Originally Posted by
Screamin Steel
But...all those guys that never report because of a deep rooted fear of govt knowing too much about them, etc....would be fightin mad, because if they fail to report, their license cannot be renewed until the report is made. I've heard some pretty wild excuses as to why guys don't report, but never found any that hold water.
Well I can certainly say that I know of one "for sure" instance where the PGC shared harvest report info on a certain messegeboard participant with another messegeboard participant and that info turned up on a messegeboard. I also know of another "upstanding" messegeboard participant that asked a WCO to check up on some of my harvest reports a little while back. As far as I'm concerned, these incidents destroy any amount of trust that the PGC expects from those that do report their harvests. It's nobodies business but mine and the PGCs what I harvest and report.
As for the reporting rate, if the rate really is only 40%, something must be done. Although it shouldn't have to be, I'd like to see an incentive for hunters to turn in their reports. A drawing for a free Pa elk tag drawn from harvest report cards at the spring BOC meeting comes to mind, with the winning hunter having to produce a deer jawbone from his report that has been preserved in the freezer since deer season. It's laughable, and could be open to fraud, but doable.