Fairfax Duck Hunters Target Of Neighborhood's Anger

Robert Bowe's duck blind on the Potomac is squeezed between a multimillion-dollar home and, shown across the river, the 485-acre Dyke Marsh Wildlife Preserve. (By Ben Hubbard -- The Washington Post)
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"I don't find it reasonable to have someone . . . awakened at 6:15 in the morning to the sound of gunfire in populous Fairfax County," Hyland said of a jurisdiction with more than 1 million people. Even in rural areas, "you don't hunt around the farmhouse."

Duck hunting season runs from Oct. 4 to Jan. 26. Waterfront landowners in Virginia can get licenses for blinds in the water off their property in July and August. If they pass, others can license the spots through September. As long as they are 100 yards from homes, they can build blinds, and they don't have to consult homeowners.

This is how Hirsch's neighborhood, with multimillion-dollar homes scattered in the woods between the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the river, ended up with duck blinds so close to homes. Most residents moved to the area for its serene nature -- and paid dearly for it. Their primary complaint concerns noise.

"It's very disturbing to be trying to write Christmas cards and to hear shooting," said Elizabeth Ketz-Robinson, 59, a psychotherapist who lives on the water with her husband, Don, and three golden retrievers. "I want to tear my hair out sometimes."

Bowe considers such complaints exaggerated. Duck season occurs in the fall and winter, when windows are shut, he said. Airplanes and motorboats cause more ruckus. He believes that opposition to hunting motivates most complaints.

"Are you hearing shots, or does it bother you that someone is out there hunting?" he asked.

"I guarantee they can hear it in their houses," said Don Roberts, Bowe's hunting buddy, whose blind is near the south end of the neighborhood. "But it's not like thunder rolling across the sky."

Virginia's regulations give landowners little recourse, causing more conflicts than elsewhere in the region. The District bans all hunting, and waterfront owners in Maryland can license blinds without hunting, said Robert Beyer, associate director of the Maryland Wildlife and Heritage Service, and many do so they can keep hunters out.

But Virginia doesn't allow defensive licensing; licensees must both build a blind and hunt from it.

This leaves few options for the American Horticultural Society headquarters, near Dyke Marsh. Housed on a 25-acre farm, with an organic meadow and numerous birdhouses, there is a duck blind less than 20 yards from the shore, said Trish Gibson, the farm's manager.

"We're trying to find a happy balance with wildlife so we make it a happy place for the duck," she said. "And then there's a duck blind right in front of our place."

Gibson said one person refused to support the nonprofit group because of the blind, which her organization can get rid of only by licensing the spot on its own and building and hunting from it. The group has no plans to do so, she said.