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| Board Index » What Can We Do? | The time now is Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:12 am |
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Herd Reduction (HR) |
 | Herd Reduction (HR) |  |
pricejo I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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All,
AR/HR I believe we’re arguing about the wrong issue in AR. I don’t believe anyone could argue that AR hasn’t done exactly what the PGC intended for it to do, create a better age structure of our bucks within the total population. Trophy bucks happen to be a bi-product of antler restrictions, but certainly, not the intent or the goal. Also, AR works across the board, both on public and private lands equally. Herd Reduction (HR), is a different story all together. For the first two or three years, HR also did exactly what its intent was; quickly lower the overall deer population to levels that reflected the forest habitat. However, unlike AR, HR has never worked equally across the state, nor has it worked equally within a WMU. This isn’t just my opinion, many on this forum have stated the same views, and even Carl Roe of the PCG, as well as several senators have stated as much. Read the appendix’s of the CAC reports and you’ll see the same concerns. The WCO in my district told me of his concerns of the “One size fits all” management practice now implemented and conveyed them to his superiors. Another WCO stated in the Fall Forecasts located on the PGC webpage “If you want to kill a deer in my district, you better start knocking on doors”, referring to the poor hunting on public lands. Also, while HR does reduce the antlerless population, it has a bi-product of also reducing the button buck population, an un-wanted bi-product at that. Let me make one thing clear here, I’m talking in general terms. I’m sure there are exceptions where some public lands are under hunted, and some private lands are over hunted, but these are usually the exceptions, not the rule. I believe the PGC has it within its power to do the very thing they would like to see happen, moving hunters from the lower deer population areas to those areas with higher deer populations. For one thing they could go back to the plan they had in the nineties, first round antlerless tags are for both public and private, second round and beyond are designated for private land only. While this would work in the majority of the state, it wouldn’t help in WMU’s that sell out in the first round. They could make the first week of rifle buck only on all public lands, and concurrent season the next week, much like they do now in some of the WMU’s. This would at a minimum give hunters a better opportunity to see deer during the first week when most hunters are out. While I understand the PGC makes its decisions based on forest habitat, deer health, and human conflicts, they need to factor in hunter satisfaction. Let’s face it, hunters are the most important tool the PGC has in performing its mission. If hunter numbers ever fall to the 500,000 level, the PGC and the DCNR will be in trouble, and all this scientific management could be for naut. I’m not sure a hunting population below 500,000 will be able to sufficiently control the deer herd across the entire state. Let’s face it, where do most of our new hunters come from? They come from our hunting base, the fathers and grandfathers. If we loose too much of our base, it will be very difficult to attract new hunters, even if the habitat improves and deer numbers rise again. What do you think? Is this the best we can do? |
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woodhawg I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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Well, they have talored HR down to a one week doe in 2-g now, bait in SE as you've alluded to. They've also reduced antlerless tags in areas from the original shock reduction. Something is being done.
Pennsy history shows that in each decade the PA hunters felt we are on the verge of a deer eradication. It hasn't happened. Its not going to happen. Each cycle hunters claim, "something" needs done ('what' is rarely specified. You have some plausable reasonable things there Pricejo). Proof, how many "HR, what can we do" threads are there a year? And here is another... As far as recruiting hunters, creating deer problems to recruit hunters will create just as many deer haters. (and I don't believe many new hunters).We don't and shouldn't sell our souls to recruit. Changes happen.Plus, I think one big buck will draw more to hunting than ten does in the neighbors garden. Other states survive without a million hunters, so can PA and it will have to whether we have more deer or not. HR is a perennial controversy, it'll will be fun to go over again... Here's to 2009! |
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renegade Administrator
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I agree, as many do, that AR has worked well to accomplish it’s intent, but there are still those out there whom can’t grasp the whole selective harvest / breeding ecology issue. Therefore they can’t fathom it is working and are in denial of any proof.
