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Getting a little boring here lately, here is a little reading.

Oh Deer
Those who can, do. Those who can’t try to take over

Clarion News
By John Street
http://www2.theclarionnews.com/Opinions/43215.shtml

“Anyone who believes the actions of Gary Alt and the ongoing intervention of Pennsylvania Audubon in the deer management issue is a coincidence,” the man told me, “is a fool.” And then for emphasis he added, “No, they’re a d**ned fool.”

As an office holder in a state-wide sportsmen’s organization that has been in a tizzy for several years over the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s handling of the “deer wars,” his comments didn’t surprise me. However, when I asked if he didn’t think he was being a little paranoid, he growled back, “You’re not paranoid if someone really is out to get you.”

While exact numbers are not known, arguably a sizable percentage of Pennsylvania ’s hunting license buyers have become paranoid over the number of “coincidences” they see in the direction of the deer management program. “There are people trying to take over the commission,” the same man told me, “who have the political clout to get what they want.”

The disbelief must have registered on my face because he quickly added, “Mark my words. If Rendell gets a second term, the ‘merger’ issue will be a done deal.” Funny, I thought to myself, I’ve heard that before and not from people who were paranoid but from folks who were anxious to see it happen.

For those who believe their paranoia is justified, those “coincidences” just keep on coming. They believe Gary Alt’s recent newspaper and magazine attacks on his former bosses is proof positive that he is setting himself up to take over his former agency. Their theory goes something like this:

Supposedly, a review of the past and present personnel roster of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources would reveal that “there is a revolving door policy between [that state agency] and some key people from the more high profile environmental organizations doing business in the state.” That much, at least, would not be difficult to prove. But then it gets a little sticky.

Apparently, some of the folks who have participated in that “revolving door policy” are “holding IOU chits on the governor.” Gary Alt is, or so this theory goes, the envelope into which all these IOU chits will be gathered up and delivered. In other words, Gary is the “fair-haired boy of the environmental community” and is being positioned by them to be their man-in-charge.

There is sufficient evidence pointing to Gary’s interest in being the head honcho of the Game Commission (or whatever it is to be called once its merged) to lend credibility to this part of the theory. There is even sufficient evidence to make a case that Gary is personally in favor of a merger, hence his comments in the newspapers about Pennsylvania not having a legitimate wildlife management agency.

Whether this is sufficient proof that the “environmentalists” are planning a take-over – or, more appropriately stated, a merger – of the Game Commission is open for speculation. However, there are more “coincidences” pointing in that direction. The Deer Management Forum Report, orchestrated and paid for by Pennsylvania Audubon, is a good case in point.

Although there are many big names in the forestry industry – including some professors over at Penn State University and the man running the U.S. Forest Services experimental research station up in Warren – who have documented the impact of acid precipitation on this state’s forest, the Deer Management Forum gave scant attention to this air born scourge. Instead, they pointed the finger of blame almost exclusively at the whitetail deer for our regeneration problems.

Then there are the “bogus deer counts” that have been conducted in a couple state parks. Independent sportsman’s organizations have put up money out of their own pockets to have aerial surveys done and are coming up with different counts.

And then there’s the on-the-ground sightings – or lack thereof – of actual hunters who, after spending the last two seasons watching the deer herd dwindle in their areas, claim “there aren’t any deer left in the woods and what few are left are being decimated by coyotes.”

There are many, many other “coincidences,” some that stretch credibility but others that will be proven, one way or the other, in short order. For instance, there’s the $625 million Growing Greener Bond Fund. As currently approved, $27.5 million of this fund will go to the Fish and Boat Commission “for capital improvements to existing lands and facilities” and $20 million is earmarked for the Game Commission for the same use.

Supposedly, there are to be strings attached to these meager parts of the fund, strings that will be controlled by the same members of the environmental community that brought us the Deer Management Forum Report. The proof will be, according to those who are keeping track of all the “coincidences,” if the two commissions are required to seek approval from the Governor’s Advisory Board on Fish and Wildlife (also supposedly puppeteered by those environmental groups) before drawing down funds.

Unlike those who can look at the stars and see dogs and bowman and big and little dippers, the whole process of connecting the dots – seeing “coincidences” – in the deer management program can seem like nothing more than the workings of paranoid minds. Looked at from a different perspective, Gary Alt and Pennsylvania Audubon could simply have recognized a serious problem and are taking the necessary steps to correct it and all those “coincidences” are just that ... coincidences.

There are other matters, however, that fall outside the long list of “coincidences” that can’t help but raise suspicions. Why, for instance, promote bad feelings by calling hunters selfish for wanting to preserve deer hunting? And why resign from the head of the deer management effort if your real objective was to have a lasting impact on how the state’s whitetail herd is managed. Certainly, after 20+ years with the commission, Gary understood the process of working with and gaining consensus from a board.

A lot of answers – and probably quite a few more questions - will be emerging over the next year and the best that can be hoped for is that Gary Alt and the Pennsylvania Audubon really do have the best interest of this state’s hunting license buyers and our wildlife in mind. There are an awful lot of “coincidences,” though, and one way or the other, we’re about to find out if it’s true that, “Those who can do” and “those who can’t try to take over.”n

John Street is an inquisitive contrarian who writes, frequently with humor, about current events in fish and wildlife research as well as the ethical and societal issues that affect the outdoor life. He can be contacted at

[email protected]

www2.theclarionnews.com/Opinions/43215.shtml