ORIGINAL: bluebird2
In PA 70% of the forested land is privately owned.
While that is basically accurate, it has nothing to do with the fact that much of the south and midwest is pay to hunt on most private land. that is very likely a consideration when we look at the much smaller hunter numbers per square mile than PA.
When PA deer hunting eventually becomes a pay to play game (and it will)
it is likely that the hunterdensities will graduallyfall more in line with those states.
To put the whole thing in context, much of the comparisons have been apples to oranges. PA has lower success rates per hunter while having respectable harvest rates per square mile. The sheer number of hunters (probably due partly to the still abundant availablity of decent hunting land for free) makes the kind of success rates that those other statesenjoy virtually impossible even with much higher deer densities.