Frank1,

Still have not seen you say where you hunt mostly?(maybe I missed it)

Also, another question that went unanswered is are you willing to compromise other plant or animal species' needs in exchange for higher deer numbers?

Sent ya a PM awhile ago.  You see it?  

--Last edited by dpms on 2008-06-16 21:10:47 --

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frank1 wrote : The goal of the current program is not off slightly, It is the exact opposite of what was predicted. i am not saying the PGC data is wrong, i am saying the PGC data refutes what the PGC predicted would happen withArs and HR.

How so?

There are less deer(goal met).  By alot.
Buck to doe ratio is improved(goal met).  Slightly.
Male deer age improvement(goal met).  Moderately.
Breeding window improved(goal met).  Debatable by some.

Do you disagree with those?  You will disagree with the breeding window thing but the others?  How are they the exact opposite of what was predicted?  

--Last edited by dpms on 2008-06-16 21:16:59 --

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Next time you see several groups of 20-60 deer along the route you described please take a some photos. I along with about 500,000 other PA deer hunters would like to see them. Even back in the "good ole days" seeing 50-60 in the McGackey Feilds was not all that common. I'm sure you know exactly where I'm referring too. Maybe you remember it as the Wes King farm. (That has to take you back a few years) Last fall when I went spotting we saw 4 deer in those fields.

I certainly do remember the old McGaughey fields and spent many nights watching them for poachers. I remember one year the night before archery season I was positioned to watch the fields when a vehicle went back and turned toward the old dam. The vehicle went to the end of the field then turned around and came back up almost to the intersection, turned its light out and soon a light cast out the driver’s side scanned the field, including a group of deer about a hundred yards back in the field. Soon the light went out again and car still just sat there. Ten minutes later the light came on and scanned the field and the deer again. My partner and I figured they were planning to wait until a deer got close enough to shot with a bow so they wouldn’t have to hunt so hard the next morning. We kept a close watch as about every ten minutes or so the light would come back on an spend a few minutes looking at the deer and then go back out. This went on for about an hour but since it was still within legal spotlighting hours there was no violation that we could see other then if they had a bow or gun while they were shining the light on the deer.

We were convinced they were up to no good and just waiting until a deer got closer before making their move. Finally after about an hour the vehicle fired up, turned the headlights on and started back out the road. I couldn’t stand it and decided that since we had already seen them with the light on deer we were going to go ahead and check them for a bow or gun, being pretty well convinced they would have one or the other. We caught up and made the stop but it was a guy with a couple of kids and no indication of any bows or guns. I asked about them sitting and spotlighting the deer and the guy told me that thought they had to be parked with the headlight out to legally run a spotlight. I guess it was a lucky night for him because I suspect spotlighting got a lot more productive and enjoyable for them after we told them they could spotlight while driving along the roads.

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I'm very familiar with the route you described and the last time I was there I didn't seen anyways near the amount of deer you describe. That was earlier this spring just as the snow was disappearing. The largest group we saw was 5-6. The rest were singles and doubles. Total amount was about 25-28 deer.

I can certainly agree that last winter there were not the large numbers of deer along the River Road but that was totally expected since we didn’t have any deep or prolonged periods of snow last winter. The deer could use all of the suitable habitat areas the past couple of winters so they weren’t forced into the wintering grounds habitats even though you always have a few that use those areas that are the primary wintering grounds.

During the years when we have prolonged periods of deep snow though all of the deer get forced off of the ridges and plateaus. When that happens the entire River corridor and most of the tributaries fill up with wintering deer. That happened during both the winter of 2002/2003 and 2003/2004. I am going to try posting some pictures of just that from 2004 along with some pictures of the habitat damage that resulted. At least I will include pictures if I can figure out how to post pictures to this site.

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Your explanation of why the deer herd decreased in 2004 just reinforces what I said on another post a few weeks ago. On that post I disagreed with the PGC setting anterless allocations at their April meeting....like they've done for years. You proved my point much better than I did. If they would have waited until later in the summer then they could have "tweaked" (Carl Roe words) the anterless allocation for the very reason you are hanging your argument on. I'm sure, given your reasoning, that you would have made someone aware of the low fawn survival rate and thus allocations could have been reduced. Wasn't that the "beauty of system" (more words from Carl Roe)? To make matters worse, according to you, this same thing happened 2 years in a row...no mast crop and harsh winter....yet allocations were unchanged. WHY???

