The system is only questionable to the critics of the PGC. The harvest estimate procedure was published in a scientific journal after much nationwide peer review. It works just fine.

As Neville will confirm, the online reporting is just around the corner. They have it now for DMAP and it works just fine. The POS licensing may go into effect this year and online reporting will come withit but there are someproblems with the programthat the PFBC has experienced. The PGC is working as we speak to try and institute it for the upcoming license year.

You are correct BTBowhunter. We need POS to have a way to cross check license data with harvest data. When POS is up and running, internet, phone or harvest report card will all be methods hunters can use to report their harvests. A couple years ago I worked on the enabling legislation so legally we're ready to go.

The PFBC is currently having some problems with POS roll-out and implementation. Hopefully the bugs will be worked out by early next year.

Joe,
Does the legisaltion allow for moremeaningfull and effectiveenforcement and is that part of the new system as well?

BTB &Joe ~
Thanks for answering my question. IMO, a new system of reporting was long overdue . I hope that failure to comply will also be met with strict law enforcement measures as well.

Now, I have a small nick on my axe to grind with you Mr. Neville . Since 1985 I have questioned the report card system as to it's true accuracy. I was a staunch supporter of the PGC and it's programs at that time also.
Why is it whensomone simply QUESTIONS any of the PGC's policies you have to label them "critics" ?
BTW, the report card system does not "Work just fine ". If it did, you guys wouldn't have that so-called 40-60 % non compliance rate. Too much wiggle room to skew the numbers one way or the other.

It would seem to me if PGC is presently understaffed/underfunded how the hek could they enforce a $25 fine for non compliance.The admin cost in addition to manpower would exceed the fine.Even with a call in system it would be difficult unless you 1st input offenders tag # and then flagged them at point of sale the following year???

Some may question thepractice, but strictly viewed as statistical analysis (which is what it is), the current system works just fine and always has. I havewitnessed WCOs or other staffers at butcher shops recording data from deer brought in. Deer are also field-checked by WCOs during the seasons and that data recorded. I have also attended several "work shops" where the system has been explained in detail. If a dimwit like me can understand it, can't figure out why others have a problem gettin' a handle on it. It's a fairly simple concept and it works.

Atseasons' end, after report cards have been received and the data entered, they calculate the number of deer actually checked, versus whether or not those people sent in their cards. It gives them a base number to calculate how many deer were killed, versus how many successful hunters bothered to mail in their cards.

As Neville noted, the peer groupof our wildlife managers have studiedPA's system and pronounced it to be statistically valid for the purposes of calculating deer harvests each year. From the standpoint of accuracy, it matters little whether the reporting rate is 40% or 70%, as long as they can establish what the percentage is.

Compared to the costs and time involved in deer check stations or other mandatory requirements in other states, we're giving nothing up in accuracy. No other states that I'm aware of, claim to gain a 100% accuracy rate with alternative systems. Couple that with the number of hunters we have and the number of deer killed here each year, compared to hunter numbers and kill numbers inmost other states and it's obvious to most why we don't need check stations.

Nothing could be inherently more simple than sending in our report cards. Takes about 15 seconds to fill it out and the postage is free. If you want to blame someone for an imperfect system, blame the dimwits that refuse to cooperate. Call-in reports and perhaps computerized reports may make for a better system. We'll have to see.

Already been explained why they don't try to cite people for not complying. Who will prevail at the district magistrate level, when the WCO charges a hunter with failure to mail the report and the hunter says "I mailed it Your Honor, it musta got lost in the mail."

One thing that should raise some eyebrows is why is PA the only state & I know we are a Commonwealth that has such a discrepancybetween hunters & the game commission? This place seems to thrive on the attitude that if you are not with us you are against us attitude.

If you question them you are uninformed.They are the most defensive group I have ever seen.

Did anyone else notice the lack of law enforcement this year ? No one I know had their license checked. Just a coincidence? I don't think so!

IMO, whatever combination of reporting systems the PGC initiates in the future, POS "flaging" would be the way to go in dealing with non-compliers.

Out here in Montana, Fish Wildlife & Parks uses the check station system in each of our seven Regions. It appears to be successful as far as collecting initial data and early harvest percentages in each Region for elk and deer. Less that one month after collecting his info., they put out press releases to the public on their findings.

Every January, FWP also conducts telephone surveys . They randomlycall hunters "one on one" state-wide in each Region at the hunter's homes for a period of five to six weeks. The phone calls are made mid-week evenings and weekends when the hunters are most likely to be home.

BTW, the data gatherers also make the calls from their own residences.

As many supporters of the current reporting system have stated "the system works fine." It works so fine that the legislators are questioning it. Hunters don't believe the figures posted by the agency and those figures led the agency to claiming that Pennsylvania had 1.6 million deer.

If the executive managers of the PGC were paid using a similar system of calculation I do believe that the system would be changed to something more accurate.

As far as funds are concerned or the lack of funds, a system such as POS should have been implimented years ago when they had the money,as many other states have done.
Pennsylvania not only needs a more progressive sales and reporting system, what it really needs is a whole new executive management group.
Remember, it wasn't the hunters who got the agency into the position it's in, it was the management.