insight trickling out...
 

NOTE: Quote attributed to Gary Alt
"Alt said a major problem is that the Game Commission is funded almost entirely by fees on hunters.

"That agency won't be able to function properly when the hunters are funding it entirely," Alt said. "Only after you get broader-based funding will you get broader-based representation."

Although Dr. Alt had once said that education was the key to pa wildlife management... he apparently thought changing the way the PGC is funded is the key. He would like hunters out of the equation, and have the PGC funded by a mix of non-sportsmens dollars and hunters dollars so that the biologists can dictate to the state what will be in wildlife management.

Many had always thought Alt was rather arrogant towards hunters, but now it seems his motives were very real in taking the power away from hunters to have influence in the wildlife management of the state (even though for 100 years SPORTSMEN have paid the bills in pa, and the state would not assist us with any tax dollars even for NON-GAME species).

I have to laugh at those people who thought Dr. Alt was just trying to make hunters see "more and bigger bucks", while he was trying to get Audubon, Conservancies, timber companies, pa legislators, DCNR, and anyone BUT hunters involved in dictating how deer hunting will be in pa..... hehehehe....

Man, there were a lot of hunters in pa who got punk'd !!! :D


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former deer management head says he couldn't take Game Commission anymore

Associated Press


SCRANTON, Pa. - Gary Alt, who recently left his job as supervisor of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's deer management section, said he left because of his frustration with a "broken system."

Alt's departure on Friday at the age of 53 was described as a retirement, but Alt said he was leaving because a core group of well-organized hunters was limiting his ability to manage deer.

"I always said I would leave if I became ineffective, and I became ineffective. I did not want to take money from any employer if I couldn't deliver the services," Alt told The Tribune of Scranton.

In the job he started in 1999, Alt wrote measures designed to increase the number of large bucks and harvest more doe. His policies angered hunters because they lowered the overall deer population to maintain the habitat.

Alt maintains that the state's deer herd has been too large for more than 80 years, reducing plant diversity and the land's ability to sustain a variety of wildlife.

"It makes no more sense to let the deer herd go out of control than it does to allow pollutants to go into a stream," he said.

Alt said a major problem is that the Game Commission is funded almost entirely by fees on hunters.

"That agency won't be able to function properly when the hunters are funding it entirely," Alt said. "Only after you get broader-based funding will you get broader-based representation."

Game Commissioner Stephen Mohr said he receives about 50 complaints a day from hunters about the size of the deer herd.

"I think they'll either be repealed voluntarily or they'll be repealed forcibly," said Mohr, who supports antler restrictions, but not Alt's other regulations. "The hunters are not going to stand idle any longer."

Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said the agency won't know what direction it will take for this year's hunting season until commissioners meet from Jan. 22 to Jan. 25 to set preliminary bag limits and dates for deer season. The final decisions will be set when the board meets in April."

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Now that Dr. Alt has said what he really wanted in no uncertain terms going public with it in the newspaper. It sure makes those guys that slandered bad mouthed threatened, etc. anyone whom saw through his hores & pony show from the begining look foolish doesn't it?
Just stop and think for a few mintues, NOW that we know the truth about Alt (since his retirement enabled him to speak freely) and how the PGC did their best to keep it from all sportsmen/women in Pa. EVERYONEshould be wondering just how much more the PGC is not telling us.
Go to the Jan 23,24,25 meetings DEMAND answers, sportsmen still pay the bills. And it is the sportsman whom the PGC owe explinations to!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

I am stunned Dr. Alt wanted the PGC funded by nonhunters so that they get a bigger say in Pa than hunters do.

I did know that he took 1.3 million dollars in anonymous donations funneled through Ron Freed at Audubon, but he told Kip Adams that he just did not want to ask hunters to fund the studies to cut thier own herd in half, so he went around them. But now....... with the stunning admission that he wants hunters relegated to the back of the bus as second class citizens is just apalling.

What a turn of events in pa, I never thought I would see this.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Chickory you haven't seen the half of it yet! Wait till it comes out whom is pushing for the Fish/Game merger and why. that issue is not as dead as some would like you to think it is.
I've noticed no posts from all the "Alties" on this admission of his agenda. Must be so stunned they swallowed all that crow without chewing it!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

WOW ,cant believe he said that

RE: insight trickling out...
 

my uncle knows him an his ex pretty well, he's said many times right here on this forum that Alt couldn't be trusted and all he got for saying the truth was lip service from the Altie bunch that post here over and over again. Heoften posted saying how Alt was in bed with the flower sniffers,etc.
Alt is not only Cut n Run he also is now waving it under the hunters in Pa noses how he had little use for them.
you sporting $$ at work

RE: insight trickling out...
 