The deer mortality is high and fawn recruitment low with the harsh winters because we have more deer then the habitat can sustain during adverse environmental conditions. That means we need to keep fewer deer through the winter not more as would occur if reduced the allocation and harvests. That has long been the problem, every time we saw winter mortality hunters demand that we harvest fewer deer to allow the herd to build up again. That was and still is exactly the wrong thing to do if you want to have more deer for the long term future.

The only way to have the best deer populations year after year for the long term future is to keep fewer deer until the habitat recovers, and it will, enough to support more deer. Once the habitat will truly support more deer the deer numbers will increase and hunters will not be able to keep them below the natural carrying capacity by using legal hunting season and methods.

If we reduce the deer harvests the herd will build up once again before the habitat can sustain more deer through the adverse conditions. That might not be a major problem as long as we were to continue having mild winters. But, it would also result in stopping the habitat recovery that it would take to have long sustainable deer numbers. Then as soon as we had another hard winter or two we would just watch the deer numbers crash again and have to go through even more years of low deer populations until they once again naturally recovered. When you allow this up and down deer population cycle, based on the environmental conditions, you actually reach a point where both the food supply and the deer numbers take longer and longer and recover after each downward cycle. That is a very poor deer management program and one I hope we can avoid in even more areas of the state.

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Now the PGC is throwing the deer hunters a tiny crumb by reducing the concurrent season in 4 WMUs....and again Carl Roe only supports this because "he wants us to see just how many deer there really are for the first 5 days of regular season."

There might be some advantages to this management option. We will know more after it has been evaluated for a few years.

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I would really like to believe that our deer herd is as stable as the PGC indicated. IMHO it's not. It's still decreasing. I see less and less deer every season since HR began.

I am confident that the northern tier deer herd is not only stabilized but once again on the increase. I believe that many hunters believe they are seeing fewer deer more out of a mater of perception then reality.

What I mean when I say that is that unless a person keeps records they often think they are seeing fewer deer when in reality they aren’t and might even be seeing more. Every summer when we are collecting turkey sighting data I say I’m seeing fewer turkeys this year then I did last year. But, at the end of the month when I add them all up and compare them to past years I frequently discover that I hadn’t seen fewer turkeys and had in fact seen more.

The same thing then happens when we start doing the fall deer survey routes. I will say we aren’t seeing as many deer or as many bucks. But once I add them up and compare to past years I frequently discover that I was wrong about that too. I think people just remember the past with more fondness then they do the present and that distorts reality.

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When do you see allocations being reduced and the herd being allowed to increase? I'll bet you a "Pepsi" it won't be anytime soon.

Boy, I sure hope we never see another license reduction. In my opinion the fast thing we could do to get the best possible deer numbers for the long term future would be to allow hunters to harvest even more deer. Then the habitat would recover faster and then in short order the deer numbers would increase as well. In fact, I think we could see deer numbers increase to the point we would have a very hard time harvesting enough to keep the deer herd under control even if we went to unlimited antler less license like they do in the some of the southern units.

Now let’s see if I can figure out how to post a picture.

I think it works. This picture was taken near Bear Creek during the winter of 2003/2004. There were just as many deer when I looked the the other direction toward the creek. But, this was about as many as I could get in one camera frame.


This was taken the same evening but closer to the bottom lands near Bear Creek. Notice how they are browsing the rhododendron?



This one was taken either near Dark Hollow or Bear Creek in the 2003/2004 winter.



This one just shows the affect of the browsing on the rhododendron along the River Road in 2004.



I took this one during the late winter of the 2006/2007 winter just to show that the browse damage from 2004 still hasn't recovered in the primary wintering grounds area along Millstone Creek.



Dick Bodenhorn  

--Last edited by RSB on 2008-06-16 23:23:03 --

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frank1 wrote : I hunt in 5C here  where the habitat can support 80-90 DPSM and the PGC goal is  6 DPSM. If you can quantify your your question  regarding or the species  i will be more than happy to answer your question.

80-90 dpsm!! Maybe the habitat could support that with deer eating everyone's gardens, birdfeeders, shrubs, cornpiles, cornfields etc....  

You don't want a deer herd that big do you?

As for species, any species that exists in the same habitat as deer do.

Quote :

frank1 wrote : Groundhogs and raccoons can do a lot of damage to gardens or farm crops but their is no PGC program to control heir numbers. Can you explain why that might be the case/

Lets address deer first.

Again, as I asked above.

Quote :frank1 wrote :
The goal of the current program is not off slightly, It is the exact opposite of what was predicted. i am not saying the PGC data is wrong, i am saying the PGC data refutes what the PGC predicted would happen withArs and HR.  


