You must remember the "one" thing that the politicians were holding the PGC at ransom for was "changes to the deer program" ....

reducing the antlerless season length is just that a CHANGE

My sources told me back then it was to  please the whiners who wanted that "return to a 3 day season" crowd...... and hopefully would be viewed by the polticians as a  change and that appears to be just the case....

What the change will show is the TRUTH....

Allocations equals harvest.. not the length of the season..so then we can go back to the two week concurrent season and allow those that want to harvest venison the chance to do that from "deer camp"" with the traditional hunters sharing the same time span...

the other thing it will show is that the PGC is using science and facts to manage the herd...

not what someone THINKS based on their own ideas or those of a different state with different circumstances...

Frank, you are absolutely right, all those factors will  affect the harvest.  I think the amount of tags given out by the PGC is one of the factors that can be manipulated the easiest.  The length of the season can be changed also but then weather becomes more of a factor.   dd

well here's how I see it....

you have figures for three day seasons...two weeks seasons... seasons before HR and seaons after HR ---

to me, you can't compare the two different periods (before  HR --- 1st year of 2 weeks season  (start of HR) and  the most recent season after several years of Herd Reduction)

correct me if I am wrong... I don't think the harvest figures include Dmap harvests ??????

The 220K harvested in 1997 DID NOT keep the herd stable... they wanted more shot... so the herd grew again --- thus making it even more important to start HR in 2001..

You also must remember that prior to the current deer program "doe tags" were issued with more politics involved than game management... local county politicians had a very strong say in the number of antlerless licenses issued...

Elk county was one of the WORST at that....

Quote :

frank1 wrote :  Unfortunately the link is no longer available, but I have a hard copy of the report by Cal Dubrock which states that the 1997 did in fact keep the herd stable. It was the 1998  harvest that increased the herd by 13% while the 1999 harvest increased the herd by 15%. if you check the  PGC deer management plan you will find the data  that shows 2G was at its goal in 1999, which is prior to the current deer management plan

Back in 1999 being at goal or not was determined by how close the estimated over winter deer numbers were to the target goal. But, there were several major problems with managing deer that way and that is why the goals and objectives have changed.

One of the problems was that the estimated deer densities was largely based on the deer harvests and the age structures of the deer within that harvest. That allowed for a lot of variance as hunter densities shifted from the northern tier to the southern tier and thus in my opinion allowed for a lot of room for error in the estimated deer densities of the more remote and least hunted area of the state. I feel pretty confident that actually resulted in the deer model indicating that areas had fewer deer then actually existed in the management unit (counties back then) and thus called for fewer antler less deer license the next year.

The problem then was that we were actually carrying more deer through the winter then we should have been until those deer further damaged the food supply, reduced their own fawn recruitment rates and eventually reduced their own numbers to match the reduced food supply. Which is exactly how nature works with its guarantee that no living organism can exist in populations higher then its food supply for more then short term periods with ideal conditions.

I highly suspect that was why some of the northern tier areas generally had declining deer populations even while the number of antler less deer license was continuously being reduced and it appears that actually was occurring in the counties that eventually made up what is now WMU 2G.

To help everyone see that indeed we were allocating fewer license and harvesting fewer deer in WMU I am going to post the license and harvest data in numbers per square mile in five year averages for the couple of decades prior to developing the WMU along with the data for the past five years in WMU 2G.

All data is for Unit 2G:

Data type…………………………..83-87.…………88-92.………….93-97.…………..98-02

License allocation…………………12.90.…………16.21.…………..13.08.…………..12.30
Antlerless harvest………………….3.98.…………..5.48.…………….4.36.……………4.66
Buck harvest……………………….3.82.…………..4.02.…………….3.59.……………3.88    

As you can see prior to the creation of the deer management units that counties that now make up unit 2G were indeed reducing the antler less allocations for over a decade. You can also see that both the antler less and buck harvests were declining during that decade between 1992 and 2002 except for those years in the late 90s and early this century when we were experiencing that five year run of good mast crops combined with extremely mild winters. Even with those ideal environmental conditions the deer population still didn’t seem to increase to the levels it had reached in the late eighties. That was most likely due to the reduced harvests of the early and mid nineties allowing the over winter deer numbers increasing to the point they limited the ability of the habitat to support any more deer even with ideal environmental conditions.

