germain

Thank-you for taking the time to post the interesting info.

T_in_PA3

Another example of newspaper showing pictures not really related to the topic. Saturday's Harrisburg Patriot newspaper had a big ole headline something like "Totally Unacceptable" referring to the I-78 traffic and people being stranded and a story on that. The picture below the headline show traffic on the turnpike backed up because of a hazardous leak from a tanker accident.

Different highway, totally different incident. Didn't stop them from using the two together though.

sproulman

r.s.b,this is why thegovernor should be concerned and put his foot down onthe DCNR..they have manpower/equipment to cut lots of openings in woodswhich will allow new growth..

there is no lumbering or food plots for deer..even controlled burning would help..but remember, even with great deer feed does not mean there are deer or fawns..

look at sgl252 in williamsport,i hunt there a lot..

not many deer BUT great habitat..they do a good job there growing things but few deer..fawn recuritment is not good there,i wonder WHY??

germain

If it's close to williamsport sproul it could simply be one of those areas with easy access near a populated area that gets hammered keeping the number of deer very low.That does happen.

sproulman

this is where sproul disagrees with r.s.b..you can have best habitat in elk county butifoverharvest of the older doe and hunters are shooting fawns, you will not have much of a recuritment next year..

habitat and weather are notonly factors, OVERHARVEST OF OLDERDOE/FAWNS is the main reason, i feel that we are seeing less fawns..

R.S.B.

Certainly an over harvest of does will result in fewer deer but the facts of the scientific research indicate that the does were not over harvested and were much more likely to have seriously under harvested.

Elk County is much like the area where they have been doing one of the doe mortality studies in the fact it has large remote areas. Where they had the does collared, with mortality sensor collars, and could prove if they were still living or dead it was determined that the hunters in the remote areas were harvesting less then 11 out of every 100 does. That hardly sounds like an over harvest of the does.

In the easy access area of the state where they are also monitoring the doe harvests with mortality sensor collars the hunters are harvesting less then 19 out of every 100 does. So it doesn’t appear that hunters are over harvesting the deer in that area either.

In the areas of the state with unlimited antlerless license and where hunters have been legally permitted to harvest more does then they can squirrels the deer populations and deer harvests have both been steadily increasing. The deer populations have been increasing there because they have harvested enough deer for the past fifteen to twenty years to protect the food supply, which keeps the deer healthy enough to have high fawn recruitment.

Here let me show you the antlerless harvests for a few counties over the past twenty years or so and then you tell us how they have over harvested the does in your home county of Clinton or in my area of Elk County.

All of the data is in harvests per square mile so it can be compared in an equal manner.

County………….…….82-86…….……87-91………..….92-96………..….97-01

Allegheny……………..1.5……………..2.5â €¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦6.8……………...8.1
Elk…………………….3.3……………..5. 3………………4.0……………...3.2
Cameron………………3.2……………..5.4†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦2.0……………...1.5
Clinton………………...2.4……………..4. 0………………1.8……………...1.9

Go ahead and explain to use how they have been able to harvest three or four times as many does per square mile in and around the city street of Pittsburgh for over ten years, without over harvesting the does, while harvesting less then two does per square mile is an over harvest in the remote areas of Clinton and Cameron County.

The plain and simple fact is that all of the real evidence of the matter indicates that you can’t over harvest the deer populations where they live in suitable habitat to support more deer. The facts of the evidence also prove that hunters are not over harvesting the deer in the remote counties of this state and most likely aren’t over harvesting the deer anywhere in the state. The facts of the evidence go on to further prove that where hunters fail, or refuse, to harvest enough does the deer will damage their own food supply and then lower their own populations with reduced fawn survival rates.

It is also very obvious, to those willing to pull their head out of the sand, that the under harvesting of the does has been the greatest folly and mistake in the history of deer management in this state. If we had spent the past half century protecting the food supply instead of the does we would have a lot more deer then we have today. If we don’t start protecting the habitat and food supply now we are also going to have even fewer deer in the future then we have now.

Those are the facts the deer are telling us; we just need to be smart enough to listen to all of the facts they have been proving to us over the years. If we refuse to be that smart we will have fewer deer and less hunting opportunity in the future.