As for HR, no it doesn’t work equally statewide or on the unit level. But even on the smaller unit level (county) it didn’t work either. With the broken up and mixed land ownership it never will. There have always been hot spots and cold spots and always will be, partly due to hunter density and deer density not being distributed evenly across the landscape. Which comes back to the question I believe you are asking. How can they direct pressure to these hotspots while laying off of the coldspots? A lot of folks also agree some of the units are too large. Whatever the unit level is, data must be collected in quanity for that unit and that just doesn’t happen with the current hunter reporting compliance rate. Hopefully online reporting will help the postcard reporting. I know there was talk a couple years back of hiring several more biologists, which would allow each to concentrate on a smaller area. But the political blackmailing of Rep. Staback over a license increase was not anticipated since Rep. Smith was the chair at the time. So this is more fallout from the withholding of an increase. I always liked the private land tags and I’m not sure of Alt’s reason for removing them. I do think that’s something they should explore to bring back. As for the one week, two week scenario they have going now in 4 units, my understanding is that it’s to show whether length of season vs allocation number is more or less effective at achieving the desired harvest. As for hunters, the base is shrinking because of age. The average age was 51 just a couple years back, so we were / are headed for a big drop in numbers due to older age issues. Unless recruitment can keep up, which I don’t think it will, were are going to have to control the herd with less hunters. I think we’ll see more liberal seasons down the road. Just as Woodhawg said, other states do it with less hunters. Someday we have to as well. |
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archerACE I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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I will side with woodhawg. No matter the change their will always be people that will disagree. And it does come in cycles. It would be near impossible to erradicate the deer heard (much to popular belief). Their are biological responses deer have to stress such as that. Their will be deer now and the future. Amount is questionable, but they will be there.
On another note I do think our hunter education needs more improvement. Many people don't understand the studies done to get the outcome we have now ie our seasons, bag limits, etc. WV has a great program. A representative goes to their public schools and talks to the students about hunting and wildlife. Helping someone that young understand has already shown results in their hunter population. I think this would be a valuable resource Pa could utilize. Look at our deer camps now. The number of young people vs older. The average age of the Pa hunter is in the 40's and it is rising. I think Pa is heading for a change in it's heard. It's is not going to be through deer management, but through the amount of hunters they have to manage deer. |
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pricejo I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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Woodhawg/renegade
Woodhawg wrote: “Each cycle hunters claim, "something" needs done” This isn’t just hunters suggesting something needs to be done. The PGC agrees there is a problem. Let’s identify the problem again. Fact: Antlerless allocations are set by WMU. Deer and hunter densities are not equally distributed across the WMU. In general, hunter densities are highest on public lands, and deer densities are highest on private lands. Issue: How do we entice hunters hunting public lands to start knocking on doors of private land owners? Woodhawg wrote: “Well, they have talored HR down to a one week doe in 2-g now, bait in SE as you've alluded to. They've also reduced antlerless tags in areas from the original shock reduction. Something is being done.” Renegade wrote: “As for the one week, two week scenario they have going now in 4 units, my understanding is that it’s to show whether length of season vs allocation number is more or less effective at achieving the desired harvest.” You guys aren’t thinking! Having the first week buck only across the five WMU’s is an experiment to see if the same harvest can be achieved in less hunting days, it does nothing to address the problem of re-distributing hunters within a WMU. Now if the law was changed to having the first week buck only on public lands only, then, that may offer some hunters incentive to start knocking on private land owner’s doors. Having all bonus antlerless tags be private land only would do the same. Woodhawg wrote:: “As far as recruiting hunters, creating deer problems to recruit hunters will create just as many deer haters. (and I don't believe many new hunters).We don't and shouldn't sell our souls to recruit. Changes happen.Plus, I think one big buck will draw more to hunting than ten does in the neighbors garden. Other states survive without a million hunters, so can PA and it will have to whether we have more deer or not.” I don’t understand what you mean by “creating deer problems to recruit hunters will create just as many deer haters”. I think I’m suggesting fixing a known problem, not creating one. “Other states survive without a million hunters, so can PA and it will have to whether we have more deer or not.” PA is un-like most other states. Not only are we a large state, but we are a heavily forested state, with some harsh mountain areas. Even if we could equally distribute hunters across the state, which we can’t, having less than 500,000 hunters would leave large areas un-hunted, a problem that couldn’t be fixed with just liberal seasons and bag limits. Maybe we’ll never get down to less than 500,000 hunters, I don’t know. I have a feeling that within the next 5-10 years, many of our baby boomers won’t be entering the forest anymore. I don’t know what percentage of hunters they represent, but it has to be quite a few. A shrinking hunter base will also cause financial problems for the PGC, who may have to look for public help. Shrinking hunters and financial problems is just what P.E.T.A. and Friends of Animals are hoping for, and they’ll cause a new rash of problems. |
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renegade Administrator
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I would rather see the private land bonus tag program or method come back into play. But I do believe your other suggestion has some merit. I have to think on it some more.
