ORIGINAL: R.S.B.
As long as you are properly licensed with the deer tags, hunting within the legal seasons and following the legal hunting times, laws, regulations and restrictions you will not be harming the future of hunting or the future of the deer populations.
In fact the biggest threat deer populations have ever faced in this state has been from under harvests that failed to protect the deer habitat and food supply. It is virtually impossible to over harvest deer through legal hunting methods where there is suitable habitat that would support more deer.
Dick Bodenhorn
WCO, Elk County
If the Game Commission was infallible I just might agree with you. However, if the PGC grossly overestimated the size of the herd and issued too many doe permits, then an overharvest occurred.
Many people think that this is exactly what happened when the PGC claimed that there were 1.6 million deer and upped the permits and extended the doe season. Now that the PGC finally admits that they don't know how many deer there are and sharply reduced the permits, particularly in certain WMU's, it seems that they too think there was an overharvest. Otherwise, just keep selling more tags -- it's not like they don't need the money!
Personally, if no one has any idea of how many deer there are, then I don't know how it can be determined whether or not it happened. We need real numbers and the PGC better spend money on that if it wants to get away from the junk science that's driving the ship right now.
