The PGC Reinvents The Wheel
#21
2000 BC:
Birdrock: You gettum deer this spear season?
Cornrock: Nope. Had to let three buck go in stone axe season too. Not legal
Birdrock: That dang fool Onk Alt really messed up deer herd. Him do OK on T-REX but him no deer expert. Too many Sabre tooth. Now crossclub guys get all the does that are left.
Cornrock: bet we're down to under one gazillion deer by now
Dugg: Me get 6 this year
Birdrock: You hunt where easy. Nobody take spear to your woods anymore
BTRockthrower: Me get 5
Birdrock: You buy um deer. cost you plenty rocks!
Rockpowder: Me get plenty, buddy stoned one while it fought another buck
Birdrock: You just get lucky
Bedrock Jim: me help little caveman get first buck. Great season!
Birdrock: Me fill tag this year. You only help kid get one Nya nya nya
Dugg: This trillium good! Goes good with backstraps, want some?
BTRockthrower: I'll take some more bacKstrap
Dugg: Gimme some of both
Cornrock: Just a hobblebush protein shake for me
Rockpowder: any more crow?
Bedrock Jim: Nope! Birdrock ate it all again dangit!
Birdrock: You gettum deer this spear season?
Cornrock: Nope. Had to let three buck go in stone axe season too. Not legal
Birdrock: That dang fool Onk Alt really messed up deer herd. Him do OK on T-REX but him no deer expert. Too many Sabre tooth. Now crossclub guys get all the does that are left.
Cornrock: bet we're down to under one gazillion deer by now
Dugg: Me get 6 this year
Birdrock: You hunt where easy. Nobody take spear to your woods anymore
BTRockthrower: Me get 5
Birdrock: You buy um deer. cost you plenty rocks!
Rockpowder: Me get plenty, buddy stoned one while it fought another buck
Birdrock: You just get lucky
Bedrock Jim: me help little caveman get first buck. Great season!
Birdrock: Me fill tag this year. You only help kid get one Nya nya nya
Dugg: This trillium good! Goes good with backstraps, want some?
BTRockthrower: I'll take some more bacKstrap
Dugg: Gimme some of both
Cornrock: Just a hobblebush protein shake for me
Rockpowder: any more crow?
Bedrock Jim: Nope! Birdrock ate it all again dangit!
Cornrock gottem buck like every time leaves fall....
Cornrock no had to travel'em many days to far side of big river to do.
Cornrock no go hungry.
Cornrock no had to travel'em many days to far side of big river to do.
Cornrock no go hungry.
Cornrock no like eco-extremist clan at pgc.
Cornrock like to see club taken to audubon society.
Cornrock like to see club taken to audubon society.
You guys bust my gut.
I got us a Bad Rock Buggy to haul the deer out.
#22
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
My little foray into the past was no more fantasy than your calculation of our deer herd. Both were equally silly and meaningless. Hopefully they both bring a laugh or two.
#23
If you think my calculations of our herd is silly and meaningless, why don't you tell us how many PS deer we had in 2008, if a harvest of 335 K deer kept the herd stable? Now here is a hint. In 2000 the PGC said with a PS herd of 1.5M ,it took a harvest of 505K to keep the herd stable.
#24
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
We have a winner!!!
Then we have this.
Then we have this.
Near goal – “Successive heavy reductions in the herd brought the
numbers of the deer to a point more nearly commensurate with their
food requirements, and crowded the remaining animals back into the
forests where they belonged, thus relieving widespread farm damage
complaints. These reductions, together with the very noticeable benefits
from numerous small lumbering operations, and extensive improvement
cutting under the direction of the Commission finally produced the
results the Commission sought to attain back in 1931. ... The
Commission believes that the deer herd is currently at about the level
where it should be maintained, at least until such time as lumbering
operations again become widespread." - Game Commission Executive
Director Seth Gordon, 1941-42 Biennial Report
numbers of the deer to a point more nearly commensurate with their
food requirements, and crowded the remaining animals back into the
forests where they belonged, thus relieving widespread farm damage
complaints. These reductions, together with the very noticeable benefits
from numerous small lumbering operations, and extensive improvement
cutting under the direction of the Commission finally produced the
results the Commission sought to attain back in 1931. ... The
Commission believes that the deer herd is currently at about the level
where it should be maintained, at least until such time as lumbering
operations again become widespread." - Game Commission Executive
Director Seth Gordon, 1941-42 Biennial Report
#26
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
Since you didn't like the good news from the 40s , I am sure you will like the horrible news from 1953.
