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The bear photos keep coming

By Julia Reischel
10/9/12 - 4:50 pm

Watershed Post readers sure have seen a lot of bears. We've featured two posts with reader-submitted bear photos so far this month, and more just keep coming in. Here are the latest.

Below, a photo by Brian Albanese, taken by his "stealth cam" on September 26. He writes: "This was taken on Public access land in the Cannonsville Reservoir! I guess you can call them The Cannonsville Cubs!"

Below: A photo by KC Jones, taken on July 13, 2012. "This bear was less than three feet from my front door in Roxbury."

Read more

Bears all over the mountains

By Lissa Harris
10/2/12 - 1:37 pm

Above: A photo of a bear taken by a trail cam in Margaretville. Courtesy of Adam Varsano.

Last week, we urged you to send us your bear photos -- and did you ever. Thanks to Adam Varsano, whose furry subject appears to have noticed that his cover has been blown by a nearby trail cam.

Below is a set of astonishing bear photos from Peter Possenti, who has a weekend house near Perch Lake in Andes. Peter writes:

I took them from right behind my sliding glass door. The closeups are with a telephoto, a 300mm I think. My wife was encouraging me to step out the door and get closer...I declined.

A wise move. (Please don't try to get close to bears -- or feed them! -- in an effort to get photos like these. It often ends badly for everybody, particularly the bears.) Read more

Look out, Bambi: Bowhunting season begins today

By Lissa Harris
10/1/12 - 1:51 pm

Photo of Muzzy arrows by Flickr user Justin D. Miller. Published under Creative Commons license.

Early October is usually prime time for leaf-peeping in the Catskills. This year, it's time for deer-hunting too, thanks to a rule change by the state Department of Environmental Conservation that puts the start of the season about two weeks earlier than in previous years.

Bowhunting season for New York's Southern zone, which includes all of the Catskills region along with a huge swath of the rest of the state, began today and runs through November 16. Firearm deer hunting season begins on November 17.

Hunters are excited about getting an earlier start this year, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reports:

“It’s always great having more opportunity to be in the woods earlier in the season,” [hunter Nick] Faruch said. “This time of year, there’s no noise and usually not that many hunters.’’ Read more

NY Times: Fracking fears put a damper on Catskills real estate sales

By Lissa Harris
9/28/12 - 12:12 pm

Above: A three-bedroom ranch house on 14 acres in Hancock that local realtor Leonard Piorkowski hasn't been able to get a bite for, despite a tempting $107,000 sticker price. Photo from listing on Klimchok Real Estate's website.

For some upstate New York landowners, a prime location atop the Marcellus Shale is a potential goldmine. For others, it's more like an albatross.

In today's New York Times, reporter Mireya Navarro digs into the issue of whether the fear of impending gas drilling is scaring off potential homebuyers in the Catskills. Among those she interviews is would-be second-home-buyer Arthur Gillett, who found the prospect of fracking in Sullivan County too rich for his blood: Read more

Meet Paul Fero, world-class rock-skipper

By Andrew Wyrich
9/24/12 - 11:03 am

Paul Fero winds up for a throw at the 2012 Rock In River Festival in Franklin, PA on August 24. Photo by Michael Henderson; reproduced by permission.

How many times can you skip a rock?

Chances are, not as many times as Paul Fero.

Fero, an Oliverea resident, competed in this year’s “Rock In River Festival” in Franklin, PA on August 24^th, where he attempted to dethrone the mighty Kurt “Mountain Main” Steiner and see how far he could skip his rocks against some of the toughest competition in the country.

The festival, which hugged the banks of the Allegheny River, featured not only some of the best rock-skippers in the county, but also rock decorating, games, crafts, free food and even a petting zoo.

Fero placed third in the competition after a tie-breaking decision. Fero's highest total of the afternoon was 40 skips, a feat he shared with competitior Eric Henne. To break the tie, the judges of the competition use each competitor's second highest number of skips, which placed Fero just four skips from second place. Read more

Thousands without power across the Catskills region

By Lissa Harris
9/18/12 - 8:43 pm

High winds are taking out power lines across upstate New York tonight, leaving tens of thousands of people without power.

As of this post, Central Hudson is reporting that 29,961 of its upstate New York customers have power outages. NYSEG has 22,056 customers without power. And National Grid has 12,384 customers without power.

Within the Catskills region, Ulster County appears to be the hardest hit by power outages, with 8,936 affected Central Hudson customers and 230 NYSEG customers as of the time of this post.

Central Hudson, NYSEG and National Grid all have live updating maps of power outages. Click the links above to see current maps and estimated power restoration times, if the company has them.