Valley Forge has supported those numbers for decades, and the herd was continuing to grow, until the implementation of the controlled hunts. Obviously, biodiversity and plant life must be suffering severely, but I believe that wildlife managers should take a long, hard look at VF, as it seems to starkly contradict accepted management models in regards to the herd/ habitat relationships. It has shown a carrying capacity far beyond scientifically accepted limits, and sustained it for a long period of time and I believe is probably a testament to the abilities of nature to adapt much greater than we like to give her credit for. Some around here are fond of repeating the mantra of "the worse the habitat, the fewer deer it takes to continue to impact it", and I'm not entirely disagreeing.......but there are always variables at play...that only nature controls.....remember that the last decade in PA was punctuated with several severe drought years....obviously plant growth is affected directly by rainfall amounts....Is it possible for an overbrowsed forest to regenerate with a "middle ground" deer density of 25 dpsm? Lots of variables come into play, and will change significantly over different landscapes even within the same forests, but we have to assume that the answer would be YES. The PGC and DCNR are trying to "force" regeneration by eliminating deer from the equation, or reducing them to an insignificant role. I disagree with that strategy. They constantly accuse hunters of placing less value on non game species and plant life, in favor of deer and other game, due to our biased interests. What they have done is no different. They have lessened the value of the deer in favor of other species due THEIR biased interests. Another glaring question we should be asking, is what their base model for this biodiverse landscape? At what point in PA history did this forest of diversity exist, and what documentation do we have of it? We have little written natural history of PA from the period of early settlement, and it consists of a few sketchy journal entries. We know that the settlers, with unregulated hunting and wildlife marketing, hunted many species to the brink of extinction. Then, heavy timbering at the turn of the century, forever changed our forests, and set the stage for species like deer to explode. In short, I challenge anyone to show us hard evidence, beyond meaningless speculation, of what level of biodiversity existed in our PA forests at any time...even prior to man's interference. Without it, we are simply allowing a bunch of radical eco extremists to manage our resources based on a dream of a garden of eden style forest of biodiversity, that may have never existed...atleast not in the magnitude that they suggest. No different than letting the hippies turn us into a socialist or utopian society, because they think it MIGHT work. I don't know about you guys, but I don't care to be part of a biodiversity experiment based on what MIGHT HAVE existed centuries ago. Interestingly enough, these same groups advocate eliminating all "foreign" species from non-native landscapes...an extremist ideal. In PA, they would have you say good bye to brown and rainbow trout, carp, ring-necked pheasants,...just to name a few. They have lots of nice big changes in store for us.Sorry. I went off on a tangent.