R.S. Bodenhorn

Javabird17

Funny, reading this information, about the problems with relocating deer, that Governor CORSLIME in NJ and his little cronies at NJD of FW want to spend millions on relocating animals instead of letting hunters in to keep this in check. Put the meat to good use.

germain

kinda ironic that the counties with access problems are the ones with constant or growing populations.Could it be more deer have escape routes to safe havens where hunting is limited or not allowed at all?This lets more deer alive to breed compared to say a SGL in a populated area with easy access.On the other hand elk,cameron,and clinton are loaded with public land.But those NC counties are not good examples of overharvesting compared to southern public lands.
Let's look at an area Doug is familar with,greenwood rd.This has about 6 miles of heavily posted land with the same habitat as the state forest at the end of the road.Matter of fact the state forest actually has thicker cover then the private.Yet if you spot lighted on a good night you can count over a hundred deer on the private lands and once on the state forest if you're lucky a handful.Hmmmm,you would think with the high deer numbers in the private woods the deer would eat themselves out of the house and head to the state forest land where there should be some regen because of the low deer numbers since well let's see ah since HR started.Or could this be an access problem where the deer aren't getting harvested as much?
So if does can't be overharvested and/or habitat is the main ingredient to deer populations compared to harvests I'd like to hear from some of the fellers on here who hunt posted land.I don't mean this question in a smart way because I'm sarting to hunt posted land myself but here it is,
Do you think your deer numbers would remain the same if say 15 other rifle hunters hunted doe on your hunting land?This is based on say 100-600 acres.
I can name quite a few SGL's in southern counties with low deer numbers compared to nearby posted woods where deer are plentiful.And most of those SGL's have better habitat then the private woods.
Sorry but nobody will ever convince me that access doesn't make a huge difference in deer populations and that an area can't be overharvested below what the carrying capacity would allow.

deer_handler

May I say that is because more land was purchased and opened for hunters to increase the harvest report. Land that was closed to hunters in the past has became open for them. Special regulation areas as to decline the numbers of deer human casualties. If you look thru the new areas that have been opened for hunters you will see these counties above have had more land open to harvest more deer to increase your data. They open land where hunting was not permited before as in the suburbans. Your goanna have lots of deer being harvested and increasing your data. Now if you did not include these new lands open to hunting, What would your data chart show? It's like opening a 3 or 4 mile area that's never been hunted and taking50 to 100deer from that new area and then adding it to your data above. And yes that will increase the numbers of deer per SQ. miles for that county. The data is not as accurate as it might seem.
Just a thought to ponder on.

DougE

I don't think anyone is trying to say that limited access can protect deer.However,if you have 15 huys hunting on 160 acres,you're seeing way more pressure on that 160 acres than any public land in the nc region of the state sees.In my experience the most heavily posted land gets hunted much harder than most of the public land in the northern part of the state.Small areas can certainly be overharvested but if the habitat is good,the deer will be back.I can show you an area that is around 200 acres.Part of it is owned by a timber company and the rest is owned by a farmer.All of it is open to the public.This past summer Iwatched a bachelor herd of 16 bucks for weeks in the farmers fields along with at least that many does and fawns.this is actually typical for this spot.I have some friends whose houses border this area and they only know of about 2 bucks that were killed.This area gets driven about twice a day for the first couple of days and re-driven on both saturdays.It gets pounded.I was in there a couple weeks ago and never cut a single track.Were all the deer killed?No way.there's just no reason for them to be in there now but I'll guarantee those fields will be full during the summer.

Ihunt private property near my mothers house in Wyoming county.It's posted heavily but it gets pounded much harder than the public land out here.I rearely even hunt the private land in Clearfield county because there's way too many people.

The habitat on the public land near Greenwood road and Around rockton mountain is some of the most pitiful areas of the state.I can't tell you what the habitat looks like on any of that private land because I've never been on it.However,the deer only get bothered on Moshannon state forest for about two weeks of the year.If the habitat wasn't any better on that private land,the deer wouldn't be spendingall their time on that property for the remainder of the year.How do you know there hasn't been substantial logging or foodplotsplanted in those areas?