Notes off a soiled cuff: True Sunday hunting opportunity likely to become reality for Pennsylvania hunters
A few issues ago, in this space, I commented on the partisan nature of the vote to move the Sunday hunting bill through the state House of Representatives, prompting an angry reader to call and complain about us supporting one of the parties.
He was dead wrong – we weren’t. Now the other party pushed a Sunday hunting bill through the Senate and a compromise between the legislation adopted by the two chambers is expected.
Notes off a soiled cuff: Will the recent consistent high heat negatively impact Pennsylvania brook trout?
The week before this issue went to press included six consecutive days with high temperatures exceeding 90 degrees in the central part of Pennsylvania. Can’t help but wonder how the prolonged heat affects our thermally fragile wild brook trout streams.
A Fish & Boat Commission biologist we consulted with suggested that the wet spring and higher water levels may be protective, for now, but if the weather stays scorching, it will be bad news for brookies.
Notes off a soiled cuff: Would free fishing, hunting licenses help fill critical positions in Pennsylvania?
Like in Pennsylvania, Michigan’s leaders are having trouble attracting enough people to fill critical roles to protect society, so they have come up with a novel idea. A lawmaker there has introduced a bill to give first responders and prison guards free hunting and fishing licenses.
Wonder if that approach might help persuade more folks to be volunteer firefighters here? We have a critical shortage.
Notes off a soiled cuff: Politics now everywhere, including in fish and wildlife management
For a long time many of us thought – naively I suspect – that public policy making for hunting, fishing and wild resource management was nonpartisan. But everything is political, now.
As evidence, the Pennsylvania House Game and Fisheries Committee recently passed three pieces of legislation to expand Sunday hunting, mitigate crop damage by deer and provide representation for farmers on the Game Commission.
Surviving ash trees may hold key to saving species
The invasive insect emerald ash borer is killing ash trees at an unprecedented rate in the United States, and now five North American species of ash are considered critically endangered, according to the U.S. Forest Service.
But a small percentage are surviving, and research by Forest Service scientists suggests that those trees may hold the key for saving the species.
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Notes off a soiled cuff: Reimburse Pennsylvania hunters if deer test positive for CWD
Given the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s extremely robust financial position, the fast spread of chronic wasting disease in our state and the threat it poses to influence deer hunters to drop out of the sport, I strongly urge the agency to devise a way to reimburse hunters whose harvested deer test positive for CWD.
Notes off a soiled cuff: Reimburse Pennsylvania hunters if deer test positive for CWD Read More »
Notes off a soiled cuff: Thoughts on turkeys, CWD in Pennsylvania, and more
By now, you likely have heard about researchers in Texas reporting last month on a case in which two deer hunters contracted a rare and fatal brain disease after eating venison from deer that may have been infected by chronic wasting disease.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control has said there’s no connection between their deaths and being exposed to CWD, but the report sent shudders through hunting communities – like our state’s – dealing with CWD in their deer herds.
Notes off a soiled cuff: Thoughts on turkeys, CWD in Pennsylvania, and more Read More »
Fish information flowing in for Pennsylvania agency with new “Notice of Stocking” regulation in effect
Before last year, Pennsylvania was the only state in the Northeast that didn’t require some form of documentation when individuals or entities wanted to stock fish in state waters. As a result, Fish & Boat Commission leaders lamented, they had no idea what was being put in where.
But a regulation approved by the commission’s board of directors last summer that went into effect Jan. 1 has made a huge difference, according to Timothy Schaeffer, agency executive director. It requires a “Notice of Stocking” to be filed with the commission prior to fish going into any water.
A quick chat with Sara Fitzsimmons of the American Chestnut Foundation
She has worked with the foundation (tacf.org) from her position as a research technician at Penn State University since 2003, assisting chestnut growers and researchers throughout the Appalachian Mountains. Born and raised in Hinton, in southern West Virginia, she studied biology at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
A quick chat with Sara Fitzsimmons of the American Chestnut Foundation Read More »
