Onoway Fish & Game Association & Gun Club

Join us for a fun evening talking about hunting with others from our community. Meet new friends and learn some new techniques.
Enter a free draw for a trail camera kindly donated by GNL Outfitters in Stony Plain.

Free to attend.

New hunting regs are now out.

Alberta 2026 hunting regulations are now available in store.

Attn fisherpeople.

Have you seen this fish? 🐟

A colorful fish species called Pumpkinseed has recently been confirmed in Cardiff Trout Pond near Edmonton. Although eye-catching, this fish is prohibited in Alberta and can have serious impacts on local ecosystems.

Knowing what to look for and reporting possible sightings can make a real difference.

Report sightings to the Aquatic Invasive Species hotline at 1-855-336-BOAT (2628) or [email protected]

The Loyal Edmonton Regiment Museum, The Lord Strathcona’s Horse (RC) Regimental Society and Valour Park Association are hosting a Charity Machine Gun Shoot this September 26th at CFB Wainwright Alberta. There will be a limited number of tickets available for this shoot so don’t wait to book your spot.

Here are a several of the fi****ms that will be available at the shoot;

Bren Gun
Thompson 1928 Submachine Gun
Sten Mk I and Mk II
German MG 42
MP 40 Submachine Gun
STG 44
Canadian C2 Light Machine Gun
Luger
FNC1
AK47S
Mossan Nagant M38
M1 Garand
M1 Carbine
M3 Grease Gun
SAKO TRG42
Ma**er C96
AR15
U*I
SVT 40
U.S. Army C**t 1911
Browning Hi-Power
Walther PPK
Lee-Enfield No. 4
German Ma**er K98
And additional historically significant military fi****ms
For further information go to https://valourpark.org/charity-machine-gun-shoot/

In case you didn't see your email this afternoon, our members event scheduled for tonight is canceled due to weather.@

In the summer of 2024, a mother bear wearing a GPS collar led her two cubs directly through an active wildfire in Jasper National Park, and all three walked out the other side alive.

The collar did not just confirm their survival. It mapped every step of the journey, producing what researchers described as a rare, detailed record of how a wild bear family navigated fire in real time. That kind of data almost never exists, because the animals that move through flames are almost never instrumented. This bear was, and the track she left behind has changed what wildlife managers thought they knew about bear behavior during catastrophic fire events.

The GPS record showed that the bear did not flee ahead of the fire in a straight line away from the smoke. She moved through the burn zone itself, threading through areas where the fire had already passed and areas where it was still active. Researchers analyzing the collar data could see her making deliberate directional choices rather than running in panic. The path she chose was not random. It reflected something, whether learned or instinctive, about where the ground was passable and where it was not.

Her cubs stayed with her throughout. For a mother bear with dependent young, that outcome was far from guaranteed. Cubs in their first or second year are small enough that fire moving through low vegetation poses a direct physical threat, and the instinct to scatter under extreme stress can separate family groups in ways that are often permanent. That this family unit arrived intact on the other side of the fire perimeter is, by any measure of bear biology, a significant result.

What the collar record also captured was the bear's behavior in the days and weeks after the fire. She returned to the burned area. This is the part of the story that tends to surprise people who think of wildfire as leaving nothing worth returning to. For bears, a post-fire landscape is not a wasteland. It is often the opposite. Burn zones produce a flush of new vegetation, expose insect colonies in dead wood, and concentrate the kinds of calorie-dense food sources that bears depend on to build fat reserves before denning. The bear's return was not confusion or desperation. It was opportunism, and it is consistent with what ecologists have documented in bear populations elsewhere after fire moves through their range.

Jasper National Park itself sustained severe damage in the 2024 wildfire season, with the town of Jasper and large portions of the surrounding backcountry affected. The fire was among the most significant to hit the park in its recorded history. Wildlife responses to that kind of landscape-scale disturbance are difficult to study precisely because access is limited and the events themselves are dangerous for field researchers. Instrumented animals become proxies for the broader population, offering windows into behavior that ground-based observation cannot provide.

