I think everyone here agrees on a few things at least...

1 WMU's are way too big.

2 Because they're too big we have areas within the same WMU's where there are too few or too many deer.


Maybe we ought to put on a united front to make the PGC fix this problem first. With smaller, better mananged WMU's, we will probably have nothing left to squabble about...

cept maybe AR, Sunday hunting etc etc etc etc

I don't know what they were thinking when they thought up the WMU's. Why couldn't the counties be the WMU's? I guess the were using roads and rivers as boundaries to make it easier to define and stick to for everyone. I think that every county should have it's own herd manager that compiles data for regulation purposes and performs actual field surveys on a local basis. Someone who actually knows the land and walks it once in awhile. Maybe I want too much, Rendell would never go for it. That would mean putting more money back into the sport. Rendell wants to merge everything and mine for gold.

livbucks when WMUs were originally setup there were more, the PGC pared them back

The reason WMU's were made large (22) was because it made one doe tag more efficient to fill. One hunter could not only use it in his normal county but in 3-4 other counties as well.

Had the # of doe tags stayed exactly before AR/HR, the harvest would have increased because that same # of tags was now more efficient to fill.

You two guys are well versed on what our deer managers want, and that is to reduce the herd to a level that is "balanced with the habitat" and that according to thier DD table on thier web site is 12.1 dpsm. Today according to the PGC we are at 25dpsm (same table) and that means we need to continue to harvest more deer to get to that goal.

Now I know what BTB meant in his post, that smaller WMU's would help to balance the overharvest in one area and underharvest in another. I agree, but in order to get the number of reduction that they PGC wants for 2005 then they will need to increas the # of doe tags to get their targeted number for doe harvest.

Michigan uses 100 DMU's which are counties (except for a few special regs areas which are thier own DMU's too).

Now whats odd is that in Pa in 1998 there was a citizens committee that was formed with Scot Williamson to discuss deer options and offer suggestions on how hunters felt. And our suggestion on WMU's is that they should smaller than 22. The members of that committee suggested the 67 counties + having some of those larger ones broken down into smaller sub units (ie: 13A, 13B, 13C for example) A county like Centre with much different hunting north of 80 than south of it.

And the PGC rejected it.

So, I'm not disgreeing with either of you. I have question though.

If you ask for smaller WMU's, then hunters won't be as free to roam larger areas to harvest doe. It will mean that X number of tags will be less efficient. Since the PGC still wants and needs more herd reductions done to "balance the herd with its habitat" are you then going to ask for more doe tags to be issued to balance the loss of efficiency that large WMU's presented. Or are you saying that you want smaller WMU's with < or = the number of doe tags for 2004 so that there are not as many doe taken, and thus opposing the PGC deer managers on thier efforts to further reduce for the sake of the habitat?

And if we push the PGC hard enough for smaller more effective ones, we have hardly any reason to fight among one another.

Besides....How can any of the other influences involved argue against it?
Not DCNR, not farmers, not the Forest service not Timber Co's. The only ones who would argue against it are the PGC Bureacrats who might have to work harder to keep it running right.

This is the very problem that led to the too big WMU's. Heck when they first came out I heard guys bitchin up a storm cause their county got split in half. I live on the 2B 2D line in Westmoreland and local could now hunt on their land but not their neighbors. It's likely we all will have to accept some bitter pills no matter how they do the DMU's. Frankly, one of the big complaints has been from guys who dont want to cahnge where they hunt. Smaller DMU's will undoubtedly make that a bigger issue.

To answer your question, the efficency of the doe tags will probably change so the TOTAL actual number up or down cant be answered without a lot more information

Apparently you totally missed the point of Chickory's post. The fact is even with smaller WMU's the goal will still be to reduce the herd from 1.1M OWD to 550K OWD. All the forested habitat is accounted for and the PGC does not recognize the benefit of farmlands,so the areas with the most farmland will still have the lowest OWDD goals and hunters will still have a lot to complain about. There will still be just as much if not more controversey about AR, so although smaller units would be a move in the right direction,they are not the solution to the problem of HR. Revised OWDD goals are the answer, but that isn't about to happen either.

Put your calculator down for a minute and think! Of course its just a start, but, the only way the OWDD goals are gonna get a look is if there is a more manageable way of evaluating deer/ habitat balance.

No matter which side you're on, we cant fix anything till we fix this!!!

There's still one major difference, the group that wants large DPM, and the QDM group. I don't think any plan will ever please both. One good thing about smaller WMU's is that in theory each unit should be managed for 12 DPM rather than have pockets that are way below the goal.

I am totally amazed that you still don't get it. The size of the units is totally irrelevant when the PGC only recognizes forested habitat. The PGC knows how much forested habitat we have in each county and every township within that county. They know the percentage of forest in each age class within those counties and townships. Therefore, even if the WMU's were reduced to 10 SM, the average OWDD goal for the state would still be 12 DPSM and the OW herd would still be reduced to 550K and the harvests would still be cut by 50%.