I went to one of Dr. Gary Alt’s presentations today in Washington County. It’s something every deer hunter should go to. Don’t delay, it is worth the effort. Alt has done over 200 of them in the last two years and has gotten real good at it.

They mentioned that he has a wildlife biology masters degree and a doctor’s degree in forestry management. He very successful ran our bear program for 25 years and we now have four times the bears and double the bear range than we did when he started. He has hunted deer for 38 years and it is his main passion in life.

Gary started out by welcoming the angry hunters, as they are the most passionate of the deer hunter groups. It showed they cared deeply.

He said we have grown more deer in most areas than the land can support. Winter is the truest bottleneck in deer density. Then the only foods are often browse such are stems and buds. In northern areas like Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Canada, their winter kills off the deer so they do have a lot of browse available for the remaining deer. A doe harvest program is not needed. Pennsylvania is south enough that we do not see these heavy winter kill offs and the food is the limiting factor then. He called Pa. a transition zone. South of us, winter kills are very rare and north of us, very common.

He noted that we hunters have always demanded more deer and the Game Commission did not always do a good job of educating us why that is a bad idea.

We can’t raise the deer herd to where it destroys the habitat and crashes eventually. It is not just starvation of the adult deer that can happen. They may not be able to successfully breed if unnourished. They need to weigh at least 80 pounds. He noted that 50% of the fawns in a good area are successfully bred and it may take till the doe is three years old in other areas. Or they may abort the embryo. Or once it has the fawn, the doe may not be able to produce the needed milk. The fawn will cry out with a bleat and attack predators to an easy meal.

The habitat that the deer are destroying affects other aspects of society besides hunters. He noted he was challenged in court on his bear program and it was run scientifically and he won the cases. He wants to run the deer program the same way. If we don’t do what is best for the deer and the habitat, society will challenge our handling of deer management in court sooner or later. So we have to move from our wants to what is best for the deer and its environment.

He noted that our state kills off its bucks at a younger overall age than any state in the union. He would like to at least get up from last place. He hopes to eventually make Pa. a leader in deer management.

In this area, Washington County, we kill over 90% of our bucks every year. Over 80% of them are 1.5 years old. Only 1 out of a hundred bucks make it to prime age of 4.5 years and he has only ever seen 3 bucks that were at least 5.5 years old.

He said that age was by far the most important ingredient in getting a prime buck. Then came food and finally genetic. He said the genetics of Pa.’s deer are very good.

He spoke of the popular insurance company theory. He said though he expected to hear from an insurance company rep. when he first took this job, that in the 2.5 years he has had this job, he has never heard from anyone in the insurance industry. He felt they probably just set rates based on the number of deer collisions in each state as part of a premium formula computation. So what the heck would they care, we are paying for it.

He spoke of the road kill embryo studies. 90% were breed from 10/16 to 12/16 and he would like to narrow that down some. He said deer are pulse birth animals. They want to birth about the same time to overwhelm the predators. While they are eating one fawn, another is growing enough that they can escape. Does are in heat for up to 30 hours once every 30 days. They learned through this study that they were breed from Sept. 9th to Feb. 23rd.

Finding a buck to breed after rifle season can be quite an accomplishment in most areas. That is one reason we need to get the buck/doe ratio closer together and allow some more of our bucks to live every year.

He also gave some of the reasons it is important to age our bucks. They win the battles and we know this was the strongest genes are being passed on. Plus the younger deer don’t understand the program and harass the does trying to mate when they aren’t ready. This stress’s both of them and makes winter survival in question. A dominant buck in an area will not allow this to happen.

The show of hands supporting antler restrictions was over 90% of the 700 people that went.

He talked of the studies they are doing and an independent survey that should be done next month.

He plans to have habitat based DMU’s next year and some sort of landowner tag program to help get hunters access and handling spot over population problems.

He noted that we can’t always set regulations based on hunters wants. We don’t ask the kids if the want to brush their teeth, but rather what kind of tooth paste would they like.

He wants to try to restore damaged habitat in certain areas by using hunters to reduce the population. He thinks the PR will be good for us to the non-hunting shareholders. Might even get us access to now closed lands. His saying is, “We, the hunters, are leading the charge to fix the forests in Pa.”