YOUTH HUNTING SEASONS JUST AROUND THE CORNER

HARRISBURG - This Saturday marks the start of Pennsylvania's youth squirrel and pheasant seasons, and Pennsylvania Game Commission Executive Director Carl G. Roe is encouraging adults to help make the upcoming youth seasons a success by introducing more youngsters to the hunting community.

"Part of the Game Commission's overall vision is to promote our state's rich hunting and trapping heritage," Roe said.  "The future of hunting and trapping is directly related to the continuing participation of young Pennsylvanians in our hunting and furtaking seasons.  The challenge is to successfully compete with all the other activities and recreational opportunities that vie for a young person's time. It won't be easy for the Game Commission or Pennsylvania's more than a million hunters.  But the future of wildlife conservation - and the $4.8 billion economic impact hunters provide to the state annually - is directly related to hunter recruitment.  We will continue to do our best to improve the situation."

Earlier this year, young hunters - age 12-15 years old - were provided with a special day of waterfowl hunting on Sept. 23.  Later this year is the "youth only days" at the Middle Creek and Pymatuning controlled waterfowl hunting areas.  The Middle Creek day is Saturday, Nov. 18.  The Pymatuning day is Saturday, Nov. 25.

For more information on the waterfowl seasons and bag limits, visit the Game Commission's website (www.pgc.state.pa.us), and click on "Waterfowl Brochure" in the "Quick Clicks" box in the upper right hand corner of the homepage.

Also, those youth under the age of 12 were permitted to begin hunting groundhogs in mid-July when the new Mentored Youth Hunting Program started.  Under the program, a mentor is defined as a properly licensed individual at least 21 years of age, who will serve as a guide to a youth while engaged in hunting or related activities, such as scouting, learning firearm or hunter safety and wildlife identification.  A mentored youth is an unlicensed individual less than 12 years of age who is accompanied by a mentor while engaged in hunting or related activities.

The regulations require that the mentor-to-mentored youth ratio be one-to-one, and that the pair possesses only one sporting arm when hunting.  While moving, the sporting arm must be carried by the mentor.  When the pair reaches a stationary hunting location, the mentor may turn over possession of the sporting arm to the youth and must keep the youth within arm's length at all times.

The Mentored Youth Hunting Program does not require the youth purchase any license or pass a Hunter-Trapper Education course.  The species identified as legal game for the 2006-07 license year - the first year of the MYHP - are woodchucks (groundhogs), squirrels and spring gobbler. 

The program also requires that both the mentor and the youth must abide by any fluorescent orange regulations, and that the mentored youth must tag and report any wild turkey taken by making and attaching a tag that contains his or her name, address, date, WMU, township, and county where it was taken. Also, the youth must submit a harvest report card, which is available on page 33 of the 2006-07 Digest, within five days for any gobbler he or she takes.

"Since this is the first year of the Mentored Youth Hunting Program, the agency decided it was prudent to start out slow and then refine the program after we've had a chance to evaluate response to it," Roe said.  "This is consistent with other agency actions.  For example, youth seasons were introduced one or two at a time; some youth seasons started with only a day or two and were expanded later."

The youth squirrel and pheasant hunts will be held Oct. 7-13.  Under the youth squirrel and pheasant hunts, participants are not required to purchase a junior hunting license, but they must pass a Hunter-Trapper Education course.  As with all junior hunting, those participants 12 and13 years old must be accompanied by a parent, guardian or other family member 18 years or older, and those 14 and 15 years old must be accompanied by a person 18 years or older.  Also, all bag limits apply, including areas for harvesting male and female pheasants.

On Oct. 7, about two dozen sportsmen's clubs from across Pennsylvania will host a mentored youth pheasant hunt where they will provide specific instructions on pheasant hunting.  Many of the clubs sponsoring mentored youth pheasant hunts have purchased pheasants from private breeders to release for their hunts.  In addition, these clubs will share in nearly 1,700 birds provided by the Game Commission for their mentored hunts.  Also, prior to the youth pheasant hunt, the Game Commission will release 15,000 pheasants on public lands throughout the state.  Details on where these birds will be stocked are included on pages 26-28 of the 2006-07 Pennsylvania Digest of Hunting and Trapping Regulations, which is provided to each license buyer.  A complete copy of the Digest also is posted on the agency's website (www.pgc.state.pa.us) in the "Quick Clicks" box in the upper right hand corner of the page. 

Information about the youth pheasant season is posted on the website (www.pgc.state.pa.us).  Choose the "Hunting" section in the left-hand column of the homepage, then click on the pheasant photo and select "Youth Pheasant Hunt Listings" or "Pheasant Hunt Stocking Locations."

"These youth seasons take into account that students are off school on Saturday, Oct. 7, and most are off on Monday, Oct. 9, the Columbus Day holiday, as well," Roe said.  "The remainder of the youth squirrel season takes place before the change of daylight savings time.  This gives students an opportunity to go home after school and have two hours or so to hunt, which is a long-standing tradition in many rural parts of the state."

In addition to the youth waterfowl, squirrel and pheasant hunts, other youth events created by the Game Commission include: a youth spring gobbler season, initiated in 2004; special antlerless deer harvesting opportunities, created in 1998 and expanded in 2001; and youth field days, established in the early 1990s. 

Created in 1895 as an independent state agency, the Game Commission is responsible for conserving and managing all wild birds and mammals in the Commonwealth, establishing hunting seasons and bag limits, enforcing hunting and trapping laws, and managing habitat on the 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands it has purchased over the years with hunting and furtaking license dollars to safeguard wildlife habitat.  The agency also conducts numerous wildlife conservation programs for schools, civic organizations and sportsmen's clubs. 

The Game Commission does not receive any general state taxpayer dollars for its annual operating budget.  The agency is funded by license sales revenues; the state's share of the federal Pittman-Robertson program, which is an excise tax collected through the sale of sporting arms and ammunition; and monies from the sale of oil, gas, coal, timber and minerals derived from State Game Lands.

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