The Game Commission’s Citizens Advisory Committee made up of major stakeholders recently assisted Commission personnel in looking at the problems associated with wildlife feeding and proposing possible solutions.

As a follow up to these discussions, the Game Commission will host 7 open houses from July 18 to August 8 throughout the state and is encouraging the general public to stop by and learn more about this issue.

Pennsylvania’s wildlife faces a variety of threats. These threats often are related to both natural and human-caused factors. As the state agency responsible for managing Pennsylvania’s wildlife, the Game Commission must mitigate these threats whenever possible.

Diseases like Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), mange, and tuberculous have the potential to significantly affect wildlife populations. Though these diseases do spread naturally, their spread is increased significantly when wildlife is unnaturally concentrated.

When people feed wildlife, they escalate this concentration.

In recent years, the occurrence of both CWD in deer and mange in bears has increased. The Game Commission takes the threat of wildlife diseases very seriously and must take appropriate steps to mitigate wildlife diseases and their spread.

While this is not an easy problem to solve, it is serious and needs to be addressed.

Open Houses

The open house format allows visitors to casually view information about the problem and possible solutions. Agency staff will be on hand to answer questions.

The open houses will be held from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on--

-- July 18: Game Commission Northcentral Region Office, 1566 South Route 44 Highway, Jersey Shore, Lycoming County;

-- July 23: Game Commission Southeast Region Office, 253 Snyder Road, Reading, Berks County;

-- July 24: Game Commission Northeast Region Office, 3917 Memorial Highway, Dallas, Luzerne County;

-- July 30: Warren High School, 345 E. Fifth Ave., Warren, Warren County;

-- July 31: Game Commission Southcentral Regional Office, 8627 William Penn Highway, Huntingdon, Huntingdon County;

-- August 7: Delmont Fire Department, 2360 PA-66, Delmont, Westmoreland County; and

-- August 8: Game Commission Northcentral Region Office, 1566 South Route 44 Highway, Jersey Shore, Lycoming County.

For more information on this issue, visit the Game Commission’s Please Don’t Feed webpage.

(Photo: Black bear with mange.)

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[Posted: July 8, 2019]

7/15/2019