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Outdoors

Doe allocation unchanged in local WMU

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners gave final approval to hunting and trapping seasons and bag limits for the 2018-19 license year. Commissioners allocated 838,000 antlerless licenses for 2018-19, an increase of 34,000 from last year. The commissioners also set the number of antlerless deer licenses to be allocated, as well as the number of elk licenses to be allocated for the coming license year. Wildlife Management Units 4B and 4D, which encompass most of the local area, will have the same number: 26,000 in 4B and 34,000 in 4D. After hunters purchase a ...

Some seniors now exempt from pheasant permit

HARRISBURG — Any Pennsylvania hunter who held a senior lifetime hunting or combination license prior to May 13, 2017, will not need to purchase a pheasant permit to hunt pheasants in the 2018-19 license year. The pheasant permit was created last year as a way to help offset the costs of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s pheasant propagation program. In its first year, the $26.90 permit was required for all adult and senior pheasant hunters, including senior lifetime license buyers. Adult pheasant hunters still will need to purchase the permit; junior pheasant hunters will need a ...

Lewistown’s rimfire event is state championships

LEWISTOWN — The Lewistown Pistol Club will be the host for the Rimfire Challenge 2018 Pennsylvania State Championships, which run August 17 to 19 at the club. Andrew Ewing, assistant match director of the state championships, is one of the main reasons the club is hosting them to begin with. It all started when the club began running rimfire challenges three years ago. “Lewistown has been running these rimfire challenge matches, about three years ago we ran one and last year we asked the Rimfire Challenge Shooting Association if we could rename the event the state championships. ...

Academy ensures future of conservation lives on in youth

Teddy Roosevelt once said, “I recognize the right and duty of this generation to develop and use the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us.” In Pennsylvania, high school students are being given an opportunity to help ensure and sustain wildlife, fisheries and natural resources in their own legacy for future generations by enrolling and completing the Wildlife Leadership Academy. Michelle Kittell, executive director, explains its goals: “The primary goal of the Wildlife ...

Commisioners set to OK hunting seasons

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners is scheduled to meet April 23 and 24 at the agency’s Harrisburg headquarters, where proposed hunting and trapping seasons for 2018-19 are expected to be approved. Both meetings begin at 8:30 a.m., with doors opening at 7:45 a.m. Individuals interested in offering public testimony — limited to five minutes — can do so at the April 23 meeting, and may register on a first-come, first-to-speak basis. PowerPoint presentations are not permitted during public comment periods. On April 24 the board will take up its prepared ...

Spring gobbler season holds plenty of potential

HARRISBURG — The approach of spring gobbler season has Pennsylvania hunters eager to get afield. That they’ll be participating in the state’s 50th anniversary spring-gobbler hunt further sweetens the pot. Properly licensed junior hunters and mentored youth can head afield April 21 to participate in Pennsylvania’s annual youth spring turkey hunt. A week later, on April 28, all hunters can head into Penn’s Woods in pursuit of spring gobblers. The forecast for the coming season is a statewide turkey population numbering between 210,000 to 220,000 birds, said Mary Jo Casalena, ...