Mountain State Fair Exhibit Features Migratory Wildlife

Students from Atkinson Elementary School in Hendersonville select from a variety of wildlife buttons being given away at the Wildlife Commission's Mountain State Fair exhibit. Media: Please credit the NC Wildlife Resources Commission.

FLETCHER, N.C. (Sept. 10, 2004) — The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission this year is featuring migratory wildlife as part of its exhibit at the mountain state fair in Fletcher, N.C., near Asheville.

Biologists, wildlife enforcement officers and conservation education specialists are staffing a display featuring a mobile aquarium, a pair of enforcement patrol boats, and a menagerie of wildlife posters depicting game and nongame animals found in North Carolina. The mountain state fair is open to the public Sept. 10-19 at the Western North Carolina Agricultural Center in Buncombe County.

Wildlife Commission staff is answering questions, talking about wildlife, and giving away an assortment of free items such as sample issues of Wildlife in North Carolina magazine, fish ID booklets, bumper stickers, basic fishing guides, boating safety pamphlets and fishing coloring books. The Commission’s state fair button — a collectible keepsake for fairgoers annually — this year depicts a striped bass, one of North Carolina’s more popular migratory game fish.

New for the fair this year are biodegradable tote bags that the Wildlife Commission is giving to fairgoers to carry their goodies. The bags, which are made of compostable cornstarch, depict a cartoon migratory duck family embarking on a road trip with the ducklings lamenting, “Are we there yet?”

Visitors to the Wildlife Commission’s exhibit can see samples of WILD Store products including wildlife posters such as the new “mountain fishes of North Carolina” poster and booklet set, which was published earlier this year. A mobile aquarium in the center of the tent features twin 300-gallon fish tanks, with largemouth bass, bluegill and longnose gar in one tank and brook, brown and rainbow trout in the other tank.

More Information
The Wildlife Commission’s exhibit at the mountain state fair is located at exhibit site 27 on the corner of Military Way and Corporate Way. See online map: http://www.ncagr.com/markets/fairs/mtnfair/map.html

More information is available at http://www.ncagr.com/markets/fairs/mtnfair/home.html, or call (828) 687-1414. The fairgrounds are located between Asheville and Hendersonville at the Agriculture Center in Fletcher, N.C. Take exit 9 from Interstate 26 and look for the fairgrounds across from the Asheville airport.

Compost Your State Fair Bag Kitchens scraps, yard waste — even the compostable corn-starch plastic bag you got from the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission at the Mountain State Fair this year — become useful again when you put them in a compost pile. Scott Loftis, a fisheries biologist with the Wildlife Commission, hands a compostable cornstarch-based bag to students from Rosman Elementary School in Rosman. Media: Please credit the NC Wildlife Resources Commission. How To Make A Simple Compost Pile Locate your compost pile outdoors at least two feet away from existing structures such as buildings or fences. Use an area that is not more than 5 feet wide and 5 feet long. Start by wetting the ground. Then lay down an uneven “ground floor” of branches that will trap pockets of air under the pile. Pile on alternating layers of nitrogen-yielding materials (grass clippings, manure, kitchen scraps) and carbon-yielding materials (autumn leaves, dried hay, your State Fair bag). Make the top of the pile a carbon layer. For Faster Composting Compost happens. There, we said it. But it can take up to two years for composting to complete. You can speed up the process, however. You can compost materials in six weeks if you periodically turn the compost pile with a pitchfork, add water to keep the pile damp (not wet), and enclose the pile within walls or in a bin that will trap heat and moisture, known as “hot” composting. Enclosures help keep animals out, although some compost makers actually house domestic rabbits over the compost area or even let chickens range over the pile, because they add manure. Compost is finished when you can’t tell the ingredients apart. It should smell sweet and earthy and crumble apart in your fingers.

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