A tad melodramatic – “Much of Pennsylvania's deer range is now a
desert – a forest desert with rotting bones of starved deer." - Roger
Latham, 2/53 PA Game News
Well, maybe not that bad – “Remember the good old days when there
was a whitetail behind every bush, and it was not too unusual to start 50
or 100 deer on one drive? Remember how every member of some upstate
families would kill a deer -- including mom and grandpop? Remember
how a car with five hunters inside would have four or five deer tied to the
outside? And remember how hunters scoffed at doe hunting because it
was ‘just like shooting cows?’
“Those lush days are about gone, except for a small area in the
northcentral counties, and within five years this pocket will probably go
as have the other great concentration areas of the state...
“Hunters fought these ‘doe’ seasons, by petition and abrogation, until it
was too late. As a result, not only is high-yield deer hunting on its way
out, but in the meantime we have sacrificed our grouse, cottontail and
snowshoe hare hunting." -- Roger Latham, 2/53 P
desert – a forest desert with rotting bones of starved deer." - Roger
Latham, 2/53 PA Game News
Well, maybe not that bad – “Remember the good old days when there
was a whitetail behind every bush, and it was not too unusual to start 50
or 100 deer on one drive? Remember how every member of some upstate
families would kill a deer -- including mom and grandpop? Remember
how a car with five hunters inside would have four or five deer tied to the
outside? And remember how hunters scoffed at doe hunting because it
was ‘just like shooting cows?’
“Those lush days are about gone, except for a small area in the
northcentral counties, and within five years this pocket will probably go
as have the other great concentration areas of the state...
“Hunters fought these ‘doe’ seasons, by petition and abrogation, until it
was too late. As a result, not only is high-yield deer hunting on its way
out, but in the meantime we have sacrificed our grouse, cottontail and
snowshoe hare hunting." -- Roger Latham, 2/53 P
#27
Since you didn't like the good news from the 40s , I am sure you will like the horrible news from 1953.
“Hunters fought these ‘doe’ seasons, by petition and abrogation, until it
was too late. As a result, not only is high-yield deer hunting on its way
out, but in the meantime we have sacrificed our grouse, cottontail and
snowshoe hare hunting." -- Roger Latham, 2/53 P
“Hunters fought these ‘doe’ seasons, by petition and abrogation, until it
was too late. As a result, not only is high-yield deer hunting on its way
out, but in the meantime we have sacrificed our grouse, cottontail and
snowshoe hare hunting." -- Roger Latham, 2/53 P
Last Sunday, spring sprouts were everywhere at Latham's Acre, one of a series of cyclone-fence islands erected nearly 60 years ago on a McKean County mountaintop at North America's east-west continental divide. The fenced "deer exclosures" were built in 1950 by Roger Latham, a biologist and head researcher for the Pennsylvania Game Commission before he became the outdoors editor of the former Pittsburgh Press.
Latham died in a mountain accident in the Alps in 1979, but each spring the sprouts return to Latham's Acre, demonstrating the level of forest regeneration possible in the absence of overbrowsing deer.
Latham died in a mountain accident in the Alps in 1979, but each spring the sprouts return to Latham's Acre, demonstrating the level of forest regeneration possible in the absence of overbrowsing deer.
#28
Nontypical Buck
Thread Starter
Join Date: Apr 2008
Posts: 3,879
Cottontail, grouse and shoe hunting would have declined ,even if there wasn't any deer, as the clearcuts matured to the saw timber stage.
Furthermore, Latham was flat out wrong about the future of deer hunting in PA. Even the PGC agrees with me.
Furthermore, Latham was flat out wrong about the future of deer hunting in PA. Even the PGC agrees with me.
Deer and trees – “Once the average tree is about 10 years old, its lowest
branches are too high above the ground for a deer to reach; therefore, it
no longer produces food for a whitetail. If that tree is destined to become
merchantable timber, it might be as long as 90 years before it is cut.
Also, during those 90 years, foliage in the upper story of the tree shades
the forest beneath, so that other vegetation is unable to grow there. As
far as deer food is concerned, the tree is a wildlife desert for 90 years out
of 100, unless it happens to be a mast-producing species.” - 5\71 PA
Game News
branches are too high above the ground for a deer to reach; therefore, it
no longer produces food for a whitetail. If that tree is destined to become
merchantable timber, it might be as long as 90 years before it is cut.
Also, during those 90 years, foliage in the upper story of the tree shades
the forest beneath, so that other vegetation is unable to grow there. As
far as deer food is concerned, the tree is a wildlife desert for 90 years out
of 100, unless it happens to be a mast-producing species.” - 5\71 PA
Game News
Last edited by bluebird2; 12-23-2009 at 11:21 AM.