The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Friday, December 05, 2008

By:

Soccer practice had been cancelled. With a rare couple of hours to spare, Lou Reda of Whitehall took his only son Louie, then 9, along on a turkey hunt.

"We found some feathers, but no turkeys," said Reda. "After a while, he looked up at me and said, 'Dad, it doesn't matter if we don't get anything. It's just good to be out here.' "

"I was so proud," said the elder Reda. "I said, 'You get it. That's what being a hunter is all about.' "

Little moments of family bonding, epiphanies about human interaction with the natural world, building maturity through the proper use of sporting arms ...

For a lot of Pennsylvanians, teaching kids to hunt has little to do with shooting.

Steeped in a hunting tradition that goes back hundreds of years, Pennsylvania offers two separate programs and lots of special seasons designed to teach children about hunting safety and ethics, and gradually get them into the field.

The family bonding is a bonus.

Hunting license sales are on the decline, and there's a nationwide slump in the number of children participating in outdoor recreation. It's no surprise the Game Commission is actively recruiting young hunters.

"The future of hunting and trapping is directly related to the continuing participation of young Pennsylvanians in our hunting and fur-taking seasons," said Pennsylvania Game Commission executive director Carl G. Roe, in a prepared statement. "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 one-million-plus 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."

Junior hunters

Yesterday marked the start of a special six-day junior hunting season permitting youngsters 12-16 to hunt under degrees of supervision based on age. The season targets ringneck pheasants (bag limit two daily, four in possession, male pheasants only in some wildlife management units) and red, gray, black and fox squirrels (six daily, 12 in possession after opening day).

Junior hunters have to take a hunter-trapper education course and purchase a $6 junior hunting license. Kids 12 and 13 years old must be accompanied by a family member, those 14-15 can be accompanied by any licensed hunter 18 years and older, and 16-year-olds can hunt on their own. The adult supervisor must be close enough to issue verbal commands without use of an electronic device, and the adult and youth can each carry a sporting arm.

Pennsylvania offers many special seasons and opportunities for kids to hunt. Some require licenses, some don't, and all of them have special regulations. Check the Hunter's Digest or call a Game Commission regional office for details. Contact the Southwest Regional Office at 724-238-9523.

"One thing we always hear about is the competition for a person's time," said Game Commission communications director Jerry Feaser. "We want the youths to be out there when the adults accompanying them are focused on teaching them, to help them learn and understand hunting and firearm safety."

Mentored youths

Another opportunity for young hunters, the Mentored Youth Hunting Program, was introduced in 2006 to give children under the age of 12 the chance to hunt under more controlled conditions.

"The program increases hands-on use of sporting arms," reads a page of the Game Commission Web site (www.pgc.state.pa.us), "and can promote a better understanding and interest in hunting and wildlife conservation that will help assure hunting's future, as well as reinforce the principles of hunting safely through the close supervision provided by dedicated mentors."

While the junior hunting seasons set a minimum age, the Mentored Youth Hunting Program leaves that decision to the parents.

"There's no minimum age," Feaser said. "We didn't want to put a floor on it. There are some [kids] who are more mature and more prepared than others, but this allows the parent to make that decision as to whether the child is ready."

Feaser said he's already made that call in his family.

"I'm taking my 8-year-old son squirrel hunting," he said. "He's looking forward to it. I might even take him groundhog hunting. But I'm not taking him spring gobbler or deer hunting. I believe he's mature enough to go squirrel and groundhog hunting, but he's not mature enough to sit still long enough [for other types of hunting]."

The Mentored Youth Hunting Program sets additional restrictions on participating kids. No license is required, but the child must be accompanied by a properly licensed adult at least 21 years of age. The adult has to carry the youth's sporting arm in and out of the field, and may not carry another gun or bow.

"We're not just sending kids out with guns," said Feaser. "They're under close adult supervision and they're not holding the gun when they are moving."

The adult mentor must be within an arm's reach of the child. Mentored youths can hunt only for squirrels, groundhogs, spring gobblers and antlered deer (no doe) during the archery, firearm and late flintlock seasons.

"You'll notice with the species, none require a swinging action of the firearm," Feaser said. "Hunting for these species is generally from a seated location, unlike pheasant, waterfowl, rabbit or grouse where you have a swinging motion of the firearm. We did this to give youth a hunting opportunity from a stationary location without involving a swinging action."

Feaser said because of the one-on-one supervision and restrictions on the carrying of the sporting arm and type of hunting in the Mentored Youth Program, a hunter-trapper education course is not required.

"We rarely if ever hear of accidents involving the youth seasons," said Feaser. "A lot of that has to do with the focused time [the adults] spend with their children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. Instead of hunting themselves, they're taking the time to teach about hunting."

The Youth Mentored Hunting Program sailed through the state house and senate last year almost unanimously, and was promptly signed into law by Gov. Ed Rendell. Pennsylvania isn't the only state that allows children to hunt. Some states have no minimum hunting age.

In the field

About 25 young hunters registered for yesterday's Bull Creek Rod and Gun Club Mentored Youth Pheasant Hunt. In its fourth year, Allegheny County's only mentored youth hunting event focused on hunter safety instruction, skeet shooting and a stocked pheasant hunt.

"In this day and age of computers and video games," said club president Randy Strzeszewski, "it gets back to basics and introduces [kids] to the outdoors. It's companionship with a dad or older brother taking [them] out in the field on a Saturday morning. The mentored program is like a Big Brother program."

