Dr Trout, your post on no deer in 2F caught my eye and I had to respond, we have a camp in northern 2F and I have been going to that area for almost 45 years now, my Dad and his brothers for almost 65 years I learned to hunt from them and know that area and surrounding area like the back of my hand. Growing up the big woods were the place to go for Buck season.The deer numbers there have been declining yet the PGC still allocates way to many doe licenses. We as sportsman are also to blame for the declining numbers because of the if its brown its down attitude. In years past it was nothing to go out spotting and see 40 deer just making a small loop around and checking the feilds.We just came back home after being up there this weekend and we saw 2 deer. I have yet to see a deer during daylight hours all year and this incluides fishing season as well. So in about 20 weekends I have seen no deer even walking in the woods just not riding around.Talk to the locals in our area and they will tell you the same thing there are very few deer up there.I beleive them they live there.So now we have acres upon acres of forest but no deer.The worst thing the PGC did was to try to manage the deer herd as a statewide project so to speak.You cant compare Allegheny County to Elk county, each area has to be managed seperately not as a whole.In years past the camps in our area were full of hunters noew most are vacant the first day of deer season people arent going there to hunt because of the lack of deer. This has also hurt the economy of the little northern towns who made alot of money and probably a large percentage of thier yearly gross at this time.I get tired of hearing people say that area cant support the herd, it did in the past and still can. Thge PGC needs to quit trying to do mother natures job if the forest can support the deer if there isnt enough food then some will die.The locked gates are another issue I find appalling, we can let the timber and gas companies bulldoze roads in ANF but we put a gate on it and wont let people travel further in. I know your going to say walk in but my father is almost 80 still loves to hunt and fror him to walk in 2-3 miles to a stand is just absurd.The comment about you working for the PGC I found very interesting because you could do commercials for them.I find your articles very interesting and think you are an intelligent man who knows your area very well just dont try to spoon feed me the PGC propaganda. Ihave lived through the good times up there when seeing 40 deer the first day was the norm,and I really dont care about the size of the size of antlers seeing deer was the satisfaction, not seeing deer is a great dissappiontment. I will continue to hunt up thier because it is a tradition in our family, but I will only stay for 2 days instead of the usual week like we used to do.My grandson will be hunting for the first time this year and I will be takling him around home when I come back from camp, because I dont want him to get discouraged right off the bat by not seeing deer.Or maybe we can hunt by you and and you can show him ALL the deer your seeing.

The truth finally comes out, Dr I think you will see more people disagree with you than do. SORRY you see things like this!

GUYS ----why the insults.. am I striking a nerve.. it's my opinion... and I am more than willing to defend my opinion... if my opinion changes someone's elses OKAY .. if not that's okay too ..I tried.. but I try hard to do it with out insults.. but that's probably why I started my own board
 

The experts I refer to are basically deer biologist, deer farmers (they raise deer for a living) and the deer harvest figures for each county ( HISTORY)... which I can not do anymore since they stopped doing that and went to WMUS... that SUCKS !!!!

they all agree that food sources play a bigger part than the number of does harvested..

I have not and am not saying the deer population is what it was in the hay day of deer hunting... that will never be able to happen again.. we have lost way to much forest land...

Elk county was mentioned... so let's use that for a minute....

the deer herd up in this area started to decline ON ITS OWN because of lack of food before HR or AR... guys do not want to admit that but let's see.....

Guys who use to hunt up here are staying home in Pittsburgh (for example) because there are plenty of NICE deer down there... back in the 60s and 70s and even into the 80s the deer herd in Allegheny County was like many counties up here now... very few...

TOTAL Harvest figures.....

Allegheny County..
1980s - averaged about 1,700
1990s - averaged almost 8,000

ELK COUNTY
1980s - averaged about 8,000
1990s - averaged less than 6,000

so the TRUTH is in the figures....

deer harvests were declining before HR/AR in the northcentral... why.. because  = no food.. deer moved...

Answer me this ... as mentioned above... some still hunt up here because of tradition, others like me because I can still harvest deer here every year..

If you were new to deer hunting would you rather hunt where they harvest 8,000 and it's close to home or travel to the elk county where they are only harvesting  less than 6,000 prior to HR/AR... and the habitat is causing it to continue to decline..

I'm not going to argue... just post what I believe prove the points I am trying to prove... but I think the figures I just posted show that it was not the PGC of HR or AR that started the decline in deer up here... it started before they implemented those...

