Pa. Game Commission Discusses Low Deer Population
 

There's video there also

thanks for video.this is first year in 46 yrs that i did not have deer at 3 of my feeders.last year i had around 3 at each feeder.
it is not coyotes that killed those 9 deer it was doe hunters that dont care that a deer is left in area.

IMO, the decrease in deer is due to the longer doe season!!Instead of the old 3 day anterless season.All they have to do is put anterless rifle season back to 3 days again,for 2-3 yrs and they will see the increase in the deer population!I dont get it?Y cant they know this?

They do know this. If their deer management program was a mistake, I don't think they will admit it by going right back to a three day doe season.

how about no doe hunting at all in the worst counties.I like that there is no doe season with firearms were i live. Not sure why they did it, but makes for great deer herd. You can harvest a doe in archery.

its funny how hunters are today.i happened to talk to a few fisherman that said,SPROUL WE DONT GET A DOE LICENSE FOR CLINTON county,pa.......in the next few words the young kid of 13 said, SPROUL WE DONT GET DOE LICENSE BUT WE GOT OUR DOE IN CLINTON COUNTY IN MUZZLELOADER SEASON.
we hunt for a whole week and got our doe .

now this is thinking, they still killed a DOE but felt not getting doe license was being a great sportsman.

MORE HUNTERS ARE SHOOTING DOE IN ARCHERY THAN EVER BEFORE.those same hunters used to pass on doe in archery, not now.they know come gun season that its harder to get doe now with all hunters and lack of doe, so they now shoot a doe in archery. then in comes the in-line hunters and shoot more doe in archery season.

yes i think that is correct i never shot doe in archery , cause back then you could only shoot one deer a year.tried for buck first..

You don't suppose that issuing 40k plus does tags in most units for several years straight has something to do with it.

In the end
 

it's plain old psychology. I don't care if it's thirty deer, twenty deer or ten deer. I only have to shoot one Buck.

And some hunters will, perhaps forever, be at a disadvantage, when they don't see those thirty five deer in every square mile.

Could be the first time in history that a wildlife agency worked to eliminate themselves!! NO DEER, no need to have wildlife experts..they need accountants and layers for the gas, oil, and timber management.. what an amazing turn of events to say the least!!

yes ,you are right.they will expand into OTHER things.like study of bat or bug or another predator to kill rabbits and squirreals etc.add a few more clipboards and company vehicle that gets 10 to gallon with air conditioner on ,they will be all set.........

isnt that what gov. agency do best spend money on dumb things while they run the nessecary into the ground.They should be driving hybrids. to save our enviroment. thats what they tell us...

I still think that the number of hunters are going to fall off due to the changes in the forth coming seasons. Many of the WMA's, you have to wait until the first Saturday to shoot a doe (if you desire). For those who only get one or two days off for deer season, they may give it up or stay in camp for the card games. I just hope that everyone here remembers; hunting is a choice that each one of us makes. It should not be decided by the technique, style of hunting, choice of weapon or the license that hangs on our back. If you or anyone chooses not to hunt a doe, that is your decision and ethical hunting rules should apply to the sport.

To anyone who is frustrated seeing a lack of deer in their area....PLEASE come to suburbia and help...There's way to many deer in these areas...Hunting permission is hard to come by, but if you use a bow you'll have better odds.

Still plenty of deer out there Frank.I've yet to go out one morning this spring scouting for turkeys and not see multiple deer on public land in 2G.I was even out a couple times on the Black hills lease where you claim there's no deer and saw multiple deer each time.

The days of seeing 50+ deer/day are over and that's for the best.As for NO DEER,that's just funny.

The counties with the lowest deer populations also have the worst habitat.There's no valid reason to add more deer to habitat that's poor.The PGC did exactly what needed to be done.

well then me and my wv friends will flood the suburbian areas and help cut down the deer pop.i hunt in suburbs and i still dont see many deer. but what the heck i will try again come holidays...then again i passed by 2 bucks last gun season.both passed as shooters, but i felt they needed time to grow and mate....This year i will take whatever..

douge, you are due for promotion.i think you are ready for WAL-MART company pitch.

lets do it DOUGE, give me D,give me a C ,give me N,give me R.WHATS IT SPELL.DCNR,i cant hear you douge,DCNR:eek2:

you did right thing.you are buck hunter and pass on doe when there are few.
you are welcome in my neck of woods in wmu2g .yes there are not many deer and anyone who shoots doe in these areas is only ruiningr hunting for all of us.


it should be 1 deer and your done in wmu2g of pa.