You guys are truly unbelievable. [:@]
Alt went outside to get funds and views because he knew the SLOB hunters of PA wouldn't stand for a smaller, healthier herd. These deer DO NOT belong only to you just because you have a license to shoot one. He wanted biologists to help make decisions for the betterment of the herd and the hunter. What a crime! He should of just taken a poll of all the know-it-alls around here and he would of gotten all the answers he needed. More deer, more deer, more deer. Its about time you Alt haters take a long look in the mirror and see how greedy you have become. It's a shame when a bunch of arm charm biologists force a man out of a his job for wanting to help us manage the deer we ALL love to watch and hunt.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

I'd say he cut his own throat. when you have any org. that is being 99% funded by one group and you work for that group it isn't the wisest thing to not try and keep the MAJORITY of that group happy

RE: insight trickling out...
 

I was holding off comment till this little clip could be verified. Chicory, you already added quote marks where they didnt exist in the link you posted. That link looks like a "summary" of a larger article. So were dealing with at least third hand information here iIF we assume the original article was correct. I'm not saying it's not true, but how many of us really trust the media???

The quotes here raise some questions to be sure but untill we can be sure what was really said and by whom its just conjecture or propaganda.

I personally heard Gary Alt promise to quit if the PGC wouldnt let him do his job the right way at a meeting 5 years ago. Looks like he's a man of his word if this article is accurate.

Yes, hunters fund the PGC but what about the non hunting farmer, landowner, homeowner, and yes timber co that provides the habitat and the food for the deer herd. What about the non hunting taxpayers who feed the deer on Federal and SDtate forest land. They dont buy licenses, but, rest assured that they have a say here too. Without em, we have no deer.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

http://www.timesleader.com/mld/times...l/10579930.htm


Here ya' go sport!


It was posted by deadeer before I posted my quote of his thread. :D:D:D


Read on....

RE: insight trickling out...
 

yeah sure I got it now the MEDIA is out to frame Dr. Gary Alt :) :) ROTFLMBO
Some guys just can't face the facts bet there's a Kerry/Edwards sign in that yard!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

The best book ever written on conservation is. The Hunter as a Conservationist. It should be read by all hunters and non-hunters. It keeps it simple. I forgot to take it back to the library 5 years ago. I make my kids read it. Remember don't raise your kids, train them to be young adults.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

I always thought the best book on conservation was "six legs and buzz...." ?


now lets get back on topic, which was the very insightful article from the news on Dr. Alt hoping
the PGC can be funded by non hunters so that the voice of hunters is no longer as strong as
it once was.

we were discussing how less deer = less deer, with no candy coating

RE: insight trickling out...
 

There goes the greed again.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

.. thats' the most intellegent post on Alt, that I've read.... I applaud you,Sir!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

If the hunters are all just bad people because they want decent numbers of deer to hunt....... then why did Dr. Alt cut n' run? Surely he could just continue to villify hunters as you are doing and point the finger at hunters as bad men, thus justifying more and more reductions.......

hmmmm......

Maybe because he knew from the get-go that he was the hatchet man hired to do one thing..... cut the herd.... then beat feet. I believe he had several opportunities to lobby the legislature to combine the PGC and the DCNR, thus creating exactly what he wanted.
And agency not soley funded by sportsman, led by insightfull conservationists, and funded by both hunters and non hunters.

He voiced his interest in leading such an agency to the legislature during their hearings on the merger...... but it never came to fruition. Did sportsman ruin that for him too?

I hear your " your hunters are greedy and to blame" argument, but it sounds to me like Dr. Alt who was touted as the best mind in Pa wildlife has (and had) failed to develope a plan which would educate hunters, and over time bring our herd into line with what the habitat will support. He himself said in this article that he did not deliver on his promises.

Now your comments are that anyone in pa who does not want a smaller herd is a slob hunter.

I think that kind of discussion is wonderfull for everyone in pa to hear first hand what people think of the situation. The discussion is great for hunting. It allows everyone to see what is going on.

I think that blaming hunters for not wanting a small herd is one way of looking at it, but I would have to look at a state like Michigan as a reference point.....

In Michigan, they have tens of thousands of doe tags go unsold and they do not harvest as many antlerless deer as they do antlered on any consistent basis. Thier herd today is LARGER than pa's yet they shoot less doe than us, keeping thier herd at higher denisties. Pa has harvested more antlerless than antlered for over TEN YEARS....even did before Dr. Alt.

