FUR, FINS, FEATHERS

JONESBORO, Ill. -- The 51st Illinois State Championship Duck and Goose Calling Contest and National Coon Squalling Contest will be held in the Trail of Tears State Forest northwest of Jonesboro off Illinois 127 this weekend.

The contest is conducted by the Union County Waterfowl Association in cooperation with the Anna-Jonesboro Area Chamber of Commerce.

The winner of the Illinois Duck Mechanical contest will be eligible for the world championship competition in Stuttgart, ARk. The winner of the goose mechanical contest will be eligible to compete in the world championships in Maryland.

Other events on the Saturday-Sunday scheduled include crow calling, owl hooting, turkey calling, archery, muzzleloading and sporting clays.

The state championship duck and goose calling contest, and the Coon squalling contest, will get under way Sunday at 2 p.m.

CHILLICOTHE The Missouri Conservation Commission will hold its next meeting in Chillicothe Nov. 3. The commission will not meet in October.

The November meeting will begin at 10:15 a.m. at the Grand River Inn, Highways 36 and 65. 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.

ANNA, Ill. Ducks Unlimited will holds its annual banquet Nov. 6, at the Anna VFW Banquet Hall.

The social hour starts at 5:30 p.m.,with dinner at 6:30.

JEFFERSON CITY The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving to ban the manufacture, sale and use of lead fishing sinkers.

Waterfowl, particularly trumpeter swans and common loons, sometimes swallow the sinkers. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) filed suit against the EPA, claiming that the sinkers cause fatal lead poisoning in tens of thousands of waterfowl. The suit seeks an EPA rule that would require warning labels for lead sinker packaging.

EPA officials agree the sinkers are poisonous, and say they will propose a rule by January 1994 outlawing the sinkers. They said that before issuing the proposed rule they will study the toxicity of substitute materials, such as brass, zinc or copper and decide if they, too, are hazardous.

EDF and several other groups have petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to ban lead sinkers in national parks and parts of the national wildlife refuge system. The rule proposed by the EPA might include only those sinkers whose size and shape contribute to ingestion by waterfowl.