Part of the problem with opening the canopy when there's still too many deer is that the deer will eat all the desirable plant regeneration and leave the junk. We now have lots of stands of striped maple, birch and other junk trees where oaks once dominated and timbering took place when too many deer were present when the trees were sprouting up. Thats not really subject to debate anywhere. The only debate lies in just how many is too many.

And it's not just about tree huggers. In many cases, we're talking about land where we, as hunters, are the guests of the timber companies hunting on their private property. They don't pay taxes and maintain that property to grow deer for us, they are growing trees as a crop like a farmer grows corn. Sure, I think we'd all love to have our own slice of this great state where we could manage it for deer as we please.

Public land is a different story. When it comes to gamelands, hunters bought em and Gamelands should be managedwith huntable wildlife as the first priority.

State and national forests are yet a different story. Hunters did not buy these all by themselves and the general public owns them. The USFS and DCNR is supposed to manage Fed and state forests for all the public, not just us. Sometimes that means selling timber interests, producing oil, gas wind generation and even leasing for cell phone towers.

With the exception of gamelands and our own private land,most of us are guests when we hunt and our hosts will always have a lot to say about the deer herd. Like it or not.