8
NOVEMBER 2017 A Monthly Update from the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee The Chairman’s Corner Senator Scott E. Hutchinson The Environmental Synopsis Deer hunting oc- cupies the minds of many sports- men this time of year, but hunters in search of trophy game also await the statewide bear season in November. This season is expected to produce yet another record harvest, as the Pennsylvania Game Com- mission reports the black bear popula- tion is now over 20,000, the largest it has been since they started recording such data in 1915. Black bears are common throughout the Commonwealth, harvested in 58 of 67 counties and 20 of the state’s 23 Wildlife Management Units. While their native habitat is the more remote regions of Penn’s Woods, they have gradually moved into more populated areas. It is not uncommon to find a hungry black bear sifting through trashcans in a suburban backyard or raiding a farmer’s corn feed. The availability of food, natural or oth- erwise, is a key component of the black bear’s surging population, including fall favorites like apples and acorns. For hunters seeking the thrill of “big game,” black bears are a popular choice. Adult males average around 200 pounds, with some tipping the scales at over 600 pounds. In 2010, the state record bear, taken with a bow in Monroe County, weighed an astonishing 876 pounds. Male bears, called boars, typically weigh twice as much as females, known as sows. They measure about three feet high when on all fours and as much as seven feet tall when standing upright. Given their size, most people mistakenly believe that bears are slow, lumbering creatures, but that simply is not the case. They are fast and agile, capable of running at speeds of over 35 mph with the ability to climb trees and swim. They are also very intelligent, relying on their eyesight and sense of smell to locate food and evade hunters. Sometimes, their natural curiosity gets the best of them, however, leading to mostly harmless en- counters with their human neighbors. The regular hunting season for black bears is based around their hibernation cycle. In the late fall, bears actively forage for food to use as fuel for their prolonged winter slumber. During this time, bears can spendkup to 20 hours a day feeding, con- suming nearly 20,000 calories. This means bears are mobile, which increases hunters’ odds for encountering a prized bruin. Do not be fooled into thinking it will be an easy hunt, however. Bears are notoriously elusive. Their population densities rarely exceed one bear per-square-mile, and hunter success rates typically are below 3 percent, according to the commission. Suc- Continued on page 8 I N THIS I SSUE The Chairman’s Corner 1 Notes from the Director 2 Research Briefs 3 • The Mounting Cost of Extreme Weather Events • UK Clothing Industry on Track to Curb Waste, Emissions • Indoor Air Pollution in Green Buildings • Monitoring Fish Health in the Chesapeake Bay Committee Chronicles 7 This Month in Conservation History 7 November 2017 Volume 18, Number 11

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NOVEMBER 2017

A Monthly Update from the Joint Legislative Air and Water Pollution Control and Conservation Committee

The Chairman’s CornerSenator Scott E. Hutchinson

The Environmental Synopsis

Deer hunting oc-cupies the minds of many sports-men this time of year, but hunters in search of trophy game also await the statewide

bear season in November. This season is expected to produce yet another record harvest, as the Pennsylvania Game Com-mission reports the black bear popula-tion is now over 20,000, the largest it has been since they started recording such data in 1915.

Black bears are common throughout the Commonwealth, harvested in 58 of 67 counties and 20 of the state’s 23 Wildlife Management Units. While their native habitat is the more remote regions of Penn’s Woods, they have gradually moved into more populated areas. It is not uncommon to find a hungry black bear sifting through trashcans in a suburban backyard or raiding a farmer’s corn feed. The availability of food, natural or oth-erwise, is a key component of the black bear’s surging population, including fall favorites like apples and acorns.

For hunters seeking the thrill of “big game,” black bears are a popular choice. Adult males average around 200 pounds, with some tipping the scales at over 600 pounds. In 2010, the state record bear, taken with a bow in Monroe County, weighed an astonishing 876 pounds. Male bears, called boars, typically weigh

twice as much as females, known as sows. They measure about three feet high when on all fours and as much as seven feet tall when standing upright.

