Classes will cover boating safety features, such as rules of the road, equipment requirements, rules and regulations, ethics, responsibility, and basic navigation knowledge. Young students certified will be able to operate a motorboat without a parent or guardian present at age 12 instead of age 16. Door County - Two woodcock carcasses were found in the area this spring. Additional birds probably also died but the snow covered the evidence. Wildlife managers should have a better idea of the extent of the problem after the snowmelts.
Woodcock are early migrants and have only recently returned to Wisconsin.
Because woodcock are very much dependent on earthworms for food, they are vulnerable to the vagaries of the weather. This is certainly not the first case of woodcock starving to death in the spring, but it happened earlier than usual. Several birds starved in the Park Falls area in April 1995 when cold and snow made worms unavailable. All of those birds were males, which are more vulnerable to starvation due to their smaller body size and the fact that they arrive with low reserves because they are doing courtship displays on their way north. And since males do not participate in nesting activities or rearing of the young, the loss of some males does not have a significant impact on breeding populations.