Heading west on Route 6 Tuesday on my way to the sportsmen"s forum with the Pennsylvania Game Commission, I saw a commotion on the road ahead.
Since whatever was making the commotion was between me and the sun, I couldn"t make it out until I got very close.
I had slowed to a crawl by the time I recognized the forms of a pheasant and a mallard fighting in the road. They separated when I got very close.
What on earth a pheasant and a duck would have to fight about escapes me. Then it occurred to me that this might be an omen of things to come with the meeting of area sportsmen and the Game Commission.
In fact, the forum was quite civil as PGC forums go. The small group of sportsmen asked sensible questions and PGC executive director Carl Roe diffused the most heated moments.
Most, if not all, in attendance left with a better understanding of several PGC issues.
It was no surprise that sportsmen wanted to talk about deer first. As usual, some hunters misunderstood the deer management program.
Goals of the deer management program include a healthy forest, healthy deer and getting deer numbers in balance with what people want. The latter is the one hunters seem to have the most difficulty accepting.
Stakeholders in the debate over deer include, in addition to hunters, farmers, forest land owners, drivers, rural homeowners and anyone else who expresses an interest. One of the most important goals of deer management is reducing deer-human conflicts.
Forest health includes regeneration of at least 70 percent of forest canopy species with oaks being a very critical component since acorns are the only major source of mast since the demise of the American chestnut. Regeneration of 50 percent to "70 percent is considered fair. Here in Wildlife Management Unit 1B, forest regeneration is rated as poor.
This is confusing since our deer are among the healthiest in the commonwealth. This is because of land use, which is more agricultural than forest-based.
One of the first things Roe did upon being selected as executive director was to start research to measure how the Game Commission is doing on reaching deer management goals.
WMU 1B has the best deer hunting in the state based on one of the most significant criteria used by the Game Commission, antlerless hunter success rate.
In a recent interview, deer section leader Chris Rosenberry said the average success rate for antlerless deer hunters is "25 percent. This number is derived by dividing the number of antlerless deer harvested by the antlerless deer license allocation. The WMU 1B rate is 45 percent. Second-best is only 33 percent, surprisingly in WMU 2F, which is composed mostly of the Allegheny National Forest.
Of course, there are other measures of deer hunting quality. Nonetheless, using this measure, the best deer hunting in Pennsylvania is at wildlife management units where most Erie area hunters hunt.
In educated anticipation of responses from disgruntled deer hunters, please keep in mind that I do not release deer harvest figures, I do not have input on antlerless license allocations and I have no more say in deer management than any other Pennsylvania resident.
The coalition raised an excellent question that is seldom discussed, the Farm Game Program. There has been a problem that some lands in this program do not actually allow public hunting.
Roe said the PGC has been looking into this problem and already about 50 percent of the farms in this program have been lost.
"It won"t be a perfect program, no doubt about it," Roe said.
He clarified that while landowners must allow public hunting to enroll in this program, they do not have to allow all types of hunting. They may allow just small game hunting, or they may not allow doe hunting.
Not the most enthusiastic but probably the most important issue at the forum was license fee increases.
"I don"t know of any business that"s operating on a 1999 revenue stream," "Roe said.
Getting the first increase since 1999 will be difficult since it is a dangerous issue for legislators who hope to be re-elected.
"I don"t know of any business that"s operating on a 1999 revenue stream," "Roe said."
I Dont know of any either, becausebusinesses whocut the product by 50% and flick off the customer base end up bankrupt, and it generally doesnt take a decade to do so.
WMU 1B and 2F Are the best deer hunting.
