Pennsylvania-Australia collaboration begs question: Just how bad is state's wild hog problem?
Penn State scientist wants to study question
Pennsylvania – Jeff Mulhollem
Crossing wildlife species off a bucket list
Trip out West reveals antelope, elk, bison, sheep and moose
A new perspective on Lyme
Seeing the disease up close is an eye-opening experience
Wondering about water snakes
Our most common reptile is not harmless, not dangerous, either
New tick-borne disease found in the United States
Malady seems less severe than Lyme disease and has not shown up yet in Pa.
Bedeviled by beavers?
Did these things happen back in ‘the good old days’?
Wondering about the long-term effect of CWD on deer population
Will the disease noticeably thin the Pennsylvania herd over time?
Audubon feral cat fight has claws in Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania Audubon chapter scolds national parent organization for firing Ted Williams
Good reason why CWD spreads so fast
Deadly disease of deer, elk persists because of long incubation period
You know Pennsylvania, ranks high for hunting and fishing
However, new reports don’t put the state near the top in any category
A tale of two Pennsylvania stocking programs
The irony of the news about those programs coming out of Harrisburg this winter is inescapable
Shore birds make pier fishing more interesting
Every now and then a guy has a less-than-manly moment, and if he is lucky, nobody is around to see it. I had one of those brief unfortunate episodes on a Florida fishing pier the other day. In retrospect, perhaps I should have been prepared, the way the morning started. We were a long way out on the Bay Pier,…
Report warns that state's winter tourist industry headed downhill due to warming
A spirited debate about climate change has been going on in the pages of Pennsylvania Outdoor News in recent months. Readers have noticed that hatches of aquatic insects occur earlier in the spring than they used to, wild flowers bloom earlier and ice comes later — if at all — to Keystone State Lakes. The ice-fishing season, where it exists, …
Animal rights group calls for hunting, shooting titles to be displayed on porn shelf
I know that it’s a long way from Pennsylvania to Great Britain – 3,917 miles from Pittsburgh to London to be precise – but this brief story from a newspaper in England caught my eye recently. Almost hate to mention it for fear of giving an idea to the wackos here. Under the headline, “Shooting Times and The Field to…
Are there two sides to CWD-spread story?
Now that chronic wasting disease has been found in a captive Pennsylvania deer, and more than a dozen deer farms in the state have been quarantined, you probably have an opinion about how the disease spreads. As you listen to state officials and biologists, such as Kip Adams, the Quality Deer Management Association's director of education and outreach, blame deer…
PGC to reimburse deputies at higher rate
The Pennsylvania Game Commission owes a lot to its force of deputy conservation officers. At its recent quarterly meeting in Franklin, Pa., the agency approved a measure to reimbuse their expenses at a slightly higher rate. The board of commissioners voted unanimously to increase the per diem paid (to cover daily expenses incurred while on duty in a 24-hour period)…
Pa. wild-hog-hunting days may be numbered
The Pennsylvania Game Commission is still trying to decide on a policy to control feral swine in the state. The wild pigs are considered to be among the most destructive of invasive species. When they escape from fences intended to control them for pay hunts — and they apparently regularly do — the animals can inflict serious damage to habitat…
PGC officers write 2 warnings for every citation
Over the years, I have heard many complaints about Pennsylvania Game Commission wildlife conservation officers being overzealous, unfair and too tough. But a report given by the agency's law-enforcement chief at the commissioners' recent work session in Harrisburg painted a different picture. Richard Palmer, director of the commission's Bureau of Wildlife Protection, told commissioners that 2012 is turning out to…
Did coyotes trigger the ticks-Lyme scourge?
I am always amazed at the interconnectedness of nature. One recently revealed example: it seems the explosive growth in the black-legged tick population and the burgeoning epidemic of Lyme disease is caused by a complex and fascinating series of ecological reactions involving the Eastern coyote. You can read about the most recent research on the subject, which was published in…
Just what kind of photos are you finding on your trailcams?
Like many of you, I have become fascinated with trailcams. I put a couple of the cool, little devices out by a game trail crossing a small trout stream in the northern tier, and every few weeks I can't wait to dump the cards into my computer and see what photos I captured. So far I have been kinda disappointed…
Weather story so far this year: Drought averted
The final chapters of the weather story for 2012, of course, have yet to be written, but halfway through the year the plot will surely focus on the dramatic swing in precipitation trends, according to a hydrologist in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences. After the extremely warm and dry winter Pennsylvania experienced — one of the mildest since records…
Can’t help pondering fawns and predators
For years, folks who have voiced fears and strident warnings about the impact of predators on Pennsylvania’s deer fawns have been widely regarded as kooks and cranks. But a study unfolding in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan makes me wonder. Before I proceed any further, I want to, as they say in a court of law, stipulate to two Keystone…
Weird winter leads to talk of global warming
Pennsylvania sportsmen as a group, I think it’s safe to say, have been slow to warm up to the theory of man-caused global warming. Oh, sure, there are true believers among us. But I wager there are many more doubters than supporters in the ranks of hunters and fishermen when it comes to climate change. The idea that excess carbon…
Weird warm winter may or may not make ticks/Lyme worse
Seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it? The threat presented by the legions of ticks that were so active last fall — eager to latch onto hunters in the field — can only be worse after they survived the winter that wasn't. I have been hearing unsubstantiated warnings that Lyme disease, a malady carried by deer ticks that has become a…
Antlerless deer allocations may not come up at PGC's March work session
Following up on his commitment to make the workings of the game commissioners more open and transparent, President Game Commissioner Ralph Martone recently announced that the board will hold a public working-group meeting on Monday, March 26. The meeting, which will begin at 8 a.m., will be held in the auditorium of the Game Commission’s Harrisburg headquarters and will be…
Game commissioners open working group meetings to public, news media
Shortly after Game Commissioner Ralph Martone of New Castle took the gavel at the agency’s winter meeting in Harrisburg — becoming the board’s new president — he made an historic announcement. The commissioners’ working group sessions, their committee meetings, he said, will now be open to the public and the news media. After a century of hashing out most decisions…
