Changed forests await northern deer hunters

Marcellus Shale boom has some surprises for hunters heading to their favorite spots for Monday's opening of the deer hunting season.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Special to The Patriot-News
For The Patriot-News
When the improvements began on the dirt and gravel roads five or six years ago, Mark Leib assumed he would be seeing new logging operations in his favorite deer-hunting spot in Clearfield County.
Or maybe, the 51-year-old New Cumberland resident guessed, Four-Mile Road through the area near Penfield where he grew up hunting deer was about to become part of a new route on the elk tour, the showcase for Gov. Ed Rendell's developing "Pennsylvania Wilds" tourism initiative.
Neither would be a welcome development for Leib's family. Although they had recently given up their lease on a cabin on state forestland in the area, five of them continued to spend the first week of the deer-hunting season there living in state park cabins.
Still, either of those possibilities wouldn't have .......READ MORE