Sunday, June 24, 2018

2018-19 PA Hunting Licenses/Permits scheduled On Sale NOW!

Buy a license online. Licenses purchased online may take up to 10 business days to arrive. Most general and add-on licenses are available on the Pennsylvania Automated License System (PALS). Exceptions are noted below. 

*Verify your mailing address. If you purchase a Hunting & Trapping Digest, it will be mailed separately from your license and may not arrive at the same time. The Digest is also available for printing and viewing online.
Locate a License Issuing Agent to purchase your license in person. Most general and add-on licenses are available in-store. Exceptions are noted below.

Thursday, June 14, 2018

Bull Creek Loses A Great Member. RIP Steve Alias

It is with great sadness we report that member Steve Allias passed away several days ago. 

Steve was a very active member at Bull Creek, serving many years on the Board of Directors, assisting the Board on many legal issues, serving as an instructor for our "Hunters Safety courses" and initiating and running the "Youth 22 shoots", among other things. 

As per Steve's final requests there will be no viewing or service. 

Sunday, June 10, 2018

July 28th PA Hunter Safety Course At Bull Creek Now Registering!!

Our Next course will be Offered on Saturday July 28th from 8AM to 4:00 PM. You may register for the  class by clicking here.
Sanctioned By
PA Game Commission








All Hunter Education classes MUST be registered for online. Click Here To Register for July 28th 2018 basic class

These Classes are FREE, but you must pre-register. Space is limitedPlease register early!
Lunch and refreshments will be supplied by Bull Creek!!
Bull Creek Rod and Gun Club's Hunter-Trapper Education classes are held twice a year, in early spring and mid summer. Our last class was held in March, 2018. Classes are taught by 4 or 5 certified instructors who are both Bull Creek club members and trained by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Plus, volunteers from the club and community assist the instructors with presentations offered in:
  • History of Hunter-Trapper Education in Pa.
  • Knowledge of sporting arms, ammunition, and traps.
  • Safe handling of sporting arms and trapping equipment
  • Wildlife Conservation and Management
  • Wildlife Identification
  • Hunting and trapping laws
  • Hunter-Trapper/Landowner relations and ethics
  • Safe Clothing
  • Outdoor Safety (Emergency first aid and survival)
  • Field care of game
  • Game Law presentation by Game Commission Officers
  • Range Instruction
  • Walk through shoot/don't shoot course
  • Archery Demonstration
  • Tree Stand Demonstration
STUDENT EXAM FOLLOWS COURSE
Eligibility: Student must be 11 years of age or higher to register and receive a training certificate. You MUST have completed this mandatory training and have reached at least 12 years of age to hunt in Pennsylvania.

Call 1-800-243-8519 to reach the Southwest Region Office in Ligonier, PA, for other
class schedules near you.
THESE COURSES ARE FREE!

Read a testimonial:

PA Hunters asked to protect eagle populations

Pennsylvania eagles have blossomed over the last three-plus decades.
They're so abundant as to be mysterious even.
"From a lot of two or three nests in the 1970s, we have probably over 300 at this point," said Patti Barber, a bird biologist with the Pennsylvania Game Commission. "I say probably because we have so many eagles it's a challenge to keep track of them all.
"But that's a good problem to have."
There's a bad one, too, though.
The surge in eagle numbers has been accompanied by a surge in eagle-human interactions, Barber noted. Not all end well.
In particular, incidents of eagles showing up with lead poisoning are on the rise.
"Other states have been dealing with this for quite some time. For us, it's a recently new phenomenon," said Steve Smith, chief of the commission's bureau of information and education.
Starting this fall, hunters are asked to solve that problem.
The commission is launching a "significant educational campaign" to try and keep eagles from ingesting lead spread by hunters.
It's sportsmen who are, at least in part, adding lead to the environment, said Justin Brown, wildlife veterinarian for the commission.
Eagles are scavengers, he noted. Like other raptors, they often feed on carcasses and gut piles left behind in the woods, intentionally or, in the case of animals shot but not recovered, unintentionally.
That causes problems, he said.
Eagles that feed on such carrion can absorb lead into their bodies. When it collects in high enough concentrations, it impacts everything from liver function and nervous systems to blood. That often leaves them emaciated, blind and unable to walk or fly, Brown said.
To prevent that, the commission is going to ask hunters to do one of two things: switch to using non-lead ammunition or bury or hide gut piles and carcasses.
"Basically, the goal is to protect lead from moving into those non-target species and our scavengers ingesting the lead," Brown said.
Non-lead ammunition is much more readily available now than in the past, he said. While it remains more expensive, prices are coming down, he added.
"I think we feel good and are excited to get hunters invested in the management of the disease," Brown said.
Commissioner Jim Daley of Butler County said the return of bald eagles in Pennsylvania is a "tremendous success story." Sportsmen wrote it, he added.
It was the commission, financed by hunting license sales, that restored eagle populations, he noted. It secured birds from Saskatchewan and elsewhere and reintroducing them.
"We as hunters are the ones who brought all these birds back into Pennsylvania," he said.
Now, he said, it falls to sportsmen to "keep that going."
The commission developed a brochure explaining the lead-eagle issue. It will be available to hunters and trappers when they get their 2018-19 licenses. An educational video is ready, too, that's online.
Both note that sportsmen led the charge to bring eagles back, Smith said. Now, they need to make sure those efforts don't prove to be in vain.
"It's only appropriate that we call on hunters and sportsmen again to try to save the population and continue what we do have," Smith said.
Bob Frye is the everybodyadventures.com editor. Reach him at 412-216-0193 or bfrye@535mediallc.com. See other stories, blogs, videos and more at everybodyadventures.com.
Article by Bob Frye, Everybody Adventures,
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