About 238,670 whitetail deer were taken during the 2014-15 hunting seasons, slightly less than the statewide take the previous year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Regulated deer reduces the negative impacts of deer on forests, communities and crop producers while also providing over 10 million pounds of high quality local protein annually,” DEC Commissioner Joseph Martens said in a statement to the press announcing the numbers. » Continue Reading.
An economic study published by the the Cougar Rewilding Foundation, an organization dedicated to the recovery of cougars to their former range, argues that restoring the Adirondack ecosystem with native wildlife would establish Adirondack Park as an international wildlife recreation destination.
The report estimates that restoring native woodland elk, bison, wolves and cougars to the Adirondack Park would add upwards of $583 million annually in wildlife watching and big game hunting tourism and create 3,540 new jobs. The study reports that restoration would create opportunities for wildlife tracking classes and vacations, darting, howling and photography safaris, and big game hunting. » Continue Reading.
The State University of New York Press is coming out with an edition of Teddy Roosevelt’s diaries from 1877 to 1886, when the future president was in his late teens and twenties. Given TR’s ties to the Adirondacks, I expected to find some entries from our neck of the woods and was not disappointed.
In 1877, Roosevelt and a friend, H.D. Minot, wrote a short article with a list of birds they had observed near Paul Smiths, The article – “The Summer Birds of the Adirondacks in Franklin County, N. Y.” – was TR’s first published work. Click here to read the article.
The article is based on three birding trips in the Adirondacks, in 1874, 1875, and 1877. Minot, a Harvard classmate, accompanied Roosevelt only on the last trip. TR’s diaries contain several short entries from that excursion.
The SUNY book, edited by Edward P. Kohn, a historian, is titled A Most Glorious Ride: The Diaries of Theodore Roosevelt 1877-1886. It is due out April 1.
A New Hampshire man has admitted illegally shooting a bull moose in the town of Croghan just west of the Adirondack Park.
Steven Zehr of Walpole, New Hampshire, turned himself in after shooting the animal on private land on the morning of November 25, according to Stephen Litwhiler, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
Litwhiler said Zehr was in a tree stand and mistook the moose, which weighed nearly 690 pounds, for an antlered deer. It was about 10 a.m. when the moose was killed. Zehr was charged with illegally taking wild game, a misdemeanor, and paid a $1,200 civil fine. » Continue Reading.
The 2014 New York hunting season closed with the second lowest number of hunting related-shooting incidents on record according to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, but almost half of all hunting accidents occurred in Northern New York.
Of the 22 hunting incidents that occurred in 2014, nine occurred in Northern New York. Statewide, eight accidents resulted in self-inflicted injuries, eleven involved members of the same hunting party and three occurred between a victim and shooter who did not know each other. Incidents in Northern New York included: » Continue Reading.
It was during the late 1980’s that Paul Schaefer introduced me to Daisy and Earl Allen in Bakers Mills. Earl has passed away this past month, and his wife Daisy died some 14 years before. But the memories of Daisy’s warmth and kitchen, and Earl’s legend as a teamster, maple sugar maker, artisan, maker of hay rakes, and master of old engines remain strong. Both would do anything they could for people.
Paul and his fellow hunters relied on Earl for some twenty years or more to hitch up his team of work horses to a wagon and bring there gear into hunting camp and out again. Rev. Daisy Dalaba Allen was pastor of the Sodom Community Church and president of the Pentecostal Holiness Association. » Continue Reading.
New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Police Officers (ECOs) ticketed numerous poachers for violating hunting and firearm laws and regulation during the big game hunting season in DEC Region 5, which includes most of the Adirondack Park.
ECOs charged 152 individuals with a total of 270 total charges. The charges included 91 misdemeanors and 179 violations. » Continue Reading.
The state Department of Environmental Conservation is trying to figure out who shot and killed a young moose in Newcomb recently.
The DEC received the report of the dead moose on Tahawus Road in Newcomb on Saturday, November 1, from a caretaker at the Santanoni Club, a hunting, fishing and recreation club located nearby.
