[renegade]

There’s an interesting article in the Feburary issue of Quality Whitetails, by C.D.Denmon; about the checkstation held by the PA. North Mtn. Branch of the QDMA. This is the third year they’ve held it and so far have gotten data from 119 deer, 104 buck and 15 doe. Admittedly a small sample and not statistically valid for anything more than their area. It didn’t give an exact location of the data collection point.
They collected the weight, age, and antler measurements to gauge the changes over the years, in that vicinity. The 36 bucks checked the second year (04) were substaintially different from the year before, especially the 3.5 year olds; which I find interesting because a lot of folks said we would harvest all the older bucks that would normally elude hunters because of hunters tagging out early with a spike.
The antler dimensions by age class remained basically unchanged. Antler width, beam lengths, and beam circumference were slightly up, slightly down, or stayed the same across all 3 years. This tells me that the nutritional aspect of things has also remained the same. Again, this is just a small sampling from a small area of the state.
Here’s the results:

Percent of Bucks recorded by Age Class
Age__2003__2003__2005
1 ½ .…. 29% …. 11% .…. 19%
2 ½ .…. 42% .… 33% .…. 39%
3 ½ .…. 30% …. 55% .…. 42%

I find this pretty impressive. For 2004 that would be (4) 1.5 yo.- (12) 2.5 yo.- (20) 3.5 yo's. I wish they had data from before the restriction was raised.
The doe they checked ranged from 6 months to 9 1/2 years old, and 50% showed signs of lactation.

[Ghost]

Intresting ...But what percentage of these deer are from SGL's or state land...Public land is the key factor in determing if the system is working. Private land is governed by the landowner..they control whats killed on their property not the PGC. The new management system cant take any credit from Privateland stats ....Only when stats like you presented are 100% from Public land ..then and only then I may deem this manegement system a success. When the very land, the PGC owns and operates, begins to show 40% to 50% of the bucks killed are 3.5 years of age..then id say its a success. But we must remember..Percentages are misleading. %40 percent of what and how many is the question......Is %40 of a herd of 5 deer a success? Absolutely not when that herd has to sustain 20 to 30 hunters. Is 40% of a herd of 100 deer a success..Absolutely..it not only sustains the hunters but a major percentage will live thru the season and become 4.5 year olds.

It all goes back to the "LAWS OF PROBABILITY" This is what insures big bucks.

[buckman]

Ghost,
I have a question....What's this theory of the herd SUSTAINING hunters????

Yours truly

[Ghost]

The herd needs to beable to sustain the numbers of hunters afield. A sustainable yield needs to be occuring yearly. The deer is a resource...its like a crop...ie..that crop needs to be sustianable for all hunters.

In my industry of forestry, we talk about sustainable foresty, allowing enough of the residual stands of timber to grow and become a viable crop, To put in simple terms...Sustainable Forestry is about not cutting more then whats growing. Apply this to Deer management...We should not be killing more then whats being produced..ie Sustainable deer management.

i hope that helps

[buckman]

There should be enough deer for everyone to harvest and the following year (after recruitment) there would be the same number of "legal" deer afield??? You know as well as I do that deer are not evenly distributed across the State and that hunter density isn't either....how would you accomplish such a goal???

[Ghost]

How would I do it?? Well..First..I would implement on Private land that if one wants to kill a buck he or she must must kill 2 doe's on that peice of privateland...Not on public but on privateland only. For the sgl's i would have quotas on Doe's..Allocate so many Doe permits for each SGL....Allocations will be dictated by SGL size and herd structure. ie...On SGL 65 ..allocations would be 200 doe permits..or whatever.....But there must be more hunting on Privateland and less on Public. Too often i see Hunters up on the SGL i hunt..hunting for DOes when they have private farms they hunt on...it infuriaets me..I get so upset at the PGC because they allow an "OPEN DOOR POLICY" ..In other words, they kill their Doe's on the public and save the Does where they hunt on the privateland....So,,what you have is unbalanced hunter densities pertaining with killing Doe's.

