Martha Rial, Post-Gazette State Wildlife Conservation Officer Beth Anne Fife attaches a hunting license to Tom Warywoda, of Pittsburgh's Bloomfield neighborhood, before he begins hunting yesterday in Indiana Township in northern Allegehny County. Click photo for larger image. Related stories A picture essay on the opening day of deer season by Martha Rial First day of deer season takes toll on hunters, too Here: In Clearfield County / Hunting cabin holds more than 80 years of musty memories Deer Season: Where the past meets the present Deer hunting facts and figures Deer Season 2004: New access roads

Deer hunting is part of Pennsylvania's culture. Schools close. Restaurants open early. And orange clothing becomes the height of practical fashion.

For two weeks each year roughly a million licensed hunters take to the woods and harvest nearly half a million deer during the slate of deer seasons that run from October through January.

Beth Anne Fife is one of a handful of women in Pennsylvania who serve as Wildlife Conservation Officers. She is based in Allegheny County, parts of which are too densely populated by people to permit hunting with modern rifles (bows, crossbows, muzzleloaders and shotguns are permitted in certain areas).

The deer population is large in Allegheny, too. In her preseason hunting assessment for the state game commission, Fife reported, "I have deer everywhere. There isn't an area that I go that I don't see deer."

Yesterday she headed north into a rural section of Indiana Township for the opening of firearms season, which runs through Dec. 11. Her day began long before sunrise and lasted until 9 p.m.

She checked hunting licenses, answered questions and interrupted her patrol briefly to drag the carcass of roadkill deer from the side of a roadway.

Fife's love of the natural world and its inhabitants goes back to her youth when she use to go trapping with her brother in western Mayland.

"I have been in the woods my entire life," she said.

She is the mother of three and caretaker of four dogs, two cats, a turkey and a pot-bellied pig named Bacon.

A former emergency room nurse, she has worked for the state game commission the past four years. Trying to draw parallels between her two careers, Fife said that with each job "you never know what is going to walk through the door."

She said that as a wildlife conservation officer she spends as much time educating the public on how to coexist with native creatures as she does patrolling and enforcing game laws.

Hunting is big business in the Pennsylvania. A 1998 study by the state legislature's Center for Rural Pennsylvania found hunting had a $3.4 billion annual economic value in Pennsylvania. Hunting, fishing and fur-taking together accounted for more than 88,000 jobs.