bluebird2

If the results of the Koerth Study are valid and spikes have the same genetic potential as 4 pts, then the fact that Miss. harvests their buck before the rut would be irrelevant. Furthermore, in Miss. they carryover at least 70% of their 1.5 buck, so there are plenty of 1.5 bucks passing on their genes. Also, in Miss. they carry over around 50% of their 2.5 buck ,so if the theory of dominant breeding works, the 2.6+ buck will be doing most of the breeding.


The decrease in rack sizes was observed across the entire state over a 12 yr. period, so you are simply trying to induce other variables to muddy the waters since you have nothing to refute the facts.
While that may be true, their are no studies based on genetics that prove ARs have no negative effect on the gene pool. As yet, I am not aware of any study that has established acceptable criteria for determining how ARs effect genetics in a wild herd. But we have the Koerth which documents spikes develop slower than 4 pts. and we have the results from Miss, that documented a significant decrease in rack size over 12 years. And, we also have PA which refuses to release the data on rack sizes of various age classes and the head of the deer management team that claims he doesn't know if rack sizes have increased or decreased.
I didn't reduce the buck harvest from 203K in 2001 to 119K in 2007. I didn't implement concurrent seasons which magnifies the negative effect of HR. I didn't mislead the hunters and tell them the B/D ratio was skewed and we needed to shoot more doe. Those are just a few of the things the PGC did to adversely affect the future of hunting. I just point out their mistakes on the MB,which has no effect on the future of hunting.

RSB

That comments proves you that either have no idea how high grading could occur when you harvest the bucks with the best antlers prior to the breeding season or that you are just posting more deceptive nonsense to further your misguided agenda.

The fact that a state carries over a high percentage of the younger bucks really has no meaning what so ever in the genetic carry over discussion if they are harvesting the best bucks prior to the breeding season. In that case, as occurs in Mississippi, they very well might have been high grading and damaging the antler potential of their future bucks because they were shooting 30% of their best 1 ½ year old before they had a change to pass on their genetic line. That could then also result in reduced genetic potential in each age class to follow.

That is the reason there is no valid comparison between the Mississippi and Arkansas antler restrictions results and the way antler restrictions and harvests occur in Pennsylvania. It would just be an apples to plums comparison.

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The decrease in rack sizes was observed across the entire state over a 12 yr. period, so you are simply trying to induce other variables to muddy the waters since you have nothing to refute the facts.

Really!

Many environmental variables extend into decades. The habitat and antler development variables across the northern tier of this state changed greatly over each of the past several decades before antler restrictions were even a thought in this state. That can be seen pretty easily by looking at the variance in the number of record book bucks from the various regions of this state over the past decades before antler restrictions. What is to say that similar habitat and environmental variables didn’t create the change in the antler development in Mississippi?

Post a link to the entire journal and we can then all take a look at the various methods and controls used to assure that the results weren’t biased by anything other then genetic high grading.

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While that may be true, their are no studies based on genetics that prove ARs have no negative effect on the gene pool. As yet, I am not aware of any study that has established acceptable criteria for determining how ARs effect genetics in a wild herd. But we have the Koerth which documents spikes develop slower than 4 pts. and we have the results from Miss, that documented a significant decrease in rack size over 12 years. And, we also have PA which refuses to release the data on rack sizes of various age classes and the head of the deer management team that claims he doesn't know if rack sizes have increased or decreased.

Though the affects of antler restrictions on a wild deer population are still unproven one way or the other the fact still remains that the most knowledgeable on the subject don’t believe it is possible to alter the genetic where you harvest after the breeding season certainly gives credence to the Pennsylvania management objectives.

As for spikes taking longer to catch up that has been reported by the professional researchers as nothing more then an age or early stage nutritional factor and the length of time it takes the younger bucks to catch up in both body and antler development. It is about like comparing first grades to forth graders in size and development. By the time they are both in college as a freshman and senior though that first grader that is now a college freshman might very well be the larger more dominate of the two.

When the Game Commission has the funding to complete some of the data collection, your camp’s law suits are no longer an issue and the time is right to release reliable data results then the results will be made public. That time is not yet right since the data is still being collected and thus inconclusive at this time.

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I didn't reduce the buck harvest from 203K in 2001 to 119K in 2007.

