FINS, FURS AND FEATHERS

JEFFERSON CITY -- Rains that brought flash flooding to some areas also reduced the flow of deer into check stations during the opening weekend of Missouri's firearms deer hunting season.

The Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC) reported that hunters bagged 80,559 deer statewide Saturday and Sunday. That is 16,094 fewer than last year's opening weekend. The number of deer-hunting accidents decreased, also.

Top deer-producing counties during the first two days of firearms hunting were Macon, with 2,127 deer checked and Boone, with 1,667.

Four deer hunting accidents -- none fatal--were reported.

The firearms season began at 6:30 a.m. Nov. 13 and continues until 5 p.m. Nov. 21.

WARE, Ill. With a forecast of freezing temperatures and cloudy skies, more Canada geese may be sweeping into Southern Illinois this weekend.

Almost 41,000 of the big honkers were counted during the most recent count by wildlife officials Monday.

About 16,000 geese were counted at Crab Orchard Wildlife Refuge, 12,000 were counted at the Horseshoe Lake Refuge at Olive Branch, and about 8,000 were at the Union County Refuge near Ware.

An additional 2,000 each were found at Rend Lake, Campbell Pond and the Ballard County Refuge in West Kentucky.

The goose season will open in the quota zone -- Alexander, Union, Jackson and Williamson counties -- Nov. 27, two weeks later than the usual start in mid-November.

The season will run through Jan. 16, 1994, or until a quota of 30,600 geese is harvested.

SIKESTON The Swampeast Missouri Chapter of Ducks Unlimited will hold its annual banquet/auction Saturday at Banquets beyond The Bay at Sikeston.

Tickets for the banquet are available from Ducks Unlimited members, or by calling Mike Taylor, 471-5165 or Steve Taylor, 472-0390.

A social hour will be held at 6 p.m., with the banquet at 7 p.m., to be followed by the banquet.

The Missouri Commission adopted the name "Frisbee Cutoff Access" for a 92.5-acre site on a cutoff of the St. Francis River in Dunklin County during its recent November meeting.

A recently donated 11-acre tract which protects critical habitat of the Niangua darter in Camden County was added to the Mule Shoe Conservation Area.

New land acquisitions approved this month are four acres in Franklin County purchased for a new fishing access on the Bourbeuse River near Interstate 44; 881 acres in Livingston County purchased as an addition to the Poosey Conservation Area; 28.5-acre donation in Phelps County to form "The Isle Heilbrunn Memorial Addition to Little Prairie Community Lake and 156 acres in Linn County as an addition to the Mussel Fork Conservation Area.

JEFFERSON CITY The Missouri Conservation Commission will hold its next meeting Dec. 17 in Jefferson City. The meeting will begin at 10:15 a.m. at Missouri Department of Conservation Headquarters, 2901 W. Truman Blvd.

Commission meetings are open to the public. Anyone with business for the Commission should contact: Director, MDC, Box 180, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0180, or phone (314) 751-4115, at least 10 days before the meeting date.

Commissioners are: Jerry P. Combs, Kennett, chairman; Andy Dalton, Springfield, vice chairman; John Powell, Rolla, secretary; and Anita B. Gorman, Kansas City, member.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. Two men who claimed they mistook two trumpeter swans for snow geese have paid $3,000 restitution each to the government for shooting the federally protected waterfowl.

The swans, which are larger than snow geese, were shot last December at Fellows Lake.

Federal authorities by law cannot release the hunters' names because the cases were handled under a procedure called pretrial diversion, Chris Whitley, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, said last week.

MOUND CITY Special deer hunts at Squaw Creek National Wildlife Refuge have become the latest casualties of the flood of '93, according to George Hartman, wildlife coordination specialist for the Missouri Department of Conservation.

Hartman said the Conservation Commission voted Nov. 3 to cancel two January muzzle-loader deer hunts at Squaw Creek.

"Flooding earlier this year destroyed all the food on the refuge." said Hartman. "Virtually all the deer have moved to upland areas outside the refuge."