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Outdoors

Bedford duo go national, wind up in 3rd place

By John Hartsock jhartsock@altoonamirror.com After winning a Pennsylvania state championship this past April, a pair of young bass fishermen from Bedford County have gone on to place third nationally in the Bassmaster Junior National Championship for fishermen ages 13-and-under. Alex Fitzpatrick, who will be a ninth-grade student at Chestnut Ridge High School this fall, and Ander Cowan, who will be an eighth-grader at the Everett Junior High School, teamed up to place third in the national event held July 29-30 on Tennessee’s Carroll County 1,000 Acre Recreational Lake in ...

Guns, hunting earn special place in our language

By Walt Young For the Mirror Recently, while chatting with a longtime friend, he referred to a mutual acquaintance of ours as a “straight shooter.” That reference was intended as a compliment, of course, but not about that fellow’s skill as a marksman but rather his character. Straight shooter has long been an idiom for an honest and forthright person, someone who speaks honestly and plainly. Therefore, being called a “straight shooter” by friends and colleagues can indeed be considered high praise. As a writer, I’ve always had a necessary fascination for the ...

Endangered species get a second chance

The Associated Press GLEN ARBOR, Mich. — In a forest near Lake Michigan, two scientists attached a backpack tracking device to a merlin they’d lured into a net. The mission: help prevent the predatory species from gobbling up piping plovers — highly endangered shorebirds that nest nearby. Merlins themselves were going downhill decades ago but are recovering, thanks to bans on pesticides such as DDT. That’s good for them — but not for plovers in the Great Lakes region, where only 65 to 70 pairs remain. The small falcons are “are a big threat to their recovery,” said ...

Always on the Mark: Skilled hunter trying to recover from auto accident

Archery season will be upon us before you know it, and a lot of us don’t know how to hunt with bow and arrows except to buy a tree stand and sit in it waiting for a deer to come by. That’s one of the ways to go about it, but I know a man who is just about the most successful still-hunter I ...

Abandoned well plugged

WATERFORD — French Creek Valley Conservancy and the Well Done Foundation recently jointly announced they have successfully plugged the Martha Smith No. 1 orphaned oil well, situated in Northwestern Pennsylvania, and restored the surface area around it. Located near Waterford, the abandoned well was originally drilled in 1982 and prior to its plugging was threatening the waters of LeBoeuf Creek, a major tributary to French Creek. FCVC’s Smith Tract property, comprising 45 acres, was donated to FCVC in 2009 as a conserved natural area. “The impact of The Well Done Foundation ...

Seeing the Ruffed Grouse in action is a gift from nature

By Shirley Grenoble For the Mirror As I drove my old car down a well-used dirt road recently, I bumped into one of my favorite woodsy scenarios: one of Pennsylvania’s state birds, the Ruffed Grouse, was strutting on the edge of the dirt road. His ruff (the neck feathers) was all bunched up, with a seemingly non-caring hen grouse a bit ahead of him. I stopped the car and just watched because it is a rare sight to see. Eventually, they wandered out of sight but so thankful was I to have seen this wondrous scenario. Another seldom-seen sight in the woods is to actually see a male ...