The reason WMU's were made large (22) was because it made one doe tag more efficient to fill. One hunter could not only use it in his normal county but in 3-4 other counties as well.

Had the # of doe tags stayed exactly before AR/HR, the harvest would have increased because that same # of tags was now more efficient to fill.

You two guys are well versed on what our deer managers want, and that is to reduce the herd to a level that is "balanced with the habitat" and that according to thier DD table on thier web site is 12.1 dpsm. Today according to the PGC we are at 25dpsm (same table) and that means we need to continue to harvest more deer to get to that goal.

Now I know what BTB meant in his post, that smaller WMU's would help to balance the overharvest in one area and underharvest in another. I agree, but in order to get the number of reduction that they PGC wants for 2005 then they will need to increas the # of doe tags to get their targeted number for doe harvest.

Michigan uses 100 DMU's which are counties (except for a few special regs areas which are thier own DMU's too).

Now whats odd is that in Pa in 1998 there was a citizens committee that was formed with Scot Williamson to discuss deer options and offer suggestions on how hunters felt. And our suggestion on WMU's is that they should smaller than 22. The members of that committee suggested the 67 counties + having some of those larger ones broken down into smaller sub units (ie: 13A, 13B, 13C for example) A county like Centre with much different hunting north of 80 than south of it.

And the PGC rejected it.

So, I'm not disgreeing with either of you. I have question though.

If you ask for smaller WMU's, then hunters won't be as free to roam larger areas to harvest doe. It will mean that X number of tags will be less efficient. Since the PGC still wants and needs more herd reductions done to "balance the herd with its habitat" are you then going to ask for more doe tags to be issued to balance the loss of efficiency that large WMU's presented. Or are you saying that you want smaller WMU's with < or = the number of doe tags for 2004 so that there are not as many doe taken, and thus opposing the PGC deer managers on thier efforts to further reduce for the sake of the habitat?