That is why Frank is seeing that the deer herd was believe to be at the deer density goal back in the late 90s. The problem though was that if the deer density really was at goal it was only because the habitat wouldn’t support any more deer. Therefore, the goal was obviously set higher then it actually should have been if the habitat would allow for increasing populations even when you reduced the allocations and harvests.

That is what so many people totally fail to understand. If you reduce your deer harvest before the habitat has improved enough to long term support more deer you are only condemning the area to suffer habitat damage and deer populations that actively start reducing their own numbers. Once that starts it is very hard to reverse, taking years of deer numbers so low hunters have a very hard time finding enough to even reduce the already low numbers.

That simply isn’t a good way to manage deer and the exact reason the deer management goals and objectives needed to and finally did change to using criteria from both the deer and the forest (deer food) health.

There are still some problems though that I feel need to be both recognized and evaluated. Those problems that might be part of the reason so many areas are indicating deer herd health that is perhaps higher then it really is. The deer herd health data comes from evaluating the reproductive rates on adult doe and the breeding rates of the juvenile does killed on the highways between the first of February and end of May each year. That seems like a good way to collect the data and might well be the only accepted method of obtaining the data. But, the problem is that the only places we get road kills to examine is in the best habitat areas of some of the larger remote area type units. Since our roads travel through the best habitat areas of our farmlands and where both hunters and automobiles keep the deer populations the lowest it is very likely that the deer we sample are showing better health indicators then the majority of the actual deer population that lives in the more remote areas of some of the more remote deer management units. It has been pretty well established that the habitat declines as we more further back away from the farmlands, highways and easiest hunter access areas of the big woods units. Since we never get any highway kills in those remote areas we simply don’t know what the herd health is in the remote areas but I highly suspect it is not as good as the collected data would suggest.

It is also very possible that we will find that they set the deer herd health parameters to low and they really should be set higher. I really suspect our deer herd should be, could be and would be a lot more productive then we have ever thought it could be. We have never lived with a healthy deer herd in a most of the state, at least not since we had the scientific knowledge and ability to measure the health of the deer herd. Yes indeed we might find that our deer herd health should be and could be higher then we expected. If that is the case then we might need to readjust some of those reproductive results to higher levels to have a more true representation of what is normal for healthy deer living in healthy habitat.

We all need to remember that scientific wildlife management is both a relatively new science and a science that is based on constant changes. If we fail or refuse to make the adjustments to the changes as they are discovered and better understood we are only being foolish at the expense of the future for both our resources and hunting.

Some people just refuse to allow things to change and progress when they don’t understand what the issues and  problems of the past have been. Some people simply can’t seem to trust that anyone knows more about wildlife and nature then they do and will not allow the professionals in those fields the full opportunity to improve the future for everyone. Sometimes the best thing to do is to just move past those that refuse to move forward, leaving them behind even if they are screaming bloody murder as we move into the future without them.

Rest assured of the fact that the professionals in the field of wildlife management will continue to learn more about the best methods of managing both deer and their habitat to have the most harmonious balance of both for many decades yet to come. We need to be smart enough to allow them to use that knowledge to make changes that they believe are in the best interest of the future. Those professionals are not the enemy but instead are the brightest future we have. Yes, they will make some mistakes, just as have been made in the past, but those mistakes will be fewer and fewer as we move forward with knowledge gained even from those mistakes. I feel very confident that the best deer populations of this state are still in our future if we allow the professional resource managers to do their jobs with our support and willingness to learn.    

Dick Bodenhorn              

Quote :

frank1 wrote :  Here is some additional data from 2G , which you choose to ignore ,since it does not support your theory about the habitat controlling the herd. Year     antlered  harvest    antlerless harvest    harvest PSM  antlerless allocation 2003     10,110                    20,370                     7.4                  52,000    2.55 tags/deer 2004     6,400                      13,100                     4.7                  52,000    3.95 tags/deer 2005     5,000                      6,200                       2.7                  29,000    4.70 tags/deer 2006     7,200                      4,600                       2.8                  19,000    4.10 tags/deer  Since the experts say that the area that comprises 2G has been over browsed since the 30s there is no reason  to believe that the habitat declined so dramatically from 2003 to 2006 to account for the significant decline in harvest rates. Therefore, IMHO it is obvious that the high antlerless allocations reduced the herd from 2003 to 2006, just like the high allocations reduced the herd from 88-92. Once the herd was reduced during 88-92 it took less antlerless tags to reduce the herd even more  ,because there were fewer fawns recruited into the herd each year.