Given their size, most people mistakenly believe that bears are slow, lumbering creatures, but that simply is not the case. They are fast and agile, capable of running at speeds of over 35 mph with the ability to climb trees and swim. They are also very intelligent, relying on their eyesight and sense of smell to locate food and evade hunters. Sometimes, their natural curiosity gets the best of them, however, leading to mostly harmless en-counters with their human neighbors.

The regular hunting season for black bears is based around their hibernation cycle. In the late fall, bears actively forage for food to use as fuel for their prolonged

winter slumber. During this time, bears can spendkup to 20 hours a day feeding, con-suming nearly 20,000 calories. This means bears are mobile, which increases hunters’ odds for encountering a prized bruin.

Do not be fooled into thinking it will be an easy hunt, however. Bears are notoriously elusive. Their population densities rarely exceed one bear per-square-mile, and hunter success rates typically are below 3 percent, according to the commission. Suc-

Continued on page 8

In ThIs IssueThe Chairman’s Corner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Notes from the Director . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Research Briefs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3• The Mounting Cost of Extreme Weather Events• UK Clothing Industry on Track to Curb Waste, Emissions• Indoor Air Pollution in Green Buildings• Monitoring Fish Health in the Chesapeake Bay

Committee Chronicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

This Month in Conservation History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

November 2017Volume 18, Number 11

2 E n v i r o n m E n t a l S y n o p S i S

It will soon be December and the holiday season is upon us. Have you already ordered all your gifts? Did a carrier such as FedEx and UPS deliver them to your front door? More than ever, home delivery is depositing cardboard boxes on doorsteps across America, and we have fallen in love with the convenience. However, there are consequences to all that packing material.

Lucrative same-day shipping deals and the convenience of shopping from home have propelled the growth of e-commerce. Over the last twenty years, e-commerce has evolved from a novelty into a $350 billion business category, with market giant Amazon setting the pace.

From toys to tires, electronics to bathing suits, and every product in between – they nearly all arrive in cardboard packaging. Used cardboard boxes are piling up in basements and garages, filling apartment building mailrooms and spilling out of overstuffed recycling bins. As online shoppers buy even more everyday items with greater frequency, the mounds of cardboard boxes they amass have raised questions about the impact on the environment.

There is a huge shift in consumer spending going on, with billions of dollars moving from brick-and-mortar stores to online retailers. Instead of cardboard coming from retail and grocery stores, increasingly the boom

of brown boxes comes from apartment buildings and residential homes. Often, when consumers order several items online, they are shipped from different companies and locations meaning each box may contain just a single item. Moreover, items are often shipped with cardboard boxes inside cardboard boxes to protect the items inside. It is hard to find a more adaptable, less expensive, or more readily available material than cardboard. The holidays produce an every-growing pile of used cardboard, one that is getting bigger as consumers shift to e-commerce.

With the continued rise in e-commerce, many recycling advocates

fear an overwhelming glut of cardboard. The

corrugated paper industry believes it is having the

opposite effect.According to one estimate, Amazon ships an average of 608 million packages a year, which equates to an estimated 1,600,000 packages a day. That is a lot of cardboard.

Over 35 million tons of containerboard are produced in the U.S. each year, with e-commerce companies among the fastest-growing consumers. It is also the most recycled packaging material in the nation. In 1993, about 55 percent of cardboard in the U.S. made its way into the recycling bin. By 2015, that number had risen to nearly 93 percent. Unfortunately, cardboard cannot be recycled indefinitely. Every time it is remade, the fibers get shorter. After five to seven recycling loops, the fibers become too short to bond together into cardboard.

While deliveries from online purchases continue to rise, it should be safe to

assume that this means increased use of cardboard. That is not necessarily true. Statistics show that e-commerce has not led to an overall increase in cardboard consumption in the U.S. In fact, the amount of cardboard shipped by U.S. companies has actually decreased slightly since 1995, according to the Fibre Box Association (FBA) – the trade group for the corrugated paper, or cardboard, industry. Its members account for 95 percent of industrial shipments of cardboard made from new and recycled materials in the U.S. Imported cardboard only accounts for about 3 percent of cardboard boxes and containers shipped in the U.S.

