Quote :

One also has to consider the fact that the antlerless harvest increased in 2007 due to an  increase in the antlerless allocation for 2G.If one subtracts the increase in the antlerless allocation , the total harvest would have decreased in 2007.

Not necessarily... depends on what hunters shot the deer.... in years past maybe successful buck hunters did not shoot a doe even if they had a tag to do so... ????


AND common sense tells me the herd (antlerless)had to INCREASE from 2006 numbers to accomadate that increased harvest in does..

If the deer are not there they can not be harvested...

The one thing I find interesting and this is just an opinion


The buck harvest was about 2,000 lower than 2006 and the doe  harvest was about 2,000 above...

You say it is about increased doe tags..


but I think it may well show the attidute of 2G hunters...

2,000 guys did not get a buck so they shot a doe instead.... so much for the complainers wanting to shoot less does.... when it comes to a harvest or not  ---- most deer hunters will take what they can get....  

--Last edited by Dr Trout on 2008-06-13 10:07:12 --

where are these less than recruitment ideas comming from?  

I suppose you think coyotes are killing tons of deer to.

those DPSM are only estimates so it is easy to say that that number could be off a couple of deer either way.  

Sorry i am not a numbers person i just go by what i see in the way of deer and i am seeing alot of does with 2 fawns the last couple of years.

frank,

Do you really know what you talk?

BT???

Once again I will have to point out that deer are not managed with the statewide data results. Even this statewide data does not really show anything that would be cause for any alarm or concern even though to you I guess it must mean something negative.

What this statewide data you are hanging your hat on doesn’t show is that for the twenty years prior to 2002 the average sample was about 1650 deer that was pretty evenly collected across the state. In more recent years the average sample has been closer to 625 deer that were not collected evenly across the state. I will post those average sample sizes for by geographic region so all can see how much things have changed.

Area…………………average 82-01.……………..2003.…………………2006
Northwest……………..321.……………………….111.………………….N/A
Southwest……………..306.………………………..28.…………………..N/A
Northcentral…………..313.………………………..97.…………………..N/A
Southcentral…………..231.………………………..94.…………………..N/A
Northeast………………247.………………………177.………………….N/A
Southeast………………231.………………………112.………………….N/A

Statewide……………..1649.………………………619.………………….632

The fact that the statewide sample size has declined by over 60% since the before antler restrictions breeding rate data was being collected should be enough in it’s self to cause any reasonable person to realize the before to after antler restrictions data can not be accurately and honestly evaluated at that stage of the program. Now add the fact that the sample size in Southwest, where the best breeding rate once came from, has declined at a much higher rate then other areas of the state should be even more convincing of the bias in the statewide data results.

In time, provided the sample sizes stay consistent across the various units and areas of the state, that statewide data might have some relevance again, but it certainly isn’t relevant at this time.

The data within some individual management units has stayed more relevant because the sample size has not changed drastically in some of the units plus all the data is and always has been from basically the same geographic areas. That is why the improved breeding rates within many of the units has so much more relevance and proves to be so encouraging that the antler restrictions are actually producing the desired results.

The breeding data from my district is very positive proof, at least to me, that the improved buck/doe is working as was hoped. I believe we are going to continue to see even more improvement as we continue to watch that old late born fawn trend sliding even farther into the past. I fully expect to start seeing an increase in the juvenile doe breeding rates as well as better antlers on many of the 1 ½ year old bucks as we continue to have more of the fawns born during the correct time period. That improving fawn birth time will likely lead to better fawn recruitment rates as well. All positives toward a better future both the deer and the deer hunter provided we keep up with those increased deer numbers by also increasing the deer harvests to match any improved fawn recruitment we do get.  

Dick Bodenhorn

Quote :

frank1 wrote :  Directly from PGC data. WMU2 G, for example,  had 12 PS DPSM in 2005 and a harvest of less than 3 DPSM kept the herd stable. That means the recruitment rate in 2G was less than 3 fawns /SM.

Hopefully people realize that the term "keep the deer herd stable" is a very general statement intended to mean no major increases of decreases. That does not mean there will be no changes in the deer populations. There will be population variances based on changes in the environmental conditions from one year to another even if license allocations and harvests do stay nearly the same.

When you are managing deer populations the allocations and harvests are, and always have been, a game of catching up to the affects of the past. It is an attempt to catch up to changes resulting from both past deer harvests and environmentally induced changes in the fawn recruitment rates. Sometimes it takes a few years to catch I up and then make the necessary adjustments to succeed in that game of catch up to the past.

