THE COLLAPSE OF Pa DEER HERD & A FAMILY TRADITION

[WhiteFeather]

While everyone is out there hunting here is something to consider from a wildlife biologist of why you "may" not be seeing the amount of deer you saw just 10 years ago.

THE COLLAPSE OF PENNSYLVANIA'S DEER HERD
AND A FAMILY TRADITION
By John Eveland

Recently I spoke with a taxidermist who said that he can no longer make a living from his business. In addition to taxidermy, he leases parcels of land in Texas and guides deer hunts there. He said that he has seen overzealous deer biologists collapse herds in other areas of the country, and said they have now destroyed Pennsylvania's herd and his business.

I was born and raised in a small town in Columbia County. On one side flows the Susquehanna River, the Appalachian Mountains rise over a thousand feet only a mile on the other side of town, and surrounding areas are comprised of farms with scattered but plentiful woodlots. Deer hunting was always phenomenal there, and a tradition for nearly every father and son. My grandfather, dad, brother, and I hunted the mountain and surrounding farm woodlots from the time I was able to get a hunting license – over a decade before I became a professional forester and wildlife biologist at Penn State.

The mountain area we hunted is about eight miles long and two miles wide from farms and woodlots on one side to those on the other side. The top of the mountain is at lease a mile wide, and it's all a part of State Game Lands (58). When I was a young wildlife biologist, I realized that no matter where you shot a deer on the mountain, its stomach was filled with grain, corn, and farmland feed. For the 40-50 years that we hunted there, I understood that for all intents and purposes, there was no limit to the carrying capacity of the mountain, because all the deer were spending their nights feeding in the farmlands and lush riparian bottomlands at the base of the mountain, and spending their days on the mountain. It was not unusual to see herds of 20-30 deer, and this was not an unnatural occurrence given the abundance of available forage. With high quality existing habitat or through creative habitat enhancement, carrying capacity, and thus the density of the herd, can skyrocket without irreparable impact to deer or the forest.

As a forester, I also realized that 40 years ago this mountain habitat was in great shape; we often hunted the "slashings" – dense regeneration – along the sides and across the top. We even hunted cottontails on the mountainside, a testament to the abundance of food and cover. Today, the forest and wildlife habitat looks as good as it did 40 years ago, except for the lack of deer. They've been decimated, and continue to be persecuted under the PGC's deer-reduction program. As a scientist, a forester, and a wildlife biologist, I ask myself why the PGC has decimated this herd, when there always was, and remains, textbook food and cover, and hence an extremely high carrying capacity. Obviously herd reduction has had nothing to do with science, and if they truly believe that it does, then the level of incompetence on Elmerton Avenue is incomprehensible.

Two years ago I saw two deer on the first day of the concurrent season --a young 4-point buck and a doe. The buck was shot moments after I left it pass. My brother found a second dead 4-point in the morning, and an acquaintance shot a third. On the second day I saw a single deer (another4- point), and as before, it was shot moments after it passed me about 20 yards away. I witnessed four dead yearling buck in two days. The guys are shooting first and counting second. Gary Alt won acceptance to hunt cub bears because the cub law, he argued, represented a great waste of the resource. How hypocritical! When it fits ones agenda, an even greater waste of the young buck resource is ignored.

Last year we saw very few deer on my Columbia County mountain. I talked with a father and son who had traveled some distance to hunt the mountain for the first time. The father said that his traditional deer hunting area had been destroyed, and he was seeking a new area where his young son might get a shot at a deer. He had heard that this mountain was still harboring some deer, but at the end of the day he was disappointed. He and his son only saw two doe, and he didn't let his son shoot at them because he wasn't sure in which WMU they were hunting. Note that there are two WMUs that connect within about a mile of my home town – a confusing circumstance that almost caused my dad to quit his favorite sport. He could no longer hunt the mountain as well as farms and woodlots near the town; he wasn't able to hunt a mile from town on weekdays after work if he chose to hunt the mountain on opening day.

Things have gotten so bad on our mountain in Columbia County, that my brother, two sons-in-law, and I did not hunt there this year. It was a 45-year tradition that ended for my brother and me, and we had to seek a new area that still might have a huntable herd – as the father and son had tried to do the year before on our mountain. My son-in-law's boss and his 13-year-old son asked if they could join us; he has a cabin along the Allegheny River near Franklin, and has not seen a deer in the last two hunting seasons. My next-door neighbor said that his family gave up their camp in the norther-tier counties a few years ago because of the lack of deer, and they now hunt in woodlots adjacent to Pittsburgh in WMU 2B. He said it doesn't feel like it's hunting anymore, but it's their only chance of seeing a deer. My auto mechanic said he's keeping his camp in Potter County for turkey hunting, but can no longer hunt deer there with his father, son, and daughter.

We, as was true for many other hunters who we talked with on opening day, decided to leave our traditional hunting grounds in a last-ditch effort to salvage another year of hunting by traveling about three hours to a specially owned and managed property. The area is large, breathtakingly beautiful, sports great lush habitat, and (according to two local old-timers) has also been shot-out. They still have unlimited DMAP tags available, even though the habitat is so good that it could support a tremendous number of deer--dense understory, cuttings with dense regeneration (they've built massive deer exclosures around some cuttings with no visual difference in the amount of regeneration inside versus outside), red and chestnut oak acorns that cover the ground, and a massive network of fields that are super-planted as wildlife food plots over a mile back into the mountain. Why would they be issuing DMAP tags and have reduced the herd so much (obviously still trying to go further) while going to such an effort to cultivate food plots? Why are they collapsing this herd?