As for not shooting does.....

again check out the facts (figures)....and Elk county proves it best.... back in the late 80s and 90s the PGC DID reduced doe tags because of political pressure.... 

now here's where it gets interesting....  for those that say stop shooting does... the herd will increase.. one out of two fawns is a buck.... etc

with lower doe tags more does were saved (and I'm not so sure of that) BUT....

get ready ....here it comes -----

why didn't the buck harvest increase  ???

what happen to all those buck fawns that were saved ???

The buck harvest contiued to decline...

ELK COUNTY---

BUCK HARVEST..

1982 - 2560
1983 - 2464
1984 - 2902
1985 - 2635
1986 - 3327
1987 - 3452
1988 - 3368
1989 - 3454

WATCH THIS NOW ---
1990 - 2801
1991 - 2839
1992 - 2903
1993 - 2995
1994 - 3255
1995 - 3105
1996 - 2395
1997 - 2760
1998 - 2725
1999 - 2970
2000 - 2745

Why didn't the buck harvest go way up with all those saved buck fawns... where did they go ????

Want more...

In the 80s Elk county averaged 3.6 bucks harvested per sq mile...
In the 90s it went to 2.3 per sq mile....before HR/AR remember...

WHY ?


HR and AR had not started  yet....

Let talk does...

Elk county averaged 4.4 antlerless per sq mile in the 1980s

In the 1990s it dropped to 3.4

So they were saving one antlerless deer for every sq mile.....

AGAIN ... what HAPPEN TO THE BUCK FAWNS  ????

lets look at post HR/AR .....

2F ---

antlerless...
2003 - 17,700 
2004 - 13,100 shooting less !!!
2005 - 8,300  that's less...
2006 - 8,000  STILL less... declining... saving more does...
2007 - 7,100...still less this is getting boring.....

so the fact is we are shooting less and less.... but why isn't the herd growing...

COME on guys... forget about my relationship with the PGC... the antlerless harvests are declining ... FACT... but according to many  they are still seeing less and less...the herd is still un huntable....  where the deer  going if we are harvesting less and less...... WHERE'S THE BUCKS?????


Okay-- buck harvests for 2F

2003 - 7,450
2004 - 6,400
2005 - 6,000
2006 - 7,200
2007 - 4,800

Basically a declinig buck harvest...

Why IS IT NOT INCREASING IF THE HABITAT IS SO GOOD AND WE ARE HARVESTING  LESS AND LESS ANTLERLESS DEER ?????


... some one.... tell me why with less antlerless getting wacked why isn't
the buck harvest going up??

last point...  2B..

basically the antlered and antlerless harvest are staying the same.... GOOD FOOD SOURCES DOWN THERE.... and a large balanced harvest..





Think what you want about me.. the PGC... or what ever... I'll let my eyes and math abilities show me what's going on..

It's about FOOD SOURCES  guys......not the number of does we kill......

tell me why with less antlerless getting wacked why isn't the buck harvest going up??
 
 
Quite simple= Because as a result of the large doe kills at the start of HR/AR in those areas(2F-2G) the deer population has been reduced to near a level where predators and natural mortality can keep their numbers low without hunter intervention. That coupled with the DCNR putting most of the state forests off limits to logging to appease the enviromentalists and the feds having to fight a lawsuit everytime they try to log, the mature forest continues to shade out most undergrowth and will never support any significent increase in deer population. If you look at the 2006 summary of the Kinzua Coop surveys it shows that deer mortality equals deer reproduction without hunters. Again--isn't that what the real purpose of the whole HR fiasco was. They were worried not enough people would take up hunting to replace those lost and needed to find some way to keep the deer populations down without relying on hunters. Bears, coyotes, etc hunt 365 days a year with no bag limits and at about 10 dpsm they and normal deaths will keep the population stable without humans.
 


 

The numbers didnt drastically decline in one year, this has been coming on for the last 6-7 years.I dont beleive in the numbers game the PGC plays in their own worsd they arent completely accurate, which is where they made their first mistake in doe allocations. Do you know how they get their dpsm numbers, I have heard it said from someone who works for the PGC those numbers come from individuals who spend time in the forests either riding around or taking walks. The numbers used to estimate how many deer there  are a guess to asy the least. These numbers are the ones used to determine anterless allocations, maybe the PGC should just get a big wheel spin it and their are your numbers.The only problem  I have seen is when the PGC started to manage the herd. You mention Allegheny Co probably because I did but the deer numbers down here are way down as well.In my opinion we are as sportsman killing off the deer herd. I am glad that you have an area that you hunt and can harvest deer count yourself as one who is very lucky .Dr Gary Alt was by far the worst thing that ever happened to the northern teir counties his plans started the demise of the herd.I still say we need to suspend doe season for at least 2 years and let the numbers come back up then we will let mother nature decide how many deer she can support.As for the lack of food even ares where ther is an abundance of corn and clover we still are not seeing the nimbers of deer we used too. You have your opinion of whats happening in your area and I have mine in my area the numbers are at a critical level. 

sorry about the red print  ... can't get rid of it ??????

where predators and natural mortality can keep their numbers low without hunters

Has Never Happened in History, why do you think it would now....

what percent of the herd do you think predators are killing ????

