What evidence do you have to support your claim that PA hunters want more deer than the land can handle. Since 1980 the herd has been increasing and the antlerless allocations were also increasing. Breeding rates and productivity were higher when we had 1.6M deer than they are now with less than 1M deer. can you explain why that happened?

Well i hope eco extremist are not running any mid west state or any state for that matter

But then again some of presidents ideas yeah we are screwed

You ask what evidence there is that Penna. Hunters want more deer then the habitat can support? That is a real hoot. All one has to do is read the posts you, Corny and Screaming man come out with to see the evidence of hunters that are out of touch with the balances of nature and demanding more deer the habitat can support long term. Even the deer have been proving you wrong and you aren't smart enough to see it.

You are correct that both the deer herd and antler less allocationshave beenincreasing since 1980, but only because the deer herd was exploding into areas of the state where there had previously been few deer, like around our city streets and housing developments. The fact is that both the antler less allocations and deer harvests have declined in the old traditional deer areas of the big woods, such as unit 2G, for over two decades now.

Here are the antler less allocation and harvest histories for the counties that make up 2G, with both expressed in units per square mile, to prove what I said above.

Data set…………………88-92.……….93-97.…………98-02.…………03-07
Antlerless license……….16.21.……….13.08.………†¦12.30.………….8.65
Deer harvests…..………..9.55.…………8.00.…⠀¦â€¦â€¦.8.53.…………..4.00

Breeding rates were not higher in when we had more deer in the habitat damaged areas, either. In those old habitat damaged areas, of the past, the breeding rates and reproductive rates are better now then ever in the past. If the breeding and reproductive rates have declined anywhere, (and I’m not saying they have), it is only because some areas of the state have totally failed to harvest enough deer and now their deer herds are starting the naturally induced downward spiral that follows having more deer then the habitat can support for too long.

The real fact is that you don’t know what you are talking about and simply don’t have a clue about deer management, their habitats or how one relates to the other.

R.S. Bodenhorn

You really are one funny duck who has no idea waht the dat you post shows. Whether you realize it or not , you have just shown that the high antlerless allocations from 1988 to 1997 reduced the herd So it is obvious that you agree that harvests that exceeded recruitment reduced the harvest from 9.55 to 4.00.

Thanks for proving once again you simply are clueless.

Some people jump to conclusions, others just jump........................[&:]

"You ask what evidence there is that Penna. Hunters want more deer then the habitat can support? That is a real hoot. All one has to do is read the posts you, Corny and Screaming man come out with to see the evidence of hunters that are out of touch with the balances of nature and demanding more deer the habitat can support long term."

All we do is ask for responsible management and do not support managing our deer herd at rock bottom levels to promote biodiversity extremist agendas. That my friend is a helluva long way from asking for more deer than the habitat can support. Especially when some areas of the state had fine habitat with twice the deer as currently, and the fact that our deer densities are as low as the lowest states density goals in the nation. What backs YOUR assertion that we are asking for more deer than the habitat can carry? Nothing. To say we can have NO MORE at all period in most wmus is completely unsubstantiated and refuted by the facts. To say NOWHERE in the state can have any more deer than currently is completely outrageous extreme nonsense.

"Breeding rates were not higher in when we had more deer in the habitat damaged areas, either. In those old habitat damaged areas, of the past, the breeding rates and reproductive rates are better now then ever in the past. If the breeding and reproductive rates have declined anywhere, (and I’m not saying they have),"

You do not have to say they have or have not. Pgcs own annual reports show it to be the case. There was nothing wrong with the reproductive rates in the first place.

Yourresponse to the data is nothing more then your goofy and uneducated perspective on deer populations being combined with your misguided agenda to derail the real truth about the deer/habitat relationships.

Even the village idiot would know that if lowering deer harvests for a period of twenty years didn’t result in having more deer then there is something other deer harvests keeping the populations at those lower levels.

R.S. Bodenhorn

We already have responsible management, that is what you are trying to change.

You are demanding what has been proven to totally irresponsible management that would lead to damaged habitat and result in lower deer numbers for the future.

Some of you simply have no idea how nature works and chastise the professionals that are doing everything they can to protect your hunting future from your own stupidity.

R.S. Bodenhorn

Deer harvests do not have to continue to go up as a deer herd continues to decline. An allocation can be lower every year as long as it permits the havest of more deer than are recruited. Recruitment declines with herd size.

So to summarize for the hypothetical village idiot that you spoke of.....

The harvest can continually decline and still be enought to cause a continual decline in the herd size due to the allocation alone, provided that the allocation permits for a harvest higher than the recruitment...which would also be on the decline.

If it takes 15,000 antlerless harvest to overcome the recruitment substantially and decrease a wmus herd this year, it very well may take far fewer to do the exact same thing next year and so on and so on.

That is not to say, of course that a harvest increase cannot occur even with a declining herd size. Raising allocation or other factors can definate contribute to a larger harvest than the previous year, but only serves to excellerate the decline of the herd.

"We already have responsible management, that is what you are trying to change."

Pizzing off more hunters than most states have, causing themselves to be sued and running financially into the ground are not exactly guidelines of proper management. Not is going against the grain according to what every other state in the nation is doing.

"You are demanding what has been proven to totally irresponsible management that would lead to damaged habitat and result in lower deer numbers for the future."

nope. 100% unsubstantiated claim. In fact not only unsubstantiated, but completely disproven.

"Some of you simply have no idea how nature works and chastise the professionals "

Keep repeating that on every post. Maybe sooner or later you'll convince your self. Till then, you dont believe that any more than I do.

"that are doing everything they can to protect your hunting future from your own stupidity."

And by your logic that would extend to the unudalterated idiocy of the biologists from every other state in our nation that has higher deer densities than ours. Is it their idiocy? Or is it the fact environmentalist nuts might not be such a big factor in many other states, and the timber industry there doesnt think they are god?