So how can the amount of cardboard in the U.S. have remained constant while the e-commerce industry has doubled in the last five years? One reason is manufacturers across industries – not only e-commerce – have been improving their packaging to reduce the cost of shipping products. When cardboard is used, fewer shippers are using the “Russian doll” method of product transit, in which a series of smaller boxes are inside a large box.

Some businesses may also have shifted from cardboard to another packaging material. Some forgo cardboard for shrink-wrap, like bottle water bound by plastic film instead of cardboard. Or, because more items are being shipped directly to consumers, fewer items are being boxed and shipped to retail stores inside of larger boxes, which may help explain the FBA’s stance that cardboard consumption is down – or at least, holding steady – as e-commerce continues to dominate.

So this holiday season, as you open your presents, take a moment to ensure that the cardboard packages that carried your gift get a second chance by recycling them.

Notes from the Director Tony M. Guerrieri, Executive Director

n o v E m b E r 2 0 1 7 3

Research Briefs

Calculating the Cost of Extreme Weather EventsTony M. Guerrieri, Executive DirectorExtreme weather is getting expensive, according to the federal government. The U.S. has now tied a record for the most billion-dollar weather and climate-related disasters in a single year, thanks to the dev-astating California wildfires this October. Officials said initial estimates of insured and uninsured losses from the California wildfires had exceeded $1 billion, making it the sixteenth billion-dollar weather disaster in the nation so far in 2017.

There were 12 weather disasters over $1 billion during the first half of 2017. Estimates for just how costly hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria will take time to put together, but they are all expected to reach the billion dollar mark, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

As part of its responsibility of monitoring and assessing the climate, the NCEI tracks and evaluates climate events in the U.S. that have great economic and societal impacts. The agency currently monitors and assesses the costs and impacts of: hurricanes, drought, inland floods, severe local storms, wildfires, crop freeze events and winter storms. Tornado and severe thunderstorm events have made up the largest share and have added seven bil-lion-dollar weather events to the list.

Two flooding events are also on the list: one in Missouri and Arkansas in late April and early May, and one in California in February. On the other side of the precip-itation spectrum, the ongoing drought in Montana and the Dakotas has already reached more than $2 billion.

Rounding out the list is the severe March freeze in the Southeast that was preceded

by unusually warm temperatures, result-ing in $1 billion in damage to crops, and the wildfires in the Northwest. In addition to the economic impact, these 16 events have resulted in the deaths of over 300 people. Through October, this year is now tied with 2011 for the most billion-dollar disasters in a single year, according to NCEI’s database which dates to 1980.

The U.S. has officially tied the record for the most billion-dollar weather

disasters in a single year. There have been 16 events in 2017 that have exceeded

that price tag.The increase in expensive disasters is due, in part, to the increase in population and material wealth over the last several decades. The NCEI notes many population centers and infrastructure exist in vul-nerable areas like coasts and river flood-plains, while building codes are often insufficient in reducing damage from extreme events. The increasing frequency of some types of extreme weather due to climate change is also a factor, according to the report from NCEI.

Since 1980, there have been 218 weather and climate disasters in the U.S. that have reached at least $1 billion in damages or costs. The total cost of these 218 events exceeds $1.2 trillion. This does not include Harvey, Irma, Maria or the October Cali-fornia wildfires, however.

The NCEI said tropical cyclones are, on average, the most costly per event ($16.7 billion), followed by droughts ($9.4 billion), flooding ($4.3 billion) and crop freezes ($3.4 billion). Tropical cyclones account for about 17 percent of the total number of events, but have caused about 47 percent of the total damage attributed to bil-lion-dollar weather disasters. These num-

bers are expected to rise dramatically once the recent hurricane costs are included.

The costliest U.S. weather disaster in the NCEI’s database since 1980, adjusted for inflation, is Hurricane Katrina at $161.3 billion.