These numbers are the ones used to determine anterless allocations

Not  sure what figures you are referring to.. I hope not the deer per sqaure mile... because that is UNTRUE.. and those figures dpsm were never used for allocations....  ?????????????????

BTW in case you did not know it.. the PGC stopped using deer per sqaure miles TWO YEARS AGO !!!!!
 

It has less to do with good feed than it does with posted property 

 
deer do not worry about posted property... if there's food there they'll be there...

If you check you will see that that jump you mentioned was due to the PGC no longer only using harvest report cards.....

they (PGC) realized that many Pa hunters were not able to fill out a card and put it in the mail as required by law...... they (over 50% of our hunters) DID NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW many deer we were killing... they enjoy complaining

The basic formula used today was the one they used to replace "report cards only".. 

true they check a lot more deer today than back then... 

The method has been approved by most wildlife experts and organizations to be a realiable method of estimating harvest figures..


Why blame the PGC..... blame every one of those guys that do not send in their report cards... oh wait ... some of them are probably friends.. right ??

doc wrote=Has Never Happened in History, why do you think it would now....
 
 
What are you talking about, it happened for hundreds of years before man started to mess with the habitat and deer populations. It is starting to happen now if you believe in the Kinzua quality deer coops numbers. Remember they were the ones the PGC and DCNR were hyping as the way to go. Don't hear much about them now do you. Wonder why?? Yeah right.  All for now, have to try to find one of them in the AM.

HEY HEY HEY.....

I asked first and as you see the one mentioning predators did not asnwer...

What say you... ????

KEEP in mind one fact.... almost 50% of newborn fawns die "naturally"

even on the deer farms I visit.... in the spring.. after fawns are born the owners find dead fawns almost daily for about six weeks.... and they are NOT done by predators.....

so how many do the predators.. get... ??????????????

I'm getting sleepy... one last thing..

Wap you wrote...

Or maybe we can hunt by you and you can show him ALL the deer your seeing.

here's my E-mail...let's talk...

Just make sure he can shoot......



E-MAIL ----

doctrout@windstream.net


GOOD NIGHT ALL !!!!!!

there might be a good explanation for this but what i don't understand is hundreds of years ago when not close to as many deer as now got shot and the breeding couldn't have been much different how did the forest support it then?

Doc wrote=In that time and in my travels I have found there are more supporting  the deer program than those opposing it ..
 
You need to get out more and hang with some folks other than the PGC employees.
 
 
As for how many deer predators get no one knows for sure including the PGC because predators have a zero reporting rate but there used to be less than a thousand bear and near zero coyotes in the state. Now there are 15/20,000 bear and 10's of thousands coyotes feeding on wild meat every day 365 days a year. Interesting that Gary Alt(one of your experts) was a bear expert (knows more about bears than the bears themselves) according to the PGC, yet he didn't know that bear were the biggest predator of fawns.
 
Here's another one for you doc. Ask your turkey EXPERTS why they won't allow game commission employees to use whole corn to trap and tag or transfer full grown turkeys. They MUST use only cracked corn. This one is a real gem.

Dr. This quote is for you as given by a PGC biologist named Dale Sheffer and reported in an issue of Game News. "Elimination of the antlerless season would produce an explosion in whitetails that would soon get out of hand." I thought you said that the opposite was true about not shooting does? And your figures about almost half of the fawns dying? Come on Dr. If all is true about the new harvest figures; the last 5 years alone they reported close to 2 million killed and now your telling me that almost half the fawns don't survive. Now I'm starting to grasp why we have very few deer in some areas. Not to mention the cars and coyotes and bears. The PGC use to be the apex when talking with out of state folks, when talking about deer management. Not any more; it is a question that goes something like this. WHAT IS PA. TRYING TO DO; DRIVE ALL THE HUNTERS AWAY?

I would have thought the predator percentage would be higher even through the PGC eyes. I would think it would be natunal causes less than that, predators more. They have to admit we have more predators every year and the percentages will grow.