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2014 hunting season was second-safest on record in New York State

Posted 2/1/15

The 2014 New York hunting season closed with the second lowest number of hunting related-shooting incidents on record, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has announced. A total of 22 …

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2014 hunting season was second-safest on record in New York State

Posted

The 2014 New York hunting season closed with the second lowest number of hunting related-shooting incidents on record, the state Department of Environmental Conservation has announced.

A total of 22 hunting incidents occurred in 2014.

New York’s hunting incident rate (incidents per 100,000 hunters) has fallen by more than 75 percent since the 1960s. The past five-year average is down to 4.3 incidents per 100,000 hunters, compared to 19 per 100,000 in the 1960s.

Only one hunting fatality was reported in 2014 which occurred while hunting small game. The five-year average is 2.6 hunting deaths a year.

Eight of last year’s accidents were self-inflicted, 11 involved members of the same hunting party, and only three occurred where the victim and shooter did not know each other, DEC said.

This was the first year on record without an incident occurring during the spring turkey season.

The lowest total number of hunting incidents in any year occurred just a year ago (19 incidents in 2013).

All incidents are thoroughly investigated by trained Environmental Conservation Officers. The findings of these investigations are used to improve New York’s Hunter Education Course to ensure that the most common causes of incidents are addressed and emphasized during instruction. Only incidents involving firearms, bows, and crossbows are included. Incidents involving tree stand use or other hunter health-related mishaps are not.

Every hunting-related shooting incident is preventable, DEC says. Many, if not all of these incidents could have been prevented, if the shooter or victim had followed the primary rules of hunter safety to:

• assume every firearm to be loaded

• control the firearm muzzle in a safe direction

• keep finger off the trigger until ready to fire

• identify your target and what lies beyond

• wear hunter orange.

For more information, including the 2014 Hunting Safety Statistics, visit the Sportsman Education Program page on DEC’s website at http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/7860.html.