While each region of the U.S. faces a unique combination of weather and cli-mate events, every state has been impact-ed by at least one billion-dollar disaster. For example, over 94 of these disasters have affected at least some portions of Texas. Since 1980, Pennsylvania has been part of 57 weather events that have cost over $1 billion dollars. The total cost often includes damages across several states, so each state that experienced the event may not have incurred $1 billion in dam-ages or the full cost.

The costliest climate disaster event that Pennsylvania, along with the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic region, has ever experi-enced was Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The total cost was $70.2 billion. Combined direct and indirect deaths from Sandy were estimated to be 159.

In performing these disaster cost assess-ments, statistics were taken from a wide variety of sources and represent the estimated costs of these events. Sources

4 E n v i r o n m E n t a l S y n o p S i S

include the National Weather Service, the Federal Emergency Management Agen-cy, U.S. Department of Agriculture, other federal government agencies, individual state emergency management agencies, state and regional climate centers, media reports, and insurance industry estimates.

For more information on this data, please visit: https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/bil-lions/overview.

U .K . Pact to Reduce Clothing Industry Impacts on TrackColeen P. Engvall, Research AnalystWhen is the last time you updated your wardrobe? Ever changing fashion trends, along with cheap and readily available products, means that people have been buying more clothes more frequently. However, few people consider the environmental impact of all those cotton and plastic fibers being produced and discarded.

The United Kingdom’s Waste and Resources Action Programme released a report in 2012, entitled Valuing our Clothes, which rated the impact of the clothing industry through the life cycle of the products. From the manufacturer standpoint, this includes farming, processing, dyeing, weaving, transporting and all the other processes involved in making and selling clothes. From a consumer standpoint, this includes everything from washing, ironing,

recycling, reuse and disposal, whether that is in the hands of a friend or a landfill.

This initial report found an astonishing amount of waste and emissions. In response, the charity group created the Sustainable Clothing Action Plan 2020, which laid out voluntary targets for businesses to reduce water use, emissions and landfill waste over the life of their products.

This year, they released a follow-up report to see how the goals were being met and how improvements can be accelerated.

Overall, the entities involved in SCAP saw reductions across the board. Carbon output has fallen by 10.6 percent, water use by 13.5 percent, household waste by 14 percent and total life-cycle waste by 0.8 percent. When you consider that the U.K. population purchased over a million ton of clothes in 2016, these reductions have the potential to make a meaningful impact to the country’s overall waste and emissions if expanded to more producers.

The clothing industry is currently one of the largest sectors in the U.K. and the U.S. in terms of environmental impact. Traditionally, cotton agriculture has been associated with a great deal of pesticide, nutrient and water use. The SCAP initiative encourages manufacturers to switch to sustainable cotton sources or recycled fibers; a task that some brands committed to achieve.

Other reductions have been shown in new technologies for salvaging recycled fibers, dyeing fabric without the use of heat and supporting various recycling options. Surprisingly, clothing recycling and resale is already more popular amongst consumers than simply discarding unwanted garments. Used clothing stores, charity routes and recycling bins represent

the majority of disposal methods in the U.K., but the study notes that making this cycle more efficient is still possible.

For example, some stores are offering to take garments back to be recycled or resold. To further improve this process, WRAP encourages the use of partnerships between retailers and charity shops as well as the use of existing technology and marketing to increase displacement.

Clothing manufacturers and retailers in the U.K.

have reduced carbon emissions, water use and household waste through the voluntary Sustainable

Clothing Action Plan. Despite these successes, the finish line is only two years away with significant reductions left in SCAP’s goals. To ensure that the signatories of the initiative will be able to reach these ambitious targets by 2020, the report outlined areas that see the greatest reductions in waste and pollution and areas that require more focus. These areas are:

• Extending the life of clothes through improvements to durability and en-couraging second hand clothes sales;

• Educating households on clothing care and repair;

• Improving the footprint of women’s jeans, dresses, sweaters and men’s t-shirts, which are high volume products;

• Sourcing sustainable cotton;

