RSB

Hey, you are the one that came on here bashing and trying to discredit the Game Commission. All I did was point out how clueless you are about the facts. If you want debate a subject then ask a question or post without making personal opinion bashing comments about things you obviously haven’t fully researched.

Don’t expect me to sit back and let you, or anyone else,get away with posting misinformationand poisonous comments about the Game Commission or what I know to be the best direction for the future of our wildlife resources.

I have not only those annual reports but a ton of other deer and habitat data not available to the public right here in from of me. I also have the ability to talk with the researchers about the data to make sure I fully understand what it means. I was just a meeting a few weeks ago where those research leaders brought us up to speed on the data and what it means.

You claim that little of state has a poor rating, but you are very much wrong. This is what those annual reports tell a person that actually understands what they do mean.

The most recent survey results showed that 23.9% of the state’s WMUs have such poor forest habitat regeneration they will not support more deer for more then short term periods of ideal mast and winter conditions.

Another 67.0% of the state’s units have only fair habitat regeneration that is very marginal toward supporting the present deer numbers even with those ideal mast and winter conditions. In other words the habitat conditions in those units is still very fragile and could go the wrong way toward supporting even fewer deer if we aren’t careful with the deer densities.

Only 7.3% of the state had habitat ratings that indicated the deer were not presently a serious factor and needing careful management to assure the populations didn’t increase until the habitat was more improved then it presently is.

The changes in reproductive data collection most certainly wasn’t dismissed, at least not by any management professional, though I suppose those that don’t want to accept the facts that prove theiropinionswrong might have dismissed it.

Facts aren’t excuses either, though people that don’t have any facts that support their opinions often try to dismiss the facts as excuses.

Really. How is relevant toward good management objectives based on researched facts?

Oh and 2A having sustained either highest the second highest deer harvests of the state year after year (only to be surpassed by special regulations unit 2B) for the past five years isn’t sufficient evidence that the high harvests aren’t harming the deer populations?

Just because the harvest increases it doesn’t mean the population isn’t stable or even increasing. The fact is that many of the counties that make up those units have had continuously increasing harvests of both does and bucks for over twenty years. Those high harvests are actually what has protected the habitat that allows those deer populations to stay high and even continue to increase. Why to you, as a hunter, consider that a bad thing, unless you are more clueless then you want everyone to think?


Just more of what you don’t understand I guess. Explain to us how it is that all of the areas of the state that have had unlimited antler less harvests for the past twenty years still have increasing deer harvests and increasing deer numbers. In fact they been harvesting more then three times as many deer per square mile in the units around and including our city streets then they have in the forested habitats of our northern tier. Why do you that that is possible for more then a decade if you believe high harvests result in having fewer deer? Why is that the areas harvesting the most deer for over twenty years continue to have increasing deer numbers? Why do you think the areas of the state, with lots of forested area, but kept reducing their deer harvests had continuously declining buck harvest and deer populations?

Explain those things for us and prove to us how much you really know.

R.S. Bodenhorn

bluebird2

That is absolutely not what the survey results show, in fact they have very little relationship to how many deer the habitat can support. The forest survey results simply show what effect the existing deer density has on the regeneration of the existing forest canopy. It has no correlation to the true MSY carrying capacity of all the habitat that the deer utilize.

RSB

Amazing! It is simply amazing that people wouldn’t understand that the forest health really is very much about how many deer can live there.

No wonder some of you come on these boards demanding more deer. You simply can’t connect enough of the dots to figure out that habitat and deer numbers aren’t two total separate issues. They are in fact totally connected.

Those forest regeneration surveys measure the amount of regeneration there is on the forest floor. That regeneration is the deer food. If the regeneration isn’t there then there is no deer food establishing to feed the deer when and where there aren’t farm crops for them to eat. If there is no food there will not be any deer either so the forest regeneration most certainly tells the story about how many deer can live there.

Gee wiz I was kidding earlier when I made a comment about how some of you perhaps thought the deer could survive by eating rocks, but maybe you do think they can survive on rocks of you don’t see the correlation between the forest health surveys and past, present and future deer numbers.

It is just unbelievable how far from logical thinking and reality some of you people really are.

