Have you been to Wis.?? Look at the difference in Population... Wis. has realatively noone there.... We have Phily and Pittsburgh and Harrisburg...

The entire issue is not the deer going down, it all revolves around carrying capacity.... There are too many deer for the amount of food in PA....This causes deer to overbrowse the forest which in turn does not permit new growth or rejuvenation of the existing forest.....

Most of our farms are dead these days...Wis. is full of producing farms as is Ill, In, Oh, Kan, Iowa....

Geez....

I don't know what they are teaching you in NJ, but you might want to visit the Penna Farm Show in Harrsiburg going on right now. One in six jobs in Pa is agriculture based. And the 2nd largest income for PA is thier production of hardwood timber. Pa timber products are sold word wide. And..... pa has set aside a large number of acres of public game lands 1.4 million in addition to the states "state" owned forests 2.5 million.

It is that dependance on revenue from big timber and from the largest pa lobby the Pa Farm bureau, that has led to the recent efforts to reduce, reduce, reduce.

Sorry.... but you can't pretend pa is made up of Philly and Pittsburgh.


One fact you may not know is that in pa the PGC does not consider anything other than forested land as able to support deer. To establish thier deer density goals they do not consider farm fields, gold courses, orchards, overgrown fields, former farms, powerlines, roadsides full of vetch and clover, meadows....... as able to feed deer.

The only thing they consider to set DD goals is is FORESTED land in sapling, pole or mature timber. Our southern areas that are full of dairy farms, orchards, fields and patches of brushy suburbia have the lowest deer density goals. Look at a map, york county has a goal of 6dpsm and it is has more food, more habitat, and the richest soils.


yet the PGC dd goal in 4d with mountains and mature forest they have set at 14dpsm??????

If the PA deer team were in Wisconsin, they would not consider any farm (nothing other than forest) as habitat. And Wis would be going through major herd reductions too. Because NONE of thier farms or non forest areas would be counted or considered as able to feed deer.


Maybe I know more about habitat and deer density goas than you thought.

First off, I own and farm a large farm in Westmoreland County, haven't lived in NJ for about 6 years....

Second can't eat timber.. and as far as I can tell timber is not soy, corn, or any other food source...

I have not done any real investigation but it makes sense that they use that as there are few producing farms of the aforementioned....If the word is too big sorry...Timber would be the poorest provider of food for animals so that would make total sense as few farms equals less food...

I was born and raised in PA and realized that there were too many California thinkin individuals there.. So, I really do not interact with them...I hate to pay my taxes every season only to have some redneck who can't spell license slip on my place and claim he can not read the big yellow sign....I did my time in the service and now I would like to see some good hunting here on my farm... If not it really doesn't matter as I can translate sub-division even for you so I can purchase a chunk of property to have somewhere else in a deer state...

Can someone post the deer herd numbers from OH, IA, IN, IL, KY, KS. I bet the all have half of what PA has but combined they don't complain about hunting deer as much as PA hunters. Aren't you supposed to kill deer when you hunt? I know in OH you only used to be able to get 1-2 deer a year and if they want a deer they will shoot a doe or a fawn or a buck whatever comes through. Now in some counties u can take 3 deer because they want the herd to come down, just like PA. The guys I hunt with in OH are lovin it because they get an extra deer this year. In OH I think they have 700,000 deer and they want to knock them down. PA has 1,000,000+ and the hunters want more deer. I guess it is just what you are used to. OH hunters are used to a low herd PA hunters aren't used to it and don't want it. Doesn't sound like they care about the animal or the habitat just what they want right now.

Here is one undisputable Fact.There are many folks here on HN message board that are Sick to Death of hearin PA hunters belly ache about Dr ALT,PGC,AR etc..etc.. Bla...Bla...and the alleged conspiracy thats goin on to deplete the almighty 1M+ PA deer herd.

Go to the meeting on 1/23 that everbodys yappin about. Standup and say whatever you gotta say to whom ever,and get on with your life as a hunter.

Sounds like a broken record playin the same old tune.

Thats a very interesting perception, but you did not bother to do any homework, just supposition.

Pa is a state that has long and rich hunting traditions. they put between 800,000 and 900,000 hunters into the woods just for deer season.

They are much more akin to Mich or Wis. than little Ohio.

If you would compare apples to apples (intead of apples to chevy's).


Compare us to states with similar numbers of hunters, and we are no different in what we want. Our hunters are just like other hunters, they want a reasonable opportunity to take game.

Pa recently reduced that opportunity, and if it happened in your state, there would be concerned hunters speaking too.


I will note your disapproval, but in reality....we do not want to be like little Ohio or Indiana.

Thanks AJ for that very in depth analysis. You must have put a lot into that.

But you skipped over one important thing when you rambled....

In PA when Dr. Alt took over we harvested 203,000 bucks. This year
we are estimated to have harvested signifigantly lowe numbers of 110,000 according to Game Commissioner Mohr. Now that AJ, is a signifigant drop.

Dare I say that had that kind of a drop occured in your state that there may be a few words spoken on the subject.

I think I am hearing some jealousy......or some just do not want to hear the emporer has no clothes. The worshipers had crossed thier fingers and wished upon a star that big booners would pop out of every bush in pa....... and when that did not happen and the vaunted deer manager quit saying he was "ineffective" then it upset some fella's.


Oh no, they decry, its not all it was cracked up to be! My goodness how it upsets some.

Hey for everyone who is a worshipper of Alt, how come your states aren't rushing to follow his plan ??????

[:-]

What an arrogant bore. If you think you're educating anyone Chick, you're sadly mistaken. I've seen "Gadflys" like you before. You've got alot to say, but you don't accomplish much of anything.

Chickory what I was trying to show was that all of those states have half the deer population as PA and there hunters are used to seeing the few deer that they see. But you don't see them on here complaining about not seeing any deer. OH at least and probably those other states have taken a proactive approach over the years to keep their herds within balance with the habitat. PA is just now taking action to get its deer numbers under control. About 10-15 years to late. It may see harsh right now, the low sightings, but you will get used to it just like other states with low deer populations do. Don't worry there will be enough left to hunt.

chickory is just like the guys in my hometown who I have to listen to all day long...If I had listened to him I would still be broke in PA.. Instead of listening to the data, which he is really incapable of doing, he states his perception of facts...

Simple math and idea...If the population went down and most of the normal kill was a yearling, and we are going to let them grow up 1 more year, that would mean most of our deer were 1.5 if they were not shot the following year...

If the food was poor and they could not feed their bodies properly then nature would not permit them to waste energy on a useless bone mass on their head...

This would make the kill remain low for 3.5 yrs...That means that we should see better results this upcoming year..