Sproulman,there are many remote areas with pour access and very few deer.Hunters are not killing those deer.If they aren't,who is?You are beyond clueless if you think that the habitat doesn't effect the productivity of fawns.It's a basic premis of deer management.The PGC examines road-killed does in the the spring to determine how many fawns are bred and how many embryos they have.In the northern tier,very few fawns are pregnant because they can't reach the required weight by fall and the amount of multiple births is down.In fact the one land manager stated that he never cut open a doe and foend triplets.That's directly related to habitat quaity and it was severly compounded by the winters of 2003 and 2004.Recruitment was up last year and it will be up again this year.If that keeps up and we have a few more mild winters,you may be able to see some deer once again during hunting season.That is,if poachers and mountain lions don't get them all.

Crazy horse,You are correct about the amount of timber that's been cut.They probably should step it up but it takesmanpower to manage it correctly.Not all of their cuts are done for commercial profit.Many of them are done with vary little monetary value.That takes money and manpower.Planting trees and shrubs sounds all warm and fuzzy but the truth is,they shouldn't have to.They should be able to getadequate,preferred regeneration without planting.Besides,who's going to pay for the plants and the manpower?Ontop of that,they need to fence most clearcuts in the northern tier for several years because of the deer.that also costs money so the profit margin isn't that great.On top of that and I'bve said this before,the habitat on the game lands around hereis much better than the state forests and most of the private land because they do have guys working on them 12 months of the year.What do we do about the 90% ofland that isn't game lands?

I did have the figure on how many foresters and employees DCNR had.I forget the exact number but they have far more manpower per acre than the PGC has.Are you saying DCNR is doing a good job managing the state forests?You're right,there is alot of money standing in those woods.That money will still be there when they cut it.They didn't lose anything.I've also seen exclosure that left me unimpressed as well.This is a complicated issue and there's a ton offactors effecting regeneration.Not every spot will regnerate successfully with or without the deer.However,the majority of excloures in this part of the state show that without a doubt,the deer are the limiting factor at this point.It's undeniable.

You're answer to everything is how poor of a job the PGC is doing.They should cut more of this and plant more of that.I agree they should do more in a perfect world.However,they have very limited resources and a host of factors to deal with.The facts are as clear as day,that the deer are the limiting factor effecting regeneration in the northern tier.They have reams of evidence to prove it and they'll show it to anyone.It's also undeniable that many areas are starting to respond to lower deer densities.You can whine and cry all you want about the big bad PGC and your lack of deer sightings.I could care less.I'll continue to scout and hunt the best areas of the game lands and state forests with dmap tags in hand.I'll have a full freezer of deer once again this year and for the first time in my life,I'll be able to add a couple more from an areawherehunters never been able to hunt before.That 10square mile area will be open for the first time because of myself,our district forester for DCNR and a forester from the US forest service.We wereable to show scientific evidence proving the deer were destroying the ecosystem in a 10 square mile area.We were laughed at and told a hunt would never happen here.Fortunately,reasoning and common sense prevailed,giving 120 hunters a chance to hunt some prime property.Along the way,alot of people were educated on the effects of a deer herd that was too big for the habitat.It's funny that you keep throwing this up in my face.this was a project that took about 2.5 years to complete and alot of hunters will benefit as a result.It was no easy task and I wasn't confident that this would happen.Yep,I'll get a chance to hunt deer this year at ridiculous deer densities but none of my obsevations are based on this area.I'll hunt 2 or three other dmap properties in state forests this year because my two dmap tags in Treasure lake will be filled by the first friday of archery season.I'll put money on that.The rest of my season will be spent in the big woods like I've done for the past 26 years.