moosemike

Very true. Plus I think there are places like in Sullivan county where I'm sure the deer herd is down 75%.

bluebird2

I agree that the herd in the northern tier counties has been reduced by 75% compared to what it was before bonus tags were implemented in 1988 or 89. The fact that such extreme HR has not resulted in significant increases in regeneration raises serious questions regarding the effect of over browsing on regeneration,

Pro-Line

I get it now...It's about killing, not about hunting. If you can't kill a deer every other time out, then it's no fun.

I'm not trying to be a dick here...but I know what the PGC is trying to do. It's basically what happened in Ohio. The deer were thick around the turn of the century or earlier, then they were killed out. When I began hunting in Ohio in the early 70's...we called other people when we saw a deer while hunting. It was a big deal. It was about hunting, not killing a deer. Now in Ohio, we are covered up in deer and some areas are suffering. We now have 6+ tags in a lot of areas and the herd is growing regardless.

The deer herd does cycle. What makes it cycle is not important. No place on earth that has hunting has a "steady" herd from year to year. The PA herd will be back...and it will be healthier than it was. I hope you guys get the herd where you want it, but you have to realize that it's not as easy as you think. No matter what the PGC does, they have 100,000 hunters telling them that they are wrong.

bluebird2

How can our deer herd cycle when the PGC issues an antlerless tag for every antlerless deer we have in the state? How will our herd increase when the harvests equal or exceed recruitment.

Pro-Line

It will cycle back when they realize that they have too few deer and stop giving out tags. Then the numbers will go up. That in itself denotes a cycle. Man-made...but a cycle nonetheless.

moosemike

Not likely it will cycle back. This is straight from the PGC's mouth at the meeting this past week.


1." The deer herd was admittedly mis-managed for 40-50 years, and although it was extremely hunter friendly and fun, there will never be a repeat of that practice in this state, no matter how bad some want it."

Potterco

well if they don't know that by now they don't belong on the BOC..sadly the BOC is fully aware of the severity of the reductions and are happy that they have warded off civil suits by the farmers, timber companies,etc. Suits they've gone on record saying they can ill afford the cost of ..THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT STARTED THIS MESS TO BEGIN WITH!!!!

moosemike

The whole state never needed a deer reduction. When I started hunting here in Lebanon county (1986) you didn't see that many deer. Two or three a day was normal. My Grandfather tells me when he was a young man in Lebco. it was exciting just to see a deer track let alone a deer. In the 90's it finally started getting good here in Lebco. and then a decade later the stupid PGC blew it up and killed the deer here. Now it's back to trying to see one deer a day in a county where I never saw 20 in one day.

Screamin Steel

When this whole deer sham got started many of us (myself included) were under the impression that all we were doing was reducing the herd to reasonable levels in areas that exceeded the CC of the habitat. We never thought that it would be a blanket whitewashing of the entire state, and we never thought that they would reduce the herd to such absurdly low deer densities, and then forget about carrying capacity altogether and start managing the deer based on the regeneration of tree species. Next they will be managing our turkeys based on insect diversity. I agree Mosse..most of the public land that I hunted in the eighties and nineties we never saw more than about ten deer a day. I can't speculate accurately on what the DD may have been at the time, but it defintely wasn't overrun. Did the deer have an impact? Sure they did. That has always been the case wherever deer have existed. Not saying there wasn't damage occuring or in some cases severe, but I never saw these mythical herds of hundreds of deer mowing down the saplings anywhere I ever hunted, including farmland. Of course we are learning from cases where even a couple of deer have enetered an exclosure, that approx 3-4 deer in a 40 acre exclosure translated to the effect of a DD of 19 dpsm can completely ravage the red oak. Of course not many hunters would consider 19 dpsm "unreasonable DD", but if that amount of deer can potentially impact regeneration to that degree, we are all fooling ourselves to think the pGC and DCNR will ever tolerate such moderate DD ever again. The days of pitiful deer densities are here to stay unless we get a complete regime change. And to add salt to our wound, the WMI audit shows little to no improvement even with the herd reduced severely. Ouch!

wvhuntin4me

If those who are stuck hunting in pa just quit and it would take a large group effort. The deer would come back. I pass up deer all the time and limit what we shoot. Even though by law we could take more. It all comes down to the individual at this point. But like a said try getting most pa hunters to swallow that. i know i lived there for 20 years.Thats one reason i moved to another state. I remember in the 90's when the pgc gave out doe tags like there was an unlimited amount of deer. But the hunters are part to blame for believing what they heard .Instead of what they seen. During my holidays visiting pa. i hunt deer Last gun season i seen one buck 7 point with a large spread .on the second day, but i let him walk cause i didnt see any other deer....