RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

This is a very good point of dicussion. With the herd reduced in 2G to 8-9 OWD, and only 42% regeneration, should the HR continue in 2G? How about complete annihilation for the sake of commercial timber? Obviously if 8-9 owdpsm are only allowing 42% regeneration which is still nowhere near the PGC objective of 70%, than given yourstatement of the deer being the single contributing factor here, based on fencing studies, further reduction is needed. And so much for thereduction being temporary. If we allow the herd to increase, there goes your regeneration again. So here it is in a nutshell. If the PGC plan is allowed to stay the current course, using forest health as its objective, not only will the herds in 2G have to be reduced even further, (maybe as low as 2-3 dpsm), but they must remain at those levels indefinitely, for the sake of the trees. Please. Does anyone else out there realize how ridiculous this plan is? Is Pennsylvania the only state with a regeneration problem, or are we the only ones using stupidity to try to address it?

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

You really need to consider anger management.......

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

Snivel and squeal
Here we go, the name calling starts when they don't know what to say, must be a liberal. :D:D

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

Maybe we shouldn't be sohard on Bluebutt, Cornholeus or sniveling squeal.

Maybe we need to be more sensitive to their situation. Here they are clinging desperately to antiquated ideas while the rest of the world moves on. Imagine the frustration they must feel with upwards of 70-80% of hunters surveyed now being happy with AR's. All the while their opening day stump fails to provide the shooting gallery it once gave them. Imagine how hard it must be to adjust to the idea of actually working for their deer while not being able to shoot that spike when he comes by. Try to feel their pain of not being able to walk into the local bar at noon on the first Monday with their spike on the truck hood. Insteadof puffing up their chest and proudly pointing at the spike and saying "I got my buck again" they have to drown their sorrows at the local watering hole while they whine about no deer and wait around for next years opener.

Maybe we need to be more like Bill Clinton and try to "feel their pain"
Maybe we could hold a fundraiser and buy em all some golf clubs;)

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

Liberal? Now that hurts!:(


Lost horn,you and I have talked on here for years and while we've disagreed, sometimes strongly, it's never degenerated to name calling from either of us. On the other handI respectfully ask thatyou just have a look at Sniveling squeals first post addressed to me and ask yourself where the cheap shots started between him and I.I simply returned fire.

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

There is no reason to suspect that the habitat in 2G will not continue to improve at the current deer population levels without additional major reduction. If we just keep the herd at the current levels without major increase over the next few year the habitat will continue to improve. As the habitat improves the deer number will increase right along with the improved habitat.

Then after a few year of the continuously improving habitat things will get to where we do have to have to harvest more deer just to keep the deer from excessively damaging that improving habitat. But, all the while we will be able to harvest more and more deer while still maintaining the improving habitat. That is how good deer management works and why it is so much better then that nonsense and stupidly misguided way you guys think it should work.

We did it you way for decades and it was a dismal failure. It is now time to do it the right way by listening to the deer instead of people that have nothing but opinions as a guide.

Unit 2G, like pretty much like all other units, is improving in both habitat and deer numbers. But, only because no one except the USP and a few of the most unknowledgeable hunters are fighting the sound scientific approach to deer management. Combine that with presently having a Commission with the guts to do the right thing more often then not and deer management is finally on the right track for a promising future.

Dick Bodenhorn

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

Wow. That really made no sense. You expect a cycle to develop here? Lets kill nearly all the deer, then in a few years when the habitat is recovered we will allow them to increase, only to have to severely reduce them all over again? Any other states reducing their herd to these levels, or are we being that god ole' pioneer again? If other states are having some regeneration problems, but are not reducing their herds asseverely as ours, do you ever stop to ask why? Listening to the deer, eh? At what point did the deer, as indicated by herd health, (breeding rates, recruitment) tell you they needed to be reduced to 8-9 dpsm?

As for alpha hunter Bob,...I don't suffer from anger issues. However, unlike the case appears against you,I don't measure myself by the deerI kill.I simply love hunting, and enjoy it immensely. If you measure yourself by the manufactured bucks you kill in Illinois, and flaunt your "badges"....one has to ask, are you compensating for something? Sometimes, Bud, its just better to be silent, and thought an idiot, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt! You obviously support high deer numbers on those managed properties in Ill...yet advocate deer numbers so low the PGC should be ashamed to even admit. We are currently debating this with RSB, as to the difference in CC between farmland and edge habitat as dominates Illinois, as well as much of PA. If you have anything intelligent to add to that conversation, feel free to join in. Want to take a poke at why you aren't managing your Illinois properties at 8-9 dpsm? RSB has claimed that during the winter there will be nothing for the der as it wil all be under snow pack, so only available woody browse should be considered when determining the CC of a localized habitat.

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

If you believed the agency you work for, instead of contradicting them, you'd have a very good reason to believe the number of deer will not increase. With only 42% of the cuts surveyed regenerating, that means 2G is still loosing a significant portion of the forest stage that supports the most deer, the seedling/sapling stage. Furthermore,there is no reason to expect a significant improvement in the habitat with a closed canopy and a sea of ferns under the existing stands of pole and saw timber.