No you didn’t all alone, though people just like you had a large hand in that buck harvest reduction.

The first factor in the buck harvest reduction has to come from the fact that the entire objective of antler restrictions was intended to reduce the buck harvests so we had more bucks in the next fall population. That was a totally planned occurrence.

The place you and your camp have to take blame is in the fact that we should have had the deer herd in balance with the existing habitat a long time ago and would have had it not been for the never ending public and political pressures to carry far to many deer for way to long. That carrying too many deer and damaged habitat is a large part of why the fawn recruitment crashed following those hard winters. Since those fawns that died within days of being born aren’t out there as adult bucks now, your camp actually did help in the present reduced buck harvests. Hunters can’t harvest something that doesn’t exist because it died right after it was born since it’s mother didn’t have enough food to nourish it.

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I didn't implement concurrent seasons which magnifies the negative effect of HR.

That is only a negative for a relatively short period of time so that we can have a brighter future for the longer term. Responsible professionals have to look at the big picture for the future instead of selling out the future to have more for the short term now.

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I didn't mislead the hunters and tell them the B/D ratio was skewed and we needed to shoot more doe.

No one was mislead about the need for or the intent to reduce the deer numbers across this state or about the need for a more balanced buck/doe ratio. Those were biological facts that the deer were screaming out to every professional willing to even look at the facts the deer were providing. Some hunters just refuse to accept those facts, perhaps because they are self serving and could care less about the future of the resources.

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Those are just a few of the things the PGC did to adversely affect the future of hunting.

Actually the present management objectives are the best possible direction for assuring a better future for the deer, their food supplies and the hunter of the future. Failure to keep the deer numbers within the limits of their food supply is direction that will absolutely guarantee even fewer deer for the future. That is nature’s law not the Game Commission’s.

Nature guarantees that no living organism can exist in populations greater then the food supply for more then short term periods of ideal conditions. Nature also has proven time and again that the populations will increase as their habitat and food supply improves enough to support a higher population.

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I just point out their mistakes on the MB,which has no effect on the future of hunting.

Oh my no! The people like you that have worked to undermine the direction of sound scientific deer and habitat management have been the biggest factor in damaging the present deer population. That has been the case for many decades. We could and would have a lot more deer over most of this state today if the hunters and politicians had allowed the professionals to do what they have known needed to be done for a long, long time.

The hunters and politicians of this state have done far more to harm the deer populations, the habitat and the future of hunting in this state then the anti-hunters or any other group of people have. You and people like you really are a very large part of the damage to not only the future for deer numbers but also the future of hunting in this state.

R.S. Bodenhorn

fellas2

RSB,please do me a favor and quit belittling the hunters of this state.Please remember,if it weren't for them you'd be collecting unemployment or working in the local McD's.

lost horn

Oh my no! The people like you that have worked to undermine the direction of

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sound scientific deer and habitat management have been the biggest factor in damaging the present deer population. That has been the case for many decades. We could and would have a lot more deer over most of this state today if the hunters and politicians had allowed the professionals to do what they have known needed to be done for a long, long time.

The hunters and politicians of this state have done far more to harm the deer populations, the habitat and the future of hunting in this state then the anti-hunters or any other group of people have. You and people like you really are a very large part of the damage to not only the future for deer numbers but also the future of hunting in this state.

That's pure hog wash!! The hunters have always done their job, the PGC told them how many deer they wanted killed and they have done a very good job.
Study this link and see if that's not the case!!!
http://www.pgc.state.pa.us/pgc/cwp/view.asp?a=493&q=159232

fellas2

You really gotta love it when a guy completely trashes the people who pay his wages.Take a close look at the info in the link "lost horn " has provided and you'll see the real answer.Just think to when the PGC stated medlling year in and year out with seasons,bag limits,and restrictions and you'll see when things went itno the proverbial "shi**er".Ever since then the deer kill has dropped almost 40% so it's easy to figure out who harmed who.

bluebird2

Apparently you still don't understand that the effects of high grading have nothing to do when the when the doe are bred or a change in the gene pool The decrease in rack sizes occurred within the first five years of ARs, which is far to soon to be the result of a change in genetics.
The deer management experts say the decrease in rack sizes was not due to changes in variables or habitat. they attributed the decrease to the effects of high grading and you can't provide anything to refute their position.

