Auburn, July 8, 2002 --- For the third consecutive year, the Coosa County Wildlife Judging Team has won the statewide Alabama 4-H Wildlife Judging Evaluation, held this year in Auburn, June 25-26.

(The Coosa County Wildlife Judging Team, pictured above, left to right: Coach Joel Glover, Loren Evans, John Mullins, Jessica McGalliard and Coach Roger Vines.)

Team members include John Mullins, Loren Evans and Jessica McGalliard.

This marks the seventh wildlife judging championship for the Coosa County team. Coosa County also is considered a national powerhouse, winning the first of two national championships in 1989.

Wildlife judging championships, both at the state and national level, are often the result of months, if not years, of rigorous study, with team members often drilling for hours at a time on topics as diverse as tree identification and wildlife habitat.

Contestants must be familiar with feeding habits and habitats of a wide variety of animals in their region. When they compete in other areas of the state, they also are expected to be familiar with animal feeding patterns and habitats in these regions as well.

"It covers a broad spectrum," says Roger Vines, Coosa County Extension agent, who has coached Coosa County teams from the very beginning of their involvement with wildlife judging competition.

"They have to learn how to identify an assortment of animals – everything from snakes and reptiles to mammals."

If this isn’t challenging enough, contestants also have to identify a series of aerial photographs of potential wildlife habitats, ranking them from best to worst according to how well they are suited for a particular species.

In another facet of competition involving wildlife management practices, contestants must learn what they must do on a farm to improve its suitability as a wildlife habitat for various species.

Students are also required to write an urban wildlife management plan, which involves writing a concise one-page description for improving the wildlife habitat potential for a backyard landscape.

It’s all a very daunting undertaking from the perspective of most teenage kids, but well worth the effort, say adult volunteers.

"One of the beautiful things about this competition is that it now only teaches something about wildlife but provides them valuable lifetime skills," says Joel Glover, a wildlife biologist with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, who, along with Vines, coaches the team.

"It takes everything from writing to study skills. It’s a very comprehensive test that requires a lot of preparation and work on their part, but it teaches them how to study and how to write up a plan – things that can translate into anything they do for the rest of their lives."

Preparation for this year’s state competition was especially grueling because all of the team members were competing for the first time, Vine says.

"We usually start preparing for this contest right after we finish statewide forestry competition, but we had to cram especially hard this year because all of the team members were brand new to this," Vines says. "They’ve come very far in a very short time, and they deserve a lot of credit for it."

Like most members of the team, Jessica McGalliard saw a steep uphill climb preparing for the competition.

"When we first started, we knew pretty much nothing," she recalls. "So we had to study hard and work at home a lot."

Still, as she and teammate John Mullins see it, more than just hard work was involved in this year’s competition.

"We need to give God the glory for this," Mullins says. "A lot of people just didn’t think we could do it because we’d never done this before. Our whole senior team has never even competed at the junior rookie level, so we had to work really hard."

Mullins also attributes much of the team’s success to the hard work and patience of their coaches.

"We worked hard," says Loren Evans, another team member. "There were only three of us and the odds were against us, but ‘all things are possible through Christ who strengthens me.’"

The next challenge for the Coosa County team is national competition, scheduled in August in Wooseter, Ohio.