Do we call them slobs in Michigan for it? Nooooooooo, nor should we.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

hmmmm I just checked into Arkansas message boards and Arkansas went to AR and HR 5 years before pa did.....

They reduced their populations for only a few seasons and then sportsmen lobbied with their DNR that they were not seeing enough deer. So thier DNR shortened their seasons last year, cut back thier bag limits (less doe tags), and they are now today not shooting as many antler less as they do antlered..............

My goodness.... and yet no one is calling them slobs. :D:D:D


Gee, I guess I addressed that issue pretty darn well. ;)

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Alt couldn't educate the typical hunter because most of them don't get as involved as you and I. A good number of hunters were at his meetings and saw BIG RACK, but they failed to see the trade off or read further into what we needed to accomplish to help the herd.
Now they're screaming that their aren't any deer left. They've forced Alt out of office because they failed to see the whole picture.
I hope the next guy to step up continues with the program and makes the needed changes to make everyone happy. But I doubt that anyone will have enough guts to do what Alt did and ignore the typical hunter for the overall health of the herd.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

no one foreced Alt out of office.
Cut'n Run retired in disgrace!
what do they say ...you can fool some of the people some of the time ....................

RE: insight trickling out...
 

902 I think you underestimate the average hunter out there. I still believe it is a passionate and loud minority that is resisting better management.

It aint a majority just because a few here say it is! Lots of hunters are happy with the way things are headed.

Didnt the media have us convinced that it was inevitable that John Kerry was gonna be prez???

A noisy enough minority can give false impressions!!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Maybe Alt & Kerry can run Hillary's next campaign

RE: insight trickling out...
 

That ain't ever gonna happen...any time ...anywhere....

RE: insight trickling out...
 

well..... the PFSC is the largest sportsmans group in pa. And thier spokesman is Ray Martin. he addresses the PGC at almost every meeting are you trying to spin that he is a tiny minority?

"Ray Martin, a director with the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, the state's largest sportsmen's group, believes the time is right for Alt to leave. While Alt tried to do what he thought was right, deer numbers have dropped so low that they're "almost an embarrassment, almost a disgrace."

RE: insight trickling out...
 

You including yourself in that?

RE: insight trickling out...
 

....if you spent 1/10 the time scouting as you do complaining about this HERO you might shoot some deer. Alt is a HERO....period.....he went against the majority and the deer herd in PA is better because of him...PERIOD....uly/wing....you obviously don't go in the woods at all, since you are on this site 24/7 PATHETIC...I question whether or not you are even a hunter. Are you just a person that looks for arguments?

RE: insight trickling out...
 

hehehe, that was pretty funny :D coming from you that is.

Sounds like a personal problem to me so I will get this thread back on topic, which was the insight that is trickling out of Harrisburg that our former deer manager quit because he was disgruntled and not getting his way. And he is was in favor of taking the funding of the PGC away from hunters in an effort to get around them.

Now my question is...... if the commissioners last year they did not want the PGC merged into the DCNR and Fish Commission, nor did they want the legislators re-orging them to accept general fund money (they said they wanted to stay autonomous and a single agency), then isn't it a good thing Dr. Alt left as he was in opposition to the wishes of the commission on that issue. And...... what does our Exec Director say about taking funding from taxpayers and allowing hunters to be assigned second class citizen status in pa since they no longer would pay the bills......???

Should the commission ask that question of the Exec Director, and address that question at the january meeting?

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Was a county rep for a coupl've years for a club that belonged to the PFSC and know from the meetings there that grassroots rank and file opinion doesnt always come out.

Oh and in case you didnt know, less than 2% of hunters belong to any organization. This is sad to say, but It aint spin. Organized sportsmen ARE the minority.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

I agree that not a lot of guys belong to clubs.... but when the largest of those clubs with 60,000 members makes a statement like they did, they are representing a lot more than just thier own paying membership. They are speaking for alot of mainstream hunters who do not pay dues but feel the same way.

Ray Martin and Melody have been strong supporters of change, of the PGC and when they and thier members make that strong of a statement it does get the attention.

At one time in pa the Federation had a lot of clout, that is not as true anymore, but they still are a representation of mainstream sportsman in pa. And I am not about to put them down for speaking out for what sportsmen want in pa, lord knows hunters are
not getting much help these days.

I have gone to enough meetings to know that this change of attitude from the organized groups is HUGE to the testimony that will be given to the commissioners. They were
some of the last groups to try and give Alt all the room he wanted. To give him a chance.

And when PFSC says its "an embarassment"...... then the emporer has no clothes!

