ORIGINAL: bluebird2
I have been going in where were doing clear-cuts, and even some select cuts, for nearly twenty-five years now to count the growth rings on the species deer eat. In most cuts I can’t find anything deer eat that has regenerated since the mid to late 1940’s. That means it has actually been about sixty to seventy years since the deer allowed a good food source for themselves to grow beyond the seedling stage in most areas.
For years RSB has been claiming that the recent HR occurred because the habitat was controlling the herd. Now he claims the deer haven't allowed any regeneration for 60-70 years. Therefore, the habitat should have been controlling the herd in the 80s after 40 years of over browsing
But, once again the deer and the PGC experts tell us RSB doesn't have a clue and is just making things up and to prove it beyond a doubt I will show how the herd increased in the counties that comprise 2G from 1983 to 2000 in terms of DPFSM.
County 1983 2000
Cameron 19 15
Clinton 21 20
Clearfield 32 42
Elk 20 26
Lycoming 25 28
Potter 25 34
So after 60 years of what RSB claims was over browsing and despite the PGCs efforts to reduce the herd with bonus tags and high antlerless allocations the deer herd still increased in 4 out of the six counties. Therefore , it is blatantly obvious that it is not the habitat that was responsible for reducing the herd and the buck harvest by around 40%.
First of all do you have any idea why the professionals no longer manage the deer herd based on those over winter deer estimates that you base your entire premise and management objective on?
They don’t use those over winter estimates, as the means of managing today, because they don’t tell enough of the deer/habitat relationship facts and can lead you to the incorrect conclusions and thus the wrong management direction. Which is exactly what they frequenlty did in the past.
Yes, in that 60-70 year period there had been a few times the harvests had been increase enough to get some habitat recovery on the ground for a few years. But, every time it got on the right track,to wherethere was some habitat recovery, it was short lived before the public and political pressures forced it into allowing over population again until any short term gains were lost again.
But, even the data you just provided supports exactly what I pointed out in the first place. It was I who pointed out that the reduced antler less allocations and harvests for the twenty year period, up until the early 2000’s, hadresulted inthe deer herd increasing. In fact, they increased to the point they eliminated the stump sprouts and other regeneration in many areas of the northern tier, just as I pointed out. That in turn is what caused the current crash in deer numbers and today's low deer numbers in those same areas over the past few years.
Perhaps you should have recognized that you didn’t know what you were talking about, instead of providing even more proof and supporting datathat helps prove thatyou don’t have a clue?
But, thank you for providing more data that supports what I was pointing outin the first place. I love it when your ownpostproves yourarguements allwrong, yet again.
R.S. Bodenhorn