Do you agree with extent of Herd Reduction in Pa?
12-27-2008, 11:37 AM
#11
Boone & Crockett
Join Date: Oct 1998
Location: Hughesville, PA USA
Posts: 18,322
RE: Do you agree with extent of Herd Reduction in Pa?
ORIGINAL: BTBowhunter
So far so good. To this point we're OK. Most or the HR was warrantedbut it would appear that some areas now need to be re-evaluated.
So far so good. To this point we're OK. Most or the HR was warrantedbut it would appear that some areas now need to be re-evaluated.
12-27-2008, 11:52 AM
#12
Giant Nontypical
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: SW PA USA
Posts: 7,220
RE: Do you agree with extent of Herd Reduction in Pa?
I know that Gary Alt has become the whipping boy and the poster child for all that's not right with the world but one thing must be acknowledged about him.
He seemed to have the ability to get the PGC to make swift changes where they were needed. He admitted thatmuch of the new plan was uncharted waters and virtually promised us that there would be problems and mistakes along the way.
He was quick to change the course when a problem surfaced. An example that comes to mind was the one year experiment with having a one day concurrent buck doe seasonon the last day of the old buck season. It caused an exceptionally high buck kill that day and was never done again.
Something that may now be lacking now that he's gone is the flexibility he brought to the table. The current management doesn't seem as willing to adapt as quickly he did. For example, the current buck only season in 2G 2D etc was well recieved by huntesr but resisted by the current staff.
He can also be credited with spearheading some of the best research on whitetails available today. The fawn study, buck study and the doe study are allregarded as valuableby biologosts all over the country.
JMHO
He seemed to have the ability to get the PGC to make swift changes where they were needed. He admitted thatmuch of the new plan was uncharted waters and virtually promised us that there would be problems and mistakes along the way.
He was quick to change the course when a problem surfaced. An example that comes to mind was the one year experiment with having a one day concurrent buck doe seasonon the last day of the old buck season. It caused an exceptionally high buck kill that day and was never done again.
Something that may now be lacking now that he's gone is the flexibility he brought to the table. The current management doesn't seem as willing to adapt as quickly he did. For example, the current buck only season in 2G 2D etc was well recieved by huntesr but resisted by the current staff.
He can also be credited with spearheading some of the best research on whitetails available today. The fawn study, buck study and the doe study are allregarded as valuableby biologosts all over the country.
JMHO
12-27-2008, 05:41 PM
#14
Nontypical Buck
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
RE: Do you agree with extent of Herd Reduction in Pa?
He was quick to change the course when a problem surfaced. An example that comes to mind was the one year experiment with having a one day concurrent buck doe season on the last day of the old buck season. It caused an exceptionally high buck kill that day and was never done again.
You really have no idea what you are talking about. Alt increased the doe season in 2000 to 4 days ,including the last Sat, of buck season in order to increase the doe harvest. He implemented the concurrent seasons in 2001 to increase the doe harvest even more ,but he reduced the doe tags too much so the antlerless harvest decreased , but the buck harvest remained the same as in 2000. ARs were implemented in 2002 to reduce the harvest of 1.5 buck and as a result of ARs and HR the buck harvest has declined from 203K in 2001 to 109K in 2007.
The buck dispersal study duplicated the work done by D, Rosenberry before he came to PA. The antlered buck study and the doe study duplicated studies in other states and did little to contribute to the knowledge of of whitetail deer. The Miss. study on on ARs was more extensive than any other study and showed that the average rack size of 2.5+ buck decreased statewide.
12-27-2008, 07:38 PM
#20
Banned
Thread Starter
Join Date: Sep 2008
Location:
Posts: 2,978
RE: Do you agree with extent of Herd Reduction in Pa?
Gary Alt spearheaded very little. He was a frontman and little else imho.
At first I thought he was a good guy for the job, charismatic, a decent speaker, seemingly sincere.
Then toward the end, started finding out he was tighter than two coats of paint with groups like Audubon etc. They still speak of him VERY highly to this day. A web search for audubon and Gary Alt will confirm that for any doubters.
He also started to become over the top. With wild claims of absolutely impossible buck to doe ratios that never existed. Made rediculous statements like "When I saw the shape the forest was in it drove me to my knees!"[:'(][:'(] Even though he had been a biologist and in those forests for DECADES prior to that! He also began demanding that we have ALTERNATIVE funding to remove hunters as far as possible from the decision making, and so reductions could go to extremes unabated.
When Alt left, he said he was doing so because of political pressure and he felt pgc was not "staying the course" in the way of reduction. Even though, at the time, the allocation was still EXTREMELY high.
After seeing all this and more, enough was enough. The guy was a straight up kook, and his leaving was one of the very few bright spots that can be pointed to in the last several years as far as anything about deer management in Pa is concerned.
At first I thought he was a good guy for the job, charismatic, a decent speaker, seemingly sincere.
Then toward the end, started finding out he was tighter than two coats of paint with groups like Audubon etc. They still speak of him VERY highly to this day. A web search for audubon and Gary Alt will confirm that for any doubters.
He also started to become over the top. With wild claims of absolutely impossible buck to doe ratios that never existed. Made rediculous statements like "When I saw the shape the forest was in it drove me to my knees!"[:'(][:'(] Even though he had been a biologist and in those forests for DECADES prior to that! He also began demanding that we have ALTERNATIVE funding to remove hunters as far as possible from the decision making, and so reductions could go to extremes unabated.
When Alt left, he said he was doing so because of political pressure and he felt pgc was not "staying the course" in the way of reduction. Even though, at the time, the allocation was still EXTREMELY high.
After seeing all this and more, enough was enough. The guy was a straight up kook, and his leaving was one of the very few bright spots that can be pointed to in the last several years as far as anything about deer management in Pa is concerned.