About half of the state also has between 1 and 29 over winter deer and what they don’t show is how much of that area might have fewer deer per square mile then what we have here in the poorer areas of Pennsylvania, maybe even far fewer since that Wisconsin scale goes all the way down to only one deer per square mile.

But, you simply can’t even compare deer populations between any two areas without also comparing their soil types, forest types, percentage of farmlands, winter conditions, historic deer harvests and both past and present deer management practices. To illustrate that point why don’t you go ahead and compare the deer densities of Pennsylvania against Maine and see how we compare there. Does that mean we have a better management program then Maine of just that we have different conditions and factors that affect deer numbers then what occur in Maine?

There are too many variables between areas to compare them again one another. That includes right here in Pennsylvania. The only truly fair, or sometimes even logical, comparisons are comparing an area against itself over a long term period.

R.S. Bodenhorn