• Considering closed-loop recycling;

• and identifying where waste occurs in the supply chain.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/valuing-our-clothes-the-cost-of-uk-fashion_WRAP.pdf.

n o v E m b E r 2 0 1 7 5

‘Green’ Buildings are Often Home to Indoor Air PollutionTony M. Guerrieri, Executive DirectorThe EPA ranks indoor air pollution among the top five health issues in the U.S. Poor indoor air quality can be a major contrib-utor to both short term and long term health problems. If you’re considering leasing, buying or developing a “green” building, you may be under the impres-sion that an eco-friendly structure will have a healthy indoor environment. How-ever, researchers from the Silent Spring Institute, a Massachusetts-based nonprof-it, suggest the opposite may be true.

The research, published in the journal Environmental International found that newly renovated public housing units in the city of Boston earned awards for green design and building, but flunked indoor air quality tests. The units were renovated to meet certain building standards and policies, mainly focused on energy efficiency.

Air and dust samples were collected from 10 newly renovated housing units before occupancy and from 27 units post-occupancy between July 2013 and January 2014. The samples were test-ed for nearly 100 chemicals including: phthalates, flame retardants, pesticides, antimicrobials, fragrances, formaldehyde and chlorinated solvents. Exposure to these chemicals has been associated with numerous health effects. All of the eco-friendly homes in the study had risky indoor air concentrations for at least one of the toxic chemicals.

The study identified several chemicals that came from the building. These included two flame retardants – tris (1-chloro-2-propyl) phosphate (TCIPP) and tris (1, 3-dichloroispopropyl) phos-phate (TCDIPP). Researchers also believe that flame retardants, suspected of caus-ing cancer, had been added to the build-ing insulation. Researchers were surprised to find chemicals used in sunscreen, nail

polish and perfumes being emitted from building materials, possibly because they were added to paint or floor finishes.

When the residents moved in, the indoor air’s chemical makeup changed. Re-searchers found that there was significant increase in levels of triclosan (an antimi-crobial found in toothpaste and soaps), fragrances (found in personal care and cleaning products), phthalates (which are added to plastics, vinyl, and personal care products), and other flame retardants (found in furniture).

Green buildings may have increased energy

efficiency, but levels of indoor air pollution

remain high. This is due to the presence of chemicals in both

construction materials and household goods.

Researchers also detected several chem-icals that have either been banned or phased out. For example, BDE-47 is a component of a flame retardant mixture commonly referred to as PentaBDE. It has been banned since 2005, due to ongoing health concerns. Residents may have carried the compound into their homes, possibly in old or second-hand furniture. The pesticides propoxur and diazinon,

banned from residential use in the mid-2000s, were also detected inside the units.

Both before and after occupancy, all the tested units had indoor air concentra-tions of formaldehyde that exceeded the EPA’s cancer-based screening level. The researchers expected formaldehyde, which has been associated with allergies and asthma, might leach out of building materials, and they found evidence it did. But because formaldehyde emissions remained high after occupancy, the re-search team suspected that residents also brought formaldehyde in personal-care products. Several other chemicals were also found to exceed screening levels.

So does this mean that all green buildings are sick buildings? Not necessarily. New green buildings are usually quite the op-posite. They are built using less toxic ma-terials in terms of construction materials, paint, carpet and furnishings. Problems are more likely to occur, it seems, in buildings that have been retrofitted. The buildings are more energy efficient than they were previously, but the interior materials are still busy off-gassing toxic compounds.

By testing the homes before and after they were occupied, researchers now have a better idea of which chemicals are from building materials and which are from personal items people bring into their homes. The study provides import-ant clues about which hazardous chem-icals are being released from building materials so they can be constructed to be both energy-efficient and healthy, especially for low-income communities.

The Silent Spring Institute study, Chem-ical exposures in recently renovated low-income housing: Influence of build-ing materials and occupant activities, was published online in the journal Environment International. It is avail-able for download at: https://ac.els-cdn.com/S0160412017308413/1-s2.0-S0160412017308413-main.pdf?_tid=d-12cc492-c4a2-11e7-8e8b-00000aac-b362&acdnat=1510159103_1f53f-095c75342ef11954be9cc4a6e0c.

