HARRISBURG, Pa. (Sept. 23) – The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) is encouraging anglers to vote online for their favorite fishing license button for 2017.

The PFBC re-introduced the availability of an annual Pennsylvania fishing license button in 2014. Brought back by popular demand, this custom button is similar to the vintage buttons offered by the PFBC in the past. Each custom button measures 1 3/4 inches with a high-quality, pin-back design and feature the angler's customer identification number (CID), the same number displayed on a paper license. As a result of a regulation change, as long as the angler is carrying a valid paper license, a valid button is the only display requirement.

The Operation Game Thief program continues to efficiently route record numbers of tips about poaching and other wildlife crimes to Wildlife Conservation Officers statewide, Game Commission staff told the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today.
Operation Game Thief was launched in late September 2015, and its first three months handled a whopping 768 reports about poaching and illegal activity.
That’s well above the number of tips coming into the Game Commission’s hotline during a 12-month span in many years prior to Operation Game Thief’s launch, said program co-administrator Chad Eyler.

Killed unlawfully in a 2014 poaching spree, one of the largest bull elk in Pennsylvania history is making its way back to the state’s elk range as part of a traveling display of exceptional elk.
A mount of the bull known as the “Historic Pennsylvania Poaching Bull” is part of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s Great Elk Tour, which arrives today at the Winslow Hill Viewing Area, near Benezette in Elk County.
The Great Elk Tour will remain on display through Sunday, Oct. 2.

You might notice something different about wildlife conservation officers these days.

All are wearing body cameras.

A 2014 change in state law allowed Pennsylvania Game Commission officers to wear the devices as long as the agency developed a training program approved by the Pennsylvania State Police. That was accomplished last year, said Tom Grohol, director of the commission's bureau of law enforcement.

The osprey, which in recent decades has seen an increasing population and distribution in Pennsylvania, soon could be removed from the state’s list of threatened species.
The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners met today in Harrisburg and gave preliminary approval to an updated management plan for osprey that, among other things, calls for a change in the osprey’s status in Pennsylvania, defining it as a protected species rather than a threatened species.

The Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today set hunting and trapping seasons and bag limits for the 2016-17 license year, which begins July 1.
A list of all seasons and bag limits appears at the end of this news release.
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.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (Sept. 2) – The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (PFBC) is alerting anglers that it has temporarily lifted all seasons, sizes and creel limits on Somerset Lake, Somerset County, in anticipation of the lake being fully drained next year as part of the construction project to rebuild the facility’s dam.
“We have temporarily lifted the regulations in order to reduce the number of fish in the lake in advance of a complete drawdown of the lake and a fish salvage,” said Jason Detar, Chief of the PFBC Division of Fisheries Management. “We want anglers to fish the water and make good use of as many fish as they can.”

  1. Don’t Get Cited For Baiting
  2. Changes To Sunday Shooting-Range Use Tabled
  3. Which Wildlife Crimes Are Most Common?
  4. Board Declares 2016 Rendezvous An Enormous Success
  5. Amended Drone Ban Adopted
  6. What To Do When Approached By A Pennsylvania Conservation Officer
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