bowhunter,light is ceratinly an issue or lack of in many cases.That tornado area regenerated because it's a huge area and it overwhelmed the deer.That regeneration also increased recruitment,provided cover and the herd exploded.Unfortunately the surrounding forests got hammered and now there's no understory.At this point,the growth in the tornado area is out of the reach of the deer and now everything that gets cut has to be fenced.While light is a big compenent with regeneration,especially oak,there should still be an understory in a mature forest.Many prefered browse species are shade tolerant but the deer hammer them around here because the habitat is so poor.When the habitat is stressed,it takes few deer to impact it even more.Also,while deer aren't the only factor effecting regeneration,the carrying capacity is much lower in pole andsaw timber than it is in seedling/sapling stands.Since much over Pa is old growth,the carrying capacity is much lower than it used to be.Cutting more timber is an option but if you cut too much,you'll be in the same position again in abot 10-15 years.

Windwalker,the situation in 2a is much different than the situation in 2G.2A has alot of agriculture and fragmented habitat will always support more deer than contiguous forests.Besides,farms aren't considered as deer habitat by the PGC because we can't expect farmers to foot the bill for our hobby.On top of that,the herd in 2G was overpopulated for way too long compared to 2A.how good was the hunting in 2a during the 50's?You just haven't had the numbers of deer in 2a like 2G had for the same amount of time.They're trying to stop the probelm before you end up in the same situation 2G faces today.

While acid rain is a factor,it's overated.Explain why the exclosures around here are full of new growth and the areas that weren't fenced have nothing but non-prefered species growing?The same rain falls inside the fence as it does outside.Don't say they treat the exclosures because they don't.I'm on a deer management committe for 9500 acres of private land in clearfield county.We erected exclosures and the growth inside the fences is phenominal.We didn't traet these areas in any way.We just kept the deer out.Outside the fences,there's no stump sprouts at all,zero.We did a browse impact study last year with PSU and found that 75% of the property had no regeneration at all,even though several hundred acres were recently timbered.Out of the regeneration that was present,75% of it was composed of beech.59%of that was moderately to severly browsed.the deer did this damage.It wasn't acid rain or a lack of light.Twenty minutes from my house,the PGC cut about 100 acres back in 1992.That area turned into a field within 5 years.Six years after they cut it,they put up dozens of small exclosures all over that meadow.today those exclosures are too thick to crawl through yet the outside has nothing but grasses growing.Nothing was planted except a few apple trees and no treatments were used.Explain that.Just a few hundred yards away,they exclosed a section of mature forest with a heavy canopy.After a few years,there was red oak(which will die unless the canopy is opened)cucumber magnolia,red maple,sugar maple,witch hazel,hobblebush and even trillium.Outside the fence there's nothing but ferns and laurel.Explain that.The only thing excluded was the deer.The same amount of rain falls inside the fence as outside and the soil content is the same.there are literally hundreds of these examples all accross the northern tier that were done by scientists.they have a pretty good grasp on how much impact the deer have on regeneration.the evidence is so overwhelming that you can't deny the impact deer have on the forests once you see it.Every now and then an exclosure fails for a variety of reason.However,by and large,deer are one of the biggest factors.It's been scientifically proven and anyone that argues otherwise has never seen the facts.