ORIGINAL: bluebird2
You have absolutely nothing to support that claim but your very biased opinion and it doesn't explain the decline in junior license sales.
Let me address this post first..........
Decline in junior license sales are due in a large part to the following.....
1. Growing anti-hunting sentiment in public, schools, etc.
2. Computers
3. Video games
4. Parents having to work longer to make ends meet
I have only just now found this thread, and I have NOT read very many posts, but a few that I did read, surely jumped out at me......
Insurance companies are permitted to assign risk potential for auto/deer collisions per geographic location in alignment with data gathered from previous history of said accidents in a given geographical area.
In other words......insurance companies win in the long run from us running into deer. There is no conspiracy here.
Is there an overharvest of deer in certain areas of the state? IMO, there probably is. There are not enough management units to do the job correctly. Unfortunately, our own ranks cried like little girls and ran the best guy we had out of Dodge before he could get everything he wanted in the management of our deer herd.
Instant gratification is the name of the game today. Every hunter wantsa perfectly balanced herd, that is HUGE enough to take a buck and a doe in a matter of minutes. It just doesn`t work that way.
I can remember hunting in northern PA at our family camp in the very early 70`s........it was nothing to see 30-100 deer per day. If I added up the total amount of antler on every buck sighted, I could probably come up with 50 inchs of bone. Average body weight was probably 80 pounds.
Yep, the PGC needs changes.......they need to move forward with Alts plans, which includes more and smaller management areas.
Get antlerless season OUT of regular buck season too.
Deer check stations..........there are others among us who hunt many states per year too, and as one of those people, I have talked to wardens in many states about deer management issues.
Check stations seem to be no more accurate than our report card method.
The example was given regarding Illinois, and going to phone in system. I have seen no changes there........some folks just do not report their deer kills, regardless of reporting mehtod.
Being a lifelong resident of PA, I feel we have 2 problems here that severely hamper our ability to have the herd that PA is capable of producing..........
1. Sheer number of hunters
2. Rampant poaching, and the apathy that surrounds it.
See a poacher.....turn him in. I don`t care if it is your brother or father. And if he needs to feed his family, he should sell his weapon, put that money in the gas tank, and go find a job instead of spending time in the field.
Okay, I will read some posts now.......