Bulging state deer herd causing forests to thin

[Township75]

Outdoors: Bulging state deer herd causing forests to thin

Sunday, January 11, 2004

By Ben Moyer

Pennsylvania Game Commission deer biologist Gary Alt delivered the following message to nearly 500 people assembled in Harrisburg last week for a conference entitled "The Challenge of Overabundant Deer in Pennsylvania; A Call for Partnerships."

"We've got to do something to get these oak forests jump-started for the next generation. Otherwise these forests will disappear and Pennsylvania will be grossly changed forever."

SNIP

After a day of presentations about the impact of abundant deer on forests, agriculture and highway safety, participants picked failed forest regeneration as the most critical problem caused by a deer herd out of control for nearly eight decades.

Full story here:
http://www.postgazette.com/pg/04011/260093.stm

[RoeBear]

1. Are you trying to...

...jack up the blood pressure of the anti-hunters here? :D

[Township75]

4. Not primarily...

I contemplated placing it in J/PS. Personally, I believe it would be better fit in Env/Sci forum. But I know people here hunt, and they would be the most interested in this article.

Upping the blood pressure of the anti-hunters is a pleasent repercussion }(

[Lefty48197]

2. This will piss off the right wingers

who want to send their logging friends into the forests to "prevent forest fires". If the deer eat all the trees, then their logging friends, won't have anything to log. Expect the Bush administration to come down hard on the deer.

[RoeBear]

3. Yeah, that's right...

...the Bush administration is setting deer seasons.

Uhmmm...Lefty? The governor of Michigan is a Democrat, the head of the DNR serves at her pleasure.

[Superfly]

5. I'm doing everything I can to address this problem

on a grass roots level, so to speak. Unfortunately, my "target" audience was not very cooperative this year...12 hunting days and not one thing.

Damned wiley deer.

[alwynsw]

9. Herd 'em on down to Kentucky

I put four in the freezer this year. Might have added another, but I blew off black powder season.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Doesn't PA restrict firearms to BP and shotguns? If so, opening up the hunts to medium weight rifles can dramatically improve the harvest numbers. Let's face it, there aren't too many kills over 100 yards out with BP and few over 40 or 50 with shotguns. I "reached out" to a little over 600 yards on one kill across a bean field. Of course, I was using my trust 30.06 with a 150 gr SP (factory load - Federal Premium).

[Township75]

10. Nope...

One can definetly hunt with a rifle in PA.

And I believe that the law in PA only sets a minimum caliber for hunting, other than that, if it's legal to own it's legal to hunt.

Speaking of meat in the freezer, tonight I just cooked up a roast from the doe my friend shot during the last season. He gave me a good portion of the deer. And it was soooooooooooooooooo good (drool)! Made my girlfriend jealous as I told her about it...I think she had a salad. Doesn't matter though, there is plenty for us both at the next dinner. mmmmmmmmmmmmm:9

[alwynsw]

11. Thanks for the info

I guess Superfly needs to get to the range more often - or get some specs.

Aren't these PA hunters?




Have you PA hunters looked up?

[Superfly]

13. What?!?

You try hunting on a Naval Air Station sometime and let me know how it goes. I swear you are sitting there in your climber, minding your own beeswax, when the freaking 6th fleet decides to take off from about 1/8th of a mile away. Maybe I need to look into more "rural real estate".

[alwynsw]

14. GOTCHA!

on edit: I understand completely. I hunted for a couple of years at the old Pease AFB, NH when it was an active SAC base. I was stationed there. Nothing like being in the thick of it, waiting for a shot when a couple of FB 111's go up in tandem, with 6 more right behind them in groups of 2.

[funkyflathead]

6. I've hunted in PA before for deer

Saw more deer than ever but no forest regeneration issues.

I guess "big forestry" is behind this push to kill off the deer.

[Romulus]

7. my BIL did his part in PA

he got five during the bow season. He said it was hard not to bag a deer.

The only reason he stopped at five was because his freezer was jam-packed to capacity.

[Township75]

8. and just think...

there are likely a million hunters in PA during the season.

Makes one ponder how bad it is or will become in states where there isn't a large hunting population.

[funkyflathead]

12. Where I live in NC we have not that many deer

The annual harvest is just about 1,000 deer a year in my county. Not very high.

[DonP]

15. Scope of the problem

I wonder if any of the anti hunting "Don't shoot Bambi" groups really understand how big this is, in terms of sheer numbers?