It is ridiculous to assume it takes 3 years for a spike buck to make up the effects of being born 2 months later.
As you know , the B/D ratio before ARs was 1:2.1 and now it is slightly better than 1:2. But breeding rates and productivity have decreased ,so the B/D ratio was not the problem and Alt misled the hunters in order to get HR.
That is nothing more than PGC propaganda. the fact is the PGC issued more antlerless tags in 1998 and 1999 than they did in 2000 and 2002. For decades hunters harvested as many deer as the PGC would allow and to blame the hunters for the current mismanagement is irresponsible on your part.

RSB

I’ll tell you what I’ll always call an ace and ace and a spade a spade. I’ll also stop laying the blame on the hunters of this state when the hunters allow themselves to become educated on the real factors instead of thinking they know a lot more about wildlife management then the trained professionals.

The fact is that the vast majority of the hunters don’t much of anything about deer other then where to place a bullet in one, how to gut it and how to eat it.

If you think the hunters across this state have done their job then you have either paid absolutely no attention to the history of deer management in this state or you never understood that hunters should be the tool used to manage deer within the limits of the food supply.

Get the book “Deer Wars” and read up on the part hunters and politicians have played in the REAL story of what has happened as far as deer management, and mismanagement, across this state over the past six or seven decades.

Oh, and by the way I DON’T WORK FOR THE HUNTERS, I WORK FOR THE RESOURCE. Hunters have in the past paid for wildlife management but make no mistake about the fact that if hunters don’t pay that bill the State’s tax payers will. I’m not so sure that wouldn’t be a better thing anyway since so many hunters refuse to be educated and seem to be more of a problem then an asset toward doing the right things for the best possible future.

R.S. Bodenhorn

RSB

And then this?

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The deer management experts say the decrease in rack sizes was not due to changes in variables or habitat. they attributed the decrease to the effects of high grading and you can't provide anything to refute their position.

Ok which one do you want go with? In one sentence you say it was too soon to have been the affects of genetics and I will agree with you on that. But, then in the very next sentence you say the experts attribute the antler changes to high grading. Is that one of those where you can’t figure out what best suits your misguided at this minute?

If the changes in the Mississippi buck antlers was from high grading it was most likely because they were harvesting their bucks before the breeding season. Since we don’t do that in Pennsylvania the Mississippi study has no relevance anyway, so who in Pennsylvania really cares what the cause of declining antler development was in Mississippi?

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It is ridiculous to assume it takes 3 years for a spike buck to make up the effects of being born 2 months later.

Ridiculous or not that is what the studies show, that those spikes will catch up, some in one year, some not for two or three years.

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As you know , the B/D ratio before ARs was 1:2.1 and now it is slightly better than 1:2. But breeding rates and productivity have decreased ,so the B/D ratio was not the problem and Alt misled the hunters in order to get HR.

The breeding mature buck to breeding doe ratios are not that high and never have been. The button bucks aren’t breeding mature while a high percentage of the juvenile does are or at least should be if their mothers got bred when they should have.

No breeding rates and productivity have not declined. The STATEWIDE data declined, but only because the sample sizes changed in the various areas of the state and shifted from the best areas providing the highest sample to now the worst areas of the state providing the highest samples. Most of the individual area breeding and reproductive rates have either improved or stayed the about the same. Some areas, like this area, have seen greatly improved breeding rates since antler restrictions improved the buck/doe ratio.

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That is nothing more than PGC propaganda. the fact is the PGC issued more antlerless tags in 1998 and 1999 than they did in 2000 and 2002. For decades hunters harvested as many deer as the PGC would allow and to blame the hunters for the current mismanagement is irresponsible on your part.

Though hunters bought the antler less license and harvested deer the fact still remains that the hunter and political pressures were nearly always put into play to force the Game Commission into reducing the allocations every single time the harvests started to get even close to be affective at protecting the deer food supplies. That went on for decade after decade and has been going on for well over fifty years in the northern tier areas of the state.

