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YAKIMA -- Mending elk fences for eight hours on a hot, dusty, weekend day might not sound like a lot of fun, but Anthony Novack does a lot of that.

Of course, as one of Eastern Washington's two deer and elk control specialists, though, Novack gets paid to do it.

But here's the interesting thing: Volunteers are lining up to help him. In droves. All because of the state wildlife department's new and improved Master Hunter program.

"I've got a list of about
60 Master Hunter candidates right now looking for (volunteer project) hours," Novack said last week. "I put together some work days, picked a Saturday out of just about every month, going to work on elk fence. I figured if I could get eight or 10 to help me out (in each of those Saturdays), that'd be great."

But then Novack's e-mail and voice mail began filling up with candidates in the overhauled Master Hunter program, which requires more volunteer hours than its Advanced Hunter Education predecessor. On his first elk-repair work day -- which turned out to be a 10-hour ordeal -- 17 volunteers showed up. The next one drew more than 20.

"I didn't expect this many people," he said. "I'd say two-thirds of them have been from outside the region -- I've had guys from Chehalis, Whidbey Island, Kirkland, Moses Lake and Spokane. They're trying to find a project where they could get, rather than an hour here or an hour there, get a big chunk of hours at once."

That infusion of volunteerism is a real boon, simply because of the amount of fence in constant need of maintenance -- especially in the Department of Fish and Wildlife's Region 3 (including Yakima, Kittitas, Benton and Franklin counties), which has more than 100 miles of elk fence.

The Master Hunter's new volunteer requirements insured its revamped Master Hunter program would get a lot done -- elk-fence repairs, wildlife area clean-ups, riparian rehabilitation work and whatever else needed doing.

Master Hunters re-certifying must do 40 volunteer hours on approved wildlife conservation projects, but have five years to do it. New applicants who signed up during this year's January-through-March enrollment window must put in 20 volunteer hours during 2008.

That focus on increased volunteering is just one change between the old Advanced Hunter Education (AHE) and the new Master Hunter program. Another is what some have dubbed the "zero-tolerance" policy designed -- with background checks that weren't part of AHE qualifying -- to weed out hunters who might not have had the highest ethical standards.

The weeding-out has indeed begun. Roughly 1,800 hunters on the AHE rolls were automatically invited to re-apply; of those, about 50 failed the criminal background check and were allowed to appeal because of their lost privileges.

Another 250 did not submit the forms they were required to submit -- possibly, for many of them, because that would have meant undergoing a background check they knew they would fail. Another 50 or so simply let their previous five-year certification expire during the re-application process.

"We've had some real trials and tribulations with the transition because some people are not happy -- they got thrown out of the program because they had some kind of wildlife violation," said John Wisner, Master Hunter program director.

"But this year we've gotten in excess of 1,000 new applicants -- it goes to show that people realize the requirements have gone up."

And that many hunters were waiting for those higher standards.

"The proof in the pudding here is that we had double the normal number of applicants that we had had in the past," said Mike Kuttel, the wildlife department's liaison to the Master Hunter Advisory Group.

"That tells me there's a lot of sportsmen out there who have been watching what's happening, and that there's a lot of support for the zero-tolerance policy. Are there some folks that have concerns? Sure there are. Are there concerns about the existing WAC (232-12-073 of the Washington Administrative Code)? Sure. But we'll get them there."

Mike Estes of Kennewick chairs the advisory group that helped define the new program. A past president of the Richland Rod and Gun Club who became a master hunter when the program first began in 1992, Estes said the "giving back" concept was a focus of every group meeting.

"I still believe there's probably some contingent that are the consumptive hunters who are just looking for additional hunting opportunities," Estes said. "We really put out a message to them (with the new program guidelines). The intent is to raise the quality of the program, and we wanted to make sure they understood about the background checks, that we increased the number of (volunteer) hours to qualify.

"There's an opportunity to harvest an animal here and there. But that's not the big push of the program. The push is to take knowledgeable hunters who are of the right mindset -- we're setting an updated message about the balance between giving and taking."

There is also, Kuttel added, an increased "commitment to communications -- to the general public, to the hunting community, and to the master hunters themselves." The program's Web site -- wdfw.wa.gov/hunting/masterhunter -- "is designed to answer 99 percent of the questions anyone would think of," he said.