ORIGINAL: Mocha Java
One thing is certain: if and when Pa. ever institutes check stations, the same people who defend the present system that results in only an alleged 40% return rate will step all over themselves defending check stations as if they were God's gift to man.
I once took a look at the feasibly of check stations here in Elk County.
If you forced every sporting goods store and Ma/Pa gas station in the county to act as a check station (which I don’t think we have the authority to do) and then required them to hire enough people to perform extra work like checking deer, we would have a grand total of about eight places in the entire county. Most of those places don’t have very big parking lots either since they typically only deal with a few cars at a time so people would have to park along the highways with traffic flowing past in both directions.
I figured out the typical single day deer kill, on the opening day of the season, for just Elk County, which sometimes ranges between about 2000 and 3000 deer. That would mean each place would have to process between 250 and 375 deer on that day if they all got an equal number of deer brought to their check point. Let’s assume that each place hired two extra employees, for that day, and it took no more then five minutes to process a deer. But, since the deer aren’t going to start coming into the check stations until at least mid day with a major influx during the evening when hunters are on their way home the deer would not all arrive at an even and steady flow.
Let’s then assume that even the low percentage of only 60 % of the opening day harvest came in after 5:00 pm on that opening day. That would leave about 150 to 225 deer for each station to process after 5:00 pm and before closing time. With two people working steady, no potty or meal breaks and no time to visit or hear hunter stories, they could maybe process a total of 24 deer per hour if it only took five minutes per deer (which is really stretching it). At that rate they should have all of the deer through the check station sometime between 11:15 pm and 1:30 am. Of course that is provided each station had about an equal deer flow and everything went perfectly and as planned.
Now we have to ask, how long are you willing to sit in line to have your deer checked? What about the guy that gets one out behind the house, drags it home and has to put it in the car and drive fifteen minutes to the check point; is he going to do that and then sit and wait for hours? How about the fact that the every news media and anti-hunter in the state are going to be at the check points to take pictures and provide Nationals News casts of all of the kills and the behaviors of the hunters? How are hunters going to react when some anti is standing there heckling them in front of a news camera after they have been sitting in a line for hours just to get their deer checked? How many hunters do you really think are going to go to a check point once you take the time to really think things through fro a couple of minutes?
I seriously doubt the reporting rate would be any better then it is right now and might not even be as high as it is now. What could possibly be any easier then taking five minutes to fill out a card and drop it in a mailbox? Place that have check stations are typically dealing in a few dozen deer, or less, being brought to the check stations in a day not a few hundred.
I have asked local hunters if they would take a deer to a check station if we had check stations. Most of them don’t even answer; they just kind of shake their head and walk away laughing. I guess that pretty much answers that question though doesn’t it.
R.S. Bodenhorn