Outdoors

Boat safety tips from the BoatUS Foundation

From staff reports National Safe Boating Week, which begins this Saturday, May 16, and runs through Friday, May 22, is the traditional early boating season reminder to help recreational boaters embrace safety all season long. However, the important National Safe Boating week recommendation urging life jacket wear is now joined by an equally important boating safety message — how to stay safe during the time of COVID-19. “While we’re learning new things about the virus almost every day, we don’t anticipate additional safety challenges on the water this year,” said BoatUS ...

Bird-watching soars as Americans head outdoors

Conner Brown, a 25-year-old law student at Stanford University, spent the early days of the pandemic following his brother as he spotted and collected characters in the Pokemon Go mobile game. Then, Brown noticed the birds. “I thought, ‘Why don’t I take up birding?’ It’s like real-life Pokemon Go. It’s super addicting because you can start logging them and you get a little collection. It’s really cool,” Brown said. He paused, then added, “They should really game-ify it.” Brown, who’s living near Annapolis, Maryland, can now identify 30 different bird species. ...

Community fishing a popular outlet in pandemic

CHANDLER, Ariz. (AP) — Tim Wirtz Jr. slowly spun the reel, tracking the retrieval of a plastic worm, when two shapes moved into his peripheral vision. The teen’s eyes gleamed as he peered through the crystal clear water at a pair of beefy rainbow trout cruising parallel to the shore. Wirtz sped his spin, moved around a strand of trees and gently flicked the lure just beyond the lunkers, hoping to entice a strike. No luck. The trout, familiar perhaps with the fishermen and their assortment of faux fish and frogs, swam right past the imitation earthworm with barely a glance. A ...

PA Game Commission set to reopen state shooting ranges

From staff reports HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Game Commission today announced that, on Friday, May 8, it will reopen to the public its Northwest and Northcentral Region Offices, and reopen shooting ranges on state game lands in counties to be upgraded to the yellow phase in the state’s three-phase matrix to ease COVID-19 restrictions. Those counties include: Bradford, Cameron, Centre, Clarion, Clearfield, Clinton, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, Lawrence, Lycoming, McKean, Mercer, Montour, Northumberland, Potter, Snyder, Sullivan, Tioga, Union, Venango and ...

Success Afield

National parks balancing the demand for cell service, silence

PHOENIX (AP) — Musetta Vander has been to several of the most iconic national parks and landscapes in the U.S., capturing herself doing a yoga pose among the Joshua trees, driving on a tree-lined highway framed by Yosemite's towering rock formations and sitting at the edge of a cliff overlooking a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Colorado River. “Sometimes it’s so beautiful you want to share it with the world immediately,” said Vander of West Hollywood, California. “However, I feel that you miss out on the magical experience nature provides you when you don’t let go of social ...