There is no question that the harvests in unit 2G have declined over the past few years but the question still becomes why.

Since 2003 was the first year of the WMUs most people had no idea what the harvests should be to be in line with what they had always been before WMUs for the same area. It seems that is the case with Frank as well.

Though it Frank makes it sound like unit 2G had a high number of antler less license and antler less harvests that really isn’t true when you compare the 2G allocations and harvests to what they had been when the same area was managed by several individual counties instead of as one management unit.

Here are the other facts that Frank undoubtedly doesn’t want you to know. I have taken the counties that make up unit 2G, combined their license allocations and harvests then divided those by the square mile total of the counties. That makes the county data before WMU allocations and harvests comparable to the allocations and harvests for the same areas comparable to the more recent allocations and harvests since the inception of the WMUs.

All data is in five year averages and by square mile of land mass for the counties that make up unit 2G as compared to the same data for the five years since the inception of unit 2G.

Data type……………….83-87.……………88-92.………….93-97.…………98-02.……03-07(WMU 2G)

Antlerless license ……..12.90.…………….16.21.…………..…13.08.……………12.30.…………….8.65
Antlerless harvests……..3.98.………………5.48.………………4.36.…………….4.66.……………..2.35

As you can see the number of license or antler less deer harvests per square mile in unit 2G have actually been considerably lower then when the area was managed by individual counties as the unit.

The data for WMU 2G from 2003 - 2007 does not include the DMAP harvests though so you would have to add another 0.25 - 0.35 antler less deer being harvested per square mile per year. Even with DMAP it is still far less then anytime in the past twenty five years of deer harvests.

So now I have to ask, if we have been harvesting fewer antler less deer in unit 2G then we were twenty years and even twenty five years ago why would anyone believe today’s lower deer populations came from harvesting too many does? Why is it that as we continued to reduce the allocations and harvests the deer numbers didn’t increase, unless of course the real reason for fewer deer really has been habitat related instead of from hunter harvesting too many?

Dick Bodenhorn

Once again frank is saying one thing at one time then saying another at another time..

One minute he is blaming allocations then the next it the size of the herd...

Every 5 year period frank now claims the harvest was up "because the herd grew"...

is also a period the allocations went up...

NOW THIS IS SIMPLE THINKING -- the more licenses the more kills.. no matter what the size

If the harvest goes up for a period and so did the number of licesnes you CAN NOT claim it went up because of an increase in the herd..

the herd could have stayed stable and the harvest went up because of the increased tags...

It also could have went up based on WHO GOT THE TAGS and was able to hunt...

I know for fact the harvest for 2F went down last year because I did not hunt...

Had I hunted it would have had two more deer....

and there is even a post from another member stating that I would have harvested a deer had I been "at my spot"


Plus in any given year certain folks who do not hunt does may get a license and someone who does harvest does doesn't...

I also KNOW FOR FACT 2F's doe harvest went down the past several years because my Ohio deer hunting neighbors could get no tags.. and they have harvested  a doe or two every year prior to that...


Once again the harvest figures show how many deer were killed... if it goes up or down it is based on MANY factors...

and DOES NOT ONLY mean there was an increase or decrease in the size of the herd ...  

--Last edited by Dr Trout on 2008-06-17 21:57:51 --

I wrote --

Quote :

Once again frank is saying one thing at one time then saying another at another time..

Frank I have to come right out now and say you are full of shit... and I 'm ONCE AGAIN tired of your BS on a message board I operate...

You posted and lied about what Dr Rosenberry said.. now you post another lie...

here is what you wrote a couple posts ago....

Quote :

The low antlerless harvest from 83-87 allowed the herd to increase and the high antlerless harvests from 88-92 reduced the herd.

Now you write that you said..

Quote :

I said the high allocations from 88-92 decreased the herd. Then decreased allocations allowed the herd to increases lightly from 93-97 and then declined steadily until 2006.

You are free to talk about anything OTHER THAN DEER or the PGC from this point on this message board and moderators and I willl delete any other posts... hear that guys....go find another board to play your games on


BTW.. I am DYING TO hear from the experts your USP will be calling to court... that should be hilarious !!!!!

BYE BYE JOHN....  

--Last edited by Dr Trout on 2008-06-18 09:37:12 --