How so?

There are less deer(goal met).  By alot.
Buck to doe ratio is improved(goal met).  Slightly.
Male deer age improvement(goal met).  Moderately.
Breeding window improved(goal met).  Debatable by some.

Do you disagree with those?  You will disagree with the breeding window thing but the others?  How are they the exact opposite of what was predicted?  

And another...

Also, another question that went unanswered is are you willing to compromise other plant or animal species' needs in exchange for higher deer numbers?

Let me try to answer that silly question...

Frank is getting desperate now...

1 dpsm destroying everyone's plants and flowers   LMAO


The PGC DOES have a plan for controling those.two critters....

after all --they are in charge of all animals/wildlife ..  IT'S NOT ABOUT DEER... ....how many times do I have to say that...

check your hunting digest to see the season and bag limits on the two critters you mentioned..

Plus I know some folks who will shoot a hog or coon even without a license if they are eating their flowers or gardens or crops...

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I don't know how you can make that claim when breeding rates have decreased instead of increasing and the breeding period has remained unchanged. because the PGC only considers the carrying capacity of forested habitat,they were wrong about the true carrying capacity of all the habitat the deer use to survive.

First of all I don’t think the breeding rates have declined in the individual units even though you seem to be convinced other wise. Know now who you are I rather suspect that is just another USP ploy attempting to get data that isn’t otherwise made available to them. It isn’t going to work for you though. When the time is right the breeding data for each unit will probably be released to the public.

I also have some other heart breaking news for you. The Game Commission doesn’t establish habitat carry capacity numbers anymore. The deer simply provide the data on their own health each year with the adult doe reproductive rates and juvenile doe breeding rates. Those deer have no way of separating their health condition as to how much came from forested habitat verses how much came form farmland, suburbia shrubbery or a backyard garden so the Game Commission obviously is now using all deer habitats in it carrying capacity evaluation.  

Of course you are probably confused because the forested habitat is the only habitat were they go out measure the deer browsing affect. That is because the forested habitat is the only habitat that will support normal to high deer populations on a year round bases year after year. The other habitats will keep deer in a healthy conditions for various periods of time throughout the year, and for that reason are important in the life cycle of a deer. But, forests are also needed for various parts of the deer life cycle and really the only habitat that will support large populations of deer on long term bases. Therefore, forested habitat impact is what is used to gauge the deer impact on their own food supplies. That is reflected in the forest health index now used as part of the deer management plan and objective.

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Here is an exact quote from a letter from Dr. Rosenberry, " When looking at individual WMUs over a similar time period 20 of 22 WMUs show no change in breeding rates.It appears reasonable to conclude breeding rates have not changed in most WMUs since antler restrictions." Now I will agree that Dr. Rosenberry didn't admit that breeding rates decreased in many WMUs there is no other explaination for the 5% decline in breeding rates from 2001 to 2005.

Nope I’m not buying it. You are simply making assumptions that presently have no scientific factual bases. I am confident that in time the evidence on breeding rates will be pretty clear and convincing that antler restrictions did make a noticable improvement.

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Math is an exact science and what you proposed is simply an impossibility . Using the data you provided ,would you please provide an example of how that is possible.

Yes math is an exact science. And, if you fully understood mathematics you would also know that it is indeed possible to have improved breeding rates in every unit while still having a reduction in the total result. That is completely possible if the sample sizes have changed in total representation across a large enough area over the survey period.

Mind you I am not saying that no unit declined at all, I am just pointing out that you are wrong when you say the breeding rates couldn’t have improved when in fact they most certainly could have and in many cases did.

Plus there is absolutely no question that they have improved in a great many areas of the state. I have collected the data myself that proves that point beyond any doubt what so ever.

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Percentages can be a bit confusing. If we harvest 1% of the total forested acreage than an additional 1% should be in the seedling and sapling stage the following year . But the pole timber stage is from 20-80 years, so 1% wolud advance to the pole timber stage only if yuo began with a balanced forest with 20% in seedling /saplings.60% in pole timber and 20% in saw timber. But, we have over 50 % in saw timber ,so in the long term we have to increase the percent in pole timber and decrease the amount in saw timber in order to bring the forest in their proper balance.

What is your suggestion on how to change the time periods of how long it takes to grow a forest through the various stages of forest secession?

You seem to think the Game Commission, or someone, could change the rate at which a forest grows. Perhaps you and your ilk just need to learn how to work with nature instead of always trying to figure away around the affects of nature.

