Dave Golowenski

One important aspect of maintaining pheasant habitat is the wildlife division’s ongoing effort to keep trees from overtaking grasslands.

Walleye can live 20 years and occasionally longer in Lake Erie, which indicates how long the impact of a single strong hatch can endure.

That understood, the eight-member Ohio Wildlife Council made the 2025 spring season dates official by its recent approval of Ohio Division of Wildlife proposals.

At any rate, about eight or nine states gave approval to pink as an option to orange when they deem highly visible outerwear is required. Ohio has not been among them.

In the not-ancient past, gun week was to Ohio deer hunters what Michigan-OSU week was to Buckeye football fans during the era of The Big Two and the Little Eight.

One unanswered question about the annual Ohio deer take in recent years is whether it's been sufficient to keep the deer population in check. Concerns are being raised in other Midwestern states about the potential for runaway whitetail numbers.

Unless something changes the trajectory, Ohio's deer kill seems likely not only to surpass last season's count of 213,928 but could balloon into regions not reached in more than a decade.

How two Ohioans remember episodes in their lives that went public in 2024 can in truth only be guessed, though divergent outcomes suggest they will differ.

Doing not so well are wild birds, fish, insects, mammals, amphibians, forests, jungle, soil, air, fresh water, oceans and organisms whose lives are at risk from floods, fires, storms and heat.

Dave Golowenski | Special to The Dispatch Ohio's last powdery blast of the 2024-25 deer season commenced Saturday and will conclude Tuesday toward dark.