This particular bear had been collared as part of ongoing wildlife monitoring in the park. The collar was not placed in anticipation of a wildfire. It was routine. The fire happened to occur while the collar was active, which is the kind of coincidence that produces genuinely irreplaceable data. Researchers did not plan this study. The bear ran it.

Parks Canada and the researchers working with the collar data have been careful not to overstate what one animal's track can prove about bears as a species. A single GPS record is a case study, not a survey. But it is a case study that asks harder questions about the relationship between large carnivores and fire than the field has been able to ask before. Did she know where the fire's edge was? Did she recognize burned ground as safer than burning ground? The collar cannot answer those questions directly. What it can do is show that she acted as though she had answers.

She and her cubs denned that winter. All three are alive.

That is not a small thing in a year that took so much from that landscape.

Image is AI-generated and for illustrative purposes.

Source: Global News

🦌📘 Getting ready for the 2026 hunting season?
Before you pack your gear and head into the field, take some time to review the 2026 Alberta Guide to Hunting Regulations.

Whether you’re an experienced hunter or preparing for your first season, the guide contains important information to help you plan a safe and responsible hunt, including:

📅 Season dates
🎟️ Licensing requirements
🗺️ Wildlife Management Unit maps
📢 Regulation updates
🦺 Important rules and safety information

Regulations can vary by species, season and location, so review the guide carefully before purchasing your licences or finalizing your plans.

✅ Know the rules
✅ Plan ahead
✅ Hunt safely and responsibly

View the digital guide here: https://albertaregulations.ca/huntingregs/

Who’s already planning their fall hunt?

Opinion: Let’s Stop Calling It Hunting

The Alberta government’s decision to permit cervid harvest preserves—often referred to as “hunt farms”—has reignited a debate that reaches far beyond economics or agricultural diversification. At its heart is a simple question: What is hunting?

For me, the answer is equally simple.

If an animal is raised behind a fence, purchased from a menu, and harvested within an enclosed area where its chances of escape are limited or nonexistent, it is not hunting. It doesn’t matter whether the animal is taken with a r***e, a bow, or any other legal method. The choice of weapon does not transform the experience into a hunt.

Let’s call it what it is.

If someone wants to pay for a farm-raised animal and choose how it will be harvested, that is a private transaction between the buyer and the producer. People may agree with it or disagree with it, but honesty matters. It should be marketed as selecting and harvesting a privately owned animal—not as hunting.

Words have meaning.

Hunting has always carried with it the principles of fair chase. Success is never guaranteed. Wild animals live on their own terms. They use their instincts, the terrain, the weather, and their senses to avoid hunters. Sometimes the hunter succeeds. Often the animal does. That uncertainty is precisely what makes ethical hunting what it is.

Once that element disappears, so too does the hunt.

The Alberta Wildlife Federation has voiced many of the same concerns. The organization questions whether these operations meet the accepted principles of fair chase and argues that animals harvested within cervid preserves should never qualify for provincial or national record books. I agree.

The Federation has also raised legitimate questions about chronic wasting disease, the importation of exotic cervid species, genetic impacts on native wildlife, and whether the promised economic benefits have been supported by credible evidence. Those are important issues that deserve transparent, science-based answers.

But even if every disease concern were eliminated and every economic projection proved accurate, my position would remain unchanged.

This is not about economics.

It is about preserving the meaning of hunting itself.

Hunters have spent generations defending ethical hunting practices and demonstrating that conservation and wildlife management are compatible with responsible harvest. That credibility is built on the understanding that wildlife is wild—not livestock waiting behind a fence.

If governments blur that distinction, they risk undermining public confidence in ethical hunters who follow fair chase principles every season.

I have no objection to someone purchasing livestock from a producer. Farmers have been raising animals for food for centuries. If cervid producers wish to diversify by selling elk or deer in a controlled setting, that is their business.

Just don’t call it hunting.

Because it isn’t.