Dick Bodenhorn

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frank1 wrote :   The main reasons given for HR and ARs were to improve breeding rates, shorten the breeding period and improve forest health .

No.  The short term goals were to reduce deer numbers where they needed it, improve the age structure of our antlered herd and to improve the buck/doe ratio.

The long term goals are what you point out which is what we are working towards.  Give it time and these goals will be reached just as the short term goals were.

Getting tired of frank's BS yet ???

Frank.. please send or show us the info that you are quoting stating that the PGC reports

Quote :

That is why 2G has 12 PS DPSM and 2F has 22PS DPSM even though the forest health is poor in both.

The TRUTH IS you can't..

it's just another of your "tricks" to make some one believe that there is truth from the PGC that sides with YOUR ( think USP) OPINIONS....


If the PGC still used dpsm

I'd have to argue the 22 for 2F.. I belive my repoort yesterday about the moore bridge area does more to prove there are more than that ...seeing is better than some opinion/figures on a message board...


I saw 3 heard 1.. and showed tracks from 6... that totals 10.. Surely you can not believe that walking one mile I was made aware of half the deer in that square mile.... let's see.. I'd had to turn left three more times after a one mile walk.. then back track thru the entire square.... heck I might have ended up seeing 50

Then what would you guys say ???????

"Getting tired of frank's BS yet ???"

I have been tierd of it for a long long time!  

I am still trying to figure out the last time Crazy Horse was actually in the woods in 2G or 2F.  

--Last edited by Flyfisher on 2008-06-17 08:59:38 --

 I deleted the original posts about the senator and my phone conversation,

I did not want any new visitors thinking he had anything to do with or had thoughts on all the anti PGC stuff being spilled now by frank1..

even though (as Penn stated) RSB has tried (as usual) to educate someone on deer biology, local history and the PGC deer plan...

some folks just do not want to listen to anything but THEMSELVES..... and enjoy "stirring the pot"


Complaints about allowing this to continue are showing up in my E-mails and now on the board.. it was/is time to act...

So......

I will allow ONE response from anyone wanting to comment ---
any further comments from anyone WILL BE DELETED.... then the thread will be closed at MIDNIGHT....




Here is my final comment...

Thanks to all of you that even though we (the long-time members) know you are not 100% behind the program showed respect and appreciation for much of the information presented here and to the one posting it....
and defended your position and pointed out the flip-flopping...

Time will tell who is right... but at the same time.. corrections and other changes may be needed...

It's a matter of those of use who want better deer hunting for the next few generations to continue to ask questions and trust that the PGC is doing the right thing.... and we must continue, as many of us have, to express our thoughts to the PGC..and yes at times we can talk about differences here too

Deer Wars continues... but at least here we're aware of the motivations of  some of those on "the other side"...

Later..
Doc

Frank1

Congratulations...there is no doubt in my mind that you have prevailed in this debate. I've followed this thread since it was started. In fact I've checked in several times a day to read all the posts. I read RSBs posts many times over.

It is very obvious that you won when comments were made like.....get a life.....who cares....all you want to do is argue on the Internet.....and we can't change things anyway. They were out of ammunition and resorted to bashing you.

You supported your position with FACTS and done so without being rude or nasty to those that had different points of view.  I commend you for that. I think you are a gentleman and a sportsman and above all KNOW what you are talking about.

I was amazed that Doc had NO TOLERANCE when you questioned the data supplied by RSB, but has been totally silent when your facts and figures were questioned and made light of. Sure seems like a double standard to me. Maybe it's time he does shut this thread down.

Also congrats on your Senior License. I've still got a couple of years to wait. Although I'm 100% against the PGC and their DMP, I'm still going to support them financially by spending approximately $70 to buy licenses for the up-coming season.

I hope you have a safe and successful hunting season.
Nissan

I suspect Frank will get the answers to his questions at the pending USP court case though I doubt he is going to be any happier with that outcome then he has been in his past attempts to derail the deer management program.

I very strongly suspect this was nothing more then another of the USP fishing attempts to garner further information they could then attempt to use in their law suit.

I am rather disappointed that at appears that at least one reader on this message board was fooled by, believe and supported his misinformation.

I am more then happy to come and answer questions as long as the person has a sincere interest in improving the future. It does become a problem though when we have people that we know, or even suspect, are on a mission to undermine the best possible future for our resources and the agencies sworn to manage and protect them. That unfortunately results in a limit to the information that can even be posted on message boards or released to the public. I hope all of that changes with when this law suit nonsense is all behind us.

Dick Bodenhorn