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Outdoors

Trout stocking gets underway this week

After a few days of wonderful weather with temperatures approaching 60 degrees earlier this month, February was only too eager to remind us that it’s still winter by dumping a couple of inches of snow on us one night last week. As I brushed off my car the next morning, I enjoyed some satisfaction in the fact I had gone trout fishing on one of those nice days. Somehow, that made the snow-removal chore a little more bearable. This year, the statewide trout season will begin on Saturday, April 6 with the Mentored Youth Trout Day on Saturday, March 30. That means the annual ...

Wild turkey survey; Wild Game Feast

If you happen to observe a flock of wild turkeys this winter, the Pennsylvania Game Commission would like to know about them. Last month, the Game Commission activated a special web page to encourage the public to report the locations of their wild turkey sightings until March 15 to support several ongoing turkey studies. The online address for the web page is pgcdatacollection.pa.gov/TurkeyBroodSurvey. It can also be accessed from the Game Commission’s website, pgc.pa.gov. On the homepage, click on the “Wildlife” tab and scroll down the menu and click on “Wildlife Species.” ...

Game Commission’s seedling sale begins

The past few weeks have served up an ample dose of winter weather throughout our region in the form of frigid temperatures, high winds and several inches of snow. Those harsh conditions often prompt some well-meaning folks to make an effort to feed wildlife during the winter. While this might seem like a worthwhile and compassionate gesture, the conventional wisdom on this practice is simply “don’t do it.” In most cases, putting out food for wild animals usually does more harm than good for any number of reasons. And in some situations, doing so may be illegal. Most of ...

Endangered Species Act turning 50

Fifty years ago, on December 28, 1973, President Richard Nixon signed The Endangered Species Act into law. The full title of the ESA was “an Act to provide for the conservation of endangered and threatened species of fish, wildlife, and plants, and for other purposes.” The Supreme Court of the United States once called it “the most comprehensive legislation for the preservation of endangered species enacted by any nation.” Appeals for meaningful legislation to protect and conserve wildlife began to garner support in the early years of the twentieth century after the severe ...

Fly tying events are scheduled

With deer season over for another year, I now find myself transitioning into “Oh, how I wish winter was over” mode. Yes, I’m aware that winter doesn’t officially arrive until Dec. 21 this year, but that doesn’t help much. That fact only magnifies my weariness for a winter that hasn’t really started yet. And we haven’t had any real winter weather yet other than a few cold days. So while I will be logging my share of couch time in the coming weeks, catching up on some reading and watching what looks like a lot of lackluster college bowl game matchups on TV, it would be ...

National hunting by the numbers

With the firearms deer season wrapping up this weekend, many thousands of Pennsylvania hunters will have bagged one or more deer starting from archery season in late September and the special firearms and muzzleloader seasons in mid-October until now. And for those hunters still desiring to fill a deer tag, they will have the opportunity to do so during the late archery and flintlock seasons that begin the day after Christmas and continue for three weeks into mid-January. We won’t know how well deer hunters did overall until the Pennsylvania Game Commission releases its official deer ...