At 7 am on opening day I shot an 8-point that was running with two doe. I stayed out walking in the mountain-and-valley terrain all day, and didn't see another deer until 4 pm (five high-tailing doe). The other five in our party had a wonderful time, but didn't fire a shot. We saw a couple bear but no turkeys. I know of only a fawn and two doe that came out of this several-thousand-acre area on Monday -- besides my buck. Certainly there must have been more.

My family's experience is a microcosm of what has happened, and continues to be prosecuted, throughout rural and wild Pennsylvania. Had such a draconian act as the collapse of Pennsylvania's deer herd been perpetrated by someone other than the staff of PGC, he would have been imprisoned for the impacts that he inflicted upon the commonwealth. Yet the staff remains respected and employed, and the program engaged. There is overwhelming documentation that the deer reduction program is a ruse – a deceitful agenda-driven scheme that is devoid of science, and callous to the effects on sportsmen, small businesses, and families. What have we permitted to happen to the commonwealth? What have we done?

If you want more information on this subject of the Deer Mismanagement program in PA videos & documentation with answers of who, how & why its being done.

http://acslpa.org/

please visit the Allegheny County Sportmen's League web site
look under Deer Mismanagement

[WhiteFeather]

If you want more information on this subject of the Deer Mismanagement program in PA videos & documentation with answers of who, how & why its being done.

http://acslpa.org/

please visit the Allegheny County Sportmen's League web site
look under Deer Mismanagement

grabbed this one for possible updates otherwise will delete

[Dredly]

Very good article as always

[CHEMICAL]

The deer herd shrinkage is not shrinking at all. All the deer are taking refuge in the poorly kept, ugly scrub brush communities that have been popping up everywhere over the last 2 decades.

Communities where you are not allowed to landscape your yard or cut down trees, and communities in which you are not allowed to hunt.

This has a lot to do with the influx of city folk. Contractors and companies see dollar signs and build "natural retreat" wooded communities out in the middle of no where for people that think skunks are fluffy cats.

My community and the adjacent ones are plagued by skinny malnourished sickly looking deer that can barely get a bite to eat due to the insane over population of them here.

[partsman]

i have read every post you have made on this subject and completely agree with how the psg has destroyed hunting, what can we do to start changing this?

[Gun Bowanna]

[QUOTE=partsman;1422270, what can we do to start changing this?[/QUOTE]

Haven't you heard?
Define "Cronism at it's Finest". see > Pennsylvania game Commission


Ya wanna change it? You'd have to change the state constitution I believe.

[Dredly]

The deer herd shrinkage is not shrinking at all. All the deer are taking refuge in the poorly kept, ugly scrub brush communities that have been popping up everywhere over the last 2 decades.

Communities where you are not allowed to landscape your yard or cut down trees, and communities in which you are not allowed to hunt.

This has a lot to do with the influx of city folk. Contractors and companies see dollar signs and build "natural retreat" wooded communities out in the middle of no where for people that think skunks are fluffy cats.

My community and the adjacent ones are plagued by skinny malnourished sickly looking deer that can barely get a bite to eat due to the insane over population of them here.

Nah, thats a part of it but the deer herd from 20 years ago, even 10 years ago has been completely decimated.

[AxiTech]

"What can we do"? I plan to not hunt next year. If we could get even half the hunters to take one year off, it would send a very clear message to Harrisburg and PGC. Don't buy the license, and send a letter to PGC explaining their mismanagement is the reason.

Think of it this way: If we were to all of a sudden start killing all the women of child-bearing age, how soon would there be no Little League games to go to?
This is what we are doing to our deer herd.

[Dredly]

"What can we do"? I plan to not hunt next year. If we could get even half the hunters to take one year off, it would send a very clear message to Harrisburg and PGC. Don't buy the license, and send a letter to PGC explaining their mismanagement is the reason.

Think of it this way: If we were to all of a sudden start killing all the women of child-bearing age, how soon would there be no Little League games to go to?
This is what we are doing to our deer herd.

That is exactly what the higher ups want. If the PGC can't fund itself then it will have to be merged with other gov't orgs, and state game land (and rights) then merge with state forest (and rights) and that feeds right into the state budget so they can give it to philly The best thing to do is buy your license and every doe tag you can, every dmap tag you can, and then throw them away.

but with the over-abudance of coyotes and bear I doubt that it would make a difference the year after

[Mtbkski]

I still think we are our own worst enemy.

When I was a kid, you got one deer a year. ONE. If you got a deer in archery. Your season was over. If you got one with the Muzzleloader. Over. Got a buck. Over. You didn't get to take one in each season.

Now, we take two or more deer each. Now, if the normal amount of hunters that get deer are taking two or more deer than they were 20 years ago. Well, it pretty much explains itself why there aren't as many deer.

Of course there are less deer. We are shooting way more than we use too.

OK, so maybe some other factors are involved. But I still feel that we as hunters are the biggest problem. How many of you out there got one deer and went out again hoping to get another or maybe two or three till the season was over?