Windwalker,I agree that the deer are not the only factor effecting the current state of our forest.A closed canopy is certainly a huge factor.Regardless,under these current conditions,the carrying capacity is greatly diminished and it takes very few deer to impact the habitat.Our mature forests cannot handle a big herd during a bad winter.

Cutting allthe trees sounds like a good idea and it would help for a while.However,what will you do when it all turns to poletimber?Pole timber had a much smaller carrying capacity that saw timber.Currently DCNR is on a 100 year rotation with their timber so we always have a continuously renewable resource.That means they're supposed to cut about 1% a year.

Sproulman,I read an article today which reported that they actually colloared 64 doe in the sproul state forest last year.The report when on to say that only 8% of those deer were harvetsed.Now if that's the case,killing 8% of the doe population isn't doing anything to control or reduce the herd.Could it be that the habitat in the limiting factor effecting the size of the herd in that area?It also blows your theory out of the water about DCNR nor being able to find any deer in the sproul.They actually trapped 64 deer in a short period of time.