Actually,the people that ruined the hunting in 2G are the ones that demanded more deer than the habitat could support without destroying it more.Unfortunately,there's still alot of those people left.

i think most agree on deer need to eat and have food etc.
douge,if they say we can handle say 11 deer per sq mile in clinton and we have say 2 or 3 or none,how are we expected to act.
unless forest is opened up for sun etc ,i cant see things growing .burning would be great thing to do.lots of ideas but very few are allowed.very few things to increase the deer.
then with few deer that are left we let hunters kill 3 /4 or 5 deer each.that is wrong and should be stopped.

with way things are now it should be 1 DEER AND YOUR DONE.no carry loaded gun to act like you are shooting coyotes after you harvest a deer.
actually hunting is getting DISGUSTING.not due to lack of deer but hunters that have to fill freezer at all costs not concerned if a deer is left in area they clean out.
real management done there for future.

if the 11 dpsm as they said we should have in wmu2g was allowed i feel that would be great.thats all we are asking not NO DEER or 2 or 3 dpsm .

What's killing hunting in PA is not even the low deer numbers as much as the shrinking places where one can hunt. I've lost places almost every year for the last ten. I've never seen it this hard to get permission in my life. It sure is easy to lose permission though. Especially when the land owners relatives or buddies decide they want it all for themselves.

yes that was always a problem, Those are the places with lots of deer. In my younger years i would sneak into those places and bow hunt. I tried offering money to lease there land . they just looked at me like i was wierd. "pay to hunt"? thats what they would say with a confused look on there face.

Sproul,a mature forest should have a mid-level understory that provides browse for deer.If it doesn't,deer are the main culprit.Huge areas of the northern tier are in this situation.Because of the state of the habitat,it takes alot less deer to continue to have an impact and alot longer for it to recover with low deer numbers.We're paying for the sins of our past.

I'm willing to bet that there's very few areas of Pa that have less than 11 dpsm,except in the poorest of habitat conditions.I'm also willing to bet that the majority of hunters wouldn't be happy with anything close to 11 dpsm.they still complain about no deer.In fact,they still complain about no deer at 20 dpsm.Hunters in Pa were spoiled by ridiculous deer densities and expect hunting to be easy.I was reading a post on another from a guy in Armstrong county.He claimed that they found 30 dead deer on their 200 acres property that dies from EHD.Nw they aren't shooting any does.Holy crap.That's over 100 dpsm and they don't see a problem with that.

Doug,these SGL's down here are below 11 DPSM with plenty of understory.Matter of fact the greenbriar is so thick alot of places you can't even bow hunt.Simple it's overhunted.
Here's where I disagree with you.I know a few areas that held lots of deer yet had great oak regen in the sun.My woods by camp were basically ferns until I opened the canopy.Now thick as can be with various regen including oaks and wildflowers.A mere 25 feet away in the shade nothing but ferns.Ferns love shade.

douge, i was sitting today trying to get a gobbler to call, like you, no answer.in this spot i own 100 acres.in this area i took out about 12 trees. lets say about a 100 yd circle.
this was done 4 years ago. in this area there is still lots of trees.
there is all kinds of growth in this area but go out the circle and FERNS are only thing growing .

now ,remember i dont kill ANY doe on my land, none.i had 15 on those 100 acres but i believe its around 10 now.i saw 4 today .
if deer are eating everything to death than why is that area growing.i wish i knew how to put the pics on here to show you.
or you could come down and i can show you.
get sun into area and do a little burning and things will grow.
yes deer have to eat but my 10 deer are NOT destroying my property.

