In Berne and Knox, two different incidents have raised questions about what to do when people like hikers and rural homeowners encounter hunters or gun clubs.

Hunters are invited to submit recommendations to regional Waterfowl Hunter Task Forces to help set the dates of the fall 2017 duck-hunting seasons for each of the state’s waterfowl hunting zones by Feb. 19.

New York State has no requirement to screen the venison donated to food pantries for the lead left by bullets. It should. Otherwise, the people hunters seek to help can be poisoned.

It is a busy time of year for the Venison Donation Coalition with both hunting season and the holidays underway.

As concerns over lead in public water have increased, concerns over lead contamination have gone unnoticed at public and private gun ranges.

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens has announced that, beginning Thursday, Dec. 26, the public will not be able to purchase hunting, fishing, or trapping licenses, or secure a recreational marine fishing registration or report game that has been killed.

New York’s estimated 823,000 hunters and trappers are officially returning afield for recreational hunting and trapping across upstate New York, according to Joe Martens, the state’s commissioner of environmental conservation.