Breaking News

Outdoors

State’s hunters like Saturday

From Mirror reports HARRISBURG — Sixty percent of Pennsylvania deer hunters support a Saturday-after-Thanksgiving start to the firearms deer season, while another 12 percent have no preference between a Saturday or Monday opener, and 27 percent oppose a Saturday opener, based on recent survey results presented today to the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners. Pennsylvania in 2019 shifted the opening day of firearms deer season, which for decades began on the Monday after Thanksgiving, to begin the Saturday after Thanksgiving. The past three firearms deer seasons opened on ...

Adventures in the outdoors worth telling

By Shirley Grenoble For the Mirror I’ve spent a lot of hours lately beside my fireplace, reminiscing about the many things that have happened to me as I was hunting, hiking or fishing. I’ve decided to share a few of them with you. Before I moved to Altoona 35 years ago, I lived in ...

Game warden has unlikely path to his position

By Jason Nark The Associated Pres PHILADELPHIA — The sound of rifle fire cracked the air on a recent blustery morning at a Poconos shooting range. When the game warden rolled in, the shooters turned their heads to watch his dark SUV roll slowly across the snow. Everyone notices when the warden shows up, particularly when it’s Warden Praveed “Abe” Abraham. “Cease fire,” Abraham said to the group of shooters as he approached them on foot. Abraham, 32, is the first full-time warden of color in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s 115-year history. His path to ...

Rarely-seen eagle seems to like its new digs in Maine

GEORGETOWN, Maine (AP) — A rare species of eagle that has thrilled bird lovers and baffled scientists since arriving in Maine last month might not be in a hurry to leave. The Steller’s sea eagle arrived in Maine in late December after a brief stop in Massachusetts more than a month ago. It has stuck to Maine’s middle coast, eating fish and ducks and attracting hundreds of birdwatchers from everywhere. The sea eagle numbers only a few thousand worldwide and is native to northeastern Asia, including Russia and Japan, and has wingspans of up to 8 feet. The bird is far off course, ...

Tying flies great activity in wintertime

By Walt Young sports@altoonamirror.com This time of year, tying flies for a return to the trout streams in the warmer weather of the coming months has been a personal wintertime ritual for more than fifty years. Many other avid fly anglers share that same routine. No other fishing-related hobby has meant as much to me as fly tying, and I can’t imagine fly-fishing and not being a fly tier. When I started fly-fishing in the early 1960s, tying your own flies was almost a necessity. Crafting your own flies cost only a fraction of what it cost to buy completed flies. Even for those who ...

US judge questioning bison decision

The Associated Press YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, Wyo. — A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to revisit part of its decision not to protect Yellowstone National Park’s bison as an endangered species. The Buffalo Field Campaign and Western Watersheds Project groups have been fighting since 2014 to have Yellowstone’s bison declared endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. They have argued that two separate groups of bison in the park are genetically distinct. Rather than set a population limit of 3,000 animals for the entire park, ...