Rich,I have no doubt about the game lands near urban areas are hit pretty hard.They should definately be managed differently.I'm still betting that most have a preseason densitity higher than 11 dpsm.How long they stay in those game lands once the pressure starts is another story.

Yep,you shouldn't expect oaks to grow in the shade.I never claimed you should but you don't need complete sun either.There are alot of shade tolerant plants that should be growing in the understory.Most aren't there because the deer ate them all.After years of having the deer change the composition if the forest,the understory got filled in by species that deer don't eat,ferns are a good example.Once they get estabished,it'sd extremely hard to get regeneration with opening up the canopy and probably treating with herbisides.Yes,you can say that the current deer herd isn't having the biggest impact in those areas but it's proven that the deer put the forests in that shape to begin with and it makes no sense to add more deer to those situations.Some of the areas like you describe are starting to come back and I can show you evidence.It won't happen overnight however.

Ferns actually take off in sunlight but they survive in the shade.If they were a prefered browse species,they wouldn't be a problem.

If you have 10 deer on your property and they only stay on your property,you have 64 dpsm right now.I wish you could post the pictures because I highly doubt that you have anything growing that the deer want to eat.At 64 dpsm the deer will completly wipe out the regeneration in a 100 yard circle in a very small period of time.It may be growing now and it may resist the deer but I'll gauarantee that it another year or two,anything that's still there will not be a prefered browse species.

I can show you a 70 acre exclosure in moshannon state forest that was fenced after a shelterwood cut was done.The oak regeneration was fantastic three years ago.Last year I took a guy from another board there to show him a shelterwood cut.Every single oak seedling was completely browsed down because three deer got in that exclosure.THat's right,three deer browsed every oak seedling in the exclosure.Deer are picky eaters and they hit the most prefered species first.There's still a ton of maple regeneration in there but now the maple took over because the deer ate the oak.That's exactly how deer impact the habitat.I took R.S.B. to that area and he took a bunch of pictures.Maybe I can get him to post some.I can show you example after example of cuts that failed during the 90's.Today they are fencing less and less because the deer herd is down.In fact,I can show you a 75 acre cleaercut that was cut on SGL 44 in 1990.The cut failed and turned into a meadow.Six years later,the PGC put up a couple dozen small exclosures and now you can't walk through them.It wasn't insects,acid rain or poil soil that caused that.It was the deer and that same story can be retold time after time in the northern tier.

It cant help that my neighbors and his brothers hunt Pa every season. They just go and bring there wv land owner tags. they can have as many as 5 each they use them instead of paying the non-residence fees. Last season they took 3 deer threw on a wv tag and headed home. i am sure they were not counted by the pgc as harvested deer.2 years ago they killed 7 deer among them...

Pa. Deer Count?
 

I hunt West Virgina every year, but live in Pa. I started about 20 years ago because deer populations are really down here. I do alright the second week in Pa., but am really back in. It does not take a college degree to figure out that issuing thousands of licenses where a hunter can go will not drop the deer population where he can not hunt. That really does not matter because the deer kill count is not even a ballpark figure. If it does not tally the way they want it, a few thousand are added here and there. The only guys saying the new commission plans are working hunt posted property and have their own rules anyway.( All the hunters I talked to.) The hunter deer kill report cards used to have a question "Public or Private land kill?". This suspiciously disappeared when complaints of few deer started to pile up. At one time there were too many deer in the mountains, but now it is time to stop beating them into the dirt. The Game Commission has had missing funds, abuse of power allegations, and just plain old stupidity plaguing it for the last 20-25 years and they want us to trust their judgment now? I don't think so.

I hope I run into them in the field one day.

The PGC is audited by the legislature every year, there has never been missing funds.

Public or Private was on the report cards whey the issued private land and public land anterless tags. They no longer issue that kind of tag.

