TWOWITHONE

Dick the habitat was always good down there who you fooling. If you folks are saying the hunters are,nt sending in the report cards over 60 percent I would think your stats are blown up also or they would reflect something else. Your deermanagement plan did,nt even include the SRAs the first yr. Would you say before AR/HR came to town we hunters carried over 20% of our bucks into the next hunting season from 1 to the other.

TWOWITHONE

Next it is obvious that you, like many others, aren’t wise enough to understand how important it is to keep harvesting a lot of deer in those southern management units, unless you want damaged habitat that supports a lot fewer deer then you have now in your future.

I dont know about that statement thereRSB your pal got 7 deer there this past season, cant say for sure but were probaly all harvested in 2-G the worst habitat in the entire state so they say.

R.S.B.

Yes many of the units of the southwest presently do have fair to good habitat. That is because the deer harvests on those areas have been pretty high for about the past twenty years, and the time the deer numbers started to increase.

If is for that reason the habitat there is still pretty good. If you back off of the deer harvests you will see the habitat decline and then you will also so the deer numbers decline even more then they are now. That is the part you people just can’t seem to grasp. If you want to have high deer numbers you have to protect the habitat instead of the deer. As long as you have the habitat you can have the deer even though their numbers will fluctuate up and down to some degree. If you protect the deer instead of the habitat then the deer will damage the habitat and then the deer numbers will decline to where the can’t possibly increase unless the habitat improves first. Some of those areas in that southwestern corner are showing some rather significant signs of over browsing during the past decade too. Those areas certainly aren’t exempt from having too many deer, declining habitat and naturally declining deer populations that then follow declining habitat. You also have to remember that every new house, yard, highway, shopping mall, etc. take away a chunk of habitat that once fed some deer. You can ’t just keep crowding more deer into less habitat forever, you have to keep fewer deer every time you lose a piece of what was once deer habitat.

As for you comment concerning the report cards and 60% of the hunters not reporting about all I can say if that it seems you don’t have any idea how that works either. That number isn’t a number picked out of the air or guessed at. That reporting rate comes from Game Commission personnel touching between 30 and 40 thousand deer each year, recording information from them and then waiting to see what percentage of those hunters that we know killed a deer, because we touched it, send in a report card. You can believe what ever you want but denying the statistical logic of the reporting rate is nothing more then being in a state of denial and choosing to have your head in the sand.

Before antler restrictions it was estimated that hunters killed about 80% of all antlered deer so yes it is likely about 20% did survive the fall seasons. In some areas, especially around the more metropolitan areas and the major highways, it was also estimated that about 20% of those that made it through the season were the victim of other forms of mortality before the next fall. That simply didn’t leave enough bucks in the fall population to get the does bred during the correct time periods.

R.S. Bodenhorn

R.S.B.

And you point is what?

There are many hunters that can harvest that many deer in unit 2G if they learn to hunt where deer live instead of just where they wish they could see deer.

DougE is just one of many hunters that has learned to find deer by learning more about what deer eat and where to find the good habitat that still supports good deer numbers.

The same is true for hunters all over this state that have learned enough about deer habitat to know where they truly should expect to find deer and then are willing to spend the time hunting there to be successful.

R.S. Bodenhorn

Cornelius08

RSB, Doug hunts. Lots of people do. He doesnt speak from a hunters perspective. He speaks like an obtuse "naturalist". A few of which even claim to be hunters. Although their goals dont include "love of hunting"...Its simply a way to slaughter the 150 lb white tail tree wrecker rats.[:'(]

"Yes many of the units of the southwest presently do have fair to good habitat."

And ALWAYS has been.

"If is for that reason the habitat there is still pretty good. If you back off of the deer harvests you will see the habitat decline and then you will also so the deer numbers decline even more then they are now."

Nope...Didnt happen with over twice the present overwinter herd, so thats utter nonsense.

"If you protect the deer instead of the habitat then the deer will damage the habitat and then the deer numbers will decline to where the can’t possibly increase unless the habitat improves first."

And thesw herd is FAR from that point.Also, that "point" has its limits. The point of diminished returns.For no reason other than catering to ecofools and their distorted beliefs of presettlement condition "utopias".

"Those areas certainly aren’t exempt from having too many deer, declining habitat and naturally declining deer populations that then follow declining habitat."

No danger of that. Thanks for the concern. You know even far less about down here than you do your own area. And that is saying much.

"As for you comment concerning the report cards and 60% of the hunters not reporting about all I can say if that it seems you don’t have any idea how that works either."

I do know that very conveniently the reporting rateissaid to be dropping along with the dropping harvest. Therefore its very likely the dropping harvest is actually dropping even more than the estimates show thanks to some good ol' pgc "massaging".

