Within DMAP areas, we believe the Commission should be doing everything possible to make it easier for hunters to get and use DMAP permits on both public and private lands. The idea is to give hunters the most effective tools in those areas where landowners are experiencing the greatest problems. We also know the rifle season is the most effective tool for reducing the deer herd. In many areas the length of the rifle season is too short for DMAP to be effective. Last year, for example, with over 900,000 acres enrolled in DMAP, the total harvest amounted to less than 2,500 deer, an average of about 1.75 per square mile. We still have some large areas in parts of the state where we’ve been unable to give away many of the coupons, like the Delaware State Forest in the Poconos and the Tiadaghton State Forest in the northcentral big woods. We would like to use DMAP until our harvest goal is achieved. We have been collecting habitat and deer density data in these areas. To achieve the desired response in habitat, we need to give hunters more opportunity to meet harvest goals. This means giving us the flexibility to use DMAP permits to take deer with rifles outside the regular firearms season, either before or after or both. For much of the local economies around the big woods areas, there would be economic benefits to allowing the use of DMAP permits right up to the end of March. Also, we recognize that hunters are seeing fewer deer in some of these areas. Our data confirm that deer are not evenly distributed across the landscape. Hunters may need more time and opportunity to find the pockets where deer are concentrating than the current season structure allows.