I know if has been going on because I have been there to hear high powered politicians tell the Commission that if they didn’t reduce the antler less allocations they would never get a license increase. I have been there to hear the politicians say that their constituents wanted fewer antler less license and if the Game Commission didn’t reduce the allocations they would take the regulatory powers away from the Commission and they would decide how many license to issue. I have seen first hand the public (hunter) and political pressures that absolutely forced the professional deer managers into do what they knew to be the wrong thing for the future of the deer, their habitat and the future of hunting.

The thing is I saw those things occurring twenty years ago and now I see the same tactics in play once again. It will not work to have more deer for the future this time any more then it worked the last time. It is the exact opposite of what will result in having the best possible deer management for the future. History has proven that over protection doesn’t result in having more deer for anything more then short term periods of ideal environmental conditions. Yet hunters refuse to learn that lesson and fight to keep repeating that same STUPID mistake over and over and over.

R.S. Bodenhorn

Coalcracker

The future of hunting is on private land, just look towards our southern neighbors. Most of the HR has taken place on public lands and private land open to hunting, now those private lands are drying up with leasing happening just like our southern States. Your PGC has no control over where an antlerless is used, they should have been issued for private land or public land only. Most hunters hunting State Gameless Lands aren't seeing even one deer, they are dropping out of the sport faster than the national average.

The future of hunting will be determined by the DCNR, not the PGC, our PGC has served its purpose in the past, but outside influence has clouded its mission. Our SGL's are being managed for timber, why not have out timber experts (DCNR)manage this land rather than an uncontrollable agency that won't admit they make mistakes.

You sure would have to change your attitude to become aForest Ranger, your people skills are the same as the upper management of the PGC.

RSB

You are welcome to your opinions, but I certainly don’t agree with the ones you just expressed.

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The future of hunting is on private land, just look towards our southern neighbors. Most of the HR has taken place on public lands and private land open to hunting, now those private lands are drying up with leasing happening just like our southern States. Your PGC has no control over where an antlerless is used, they should have been issued for private land or public land only. Most hunters hunting State Gameless Lands aren't seeing even one deer, they are dropping out of the sport faster than the national average.

But, many of the public land are the most under hunted areas in this state. They are under hunted and under harvested because hunters aren’t willing to hunt the remote hard to hunt areas where it is hard to get a harvest out. That might not be true around the most metropolitan areas with smaller areas of public land. But, even there hunters probably have to actually over harvest the public lands just to reduce the over all deer population around the areas that are being so seriously under harvested. If they don’t do that then it will lead to even more under harvested areas that then result in more rapid habitat damage over larger areas and eventually to crashing deer populations do to not having enough food to support the deer populations.

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The future of hunting will be determined by the DCNR, not the PGC, our PGC has served its purpose in the past, but outside influence has clouded its mission.

I don’t know just what you think the outside influences are but the last I had heard the laws required that all of the state’s resources be managed for all of the state’s public, not just hunters.

But, that aside I can tell you that the people that have had the greatest and most harmful influence on the mismanagement of the deer herds and their habitat have been the hunters and politicians of this state. The Game Commission’s mission has always been clear and they would have been much more successful at fulfilling a better deer mission had they not received the interference from those public and political pressures.

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Our SGL's are being managed for timber, why not have out timber experts (DCNR) manage this land rather than an uncontrollable agency that won't admit they make mistakes.

That comment proves beyond any doubt just how utterly clueless you are. The game lands are managed for wildlife even if it means totally wasting timber to provide better wildlife management and populations. The DCNR is mandated by their regulations to manage for timber, though they still try to benefit wildlife as much as possible while fulfilling that mission.

The Game Commission has made lots of mistakes. The worst ones have been when they listened to the hunters and politicians yammering for more deer then the habitat could support long term while ignoring the advise and recommendations of the state’s resource professionals. That is the mistake that has resulted in having so few deer in so many areas today and that is exactly what needs fixed. That is also why I come to places this attempting to point out the follies of those past mistakes. Hopefully enough people are able to understand those mistakes of the past so we can stop making them and improve the future.

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You sure would have to change your attitude to become a Forest Ranger, your people skills are the same as the upper management of the PGC.

Why is that, because I tell people the truth even when it isn’t what they wanted to hear or politically correct? Oh well, I never had any desire to be a Forest Ranger anyway, if I had I would have become one along time ago.

R.S. Bodenhorn