R.S.Bodenhorn

bluebird2

What you continually fail to realize is that forest health as defined by the PGC is drastically different than habitat health as defined by the deer. The deer in the NC counties have proven that they can survive and be quite healthy for long periods without the degree of regeneration that is preferred by the PGC. For example, if a 100 acre oak clearcut regenerates with beech,striped maple , birch , blackberry ,raspberry and maple, it will support just as many or if not more deer than if the same area had regenerated with 75% oak.

Studies show that the MSY carrying capacity of an over browsed forest of beech birch and striped maple is around 40 DPSM, which is about the deer density we had in the NC counties in the 70's. Today the PGC is managing the herd in 2G at 8 or 9 DPSM in attempt to get regeneration of the existing canopy ,even though the previous goal for for 2G, which was established by the same experts,was 15 DPSM. and DCNR

RSB

Obviously you have no idea what the regeneration survey plots include because they do already include all of those tree and shrub species you listed. But when they or nothing else is regenerating or growing in the survey plot there simply isn’t any food.

Once again I have to ask, do you think we can support more deer without food or do you believe they can survive by eating rocks, since that is all that exists in some of those areas you people are demanding more deer?

R.S. Bodenhorn

bluebird2

May I respectfully request that you try reading the AWR with some degree of objectivity. here is a quote from the 2006-2007AWR.
Please note that the surveys are limited to high dominant species and does not include shrubs. Therefore , a clearcut where the majority of regeneration was blackberry, raspberry ,green thorn and multiflora rose would be considered a failure ,even though it would provide as much if not more food for deer that if it had regenerated as a stand of 100% red oak. furthermore after 10 or twelve years it would still producing a lot of browse ,whereas the browse in a stand of oak would drop by around 75%.

Cornelius08

"Hey, you are the one that came on here bashing and trying to discredit the Game Commission."

No they discredit themselves by their actions. You cannot expect we hunters to jump for joy when pgc has aligned itself so staunchly with anti-deer eco-extremist factions and Have them on the Boc and doing everything in their power to keep the "power" from shifting out of their hands by keeping "prohunter" commissioners to the powerless minority etc.

Rsb, before you dig yourself a deeper hole, you may wanna familiarize yourself with the latest released Pgc annual report. Some interesting findings on it are;

Numbers of adult does pregnant and their steady decline which shows reducing the herd did NOTHING in that regard, as was predicted.

2003 --92%
2004-- 89%
2005--87%
2006--85%

Then next, you may wanna look at page#9 on the link provided. Second chart on the page, last column to the right...titled WMU HEALTH. In that column even you should see that in EVERY SINGLE WMU the health was rated as "good" or "fair"....Not a "poor" to be seen.....Thats the result of combining columns one and two to determine overall health. Some rate poor in one, yet good in the other, when combined = fair etc. Overall, not a one rates poor...

You want people to believe pgc AGREES with you, yet there it is for all to see...Simply not the case. Hardly the "doom and gloom" you speak of Rsb. Sorry. No dice.

....And instead of alot of huffing an puffing, lets see you point out something on the annual report that supports YOUR position...Good luck! (LOL)

http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/lib/pgc/reports/2007_wildlife/21001-06Z.pdf

jaybez101099

Let me tell you i sent an email along with everyone that hunts out of our camp about the non-resident doe license. Our section 2F is gone before we can even apply... The P.A. Game commision respone..try for another area?? My reply What can i move our 120 acers or am i suppose to hunt on public land in another area? They said yes........Everyone is thinkning about boycotting the state. If we couldsell we would.. We bought our land in 1976 and only the last few years since Dr.Alt have we had a problem....A pissed off group of M.d. hunters won't be spending our $$$ in P.A. this year.

Lanse couche couche

You can't automatically get NR landowner tags based on having 120 acres?

BTBowhunter

I truly sympathize with you but Dr Alt didnt cause your problem. Your problem is caused by too FEW available doe permits for the demand.
Dr Alt advocated MORE not LESS doe permits when he was here.

I've hunted 2F since 1968 and there have been many years, including this year,where not all residents who applied got a doe tag either. One of our gang didn't get his either this year and he's a resident.

Assuming your 120 acres is allforest, you could qualify for 2 DMAP tags if you appliedon correctly and time. Something tothink about next year.