Deaddeer I have been hearing all your rants for a good time now about how bad the PGC is and what they are doing wrong. All I have ever heard out of you is complaints. Well lets put you in Dr. Alts position. and you now have the power to run the PGC deer management program what would YOU do to make a better deer herd in PA and what would your end goals be?

While on the surface that may seem to be a rational solution, the fact is it won't work unless a signifcant numbers of hunters in the same area agree to the plan If you and two of your friends agree there are to few deer and agree not to shoot anterless ,but the group of six hunters adjacent to where you hunt say there are too many deer and try their best to fill their bonus tags , the efforts of you and your friends will be totally negated . The fact is the only way individuals or groups can control the herd at the levels they desire if the own,lease or control a large tract of land and all hunters agree to the goals established for that area. Individuals have no control over the herd in their areas , but large groups of individuals may have an impact.

Howver, as these MB prove it is hard to get a significant numbers of hunters in a given area to agree on anything, so trying to control the herd as an individual will have no effect , as long as the PGC continues to issue 1M anterless tags.

very true, and very well stated w/o animosity. hunters who pay $$ want to fill the tag(s).PERIOD. What has always made me shake my head, is the State say they own the deer, until YOU hit one with your car... then they aren't responsible... wow, wish farmers had the same benefits!!

You seem to have skirted the question Deaddeer. I asked if you were in charge of the Deer management unit of the PGC like Dr. Alt. (in other words you are the man in charge of deer in PA) Please tell us what your ideal herd would be, your goals and how you would accomplish them. Basically what you would reccomend for antlerless allocations, seasons and bag limits, antler restrictions, if any, management units, if any, aand anything else you can think of. Basically since you think the system is broken now how would you propose to fix it?

No, I did not skirt the issue. That post was in response to livbucks post, not yours. Now here is the answer you were looking for.

The first thing I would do is revise the OWDD goals so they reflect the true carrying capacity of all the habitat used by the deer, instead of the current standard which is based on the number of deer that will allow adequate regeneration of commercially valable timber and ignores all habitat but forested habitat. MI manages their herd with a goal of 19 DPSM and in Wisc. it is even higher, while in PA te goal is 12 DPSM and the areas with the worst habitat have the highest goals and the areas with best habitat has the lowest goals.


The next thing I would do is suspend AR until the new OWDD goals are reached . Implementing AR while trying to reduce the herd by 50% insures that AR will not be successful ,at least as perceived by the hunters. As yet the PGC says we have had zero herd reduction ,but the buck harvest has declined by 30%. Now, if we begin reducing the herd by 5% /yr. as per the original plan , the buck harvest will continue to decline and we will have fewer 2.5+ buck than we did in 2002.

Finally, instead of exaggerating the problem and trying to tell hunters we have a crisis across the entire state , I would be more honest and give hunters credit for reducing the herd in 2 G , and acknowledge that herd reduction in many areas is controled by limited hunter access rather than the hunters reluctance to control the herd. I would then have the PGC launch a public relations campaign to inform the general public that hunters will not be able to control the herd in their area unless the land owners provide access to their properties. They could empsize the spread of Lyme decrease , the need to reduce road kills, crop damage and residential property damage as reasons to reduce the herd and sell the plan to increase access. They coud also emphasize giving archers more access where the use of firearms would not be appropriate.

I can't speak for him or the PGC... but if I were in charge here in WVA.,.. I'd limit ALL non-resident lic to lottery selection of no more than 1000 licenses. That's a GOOD start. Bucks only for firearms on the 1st 3 days ... after that hunters' choice... NO extra tags for anyone... landowners( NOT leased land) have unlimited doe tags... it's time to STOP prostituting the herd for $$$ that isn't being spent for what it was collected for. The Gov/State Congress always dips into the fund, to relieve other state functions...
..I know that ruffled some feathers...huh ?......

naw, you haven't rustled any feathers. You hit the nail on the head. Whitetails in pa, WV, and many other states are being farmed for $$. used to be there were plenty for hunting but they just didn't bring in the out of state $$$$$ with 4 pointers.

Local residents were pretty well satisfied with having good numbers, although not all were huge. If you wanted a bigger one you had to hunt a little harder.

Now though we are (thru our states agencies) manipulating the herds to try and maximize breeding to squeek the last few fawns out of yearling does. to maximize the number of deer prior to the season so hunters can take plenty of doe as a consolation for the less buck around. Less buck are around because with lots of doe tags and out of state hunters the harvests are maximized too. In order to minimize the OW herd, the states are now pushing to whack the does that they pushed to be born.... whitetail farming and manipulating the herd for $$$. Wow, it makes us all so proud.

If your not fond of out of staters coming and taking deer, then follow the lead of Pa. cut your herd in half and you will notice a drop off in out of state hunters flocking to your state. Watch the numbers after 2004 in pa as a good indicator of what happens in "a smaller herd".

By the way Deaddeer, nice reply.

Thanks Chickory.... your statement makes a ton of sense. I'll be watchinh the totals for Pa.. and here........ this has got to change,Bro

I posted this on the Hunting Politics forum, but I guess I will post this here too. For you PA hunters unhappy with Alt's deer management plan, check this site out: [link]http://www.takebackpennsylvania.com[/link]. Although there are a lot of other things on the site besides deer management, it is a good read.

Nice post DD. Some of your posts are jekyll and hyde. When you sit down and explain things like this, you make sense and loose the doom and glood outlook. When you start tossing out numbers and % and show that the sky is falling, it just makes you sound like a bitter, PGC hating person with a closed mind.