Outdoor Notes / Earl Gustkey : Wisconsin Painter Wins Contest

The federal duck stamp art contest, called by some “the Super Bowl of wildlife art,” as won this week by an Onalaska, Wis., artist whose work was selected over 799 others.

Arthur G. Anderson’s oil rendering of three redhead ducks in flight over a river marsh will become the 1987-88 federal migratory bird hunting stamp and, in time, make Anderson a millionaire. Anderson will receive a sheet of 120 stamps from the Interior Department for winning the prize, but sales of reprints of his stamp design should earn him between $1 million and $2 million in the next several years.

The $7.50 federal duck stamp, required to be affixed to hunting licenses of all duck hunters 16 and older, is purchased by about 2 million hunters and stamp collectors each year. Sales bring in about $15 million to the Interior Department’s wetlands acquisition fund. Since the first stamp was issued in 1934, the program has raised about $300 million and added 3.5 million acres to the national wildlife refuge system.

A panel of five non-government wildlife art and bird experts selected Anderson’s design. Contest criteria included ornithological accuracy, artistic merit and suitability for reduction to stamp size.

Anderson, 50, who observes waterfowl from his home overlooking the Mississippi River, has been a full-time wildlife artist for two years. Finishing second was Lynn R. Kaatz, Grafton, Ohio, for an acrylic painting of two Canada geese. Ronald Louque, Orange, Va., was third with his acrylic of two snow geese in flight.

An international fish seizure case has netted the state’s Fish and Game Preservation fund $25,830, the result of a two-week investigation by Department of Fish and Game officers.

Found guilty of the unlawful shipping of 2,520 pounds of Canadian herring roe on kelp was Fisherman’s Co-Op Sales, Inc., a Los Angeles wholesale fish dealer. Under terms of a Los Angeles Municipal Court settlement, Fisherman’s Co-Op was required to forfeit the value of the seized fish eggs, fined $1,700 and placed on two-year probation.

A memorial water guzzler for big game will be installed soon near the Clark Mountains site where two men died last month in a helicopter crash during a bighorn sheep survey for the Department of Fish and Game.

Pilot Don Landells and biologist Jim Bicket of the Bureau of Land Management died in the crash. DFG biologist Dick Weaver and bighorn volunteer worker Gerard Wagner were injured. The memorial guzzler, scheduled to be dedicated June 6-7, will be funded by both the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep and the DFG.

Amigos de Bolsa Chica is conducting free tours during winter months of the Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, a 500-acre tidal wetlands area just north of Huntington Beach where bird watchers can observe thousands of migratory birds and raptors.

Information for the Saturday tours can be had by calling (714) 897-7003.

The DFG has announced that effective Jan. 1, all fish wholesalers, processors, importers, brokers, restaurant owners and retailers who obtain fish directly from commercial fishermen will be required to have one or more of the following licenses:

Fish receiver, fee $300; wholesaler, $200; processor, $300; importer, $300; commercial fish business multi-function, $750.

Briefly The Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep will hold its $35-a-plate sportsmen’s banquet and auction Nov. 22 at the Disneyland Hotel. . . . Dec. 31 is the entry deadline for the Fish and Game Commission’s 1986 photography award contest. . . . An illegally killed grizzly bear, the third this year in western Montana, was discovered recently by Montana game wardens. The 500-pound carcass of a male grizzly was found in the Blackleaf Management Area. Biologists said the bear had been moved into the area Oct. 9. . . . Noted fly fisherman Dr. Boyd Aigner will present a slide presentation of British Columbia steelhead, salmon and trout fishing at the Nov. 20 meeting of the Sierra Pacific Flyfishers at the Nob Hill Banquet Center in Panorama City. . . . The Santa Barbara-San Luis Obispo Counties Branch of the Arthritis Foundation will hold its $5,000 “Big Buck” trout contest Nov. 16 at Lake Lopez in Arroyo Grande.