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

Actually it is you and the PGC that is clinging to antiquated ideas . The new and improved deer management as promoted by the QDMA supports sustainable deer densities that will yield a harvest of 29 doe PSM. The best managed WMU in PA ,where the PA plan has been the most effective,is producing a harvest of less than 2 doe PSM.

So ,it appears that SS,Cornelius and I are spearheading the QDM movement in PA,while you are desperately clinging to the antiquated deer management promoted by the PGC.

RE: Witch Doctors Should Hunters Believe
 

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“Wow. That really made no sense.”

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Actually it makes perfect sense to people that understand the way nature really works. Obviously some people don’t understand how nature or good deer management work.

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“You expect a cycle to develop here? Lets kill nearly all the deer, then in a few years when the habitat is recovered we will allow them to increase, only to have to severely reduce them all over again?”

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To start with no one killed nearly all of the deer, there are still as many deer as the habitat would support and allow to exist in poor deer habitat. It has actually been that poor deer habitat that caused the majority of the present deer herd reduction.

The habitat is presently improving, even while the deer herd is once again on the increase so nature is proving it is willing to accomplish that objective as long as we don’t allow the deer herd to get totally out of control, as we have done in the past.

And no it is done correctly, once the deer herd and habitat are in balance, you never have to severely reduce them again provided you are smart enough to continue maintaining them within balance of their habitat and food supply. As that habitat improves you can allow a FEW more deer but you also have to harvest more deer at the same time. In other words if the herd of five that you used to be able to support through the winter increased by two over the year you remove one and also keep one additional over the winter since the habitat has improved. Then if the habitat still improves even more perhaps the next year you can harvest two and keep six over the winter. Eventually it will get to where you can perhaps even keep sever or eight through the winter in the same range you once could only support five.

That only works until you make the mistake of trying to keep to many through the winter and they take the habitat back down to where it will only support the five, ort maybe even less, and those few that remain aren’t even healthy enough to produce surviving fawns. That is were we were and we would be stupid to go back there with deer management once again.

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“Any other states reducing their herd to these levels, or are we being that god ole' pioneer again? If other states are having some regeneration problems, but are not reducing their herds as severely as ours, do you ever stop to ask why?”

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Most other states never allowed their deer herd to get as far out of balance with the habitat as occurred here in Pennsylvania. Some of those states have much better soils so they can produce higher quality browse and deer foods. When you don’t have steep slopes that are covered with rocks and it is mostly fertile farm land soils there will be a lot more area that can grow a new seedling or plant for a deer to eat.

It all comes down to the amount of available food growing in the right places that make it available to the deer when they need it. Over much of the northern tier we can have, and often do have, great habitat on our ridges and the plateaus even while we are experiencing winter mortality deer just a few hundred yards away during those years we have a harsh winter. When we get a couple of feet of snow on those highlands that great food is just as far out of reach for the deer as if it were on the moon. Some states don’t have those problems of deer being forced to use only a small portion of the existing habitat or they have better winter grounds habitat over larger areas. The only thing we can do to fix that is work toward establishing and maintaining better wintering grounds habitat conditions. The only way to do that is by carrying the correct number of deer through the winter. The only way to do that is to remove the correct number of excess deer before the winter, we try to do that by using hunters as the removal tool. If hunters fail or refuse to do that then the excess deer adversely impact that winter habitat and produce fewer fawns born at a weight that allows them to survive after they are born and thus the deer herd declines because hunters didn’t remove enough. Then that downward cycle of both habitat and deer numbers begins until it either reaches rock bottom or hunters start doing a better job of removing the excess over winter deer and once again allowing the habitat to recover.

That is the way it works in ever state and area of deer habitat in every state. It is just that the different areas and different states all have different conditions that change the rules on how many deer can live there in a healthy over winter condition.

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“Listening to the deer, eh? At what point did the deer, as indicated by herd health, (breeding rates, recruitment) tell you they needed to be reduced to 8-9 dpsm?”

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They have been screaming that message for at least the three decades I have been in this professionobserving and listening to message the deer were sending. I have watched their numbers in a continuous natural increase and then decline to match the current environmental conditions for decades. I have watched and listened as the professional deer managers across this have repeatedly attempted to help hunters understand the need to keep the deer in balance with the habitat over my entire career. From the old management reports and past articles written by the deer management research people it is obvious that the Pennsylvania deer herd has been screaming the message that they were not in balance with their habitat over much of their range since way back in the 1930’s before I was even born.

The problem was the same back then as it is today. Hunters refused to believe the message the deer and their habitat were screaming while they continued to scream they wanted more deer. The politicians of course listened to the hunters because deer and habitat can’t vote. The politicians in turn told the professional deer managers and Game Commissioners that they didn’t care what the deer or habitat said and we needed to make sure there were more deer or there wouldn’t be any money to maintain the Game Commission duties and functions. The Game Commission was thus forced, time after time to do the wrong thing until the habitat simply became so degraded it couldn’t support but small deer populations over much of the deer range. That is were we are today.

Does any of that sound at all familiar to you? It certainly should since that is exactly what has happened and where people like you obviously want us to stay. I say hell no! We are smarter then that aren’t we? At what point do people say that is enough we need to listen to what nature is telling us because the hunters have been giving us incorrect information for way too long, for way too many decades.

R.S. Bodenhorn