A necropsy later found that the animal was “killed by a shotgun slug or muzzle-loading bullet fired through its chest,” DEC spokesman Dave Winchell told Adirondack Almanack.
The necropsy didn’t find any evidence that it was hit by a car or had other serious wounds, Winchell said.
Winchell said the female moose was 244 pounds. Its size indicates it was born this past spring.
Hunting moose is not legal in New York State. Killing a moose is a misdemeanor with a maximum penalty of a $2,000 fine and a year in jail. » Continue Reading.
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has opened new roads and facilities on nearly 25,000 acres of forest preserve and conservation easement lands in the Adirondacks.
New roads and facilities will allow motor vehicles to access the 18,000-acre Kushaqua Tract Conservation Easement Lands in Franklin County using the 3.3-mile Mountain Pond Road, and the 1,600-acre public use area of the Township 19 Tract Conservation Easement Lands in Hamilton County using the 2.6 miles of O’Neil Flow Road and Barker Pond Road. In the Essex Chain Lakes Complex gates have been opened to allow increased access to Camp Six Road in Newcomb, which will allow access for hunting, along with limited camping at designated primitive tent sites. » Continue Reading.
What can cruise at an altitude of 29,000 feet, is a beloved icon of the great outdoors, and yet can be the bane of lawn lovers? It’s the honking harbinger of advancing autumn and coming cold (and sometimes, bad alliteration), the Canada goose.
The familiar autumn voices of Canada geese overhead can at once evoke the melancholy of a passing summer and the anticipation of a bracing new season of color and activity. Kids return to school, hunters take to the woods, and farmers work past dusk and into darkness, all to the cacophonous cries and the heartbeat of wings of migrating geese. » Continue Reading.
Chub Pond lean-to 1 is unlike any other lean-to on the Adirondack Forest Preserve.
I recently visited this spot in the Black River Wild Forest while surveying trail damage from ATVs. I had heard that this lean-to was being used as a private camp and using Google Earth I could see a chimney and skylights in the lean-to roof and a large cleared area. When I reached the site, it was even worse than I expected. » Continue Reading.
Cornell Cooperative Extension of Warren County, in partnership with DEC Sportsman Education volunteer instructors, will be organizing sportsmen education classes on Saturday, September 13th and Sunday, September 14th.
The following classes are being offered each day; Sportsman Education, Bow Hunter Education, or Trapper Education (you may choose ONE class per day, bow hunter students must have completed hunter education previous to registering for bow hunter education). Those who have completed online training MUST pre-register and must bring their printed certificate of completion with them to class. They do not need to pick up the books. » Continue Reading.
The NYS Department of Environmental Conservation has launched a new outdoor recreation tool – The New York Fish & Wildlife App.
The app is a useful interactive tool that provides information about outdoor sporting and recreation in the palm of your hands. It features species profiles, rules and regulations, important permits and licensing details, and interactive GPS mapping capability that even allows you to store maps for use when out of cell service range. » Continue Reading.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has adopted a ten-year black bear management plan which outlines the principles and methods used to monitor and manage black bear populations in New York and is designed to provide strategic guidance for the DEC’s activities. The plan includes several proposed changes to hunting rules, for which the DEC is seeking public comments. » Continue Reading.
Hunters killed approximately 243,550 deer during the 2013-14 hunting seasons, nearly equivalent to the statewide take last year, according to the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
The deer take included approximately 128,850 antlerless deer (adult females and fawns) and about 114,700 adult bucks (1.5 years or older), both estimates being within 4 percent of the 2012 take. Hunters in the Northern Zone walked out of the woods with roughly 32,300 deer, including 19,500 adult bucks. The Northern Zone take for the 2012-2013 season was 30,843; in 2000-2001 the Northern Zone take was 28,622 in the 2010-2011 season. In the Southern Zone, excluding Long Island, hunters took 208,300 deer, including about 94,200 adult bucks. Comparisons of these harvest estimates with past seasons can be found online. » Continue Reading.
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