Joseph Spector reports in the Poughkeepsie Journal that New York's Department of Environmental Conservation said Feb. 4 that 2019 was the safest year in recent history for hunting, with one death and 12 accidents. A shooter failing to properly identify a target on a deer drive, led to the only death, and most of the accidents involved tree stands. A few accidents involved hunters not wearing hunter orange. “Nearly 550,000 New Yorkers and visitors enjoy the sport of hunting each year, and the declining number of hunting incidents confirms that today’s generation of hunters are the most safety conscious yet,” DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said in a statement. "All of these incidents could have been prevented if hunting safety rules had been followed," the DEC said. The DEC started taking statistics in the 1960s. In 1966, for instance, there were 166 accidents and 13 deaths. Read more about this story in the Poughkeepsie Journal.