Here is a blurb from Bryon Shisslers little ditty he gave at Pa Audubons first 'kill the deer conference' in Penna in 1998. For those who are not familiar Bryon is the architect of Penna's 'sustainable forest' certification for Pa's state owned forests (2.5 million acres, the largest in the country) which generate in excess of 20million a year every year for the state bank accounts. He wrote into that certification that PA must cut its deer herd if the state wants to maintain it ecological friendly certification to sell pa hardwoods at premium prices over seas. Bryon knows politics is what determines wildlife management. At least in pa.

Pa. Audubon is the rented conservation group that was paid to start the effort to reduce Pa's deer herd and they were paid in part by Theresa Heinz's non hunting Heinz Endowments. The PGC needed a third party to do some of its dirty work and allow them plausable deniability. In pa we have had two such kill the deer conferences paid for by non hunters and a few sportsmans groups. His words sum up the role of politics and values in Pa.

"Will deer management be driven and directed by science? By values? Or by opinion? ...

Perhaps the place to begin is to consider that deer management is not--and never has been--driven by science. In fact, very little of our natural resource management is derived directly from scientific data. We manage our natural resources based on values and politics-not quantitative equations and studies, but feelings, ideas, and the political process.

The role of science in natural resource management is to flesh out the options, outline the probable results of our decisions, and provide the tools for manipulating, monitoring, inventorying, and understanding the resource. Ultimately, however, what we do with that resource and our scientific knowledge of it is a product of our personal and societal values--not science. " <====== Bryon Shissler, courtesy of Pa. Audubon