Strzeszewski said two girls participated in the hunt. "Those girls are pretty doggone good shots," he said.

Louie Reda registered for Bull Run's structured hunt, but he and his dad have been sharing quality time outdoors for several years. The elder Reda said he's been taking his son hunting, "since he was 5 or 6."

"I made a little wooden gun for him to carry when he was little," he said. "When he got older he took a BB gun, and I made him point it in the right direction and showed him some gun safety and hunting ethics. Later, I got him a .410 [gauge shotgun]. I carried the shells and handed them to him."

This year, the Redas started bow hunting together.

"It's up to the parent," he said. "Some kids mature more than others. A parent should know. It's being together outdoors, growing in maturity. Shooting a gun is a really small part of it."

Now 13, Louie Reda says he hasn't given up on baseball and computer games, but he looks forward to the time he spends in the woods with his father.

"It's just fun to be with my dad, out in nature, up in the trees," he said. "If I go hunting, I tell [friends at school] what happened -- if a deer was coming under us, if I got a shot, how my heart was pounding in my chest."

Louie hasn't taken his first deer yet, but says that doesn't matter.

"It's just fun to be out there," he said.

About the Author: John Hayes can be reached at jhayes@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1991.

By: E.B. FURGURSON III

The county's abundance of deer is being used to feed the hungry.

By: Doug Giles

Regnery Publishing is about to further bury the loons on the Left with its latest installment in the Politically Incorrect Guide series. Who’s in the crosshairs this time in this destined to be best-selling tome, you ask? Well, honey, it is the frothy and paranormal twinkies on the left who hate hunting and hunters and spread lies about us and the important role hunting plays within the world we live.

Author Frank Miniter, executive editor of American Hunter magazine, is the lucky duck who Regnery chose for the fun job of intellectually thrashing the lying liberals who whiz on our great sport and the vital role it plays in all of our lives.

Frank had to be chuckling with crazy glee as he banged away on his laptop, not just writing his personal opinions or wet-eyed, Disney-fueled feelings but rather the cold, hard, positive and objective empirical data about the truly excellent things that hunters bring—literally—to the table. Here’s a tiny list, a mere smattering of blistering and irrefutable particulars you will find in the Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting that hunters provide for animals and people, stuff like:

• Hunters donate tons of meat to food pantries, pay the fees that expand wildlife conservation programs, keep national parks preserved, and protect motorists’ lives.

• Hunters are true nature lovers and conservationists and are the first to report poachers who disregard laws that protect wildlife and natural habitats.

• Hunter-funded conservation groups are primarily responsible for bringing back American wildlife that was nearly extinct in the last century.

• Hunting is safer than soccer, football, baseball, cheerleading and ping pong.

• California game managers must wait ‘til a cougar threatens a human before they can rock its world. How sweet. Because of this brain fart, today the number of people that naughty cougars have killed has doubled from what it was before cougar hunting was banned.

• Deer kill ten times the number of people as sharks, cougars, bears and alligators combined, as well as more than commercial airline, bus and train accidents combined.

• When the greenies protected the alligators on Sanibel Island, Florida, the alligators ate the tree huggers and their dogs!

• Bear attacks are at an historic high, and you’re more likely to be attacked by a bear where hunting isn’t allowed—like in a national park.

• Bears with no fear of humans often attack after hearing gunshots—a diner bell that a deer or elk is waiting for them—and thanks to the tree huggers, hunters can’t do anything about it.

• Aviation collisions with wildlife cost $500 million annually.

• Livestock losses to predators cost $71 million annually.

• Hunting protects trees from being destroyed by scavenging deer. Those trees help protect land from erosion and house songbird populations.

• Vegetarians who don’t eat meat because they love animals are eating vegetables from farmers who kill deer, rabbits and vermin that would destroy the vegans’ lunch. Remember that, hypocrites, when you crunch your little baby carrots and worship your edamame beans.

As stated above, this is just a simple sampling of the stonking truths Frank pummels the pro-stupidity anti-hunting cabal with.

However, I don’t expect this book to convert the implacable, closed-to-reality PETA types. Nothing can. They’re gonzo. What this book will do, though, is provide the hunter and the hunter-friendly person with intellectual fodder to defend this primal and noble sport with and significant specifics of why hunting is a must for mankind.

Hunters, you will feel proud and unashamed after you plow through this preponderance of evidence which paints you in the good light you should be painted in. Every hunter should get this pro-hunting compendium, read it, and then declare its contents loud and proud.

Now, let’s see…next weekend I’ve got a wild boar hunt. Yes, it seems that Porky Pig is destroying the tomatoes you vegans love to eat on my buddy’s 7,000 acre south Florida farm. We will shoot as many as we can for you…the vegetarian.

What else? Oh yeah, in November I’m going with my daughter to my friend’s ranch in Texas, and we’ll take an assortment of native and exotic game. In January I’ll be gator hunting in the wild swamps of the everglades, and then in June it’s back to Africa to hunt the cradle’s mighty critters.

Just with these hunts alone, I will put into circulation mucho money which will go to conservation, not to mention that my friends and I will feed hundreds of needy people low fat, high protein yummy meat. What about you, tree humper? How much money will you spend for conservation, and how much food will you provide for the poor in the next few months? I guarantee whatever it is, it doesn’t come remotely close to what the true animal and nature lovers, the hunters, provide.