Perhaps you should contact these scientist, biologist, and professors and tell them how to do their job correctly....

I am sure they only spent a few hundred hours designing this study in a manner that would generate the most statistically significant data they could without "wasting to much of our(your)money".

Is this study perfect..absolutely not, and I am sure the authors clearly state that along with the accompanying results. However to suggest that the study was somehow done in an unscientific manner is simply not correct.

I hunt in the specific area, my camp and hunting ground is surrounded by Sproul, There was 6 of us at camp and we did not see a deer in three days, buck , doe , or anything else. I saw 6 or 7 on Sat night with a spotlight where I used to see 75.... I hunt pretty well back in, the deer are not there...period...

AJ and others who are criticizing the study as not being scientific, please note the source of the article that was originally posted. It was the Philadelphia Inquirer, which quoted a "press release" from the PGC. You did not read the study itself, but only what some bureaucrat thought might be interesting and what some reporter thought might be interesting. If it appears that the report in the Inquirer and on the PGC website is unscientific, perhaps you should criticize the reporters. I would like to see the report on the study put together by the Penn State team before I pass judgement.

If in fact the report says what the reporter says it says, it will be hard to convince those who hunt in the area that there are deer there that they didn't see. I am very sure that there are deer in the area I hunt that I didn't see, but can't speak for the Sproul.

Verygood response Patryk, I couldn't agree with you more.

I emailed the professor at Penn State and asked where I could get a copy of the study report. I will let you know when I hear something.

I dont hunt Sproul but I hunt similar terrain in the ANF and can tell you that hunter numbers are a mere fraction of what they once were and our deer sightings are down as well.

Some possible explanations

Hunting pressure in gun season has lessened to the degree that we no longer have deer bouncing around the woods like pinballs trying to avoid humans. On the other hand, the hunting pressure is enough to let the deer know we're there and they tend to hole up. This makes the old Pa tradition of stump sitting till the deer come by much less effective.

deer feeding on mast will natuarlly feed randomly without concentrating into any particular area as opposed to deer that move to a crop field daily tofeed and can be patterned.

Habitat, and consequently deer numbers have crashed in certain areas contributing to the no deer arguement for some spots.

I've seen less deer around my camp in recent years and yet the area directly behindit has so much deer scat that you can hardlywalk through my property without stepping on pellets. Could be that our traditional hunting methodsrequire some adjusting?

I fully realize the Phil Inq in all likelyhood added,deleted,edited info that might have made the study appear more pallable to a seasoned/hunter.The fact remains that 50 some deer were tagged and the report indicates only a handful of deer were taken.Hello - Wheres the Beef! It certainly appears a criticism to the hunters.

I would like to read details of study - It does sound interesting.

BUT - just because a study was conducted by Penn State or any other insitutution of learning does not imply without impunity the methods used or data gathered are an absolute indicater of hunter sucess or failure.

I wish someone would do a study that will give me a relationship correlation between the number of deer I see, versus the total number of deer in the area--- example-- this WMU has a sight value of 12. This means that if you saw one deer, there were actually 12 deer around.
This would make me feel SOOOOO much better, knowing that the two tails I saw actually meant there were 24 deer around, and that I'm just too poor of a hunter to see them. (Probably because I didn"t get back in far enough---).

AJ:
Should you be interested, the link to the PSU website where wildlife research is posted is as follows:http://pacfwru.cas.psu.edu/
The study in question is not up there yet as it is not finished. I emailed Dr. Diefenbach yesterday and I have copied his reply below. I hope this helps.
George

"Thank you for your inquiry, but this research is ongoing and no formal reports have been completed at this time. The research is scheduled to continue for at least another year.[/align] [/align] You can find some information about this project on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's website http://www.pgc.state.pa.us (see news releases and pages under 'deer' and 'wildlife').[/align] [/align] Also, the final reports and publications, as they become available, will be posted on the Coop Unit's website http://pacfwru.cas.psu.edu. However, as I mentioned there won't be anything available for many months.[/align] [/align] Regards,[/align] [/align] Duane Diefenbach"[/align]

Deer sign will tell the story in a given area if you know it well enough and actually cover a good amount of ground.Deer don't fly so they do let sign.That's how I determine the numbers on the ground.It works.