident pretty immediately that something was wrong where the vendor could step in and correct it."
Correcting it meant shutting down the system. The vendor is the Information Network of Arkansas, which is the state's information technology provider. The vendor did not respond to our requests for a comment.
Stephens said the extra permits don't mean the WMAs will be overcrowded with hunters this year, but there might be more than usual.
The AGFC awards the permits to applicants through two computerized drawings. Unclaimed permits are sold online only during on a first-come, first-served basis.
About 50-75 percent of permit holders actually show up for their hunts, Stephens said, so this year the AGFC drew more names than usual during the first and second lotteries. This was intended to reduce the number of permits available for the online sale, but instead it increased the number.
"There are lots of people out there happy they got permits that don't usually get them," Stephens said.
He added that the additional hunting pressure will not be detrimental to the deer herds on the affected WMAs.
That wasn't the only problem. One disgruntled hunter wrote in an email that the list of permits published on the AGFC's Web site was inaccurate and didn't list some permits that actually would be for sale. He didn't log into the sale, he said, because he was led to believe that permits would not be available for the hunts he wanted, when in fact there were.
Stephens, a permanent fixture in permit problem stories, said he does not look forward to this biannual event as much as we do. It also happens every spring when the surplus turkey hunting permits go on sale.
"There's nobody more frustrated than us," Stephens said. "This has got to be fixed. It's an issue with our vendor, and we are reviewing our options."
Sports on 09/13/2015