Robert Cobb
New member
Santa Fe Company Answers Call of the Wild
November 24, 2002
BY WES SMALLING, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Ed Sceery places a small rubber device under his thick mustache, blows into it and rattles the stocked shelves of his Santa Fe warehouse with a terrifying screech.
The "Distressed Cottontail" coyote call is one of his hottest sellers.
After years of studying animal communication and earning a doctorate in animal physiology from New Mexico State University, Sceery combined his passion for hunting with his academic studies and opened up shop in Santa Fe in 1966.
Since then, the EJ Sceery Co. has grown into one of the hunting industry's biggest and most respected producers of game calls in the United States. Open a Cabelas catalog or scan the shelves of any Wal-Mart and you will find his elk, deer and predator calls.
"It's a hobby that sort of got out of hand," Sceery chuckled at his fascination with animal language. "I've spent a lot of time in the field with a tape recorder and I have a library of animal sounds."
Talking With the Animals: During his academic years as a student and teacher, Sceery published some of the first research papers ever completed on elk and coyote vocalizations.
By listening to an elk bugle for a mate or a coyote yip at his pack mates, he explained, you don't "necessarily know what he's thinking because they don't necessarily think," but you can better determine what the animal is doing.
"Understanding the animal's language is very difficult because most people think they communicate like people, but they don't," he said. "People communicate in very specific sounds. Open up a dictionary and count the number of words." Animals, however, are restricted in the number of vocalizations they can make, so instead they change the meaning of their communications by altering intensity and pitch.
"A duck can only say, 'quack,' but how he says that, how intensely he says that, is how he says different things."
The key for hunters to lure in that big bull or buck is to learn to mimic those animals sounds the right way.
Cadillac of Animal Calls: Most of Sceery's call designs are patented and he targets a selective market of hunters who are looking for a durable, quality product, he said. "Just like with cars, there's VWs and Cadillacs."
Sceery also sells an inflatable turkey decoy -- his newest product, for which he received a patent two weeks ago.
"You'd be surprised at how many of these we sell," Sceery said, patting a box of turkey decoys on the shelf. "We ship these by the semi-truck load."
Although his company is based in New Mexico, only slightly more than 1 percent of his sales are within the state and that's not just because of its sparse population, Sceery suspects.
"New Mexico is not a great big hunting state contrary to what some local people might think," he said. "If you go to other states during hunting season, you'll see big signs, big billboards saying, 'Welcome Hunters.' You don't see that in New Mexico."
Sceery does not sell his products directly from his Santa Fe business but instead ships them to distributors, retail chains and independent sporting goods stores.
"People [from Santa Fe] say, 'We've been using your products for years and we didn't know you were here,' " he said.
A Fish Call? Sceery, 54, doesn't get to hunt as much as he used to because of his busy work schedule. But when he does manage to find time in between hunting seminars and meetings with Wal-Mart executives, he will most likely be found on the water.
"Hunting is my work. What I do for fun is fish," he said. "Typically, I combine fishing trips with testing new products."
Like his prototype for a fish call?
"We've been working on that for years," he laughs. "But I don't concentrate on that. That's a fun thing."
Still, what a seller a fish call would be . . .
"There's certainly some sounds that attract fish," Sceery said. "If I could develop a fish call, I would have every building on this block filled up with them."
(Copied and Pasted from Jesse's Hunting Page)
November 24, 2002
BY WES SMALLING, THE SANTA FE NEW MEXICAN
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Ed Sceery places a small rubber device under his thick mustache, blows into it and rattles the stocked shelves of his Santa Fe warehouse with a terrifying screech.
The "Distressed Cottontail" coyote call is one of his hottest sellers.
After years of studying animal communication and earning a doctorate in animal physiology from New Mexico State University, Sceery combined his passion for hunting with his academic studies and opened up shop in Santa Fe in 1966.
Since then, the EJ Sceery Co. has grown into one of the hunting industry's biggest and most respected producers of game calls in the United States. Open a Cabelas catalog or scan the shelves of any Wal-Mart and you will find his elk, deer and predator calls.
"It's a hobby that sort of got out of hand," Sceery chuckled at his fascination with animal language. "I've spent a lot of time in the field with a tape recorder and I have a library of animal sounds."
Talking With the Animals: During his academic years as a student and teacher, Sceery published some of the first research papers ever completed on elk and coyote vocalizations.
By listening to an elk bugle for a mate or a coyote yip at his pack mates, he explained, you don't "necessarily know what he's thinking because they don't necessarily think," but you can better determine what the animal is doing.
"Understanding the animal's language is very difficult because most people think they communicate like people, but they don't," he said. "People communicate in very specific sounds. Open up a dictionary and count the number of words." Animals, however, are restricted in the number of vocalizations they can make, so instead they change the meaning of their communications by altering intensity and pitch.
"A duck can only say, 'quack,' but how he says that, how intensely he says that, is how he says different things."
The key for hunters to lure in that big bull or buck is to learn to mimic those animals sounds the right way.
Cadillac of Animal Calls: Most of Sceery's call designs are patented and he targets a selective market of hunters who are looking for a durable, quality product, he said. "Just like with cars, there's VWs and Cadillacs."
Sceery also sells an inflatable turkey decoy -- his newest product, for which he received a patent two weeks ago.
"You'd be surprised at how many of these we sell," Sceery said, patting a box of turkey decoys on the shelf. "We ship these by the semi-truck load."
Although his company is based in New Mexico, only slightly more than 1 percent of his sales are within the state and that's not just because of its sparse population, Sceery suspects.
"New Mexico is not a great big hunting state contrary to what some local people might think," he said. "If you go to other states during hunting season, you'll see big signs, big billboards saying, 'Welcome Hunters.' You don't see that in New Mexico."
Sceery does not sell his products directly from his Santa Fe business but instead ships them to distributors, retail chains and independent sporting goods stores.
"People [from Santa Fe] say, 'We've been using your products for years and we didn't know you were here,' " he said.
A Fish Call? Sceery, 54, doesn't get to hunt as much as he used to because of his busy work schedule. But when he does manage to find time in between hunting seminars and meetings with Wal-Mart executives, he will most likely be found on the water.
"Hunting is my work. What I do for fun is fish," he said. "Typically, I combine fishing trips with testing new products."
Like his prototype for a fish call?
"We've been working on that for years," he laughs. "But I don't concentrate on that. That's a fun thing."
Still, what a seller a fish call would be . . .
"There's certainly some sounds that attract fish," Sceery said. "If I could develop a fish call, I would have every building on this block filled up with them."
(Copied and Pasted from Jesse's Hunting Page)