6 E n v i r o n m E n t a l S y n o p S i S

Health Checkup for the Chesapeake Bay’s Fish PopulationColeen P. Engvall, Research AnalystWhen measuring the health of any waterway, there are several ways to assess water quality. Often, concentrations of nutrients and pollutants are measured. However, some scientists have noted that the best metric for ecosystem quality is the health and general wellbeing of its inhabitants.

Fish health has been monitored in the past to determine a range of factors. Size and abundance is a common way to make sure that there is enough food in the ecosystem and that reproduction rates are keeping pace with harvesting. However, researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science noted that the health of fish and fish populations are often not fully utilized in long term studies as part of a total system evaluation.

In 2002, they set out to investigate the general condition of fish in the Chesapeake Bay, the variations in health between species, and how this relates to the overall conditions. Their study, Spatiotemporal Trends and Drivers of Fish Condition in Chesapeake Bay, was published in September. They focused on 16 species of fish found in the Bay over a 14-year time frame.

The Chesapeake Bay has long been the subject of research and conservation

initiatives, in part due to its priceless contribution to local economies, but also because of its environmental significance. The Bay is the largest estuary in the country, but it has faced significant pollution problems for decades due to the large populations and agricultural operations within its watershed. This has negatively impacted the seafood industry there, as well as recreation and tourism opportunities.

The study looked at the various issues effecting the bay, such as hypoxic water from overloaded nutrients, increasing temperatures, drought conditions and water clarity, then compared it to the species of interest. They gathered sam-ples of fish from stations all across the Bay and recorded the number of indi-viduals along with the species, age, sex, weight and other health-determining traits. Using statistical analysis, they de-termined approximate abundance and average age per species, laying out the data longitudinally to identify trends.

For the most part, their results showed that the populations fluctuated predictably with seasonal conditions and spawning times of each species, with variance for outside influences like toxic algal blooms or decreased watershed input due to drought. However, when the groups of species were compared to each other, it revealed an overarching trend.

The 14 year study allowed the researchers to not only see the general condition of the fish, but to compare that condition to a baseline

of health and fitness. They noticed that, regardless of species, the populations were impacted by the ecosystem at a community level. They loosely followed a cyclical trend that reflected the season, food scarcity and other ecosystem variables.

They could then compare community wide-health to patterns in past years to form a view of how annual trends are evolving in response to changing water conditions. This holds implications for Bay conservation researchers as it adds another metric of suitability and stability for the estuary as a whole.

Researchers from the Virginia Institute

of Marine Science gathered data on fish populations over 14

years in the Chesapeake Bay and discovered that populations often mirror the larger fluctuations of

the Bay’s health.While this study’s timeframe was longer than others preceding it, the researchers recommend gathering data over longer spans of time in order to see broader patterns. For example, gradual impacts such as rising temperatures or acidification would take longer to separate from other variables since aquatic ecosystems depend on a wide range of impacts. Currents, salt water infiltration, temperature variation and other natural variations can all influence population trends and are difficult to separate from anthropogenic disturbances.

They also note that system-wide studies like these are important for Bay health overall. Generally, fish have been looked at as a separate variable rather than a culmination of nutrients, pollutants and general ecosystem health.

To read the full report, go to: http://www.int-res.com/abstracts/meps/v579/p1-17/.

Image retrieved from the North American Native Fishes Association.

n o v E m b E r 2 0 1 7 7

• Check Us Out on Social Media •You can now receive updates on committee events, new research and more by following the Joint Legislative

Conservation Committee on social media.You can find us on Facebook at www .facebook .com/jointconservationcommittee, or on

Twitter at www .twitter .com/PA_JLCC. Take a moment and follow us today for the latest on issues related to Pennsylvania’s diverse natural resources.

