Gov. Ed Rendell just before Christmas signed House Bill 1690, authorizing the Pennsylvania Game Commission to create a mentored youth hunting program.

The bill is part of the Families Afield campaign of the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance, National Wild Turkey Federation and National Shooting Sports Foundation to counteract declining numbers of sportsmen by boosting the recruitment rate of young people. As envisioned by those groups, and several Pennsylvania organizations that helped to bring the issue to the front burner last fall, the mentored program would team one adult with one youth with one hunting device between them.

The mentor, who would be at least 21, must have passed hunter-trapper education, be properly licensed for hunting and have paid for a mentor's permit, would carry the hunting device while in transit and keep the youth within arm's length while hunting.

Rather than the current minimum age of 12, the age of mentored youth under the new program would be a decision left to the child's parents.

HB 1690 was introduced by Rep. Bruce Smith, R-Dillsburg, chairman of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, to allow the hunting of coyotes over bait. It was amended by Sen. Joe Conti, R-Doylestown, chairman of the Senate Game and Fisheries Committee, to allow the creation of the mentored youth hunt.

The Pennsylvania coalition, headed by Ron Fretts, national board member of the NWTF, includes the NWTF, PFSC, game commission, United Bowhunters of Pennsylvania, Central Counties Concerned Sportsmen, National Rifle Association, Pennsylvania State Chapter of the NWTF, Pennsylvania Outdoor Writers Association, Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, Professional Outdoor Media Association, Quality Deer Management Association, Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and the Pass It On program of the Big Brothers/Big Sisters.

When representatives of the coalition brought the idea to the game commission in October, they described the age minimum as the biggest barrier to youngsters becoming hunters.

In today's families of single parents or both parents working, with an abundance of competing interests for youth to pursue, it is difficult to expose them to hunting, said Melody Zullinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs.

"Even for those who have been introduced to hunting by the age of 12, it may have already been too late," she said.

Recognizing the long-standing resistance to eliminating a minimum age in "very restrictive" states like Pennsylvania, "we have designed a proposal that is restrictive enough" to give minimum-age advocates at least a measure of comfort concerning the safety factor, said Rob Sexton, vice president of the U.S. Sportsmen's Alliance.

"The purpose of this program is to allow new and younger hunters to enter the realm of outdoor experiences that is available throughout our state, thus providing them with a heretofore never available option," Zullinger said. "The quality time that can thus be shared between a youth and a mentor is immeasurable. There simply is no better way to introduce a youth to the safe, ethical and responsible aspects of hunting than with the close supervision of an adult mentor."

She said, "Traditions would be preserved, memories of a lifetime would be created and values that will carry throughout life will be learned."

The group felt urgency to their work because of the findings of an effort by the national organizations, which uncovered the problem of fewer new hunters coming to the sport than old hunters leaving. Nationally, they found a replacement rate of .69, meaning that for every 100 hunters who left the sport only 69 new people were becoming hunters.

If nothing was done and current trends continued, they estimated, by 2025 hunters would drop to less than 4 percent of the population nationally and money available for wildlife conservation -- contributed largely by hunters and anglers -- would fall to below the 1985 level of $500 million.

In addition, the research determined that rates for individual states ranged from .53 for "very restrictive" states with age restrictions (20 states) to .74 for "somewhat restrictive" states with no minimum age but hunter-trapper education requirements (13 states) to .8 for the "least restrictive" states that allow parents to decide (17).

With Pennsylvania falling into the most restrictive category, having a hunter replacement rate (.62) well below the national average and being one of the top three hunting states in the country, the national organizations decided Pennsylvania would be among the first three states targeted.

MARCUS SCHNECK: (610) 562-1884 or [email protected]. Schneck's outdoor writing also appears today in Travel, tomorrow in Life Etc., Wednesday in Sports and regularly at www.pennlive.com.