Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
Print
If you hunt deer, you've heard the question -- possibly asked it yourself: "How many deer are in Pennsylvania?"
Some kind of answer may be on the horizon. The long-awaited "deer audit," released Feb. 16 to the state Legislative Budget and Finance Committee (LBFC), says the Pennsylvania Game Commission should make public the deer population estimates it uses to set antlerless license allocations.
Titled "The Deer Management Program of the Pennsylvania Game Commission: A Comprehensive Review and Evaluation," the nonbinding review of the deer management plan was conducted by Wildlife Management Institute (WMI), a non-political organization based in Washington, D.C. WMI has conducted similar reviews of fish and wildlife programs in 40 states and four Canadian provinces. In view of hunter discontent with the Game Commission's current deer program, LBFC commissioned the audit to determine if the program was scientifically sound.
"The PGC should publish the estimates of population size and age and sex structure ...," the audit states. "WMI does not agree that population estimates need to be shielded from the public. Doing so, in WMI's view, has weakened the trust placed in the PGC by the public and has affected the agency's credibility."
PDFHow many of the state's 800,000 deer hunters have read the audit isn't known, but many who have appear to agree.
"I don't see why making the population estimates public is a problem," said Randy Santucci, southwest director for the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania. "Transparency in government is always positive. Yes, the trend analysis is there, but we don't see any quantifiable data to support [the PGC's] qualitative approach. It's all very abstract."
In April 2008, Unified Sportsmen filed a lawsuit against the Game Commission alleging that the agency "improperly authorized the decimation of Pennsylvania's deer herd."
Jerry Feaser, Game Commission press secretary, admits that his agency has population estimates for each wildlife management unit, but maintains the estimates themselves are not the point.
"[The audit] is suggesting that we offer population estimates to the public. We will discuss that, but obviously it will reignite the controversy over a number, which, while satisfying that interest does nothing to further management," Feaser said. "An exact number is irrelevant to the goal of this program, which is to balance hunting recreation with the impacts deer have on society and on their own habitat."
Feaser said there's a "pitfall" in focusing on numbers.
"We don't have an estimated number of deer, we have a range," he said. "[Exact numbers] draw attention away from the real issues. Tracking the trends is what's important, and we do that."
Despite WMI's suggestion that PGC publish its population estimates, the audit commended the deer program in concept.
"All parties interested in deer management in Pennsylvania can be confident in the ability of the PGC to track deer population trends at the statewide and wildlife management unit scale through the SAK [sex-age-kill estimating model]," the audit states.
Most state wildlife agencies use the SAK model, which estimates populations by tracking the frequency at which deer of a predetermined sex and age show up in the annual kill. For many years, Pennsylvania tracked the proportion of yearling bucks in the harvest. Antler restrictions imposed in 2002 protected most yearling males and, according to the audit, required PGC biologists to use a "correction factor" to estimate the proportion of yearling bucks. WMI concluded "the PGC has developed a credible population model that factors in necessary adjustments to reflect antler restrictions."
Controversy over deer populations is not unique to Pennsylvania.
"We've been going through 'deer wars' to one degree or another here since Aldo Leopold was on our commission," said Bruce Bacon, wildlife biologist with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, referring to the famous conservationist. "Hunters think we can count every deer, and that's a misconception. Searching for that precise number is expensive and it can get either side of the argument in trouble. Managing by impacts is the way to go, but it's hard for the public to accept that."
Bacon said, however, that Wisconsin's DNR publishes population estimates, not necessarily to facilitate management but to satisfy public demand.
"Once you've been giving numbers, the public will continue to expect that," he said. "In Wisconsin, we've published estimates of the number of deer per square mile of habitat. Now we're giving a statewide total to see if that will help [public confidence]. But I've worked in this field for 32 years and the bottom line is that hunters' perception of deer numbers from their stand means more than any number we can provide."
Some hunters unhappy with the PGC's current program have cited New York as a state with better deer hunting. But any difference between New York and Pennsylvania may be more a matter of the perception Bacon spoke of than of deer management philosophy.
"We don't manage on population estimates in New York," said Jeremy Hurst, big game biologist with the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. "We manage based on indices that reflect change over time. What we're concerned about is impacts on the ecosystem and public welfare, and we track those trends to manage populations."
WMI recognized that PGC uses a range estimate of deer numbers. For example, in 2007, PGC biologists estimated that before hunting season there were 47,856 to 74,582 deer in Wildlife Management Unit 2A (Greene and parts of neighboring counties). But the audit's conclusions cautioned PGC about the wide disparity between the upper and lower limits of estimated ranges and suggested the agency could achieve greater precision by obtaining more complete harvest information from hunters.
"The PGC should develop and prioritize policies and procedures to increase harvest reporting," the audit states.
Only about 30 percent of successful Pennsylvania deer hunters comply with the law and report their kills through "hunter report cards," severely limiting the information the PGC has to work with.
"What I would like to see, now that we have [computerized license sales], is to ask some questions of our hunters," Santucci said. "How many days did you hunt? How many deer did you see? What did you harvest? We could turn that [reporting rate] around. Instead of 30 percent, we could have 70 percent reporting and we'd find out how many deer we do not kill in this state."
"We had mandatory check stations up until 2005 and then we switched to phone reporting," said Brian Eyler, deer project leader with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "Our reporting system is similar to Kentucky's. They had Responsive Management study hunter compliance and found that 85 percent of their successful hunters report, so we're probably similar to that. We're much higher than Pennsylvania's rate with mail-in cards."
Wisconsin continues to run mandatory check stations and has no intention to stop.
"We've got the longest running and most stringent check station requirement of any state, since 1957," Bacon said. "It's costly, but there is no way we're not going to keep at it."
ON THE WEB
Find the entire "deer audit" and highlights of the report at www.post-gazette.com/sports/huntingfishing
Looking for more from the Post-Gazette? Join PG+, our members-only web site. You'll get exclusive sports content, opinion, financial information, discounts from retailers and restaurants, and more. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.
