New York’s National Archery in Schools Program recently held its 15th annual state archery tournament at the New York State Fairgrounds in Syracuse. 635 students from 35 schools from across the state were displaying their skills in archery shooting.

DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said, “The archery state tournament provides an excellent opportunity for New York student archers to demonstrate the results of their practice, dedication, and hard work over the past year. The program teaches young people that patients, focus, and practice can lead to impressive results.”

Like other youth shooting sports programs, the archery program has grown substantially since it was started in 2016 when only 88 students from 12 schools participated compared to this year’s numbers.

The national tournament allows students to represent their schools in one of three divisions: High School-grades 9-12, Middle School-grades 6-8, Elementary School-grades 4-5.

The tournament features a bullseye competition where the archers shoot arrows at paper targets at distances of 10 and 15 meters, each archer will get 15 arrows to shoot. The highest obtainable score is 300.

The top overall score of all the male archers and the top overall score of all female archers in the High School Division, both will get a trophy and a New York Champion Genesis bow and bow carrying case. Other awards will be given to each of the three divisions for first through tenth places.

The National Archery in Schools Program will be hosting the U.S. Eastern National Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky on May 11-13. The first-place teams in each division and the top ten boys and girls from each division are eligible to register for the Eastern National Tournament.

For more information about the archery tournaments visit: naspschools.org and dec.ny.gov/education/81939.html. 

NDA Deer Report!

The National Deer Association {NDA} Deer Report stated an estimated 5.9 million whitetail deer were killed on private and public land during the 2021-22 deer season. An average of 88 percent of the deer harvests occurred on private land.

NDA Chief Conservation Officer Kip Adams said, “Most of America’s 600 million acres of public land are in the west, yet proportionally few hunters are residents of those states. Most whitetails live in the eastern states along with most hunters, and this new data underscores the conservation importance of habitat management and deer hunting on private land.”

Adams also said, “We need to acquire more public hunting land in the east, and we need to better manage the habitat on existing public land. But for hunter recruitment, herd management, and all the ways we want to protect and improve deer hunting, we need to understand most of those opportunities will be on privately own acres.” 

Complete state by state estimates of total buck harvest, buck age structure and many other harvest parameters visit:  deer/association.com/deer-reports.