RE: insight trickling out...
 

they still weild plenty of clout! Any org with 60,000 members talking to legislators is a tremendous POWER.
They've already proven to some of the commissioners just how much of a force they are ...by just making rumblings as to how they feel the deer managent is being handled...Alt chose to Cut 'N Run

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Chic,

I am from MN and curious to know what happens to your state. From all the readings I am siding with those that favor the reduction.

RE: insight trickling out...
 

Lots of people are curious. Its easy to be when it happens in another state. No risk for you. As one NY hunter said here on the forum this week " hey you pa guys ought to see upstate NY's low deer #'s". Well, isn't that the whole point of Pa hunters speaking out and writing thier commissioners?
and legislators?..... BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO BE LIKE UPSTATE NY with a 18% success rate.

But we have 6 years under this deer team, and they admitted they were "ineffective". For all thier promises of more and bigger bucks, we got a reduced buck harvest from 203,000 prior to ARHR, to 165k the next year, dooooooown to 142k the next and we don't really know exactly how dismal this year was as the final results don't come in till March. but one of our commissioners (whom I believe is privy to some preliminary insights) says;

"We're killing the same big bucks we've killed for 10 years," (Mohr) said. "The only difference is, when you see them laying on the butcher shop floor, there aren't a bunch of spikes around them."

Mohr said he believes the buck kill this year will be around 100,000. That means about one in 10 hunters bagged a buck, he said.
"If you look at that average, some hunters will get a buck once every 10 years," he said. "And then you have guys who get bucks every year, which means somewhere there's a hunter who's only getting a buck once every 20 or 30 years.

"There are Pennsylvania hunters who now will never kill a buck in their lifetime and that bothers me."


Thats what you get after 6 years of Alt.


Heres some more.

"Ray Martin, a director with the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, the state's largest sportsmen's group, believes the time is right for Alt to leave. While Alt tried to do what he thought was right, deer numbers have dropped so low that they're "almost an embarrassment, almost a disgrace."


"Charles Bolgiano, of Lancaster County, is a director of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, Alt's most severe critic. He cheered word of Alt's retirement, saying his deer management strategies were built on the politics of satisfying foresters and others at the expense of good science.
"All of that talk of overabundance of deer was just a smokescreen," Bolgiano said. "DCNR (the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources) was calling the shots."

Comments in Lancaster paper from Game Commissioner Steven Mohr. One of seven commissioners today:
"Stephen L. Mohr of Bainbridge, who is one of seven members of the Board of Game Commissioners, said Alt never delivered on his promise of more big bucks.
"We're killing the same big bucks we've killed for 10 years," Mohr said. "The only difference is, when you see them laying on the butcher shop floor, there aren't a bunch of spikes around them."

Mohr said he believes the buck kill this year will be around 100,000. That means about one in 10 hunters bagged a buck, he said.
"If you look at that average, some hunters will get a buck once every 10 years," he said. "And then you have guys who get bucks every year, which means somewhere there's a hunter who's only getting a buck once every 20 or 30 years.

"There are Pennsylvania hunters who now will never kill a buck in their lifetime and that bothers me."

I bought into Alt's program in the beginning. It seemed to make sense to a non-scientist like me.

But I guess I started to lose faith in it about a year ago when I heard Alt continue to preach for the fourth year in a row that we need to kill more deer.
Again, I'm not a scientist, but it just became harder for me to accept the fact that the one and only way to save our forests is to kill the deer, kill the deer, kill the deer.
And even if that is the only scientific way to save them, then I guess I'm not in favor of putting the health of our forests above deer hunting.
I have no doubts that there are places where there are too many deer that are causing a lot of damage. The problem is, those deer live in areas that don't get hunted, and Alt's program only focused on killing deer where they are hunted.
So our State Game Lands, state forests, state parks and other public lands, as well as private property where hunting is allowed, have been getting pounded season after season by hunters with an ever-increasing number of doe tags in their pockets, while the islands of privately-owned land where hunting is forbidden remain untouched.
Call me thick-headed, call me a dumb redneck, but that's a plan I just couldn't support any longer. It stopped making sense."



Maybe you don't want to take my word so the above quotes from the LARGEST sportsmens group in pa who SUPPORTED Alt is very telling, as well as the the comments from a sitting commissioner and Charles Bolgiano who the PGC has bestowed the states highest wildlife conservation honors. Cal Dubrock (ex-Gary's boss) said Bolgiano has done more for hunters in Pa than any other man in the last 40 years.
He was on the Governors Advisory panel under Ridge.

When they all speak together, you ought to be listening......;)