Around the Game Commission
• Brian Witherite, the Game Commission's wildlife conservation officer in southern Somerset County, recently had a run-in with one stubborn bear.
He took a call reporting a large black bear — it proved to weigh 440 pounds — hanging out at the Youghiogheny Reservoir outflow recreation area. He attempted to convince it to move on by hazing it, but that didn't work. Instead, it climbed a tree.
Next, he called Confluence Volunteer Fire Department to ask that they hose the bear with high pressure water to get it to climb down and go away.
"Well, the bear took all those fellows could throw. They showered the bear in excess of 4,700 gallons of water and the bear still kept his position in the tree tops," Witherite said.
Finally, Somerset Rural Electric sent a utility truck with a bucket to the scene. Witherite tranquilized the bear 45 feet above the ground, and the bear was lowered down with the truck's boom.
It was loaded into the bed of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pickup and relocated.
• The Game Commission has debuted on its web site a live video camera feed from a bluebird nestbox on the grounds of its Harrisburg headquarters.
Commission officials set up the video feed to "educate the public about the importance of wildlife, how to make backyards friendlier to wildlife and also provide a way for folks to simply get closer to bluebirds."
The bluebird camera is the agency's first foray into the world of live nest cam feeds. It provides a color video feed plus audio from the bluebird nestbox quarters.
To view the live feed, visit pgc.state.pa.us and click on the "Bluebird Live-Feed" icon in the center of the homepage.
• Peregrine falcons are doing very well in and around Pittsburgh, it seems.
Beth Fife, a wildlife conservation officer with the Game Commisison, said three young falcons hatched at the McKees Rocks Bridge nest site, three at the Monaca-Rochester Bridge nest, four at the Cathedral of Learning at University of Pittsburgh campus, and two at the Gulf Tower Building in downtown Pittsburgh.
PennDOT officials in particular are very happy with the bridge nesting birds, she said, because they help control the pigeon population, which reduces the need for bridge cleaning."
Around the Fish & Boat Commission
• Plans to discuss the work of the Three Rivers Ecological Resource Center at last week's meeting of the Fish and Boat Commission got shelved.
Commissioners had been expected to get a report on the center from executive director Doug Austen. Instead, they fired him.
As reported in the Tribune-Review on Wednesday, commissioners "reassigned" Austen to another position dealing with federal programs. Commisisoner Tom Shetterly has since confirmed that Austen was essentially fired, though.
He gets to keep his salary and benefits for now, but is expected to find a job outside the agency as quickly as possible, Shetterly said.
An update on the Three Rivers Center — which has been the target of a lot of questions from commissioners unsure if it's actually achieving anything — will take palce at a future meeting, said commissioner Bill Worobec of Lycoming County.
• This has been a bad year for boating fatalities in Pennsylvania.
So far this year, the state has had fewer boating accidents overall, but more fatalities, said Dan Martin, the commission's chief boating safety officer. There have been eight deaths so far, the two most recent involving children.
There has been no common denominator among the deaths, he added, saying "they're all over the board."
One death occurred on the Beaver River June 27 when a 46-year-old man in a canoe drowned. The other fatalities have taken place in the eastern half of the state.
