I was an absolute Alt Supporter. I went to hear him speak twice once in the local high school gym and the following year I took my Uncle...

In our camp I was the on who said to all the other guys that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. But in hearing him speak he never mentioned herd reductions outright. He always just said "we need to look at the habitat". Hey, I was all for improving habitat in pa. Which projects was he speaking of?? Over time I found out that he was not going to do any habitat imrovement projects, and our new game commissioner Roxane Palone initiated the vote to abolish Pa's on citizens committee the game commission had. Saying it "was not needed". ??

No improvements in habitat were part of the plan, just Herd reductions with AR as the carrot to get hunters to do what they normally would not do.

I knew once questons trickled out of the PGC stage show that we were being misled. They said by taking more does we would see a huge jump in breeding in Pa, made sense until I found out from Dr. Rosenberry that we already breed 90% of all does and 25% of the fawns in pa prior to AR, and we would lose deer numbers not gain because through herd redcutions we would never ever ever make up for the slight pop in breeding.

doing the math over several years we were seeing that 90% of what Gary was saying was gross misleading. He said no tree has grown in 50 years north of Rt 80. - a lie.

He said we would have better hunting. We do not.

he said it would jump start habitat immediatey. It did not.

He said sportsman overwhelmingly support herd reductions. They do not.

He would never stand up and tell where he and the PGC got thier cash donations from to do studies to justify HR. The Fawn study, the antlered deer study, and the hunter movement study where all financed through private donations through a straw donor (audubon).

He did not divulge in any of his early presentations that Forest Re-certification and the timber industry was a major friver in Pa game managment until pressed by reporters and writers until 2004. Years after he should have.

He did not let on about the deals he was making with DCNR in back room deals to cut the herd well beyond what hunters had been led to believe. His plan with no numbers and no time-line initially.
We were stunned to find out he wanted an avereage of 12 dpsm OW in pa. Within huge bloated WMU's with over a million doe tags!!


He said, like a used car salesman, whatever he thought people wanted to hear. Not the truth. And I fell for it hook line and sinker, until I learned more of the details over time of how it would not add up to "more and bigger bucks" and would not be "better hunting".

Gary's whole dog and pony show could have been wrapped up in 6 words. And he spoke them in Jan 2004 at the PGC meeting.

" get used to seeing less deer"

...a far cry from what he was promising in 2001.


Today we see the results, as many posters now see what less deer provides in the way of hunting. And hunters now realize we aren't getting better hunting for our sacrifices and restrictions. YOU may think we do (because of the word of two buddies? Puhhhleease) , but the majority of hunters now TODAY in pa who experienced it do not.

But there are a few yet left in pa who do not wnat to admit they were punk'd.