In Wisconsin alone the annual reported rate of deer car accidents is over 40,000 with another 200,000 plus legally taken by hunters. That doesn't even count the ones that farmers shoot to keep them out of their feed crops either.

Mutiply that by the number of other states and you got a damn lot of deer wandering around eating anything even vaguely green.

I read somewhere that there are more deer in America today than there were when the Pilgrims landed.

I guess a Buick isn't as effective of a predator as the timber wolf or bear was?

[alwynsw]

16. A similar problem here

I talked with my local game warden during deer season last November. he stated that our deer population is out of control in Kentucky. He further stated that in order to maintain the current population, hunters would have to harvest about 450,000 does in addition to those that fall victim to autos.

I haven't seen the numbers from the 2003 hunts, but I don't think we're going to see any reduction in the deer population in the forseeable future. 450,000 is a huge number to achieve.

I don't know if his numbers are correct, but I've never known him to stretch the truth about anything. If he's even close on the numbers, we have a serious problem here.

[Superfly]

17. I saw something on National Geographic

that said our whitetail population is now higher than pre-settlement back in the 1600's.

And, for all these deer, you'd think the deer would have the common courtesy of standing broadside (or quartering away) in front of my climber.

[demsrule4life]

18. How many times have you been told

that the hunter has all the advantages?

[alwynsw]

24. We all know why you were reading NG

Turn away from the magazine and admire your wife. Bare chested tribal women have no place in the mind of a newly married man.

(Gave away my age there, huh?)

[funkyflathead]

19. You should send those extra does to Letcher and Bell Counties

I heard they had to restock those places several times.

[alwynsw]

25. Nah.

I'm selfish. besides, the minimum secutiry inamtes at the Bell Forestry Camp would eat too well on the poaching.

[MrBenchley]

20. Jeepers!!

Wow! You’d think with a crisis THAT overwhelming that EVERYTHING that could be done would be considered….

"In March 2000, Township Manager Douglas A. Watkins extended an invitation to Dr. Jay F. Kirkpatrick, a foremost authority on animal birth control, to conduct a presentation at the April 3, 2000 Board of Commissioners Meeting. Dr. Kirkpatrick also supplied the Township with supplemental information regarding urban/suburban deer issues and deer birth control.
At the present time the PA Game Commission prohibits the use of PZP birth control."

http://www.twpusc.org/admmain/deer/exec_rep/birthcon.html

And of course only some sort of idiot or someone utterly irresponsible would breed MORE deer in Pennsylvania with a problem like that…

"Although the Deer Industry has a very bright future, we must all become consciously aware that there is a major movement out there to eliminate Deer Farms and Hunting Preserves. The Pennsylvania Deer Farmers Association was formed this spring to bring us all together to battle these movements and foster a closer working relationship among the Deer Farms and Preserves in the PA and the U.S."

http://www.padfa.com/

[slackmaster]

22. Farms and preserves are separate from the wild population

Try learning a little about the subject before spouting off nonsense.

[alwynsw]

23. Is it possible?

Is it just possible that deer farms exist because people who don't or can't hunt like venison? In order for restaurants and retailers to sell venison, it must be USDA inspected as are all other meats.

Also, are restaurants and retailers expected to carry venison only during that brief period immediately following deer season? Sorry, but the bag limits don't allow much room for deer hunting to be a profitable venture - even if the USDA allowed harvested wild game to be retailed. (I called the chief USDA inspector at a local Tyson plant to verify that wild game is not on the approved list.)

Let's not forget the leathergoods industry.

In short, it's an industry as is cattle farming/ranching.

[Odessey]

21. Blasted deer!

I live in the county in Pa. that has the most deer. We've have both cars in the shop due to run-ins with deer running out into the road. They should have added another week to our hunting season. We've already had several accidents around here where folks have been sent to the hospital after crashing when they tried to avoid hitting a deer. Gonna have to learn to hunt!

[Scout]

26. not too many deer

too many freakin' human beings, pushing deer populations into smaller and smaller habitats, so we can have have our McMansions, and starter castles, and strip malls!

[slackmaster]

27. I don't believe habit size is the main issue for deer

I agree there are too many of us spread out too far over the landscape, but in the case of deer the immediate cause of their overpopulation is a lack of predators, caused (of course) by human activity.

Since a lot of people aren't willing to go for robust populations of wolves and mountain lions, hunting is necessary.