You guys are both right!

RSB

I think what Germain is trying to say is that Allegheny County deer have many "sanctuary" areas where they are essentially "protected". As a f'rinstance, I hunt in a suburban control area that while allowing hunting, also has ares where the deer can escape hunters entirely.

Germain

RSB has a very valid point as well in saying that the habitat is so much better in Allegheny County and therefore deer are still present in high numbers.

You are both partly rightin your references about Allegheny County. I can speak with some measure of accuracy here after being involved with a very tightly controlled suburban deer control program for the past 12 seasons. We have successfully taken an 8 square mile area from around 100 deer per square mile to something around 40. the bowhunting part of the program now takes around 100 deer per year and the sharpshooters take something more than that each year (mostly where bowhunting isn't feasible or has failed to produce enough kills) the fact that there is enough good quality food (we call em Chemlawn deer) is why the fawn recruitment rate still allows such a high kill in 8 little square miles. In the very small area that I hunt, it seems like if I kill 5 does per year, they stay stable. More than that and my sightings go down the next season. Kill less than that and my sightings go way up. My area does border an area that is private property but is unposted and open to the public so other hunters are also killing deer in my area from outside theborough .