"That simply didn’t leave enough bucks in the fall population to get the does bred during the correct time periods. "

Thats a lie and the pgc reproductive data proves it. The timing of the breeding window according to pgc HAS NOT CHANGED. Also, as we discussed, the embryo counts DROPPED as did the percentage of adult does bred STEADILY since this joke reduction has been ongoing. Lets stick to the facts and not make up stuff. We have discussed the pgc data enough for you to have memorized this by now. But apparently you dont want to know the truth. Read the annual reports, you just may learn something.

DougE

This is actually pretty funny.Sorry to dissapoint you guys but I'm not a member of the Audubon society nor do I have any relatives that work for the PGC or DCNR.R.S.B is 100% correct.Iwas originally outraged at the way this deer management plan was pushed on us and I was verydisgusted at how much the herd was to be reduced.Although I knew we had to many deer and it was obvious that the habitat had suffered,I wasn't convinced that we needed that many less deer.I started doing research,going to several habitat tours a year and basically just opening up my mind.Also,About 5 years ago,Ihelped form a deer management committee in the community where I live.I'm on this committee with a our district foreter from DCNR and another forester from the US forest service.between the tree of us,we brought in experts,including foresters that specialize in habitat improvements and biolodists from PSU,the US forest service and the PGC.Each year we did different types of population analysis and habitat anylysis including several miles of browse impact surveys.From knowing these individuals,I've also gotten the privelage of walking through and seeing many of the experimental treatments that are being tried,icluding lime,fire and herbicides.Yes,I have gone on R.S.B's habitat tours both with a group and with just him.The amount of work he has done along with the food and cover crews in his district is amazing.I can assure you,R.S.B is much more than a deer cop.He's one of the best woodsman that I've ever met.In the end,I got see see hundreds and hundreds of examples of how the deer effect and live within their habitat.The facts are truly indisputable.Also,by getting to know many of these experts,I've also come to learn that they're all very serious and in most cases,successful deer hunters.They do this tough job because they care about the resource.They don't do it to ruin hunting and they don't do it for financial gain like so many on here try to insinuate.Nope there are many dedicated people that care about the future ofhunting,the deer and the rest of our wildlife resources.

TWO,yesI did kill seven deer in 2G this year and last I year I killed 6.In fact,it's been quite a while since I've killed less than 5.I have no problems doing it and I feel no guilt.I rarely ever see another hunter or another bootprint where I do most of my hunting on public land.Besides,if the habitat is poor or just starting to recover,there's no reason to let the herd increase in those areas.

BTBowhunter

IMHO, those criticizing Doug for harvesting 7 deer are barking up the wrong tree. Doug is using DMAPS and legally harvesting deer where additional harvests are needed. Notice that he's not spoken of harvesting any in areas where there are few deer. He went out and found the places where deer are abundant.

Doug is helping the resource by doing what he obviously loves to do. Good for him.

If you guys want to take someone to task, go after the guys who claim there are no deer where they hunt but still continue to hunt there with every intention of killing a deer when they find one. IMHO, There's only two possible ways to describe those guys. Either they are wrong about the deer numbers in their area and are just not skilled enough to find the deer or the deer numbers are actuallylow but these guys don't care enough about the resource to hunt elsewhere.

I've harvested 6 in PA this year myself. I did it in 3 different WMU's and utilized DMAP permits as well. Every area where I harvested deer still has them in abundance. Two of us are seeing an average of 25+ deer every day we've been out in the late season. There are also some old favorite spots where I currently do not hunt even though I still would enjoy hunting there. I've let those areas alone because they are getting a level of pressure that, in my opinion, will lead to enough being harvested so I letthem alone.

DougE

They can bust on me all they want BT.The truth is,none of them have a cluehow deer impact the habitat.They also have no idea how the deer use the habitat at different times of the year.It is humorous that two of the biggest complainers live and hunt in 2B and 2A.

It's also interesting to note that 2A had one of the lowest breeding rates in the state for fawns in 2006.Less than 8% of the female fawns checked were pregnant.That's certainl;y not a sign of a healthy herd.

BTBowhunter

It sure isn't.
It could mean that the BD ratio is still out of whack or that not enough bucks are making it through the season to breed doe fawns in the secondary rut. Or it could mean that the doe fawns aren't getting to the body weight necessary to come into estrous in their first season.

None of those is a sign of a healthy herd.

DougE

I always found it funny that these guys in the south west part of the state think the habitat is great and deer aren't effected by habitat conditions or weather.According to the winter mortality study and the winter of 2004,mortality was pretty significant in part of the southwest.For instance,Beaver county had one of the highest mortality rates in the state with 3 dead deer per mile.Somerset county had the highest with 3.26 deer per mile.Alleghany had.98.green county had .56 deer per miles which was much higher than we had in Clearfield county.