DNR Chief Hupfer Resigns

Kyle Hupfer, has resigned from his position as head of the DNR.
[url]http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/LOCAL19/61121024[/url]

Found a new link to this story. The link above didn't work at the time I tried it.

[url]http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061121/LOCAL19/61121024/1006/LOCAL[/url]



Regards,

Moose1am

Proliance is a subsidiary of Vectren and another company. Vectren owns 61% of ProLiance. ProLiance is HQ in Indianapolis. ProLiance sells gas to other customers.

Today in the Evansville Courier and Press paper there is a story about ProLiance getting sued the city of Huntsville, Alabama. They lost the suit and have to pay out millions to the city. Seems that they told the city that they would supply them with cheap natural gas and defrauded the city according to the city of Huntsville, AL. The federal law suit was won by the city. ProLiance appealed the case to a higher court. The Appeals court ordered the case into arbitration. Now Proliance has agreed to pay about 21.6 million dollars to the city and the case is now settled.

Now this is the company that Kyle Hupfer is going to work with after he resigned on Dec 1, 2006 from Indiana DNR.

Now you know the rest of the story!

Thankfully a long time DNR employee will be taking the helm at IDNR very soon. Lets wish him good luck at the job and hope that he can turn things around at IDNR. The new guy hails from Clay County and was twice elected Sheriff there. He had been heading up the IDNR Enforcement Division before being appointed to head IDNR.

Kyle Hefner is an attorney working for Energy Company's. Maybe that explains the midnight secrete deals he brokered with Peabody Coal to drill and test for coal seams on the Glendale Fish & Wildlife Area down here in Southern IN.

Here is a link to the Story in the paper:


[url]http://www.courierpress.com/news/2006/nov/22/vectren-subsidiary-settles-lawsuit/?ebj=1/[/url]

Kyle did an excellent job and Rob is not a long-time IDNR employee. He was in charge of C.O.'s for several years and Sheriff of Clay County prior to that.

Not this weekend but last weekend Phil Potter with the Evansville Courier and Press wrote a good column about the IDNR directors. Phil said that in TN they hire PROFESSIONAL DEGREED WILDLIFE SCIENTISTS to fill that job and the job is non partisan. ie It's a MERIT POSITION and not some political friend of the Governor.

Here is the link to the article:

[url]http://www.courierpress.com/news/2006/dec/03/indiana-should-professionalize-dnr-director/[/url]

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I agree with Phil 100% on this issue. Since TN has started this practice their DNR is more stable and they have recruited good SCIENTIST who know how to manage the resource. That has drastically improve the fish and wildlife in the State of TN.

I wish that INDIANA would do the same here.

I personally went to school with one very talented Wildlife Biologist who worked for the IDNR. He had a great memory and was a Straight A Student at Purdue. He left the IDNR at one point in his career. I got to have dinner with him and his wife one evening in INDY. He was bitter and tired of the agency and it showed on his face and in his demeanor. I remember him when he graduated from Purdue with his degree and he was so eager to get started. He worked at Glendale F&W as a property manager back in 1977. Since then he has risen though the ranks and now or was back in 1992 in upper level IDNR management.

We need guys like him running the agency or at least giving the TOP Brass at IDNR good advise. Only though good science will we be able to truly protect and enhance the fishing and hunting opportunities.

Purdue University has the best Wildlife Biology Program and it's ranks up there with the best of them. We should pay more attention to what the professional say. Many try to think they know best but bias enters the picture and ruins things.

Kyle may have been a good director. I really don't know much about him other than they let a coal company explore for coal in the F&W area on public land. We have such few good places to hunt and fish left in IN and I just don't want to see the habitat lost. The key to preserving our game is to give them a place to live and reproduce, habitat. For without a home, food and cover they will perish. We need more Leopold's and Pinshaws (SP?).

Excellent point. Politics often time get in the way of science.

I am glad to see him go, with all the fighting about tournament fishing and fees that were being associated to fisherman, maybe now the DNR can get back to managaing the facilities instead of being the tag police.

I just never understood why Daniels would appoint someone like this to lead up the DNR, for those of you non-hunters out there Hupfer's DNR changed the dates of the State Park Hunts to the week before the regular shotgun season started, right in the middle of the last week of bow season. We have border property to two state parks and it screwed our hunting up this year beyond belief.

Anyway maybe this is the best thing that could happen to our waterways and hunting rights.