Committee Chronicles A review of some memorable Committee events

23 years agoOn November 10, 1994, the U.S. Environmental Pro-tection Agency launched its first page on the World Wide Web. The website ushered in a new era of public access to EPA publications, programs and research. As the internet evolved, the agency kept pace by adding blogs, social media platforms and more expansive libraries of environmental information.

Image retrieved from web.archive.org.

At the request of Rep. Donna Bullock (D-Philadelphia), the Committee traveled to Philadelphia earlier this month to receive a briefing on Philadelphia’s Municipal Energy Master Plan. Representatives from the Office of Sustainability as well as the city’s electricity providers discussed the plan in-depth, which calls for a 20 percent reduction in energy consumption by 2030, among other ambitious goals. Afterward, the Committee viewed sustainability projects at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Philadelphian condominium complex.

This Month in Conservation History A look back at the evolution of environmental stewardship

From Left to Right: Representative McCa-rter, Representative Vitali, Representative Bullock, Executive Director Tony Guerrieri, Christine Knap from the Philadelphia Office of Sustainability, Tony Gay from PECO and Laura Rigell from the Philadel-phia Energy Authority.

The committee tours the ongoing renovations in the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Construc-tion will open up sections of the museum to the public that have been closed for years, as well as incorporate energy efficiency upgrades.

8 E n v i r o n m E n t a l S y n o p S i S

cessful hunters usually scout the local bear population prior to the season and utilize hunting parties to drive dense cover.

Pennsylvania has become a top destination for bear hunters across North America. The

Commonwealth’s surging black bear population has led to record harvests in

recent years.Pennsylvania’s firearms bear season opened on Saturday, November 18, and runs through Wednesday, November 22. The commission expects a very produc-tive season, due to warm weather and an abundance of food. The agency believes this year’s harvest could be one for the record books. Last year, hunters bagged 3,529 bears, the fifth highest total on record. Sixty bears weighed over 500 pounds and three individuals topped the 700-pound mark. If all goes according to plan, it should be another year in what is being called “the golden age” of Pennsyl-vania bear hunting.

Where do Pennsylvania hunters have the best chances of bagging a trophy black bear? If history were a guide, Lycoming County is a great place to start. It has been the top bear-producing county in

the state for decades. Bear harvest totals from the last three years were 243 (2016), 312 (2015) and 286 (2014). In general, the northcentral region provides plenty of great bear hunting. Clinton, Tioga, Potter, Centre and McKean counties all routinely produce 100-200 bears a season.

Other regions of the Commonwealth have seen an upward trend in bear harvests. The southeast region was never regarded as a premier destination for bear hunters. In recent years, however, there has been a noticeable uptick in the num-ber of harvests. Dauphin and Schuylkill counties, in particular, are gaining pop-ularity with local hunters in the region. Both counties are home to expansive state game lands and an abundance of bear-friendly habitat.

If you are interested in hunting black bears, you will need a general hunting license along with an add-on bear license. Bear licenses are selling at a fast pace, and could again break the record of 175,314 which was set only two years ago. Should you bag a bear, you will need to bring it to one of the commission’s check sta-tions within 24 hours. A complete list of hunting requirements, along with check station locations, are found on their web-site at www.pgc.pa.gov.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission also offers these important safety tips for bear hunters:

• Hunters are required to carry photo identification while hunting.

• Plan your hunt and hunt your plan; it ensures someone knows where you are.

• Carry a cellphone in case of emergencies.

• Make sure you’ve thought about how you’d remove a bear from the woods if you take one.

• Use of baits and lures is illegal. If you find bait while scouting or hunting, report it to the Game Commission.

• Always carry a compass and map in the big woods.

Joint Legislative Conservation

Committee

Contact Information

Phone : 717.787.7570

Website : jcc .legis .state .pa .us

Location:Room 408

Finance BuildingHarrisburg, PA 17120

Mailing Address:Joint Legislative

Conservation CommitteePA House of Representatives

P.O. Box 202254Harrisburg, PA 17120-2254

The Chairman’s Cornercontinued from page 1