I spoke with DGIF Wildlife Division Director Bob Ellis recently about where the department stands on many of the hound hunting issues raised at the October board meeting. Here’s what he had to say.

On possible future regulations: “It’s still pretty early on in the whole process. We’re in the middle of the regulatory process and we’ll be considering those like the deer hound training season.”

On possible legislation (which any change to the right-to-retrieve law would fall under). The legislative session starts the second Tuesday in January: “We’re going to be working with sportmen’s caucus and all that but they haven’t really started up that process yet. I’m sure we’ll have some opportunity in December to go down and speak to Sportsmen’s Caucus.”

On the items from the recently completed study that are administrative in nature: “We’re just going to take a look at that see what we can do. A lot of those are money issues, and obviously our money issues aren’t the best right now. We’ll just have to see what we can do. [The budget] is pretty well set for this fiscal year. So it’s hard to say what could get done between now and the end of the fiscal year. And of course we may face more cuts [from the governor].”

For more on hound hunting in Virginia click here and here.