[buckman]

I understand what you are saying, a earn-a-buck program is something to look at in the future and managing private land versus public land is a issue. Unfortunately, I don't know if the PGC has the resources necessary to implement and monitor TWO different management plans. On a yearly basis they would have to evaluate the herd conditions relative habitat on ALL the SGL's to effectively manage them AND they would then have to do the same for private land.....sounds like a lot of manpower and money to me. Not that it would be a bad idea but they only have so much to work with and I believe this is why we are getting what we are....about all they can do.
Something else that concerns me is that unlike where you apparently hunt...not ALL public land is "overharvested". In fact some areas of public ground are very lightly hunted...usually hard to access areas but still underhunted. How do you manage these areas? Throwing ideas out there is a good thing and you never know when one of "us" might hit on something they believe will work....keep throwin'

[bwanared]

I own and hunt private lands and I'm not so sure I would like some one telling me how to manage the herd that is here when myself and my neighbors have worked so hard to get to point we are at now. We work within the commisions laws.

I don't see the arguement for public verses private as much as I see a better arguement for habitat A verses habitat B.

While I agree that deer numbers are down and we can see this here the best tool for increaseing the numbers is a better habitat.

I was reading the new commisioners(ROE?) speech, before who ever it is he speaks to, and one point he made was that the private secture of the big woods where the numbers of deer are down so much needs to take part in the habitat changes. The PSG only has a small portion of the big woods and can't do it alone.

On a last thought I rarely get into debates on the deer issue because it stirs many emotions on such a wide swing of the pendulam. A hunting friend, buddy or coleage is to valubale an assist to risk on some political ideolgy.

Ok I'm a horrible speller Where did they hide the spel check??

[renegade]

I've come across an interesting letter on harvest reporting from a biologist in Ohio, responding to a hunter question from Michigan. (this eliminates any PA bias)

Milton F. Whitmore Arcadia, MI writes:

I believe that your method of mandatory deer check-in is the most accurate method of tabulating a season's deer hunting kill and believe that it would behoove Michigan's DNR to implement a similar program.

Why do you use mandatory deer check-in rather than Michigan's method which deals heavily in statistical demographics/information? Is there any data/study showing that mandatory deer check-in is a more accurate way of determining a season's take of whitetails? Sincerely, Milton F. Whitmore Arcadia, MI

======================================
Hi Milton,

Thank you for taking the time to contact us regarding your thoughts on mandatory registration (MR). As you may know, Ohio is only one of several Midwestern states that have mandatory registration for both deer and turkey. Technically, I guess you could say that PA does, but their process actually involves both mandatory reporting via postcards and visits to processors to measure non-reporting rates. In the 10 years that I’ve been here, I’ve been engaged in numerous discussions on the pros and cons of mandatory registration. I have also found myself answering more than a handful of emails from MI and PA hunters who feel that the system used by their respective agencies leaves a lot to be desired. In their mind, they see mandatory registration as the only means for getting an accurate count of the harvest. Much to their chagrin, I have to disagree with hunters from both states.

On the surface, MR seems like the “cats meow.” You kill a deer, you bring it to the check station, it is permanently tagged and recorded and you go home. At the end of the season, the data are tallied and you not only know how many were taken, but you’re now in a position to generate an ACCURATE estimate of the size of the upcoming fall population. In a perfect world, that might be the case. The reality is, we know (PA and MO come to mind immediately) that not everyone checks their deer. How many? Who knows for sure? In some years it may be as low as 7%, in others it may be as high as 30%. No one really knows and more importantly, estimating it year in and year out is costly and very difficult to do. If you didn’t check your deer and you were asked after the season via a phone call, if you checked your deer, what’s you’re answer going to be? My point is, if you live in a state with MR, estimating non-compliance is difficult at best. Moreover, if you don’t know what noncompliance is, you don’t know what the true harvest is either. So why spend valuable license dollars year in and year out providing manpower and resources to operate check stations when in the end, your harvest estimate is just that – an estimate. In large part it is because of tradition. It also is a very good PR tool. It gives us an opportunity to interact with our hunters. I like working check stations, as do many of my colleagues. The same could be said for Missouri. Be that as it may, it is my understanding that MO will be fully implementing TeleCheck this fall. On-site registration will be a thing of the past. Last year was the last time they collected biological information at mandatory registration stations; they now rely on processors for that data. Mandatory registration has its advantages. However, providing biologists with a more accurate harvest estimate over many of the alternatives is not one. While my counterparts from MI and WI and I agree to disagree on a few small details, we generally agree that Michigan’s current system for estimating harvest is very sound and in some respects, better than mandatory registration. Brent Rudolf, a good friend and someone whom I respect a great deal summed it up best with the following comments:

“Another major concern relates to estimating non-compliance. When hunters are required to register a deer, or even required to return a postcard, make a phone call, etc. to report their season results, it is difficult to later ask how many individuals did not comply (and are thus admitting to violations). Although we know that it is harder to garner a survey response from individuals that did not hunt or harvest any deer, we do capture information from these individuals and are able to generate confidence intervals. I believe PA has tried to estimate non-compliance by examining how many deer checked at processors do not show up later in the reported harvest, but I don't remember what they've found from this. I don't believe WI tries to determine non-compliance at all, which means the number of deer registered is simply a minimum number of deer killed. This unknown element would especially be of concern when trying to summarize figures for individual units. Thus, I would disagree with your generalized statement that "registration enables us to manage deer on a finer scale... with greater precision". Keith, precision in the harvest estimate is not known in either of our states, as it would require knowing the true harvest. Although providing confidence intervals generally makes constituents uncomfortable, especially with the relatively wide range at the level of a DMU, they do provide a measurable means of exploring the consequences of not knowing the exact harvest. Other general benefits of our system are that we generate measures of participation and effort.”

Mandatory registration may help some to restore hunter confidence in the DNR estimates. However, I don’t believe it will improve the estimates themselves.

I hope I have shed some “unbiased” light on the subject of mandatory registration. Please don’t hesitate to drop me a note if you have additional questions or need clarification on something. Again, thank you for writing.

Very best,

Mike

Michael J. Tonkovich, Ph.D.
Wildlife Research Biologist
ODNR, Division of Wildlife
9650 SR 356
New Marshfield, OH 45766
v (740).664.2745 f (740) 664-6841

[Ghost]

Yes...I agree.

Its a compounding problem...As deer numbers become so low and hunter success becomes low..It will cause hunters to become less aware or concerned if the deer is a button buck or not. They will simply kill anything thats brown because the chances of seeing anything is low...So..The whole idea of reducing the herd in this dramatic fashion and to be more aware of button bucks is a major contradiction.

Hunters will be less concerned wheather or not a deer is a button buck fawn or a doe fawn if they dont have many chances of seeing a single deer.
They are just to the point to be happy getting a deer wheather or not its a button buck or not.

Thus the declining mature bucks within our herd.

[renegade]

The portion of the antlerless harvest that is actually male fawns (button bucks) is slightly down from what it was for the entire 90's decade. So I guess that isn't a problem.

And the portion of 2.5+ bucks in the harvest has almost tripled, with the actual number more than doubling. Something that couldn't happen if the mature buck were declining.

[Old Timer]

renegade wrote:

The portion of the antlerless harvest that is actually male fawns (button bucks) is slightly down from what it was for the entire 90's decade. So I guess that isn't a problem. And the portion of 2.5+ bucks in the harvest has almost tripled, with the actual number more than doubling. Something that couldn't happen if the mature buck were declining.

Are these real #s are more calculated #s by the PGC ?

[Ghost]

Here's what I'm going to do: Since ive moved down here from PA...Ive met 10 or so guys..New friends..They all hunt..Are you for ready this?

They all killed dandy bucks..some us like me killed 2 dandy bucks...I'm going to gather up all pictures from all these guys and post them..They were all killed this year..On the other hand..my buddies from PA..8 or so..only killed one buck..the buck from sproul state forest.

There's no Antler retrictions down here..and the hunting is awsome...any where you go..the public land or where ever..its fabulous hunting.

Ill keep filling my walls while you guys keep wondering when things will turn around.

For the last time..try Hunting other states..only then will you see how poor PA really is...and beleive me..PA is pathetic.

[renegade]

Where's those pictures of your 06 Maine buck?? I believe that's one of them "other states".