:jaw:add to them that take their dmap tags and use them out of dmap areas on PRIVATELAND here in clinton county first week of deer.add crews shooting the little bucks as long as junior kid is in crew, they dont even look for 3 point rule.
add in mentoured youth with 8 year old girls shooting 10 point bucks on PUBLICLAND .are youth hunting the mentoured turkey week?are they sitting in truck or not there?
i could go on. its just unreal everytime rule is made people try find away around it.

i had 2 girls at wal-mart with their dad GETTING LICENSE.here was their comment. THIS IS STUPID, I AINT GOING HUNTING ANYHOW!dad turned and said, JUST SIGN IT.
funny almost all these people i see doing illegal things have BEARDS.what is it with beard hillybilly look?

is all of the above being done? YOU BET IT IS........

this is what woirries me... from what I've just read in this thread...the attitude of Pa hunters is NOT the attitude we want in our woods..."kill whatever moves..hunt 'em to the last". I know it does exsist in some WV hunters, but not to the degree of what I'm hearing coming from Pa. I'm not saying all Pa hunters are bad, but this thread tends to lead to thinking that MANY are!!! I'm glad I hunt private ground where THAT isn't now, nor ever will be an issue... but I feel for those hunting public areas. maybe non-resident tags oughtta be $400.. I'd vote for that.

my former neighbor goes to wv every year. your week was always a week before ours here in dec.he would come back with 2 deer,spike/doe.both looked like size of my dog they wee so small.then he would kill 5 here in pa legally a few years ago when the pgc/dcnr issued all tags.
his house was falling down and he lives to kill,he will kill everything .has to get meat.then you have ones that want to kill because they say,TOO MANY DEER,EVEN 1 IS TOO MANY, I AM HELPING THE DCNR TO GROW TREES..

so, you have 2 types out there, some poor and some rich all have to kill until nothing is left.

oh i forgot, THEY WILL SAY THEY SEE LOTS OF DEER AND WE DONT KNOW HOW TO HUNT....

as paul harvey said, GOOD DAY!

Wco r.w.j.
 

You must be a newbie. I always filled out a deer kill report card and it asked if you got it on public or private land. It may have been doe tags, but not crop tags, just regular tags. I never used any special tags. That disappeared soon after that goofball Gary Alt took over. As far as the missing funds, a couple of people on the commission resigned because of misuse of commission property, using food and cover corp for personnel use, illegally killing deer. Our news paper said there could be no investigation because the game commission was not really part of the state government. I have broken the game laws on occasion, but never intentionally. If you hunt enough something is bound to happen, but the other poster is right, a lot of the new laws support the violaters. I also have seen a dozen hunters with a kid each come back on state game lands the last day of rifle. O.K. to carry a bow and a modern muzzle loader during the early season, when only doe is legal with a loader, but buck is legal with a bow. What in the world was the commission thinking?

The question of whether you got your deer on public or private land was on the report card during the time period when second or third unsold antlerless deer license were legal for use on private land. That was back in the late 1990’s. The question might also have been on the report for a period of time prior to that so the agency could determine the percentage of the antlerless harvest coming from to two different areas. Once they had several years of data to provide that answer and the antlerless license was no long restricted to just private land the question became mostly irrelevant to changes in the deer management program. The other problem was in the fact that it was determined that a very high percentage of the hunters didn’t know if they were on public or private land so they didn’t provide the correct information. Incorrect information is worse then useless when you are using it for management decisions.

As for your allegations of misconduct or missing funds by Game Commission personnel, that was investigated by the Attorney General’s Office after the allegations were brought forward by other Game Commission personnel. After a full investigation most of the allegations were determined to be unfounded with no supporting evidence though it was established that a degree of misconduct had occurred with one individual who have over used Commission equipment for person use. Though it was misconduct it was not criminal, no financial gains were found to have existed and no charges were filed.

There is no question that some hunters find any number of ways for circumventing the laws that protect our resources. When you become aware of people doing so you should call the Game Commission Regional Office and report it.

Dick Bodenhorn

Please don’t judge the quality of all Pennsylvania Sportsmen on the things you read on this message board. I have been dealing with both the worst and the best of hunters for over three decades and I find that though Pennsylvania has its share of criminal minded hunters the fact still remains that the vast majority are honorable and honest hunters.

Granted many don’t have the best understanding of the complexities of deer management, the wildlife/habitat relationships or the predator/prey relationships but that doesn’t mean they don’t care about or respect the values of the resources.

Dick Bodenhorn