bawanajim

I'm not saying anyone here is wrong with there observations, yet some of those that support, or use high deer numbers as examples of what the land will support live in areas of little or no snow fall.

I live 30 miles from Lake Erie and have seen the effects of heavy snow fall, how may inches of snow does Vally Forge average per year?

bluebird2

Just in case you missed it, I was comparing the densities in VF to the goal densities for 5C and 5B., not 1B ,2F or 2G.

bawanajim

Any Ideas on what the DD in 1A or 1B should be?

bluebird2

You made some great points and I agree that todays habitat is much more diverse than it was in the 1600s. I wonder how many bluebirds they had back then. When you really stop and think about it deer have very little impact on biodiversity compared to the activities of man. The deer do not determine how much timber is harvested or how many trees are cut for housing developments, roads , power lines gas wells or coal mines.

bluebird2

WMU 1A is 41% farmland and 1B has 34% so it would be significantly more than the goal the PGC established for 2F which was 17 DPSM with only 7% farmland.

bawanajim

So once again you babble yet say nothing useful,

bluebird2

That may be your opinion, but what I posted is based on facts. You , on the other hand have admitted to posting pure babble in an attempt to divert the discussion from topics you can't defend.

ManySpurs

Pssssst......I have hunch. Based on what I've seen as far as harvest info goes....I think the browse impact surveys and the pellet count surveys at Treasure Lake may be way overinflated. I don't think there are as many deer as these surveys indicate.

Kind of like the accuracy of the Grund Deer Population Model.

DougE

The browse impact surverys can't be over-inflated.Come on down this spring when we do them and see for yourself.The public is welcome.As far as the pellet counts go,I don't have much faith in them.Deer over winter in different areas depending on food so it's hard to say how accurate they are.On top of that,I personally feel that a percentage of pellet groups degrade during periods of winter thaws which can skew the results from year to year.I've also done pellet counts in areas where I see loads of deer every day on my way to work.The one year,we came up with 18 dpsm in one of the heaviest concentrated areas because a couple flocks of turkeys worked through the area just prior to doing the count.Getting a measure on deer numbers is almost impossible.It's much more reliable to gauge the habitat.

Last year we checked in 150 bow killed deer that were killed on 2200 acres.That equates to a harvest of around 43 dpsm.That doesn't account for poached deer and deer that are killed by tresspassers and never checked in.There is no doubt in my mind that the harvest in those areas is way above 50 dpsm.Now that's just bow killed deer.Imagine how many dpsm would be harvested if rifles were allowed.The highest over winter pellet count we came up with was just shy of 70 dpsm.We're killing over 40 pre season deer per square mile with bows.You really think those numbers are inflated?

I resigned from the wildlife committee during november so I don't have the total updated harvest at this point.I do know that as of the the last week of november,143 had been checked in.I also know that several more were checked in during both rifle season and the late season so the harvest has actually increased.

I'm also willing to be that the number of poached deer and deer shot by hunters without permits would easily approach another 100 deer.

Cornelius08

I disagree strongly. They are VERY open to interpretation, and one of the easiest factors there is to "over inflate" because of it.