HARRISBURG — Visitors to the Pennsylvania Game Commission's more than 1.4 million acres of State Game Lands will start seeing a new crop of signs designed to educate the public about four of the primary methods of habitat improvement used to benefit wildlife.

The exact wording on the signs is as follows:

This herbaceous area benefits wildlife throughout the year. It is maintained to promote native plants, legumes, or annual grains. Maintenance may include planting, spraying, prescribed fire and mechanical treatments.

This area was intentionally burned following a detailed plan to improve wildlife habitat. Prescribed fire is a safe, cost-effective tool to reduce undesirable plants, improve soil conditions and promote native plants. This burn was conducted on ____.

Trees in this area were cut to improve wildlife habitat. Removing over-story trees allows sunlight to reach the forest floor, resulting in greater food and cover available for wildlife. Harvests also generate revenue that is used to improve additional habitat on State Game Lands. Date Cut: ______________.

This fence is intended to reduce deer browsing on a limited area to allow regeneration of understory plants. The fence will be removed when adequate trees and shrubs are established, providing habitat for numerous wildlife species, including deer. Hunting is welcome and encouraged inside the fence. Please enter through the yellow access gates. This fence was installed on: ______________________.

HARRISBURG — License buyers now can check the status of their antlerless deer license applications, as well as their elk and bobcat applications, thanks to the new Pennsylvania Automated License System.To access the information, visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission website at www.pgc.state.pa.us and click on the blue box in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage.Click on the "Purchase License Permit and or Application/Replace License and or Permit" option, which includes the ability to "Check on the status of any Lottery Application," scroll down and click on the "Start Here" button at the bottom of the page.At this page, choose one of the identification options below to check your records, fill in the necessary information and click on the "Continue" button. Click on the appropriate residency status, which will display your current personal information.At the bottom of the page, choose the "Check on the status of any Lottery Application" button, and then hit "Continue."

HARRISBURG — Hunters interested in learning the age of the bear they harvested during the 2008 seasons can visit the Pennsylvania Game Commission's website at www.pgc.state.pa.us and click on the "Black Bear Age Data" link in the "Quick Click" box in the right-hand column of the homepage.Ages are available only for bears from which a tooth was pulled. To access the data and learn the age of their bear, hunters must have the legal seal number from the check station certificate. If the hunter no longer has the seal number, age data also is provided in charts broken down by county of harvest.Of the nearly 146,000 licensed bear hunters, 3,458 hunters bagged bears and took them to check stations in 2008, which is the second highest harvest recorded in Pennsylvania. The record bear harvest of 4,164 was set in 2005.