I can assure everyone that the deer herd has been on the increase the past couple of years in both unit 2F and 2G.

Another myth I would like to put into perspective now is the one about more antler less license, higher doe harvests and high deer harvests in recent years.

To put that myth to rest I took the license allocations and harvests for each county within each of the management units and added them together and then calculated the allocation and harvest history by square miles of land mass for the areas so it could be compared to the WMU allocations and harvests.

Here are those results of the allocation history for the past twenty five years for the Counties that make up units 2F and 2G.

Area…………….83-87.………….88-92.………….93-97.……………98-02.………….03-07.……..2008

2F……………….14.80.………….20.99.………….19.96.……………20.43.………….14.44.………11.61
2G………………12.90.………….16.21.………….13.08.……………12.30.……………8.65.……….6.32

Now the antler less deer harvest history per square mile for the same time period, less 2008 since that harvest will not occur until this coming season.

Area…………….83-87.………….88-92.………….93-97.……………98-02.………….03-07

2F……………….5.34.…………..6.76.……………7.06.……………..7.43.……………4.50
2G………………3.98.…………..5.48.……………4.36.……………..4.66.……………2.35

I sure don’t see how anyone could say that high allocations and harvests of the past five years, or even the past ten, fifteen or twenty years, were the cause of fewer deer in those two units. The history facts kind of proves that higher harvests simply wasn’t the reason the deer numbers declined in those two units.

Dick Bodenhorn  

--Last edited by RSB on 2008-06-15 09:58:11 --

RSB,


RSB:
Quote:

I sure don’t see how anyone could say that high allocations and harvests of the past five years, or even the past ten, fifteen or twenty years, were the cause of fewer deer in those two units.

Dick,

Come on....If increased allocations, that led to increased harvests did not cause fewer deer in those WMUs....then please tell me what did? Did these deer just all of sudden start dieing from old age, disease, or did they all run out in front of autos because they read all the reports about how bad the habitat was?

Wasn't that the whole idea for the PGCs current DMP? What am I missing here?

I can't disagree with you more about the herd increasing in 2F. I've not seen a fawn this spring and my hunting buddies have seen very few. No one I've actually talked to has seen twins.

Nissan

Nissan...

What area of 2Fare you talking about ??

I seem to recall you saying something about North Fork... that's my area of 2F and there are deer everywhere....

counted 14  (6 fawns) (1 buck) on the way home from work this evening at 6:15pm....and that's only 4.5 miles away ????


If I went out now I could see 20-30 EASY....


Please tell me what area so I can go get some photos for you and your freinds of does with fawns.. there everywhere this year and have been for the past 3 years....and remember 07 had a low harvest...

I have SEEN at least 7 right here in my yard (SGL#54)

The past three years have shown even triplets as my photos proved last year..

Doc,

The "North Fork" area I'm referring to is north of Brookville towards Sigel on Rt 36. Take a right at Sigworth's Farm Market and go towards Richardsville.(North Fork of Red Bank) Not anyways near SGL 54.

DMAP ID# 426 which is over 6500 acres.

Are you familiar with the "Moore Bridge". I hunt upstream from the bridge on Craft and Shippen Runs.

I would think that at sometime you would have done some trout fishing near the Moore Bridge.

Your right the harvest for 2007 was down and 2008 (regardless of the weather) will also be down. The deer were slaughtered there the first 2 years of HR and have not recovered. I certainly wish 2F wold have been included with the WMUs that will not allow does to be harvested until the first Sat.

Did you get the email I sent to your pennswoods address?

Nissan

Quote :

Nissan wrote : RSB, RSB: Quote: I sure don’t see how anyone could say that high allocations and harvests of the past five years, or even the past ten, fifteen or twenty years, were the cause of fewer deer in those two units. Dick, Come on....If increased allocations, that led to increased harvests did not cause fewer deer in those WMUs....then please tell me what did? Did these deer just all of sudden start dieing from old age, disease, or did they all run out in front of autos because they read all the reports about how bad the habitat was? Wasn't that the whole idea for the PGCs current DMP? What am I missing here? I can't disagree with you more about the herd increasing in 2F. I've not seen a fawn this spring and my hunting buddies have seen very few. No one I've actually talked to has seen twins. Nissan

Deer populations have always increased and decreased from the environmental conditions they are faced with during each year of their lives.