There's no doubt the base will be shrinking substancially here in the coming decade. The PGC is aware of this, as are some foward thinking legislators. Rep. Levdansky comes to mind. He proposed the bill(hb1676) to give the PGC something like 1/10th of 1% (.001) of sales tax and half that much to the PFBC, so that it's not solely dependent on license fees in the future. Because it's far from being just a hunter agency. But at the same time we can't write off recruitment of new hunters, young or old. We like to call hunting a sport, but that's only one aspect. It does serve a purpose of large rodent control (for lack of a better term) and meat subsidy for the table. And of course it's a clean, moral, outdoor activity that brings families and nature closer together. It's always been in the back of my mind too that the PGC knew that if the expanding herd wasn't reined in during the time when we had enough hunters to do it, that it may have been impossible later on and would have ultimately lead to a massive die-off and irreversable habitat damage like we've already seen a sample of in parts of the nc area of the state. |
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woodhawg I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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Geezs Pricejo I thought you were asking a questions and throwing out a couple ideas...under What Can We DO? In my post I said it looks like you some "plausible reasonable things" but maybe thats the part that made you say "You guys are not thinking"
![[Confused]](images/smiles/icon_confused.gif "Confused"){kind=icon}
You know the subject is going to attract "fly's" sorry if I got in the way of that by agreeing with you some, albiet not lock step. |
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RSB I'm a VIP Member of PAbucks.com!!
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There was and still is a huge problem with having a blanket separation of seasons between public and private land. In this northern tier part of the state the public lands are the most under-hunted and under harvested area there is. We have fewer deer in many of these public land areas today because we have never been able to get enough deer harvested on the remote area public land to allow the habitat an opportunity to recover enough to support more deer.
Around the more populated areas there is no question that the public land gets too much pressure. But, even with the additional pressure I don’t think they are over harvesting the deer. It is much more likely that the intense hunting pressure is simply pushing the deer off of the public land and onto the posted private lands. Though that might seem like a serious problem, and in a sense is, it might not be a worst case scenario either. It could be even worse if hunters didn’t harvest as many deer as they are on that public land. Right now it appears that a fair number of deer are being harvested on those smaller less remote public lands before the other deer are pressured off of the public land and into the private sanctuaries. Then after the hunting pressure has ended the deer can once again spread out onto both the private and public lands to have a more equal effect on the habitat of the entire range. At least by maintaining those relatively high harvests, before the majority get pushed off, it keeps the total deer population within at least a tolerable level to protect the food supply for the remaining deer. The problem with having additional protection for those public lands would be in the fact that it might very well result in reducing the deer harvest on the public land and just causing even more deer to move onto the private land. Then you eventually though ultimately end up with more deer creating an adverse impact on both the public and private land food supplies. If that happens you will just end up with fewer deer being able to live that entire area of deer range. Quite frankly I believe the fastest and most assured way to having the highest possible deer numbers in all areas of the state for the future would simply be to go to unlimited antler less license for all WMU. Hunters would perhaps reduce the deer populations in some areas for a few years but all that would do is allow the habitat to recover faster. Then once the habitat recovered the deer populations would increase so rapidly hunters couldn’t over harvest them, just like they can’t over harvest them in the special regulations areas of the state now. In the special regulations areas of the state hunters have been permitted to harvest unlimited numbers of deer for almost two decades now and all that has done is allow them to harvest over four times as many deer per square mile as what we harvest in the remote big woods areas. Even with those much higher harvests they still can’t get their deer numbers under control without employing sharp shooters to go out and kill deer by the truck load at night. The bottom line is that all of the real evidence points toward the conclusion that hunters can’t over harvest a deer population living in suitable deer habitat within the legal hunting seasons and bag limits. The last thing we need to do, or should do for a good future, is to provide our deer herd any additional protection from harvest. Dick Bodenhorn |
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| Board Index » What Can We Do? | The time now is Tue Jun 18, 2013 1:12 am |
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