Herd reduction started with an increase in the antler less harvests in 2000 yet the very next year, 2001, the antler less harvests were just about as high and the buck harvests actually increased. That tells us that even with a record antler less deer harvest the deer herd didn’t decline that year. The reason the herd didn’t decline from that record harvest was because we were having a series of years with good mast crops and very mild winters. Those ideal mast and winter conditions allowed for high fawn recruitment that was equal to of very nearly equal to the increased deer harvests. Then in 2002 the antler less harvests once again were high and the buck harvests were still high considering that we protected about half of the 1 ½ year old bucks for the first time that year. But that was after yet another year of good mast conditions with what amounted to almost no winter. That 2001 had also allowed for the high fawn recruitment that allowed the 2002 deer harvest to be so high without nay serious reduction to the deer numbers available for the 2002 season.

All of that started to change though during the fall and winter of 2002 when we had no hard mast crop that fall and then had a winter with deep snow conditions that forced all of the deer down into the wintering grounds along the rivers and streams from January through to about the middle of March. The deer in these north tier areas really hammered the rhododendron and hemlock in those low lands wintering grounds. Some of those deer locked into the wintering grounds died that winter but that wasn’t what caused the real reduction. What began the serious reduction was that the does that made it through the winter had lost a lot of weight through the winter because of the lack of food to sustain all of them forced to find enough food within those limited wintering grounds areas. I could start at the Elk/Forest County line along the Clarion and by the time I got to Ridgway I could count over 200 deer standing in every little pocket of wintering suitable habitat. Each intersecting drainage would have 20-60 deer standing around or slowly browsing on what ever they could find as they tried to conserve enough energy to replace the little food they could find. When those winter snows finally receded and the deer could move out to better food supplies they were in poor condition and many were just barely able to gain enough weight to stay alive. But, the bred does in that deer population had to gain back the weight they had lost through the winter before they started sending full nutrition to the fawns they were trying to carry. Many, if not most of, the fawns those does had that spring died of malnutrition within days of being born because a fawn that is born under weight has almost no change of surviving even without the impact of predators. Research has shown that does with poor winter followed by poor spring food supplies will lose almost 93% of the fawns born the following spring from just nutritional failure. When you then through normal fawn predation in on top of the nutritional mortality we had darn few fawns recruited into the deer herd during the spring and summer of 2003.  

Hunters during the fall of 2003 did start to notice that they were seeing fewer deer as they should have been due to so few fawns in existence that fall. That reduction in deer numbers was also slightly reflected in the antler less deer harvests in the fall of 2003 since hunters not only can’t see but also can’t harvest deer that died as fawns. If that had been the end of the poor fawn recruitment cycle the problem would have hardly been more then a passing concern. But, the reality is that we went into the 2003 with once again no mast crop and the winter snows of 2003 into the spring of 2004 were even deeper and longer lasting then they had been the year before. Once again the deer got forced into those low lands pine/hemlock and rhododendron river and stream bottoms. They were forced into the same wintering grounds they had seriously depleted the year before. Those wintering grounds had not had a chance to recover from all of the damage the deer caused to them the previous year (in fact many of those areas still show the damaged browse lines in those wintering grounds even now four years later). We lost a lot of deer that winter including a pretty good number of adult does. Once again what really hurt though was the near complete loss of that year’s fawn population. When you have two or more years of failed fawn recruitment you start getting a compounding affect where the deer that should be producing your fawns don’t exist because they died before they could see their first week of live let alone reproduce.

Therefore, during the fall of 2004 the deer had reduced their own numbers far more then the hunters did and hunters had a hard time even finding deer. The deer herd has been slowly recovering ever since with improving fawn recruitment but it will take awhile since we had a lot of herd reduction from those two back to back years of almost no fawns. Most hunters still aren’t seeing as many deer as they had grown accustomed to seeing and perhaps never will if they are looking to see deer numbers like we had in the late nineties and early this century. We should never have had that many deer then and we are paying the price for that mistake right now with these lower deer populations.

If we had gone into those two hard winters with fewer deer then we had we would have still had a natural decline in the deer numbers due to the harsh winter conditions but it probably wouldn’t have been as much of decline as experienced by having too many deer those winters.

Nature is always going to play a major part in the various wildlife populations from one year to the next and there just isn’t much we can do about that other then learn from it and perhaps try to figure out ways to minimize it or the long term affects of it.

The bottom line though is that the environmental conditions can and often do have a much more influencing affect on deer population, especially in the northern tier hard winter areas and where the habitat is already damaged from already having the maximum number of the deer the habitat could carry for many years.

That is simply how nature works with its guarantee that no population will be able to sustain numbers greater then the food supply for more then short term periods of ideal conditions.

Dick Bodenhorn