Sports

hunting

By Tom Venesky tvenesky@timesleader.com
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Those hoping for changes in the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s deer management program will have to hope for better luck next year.

On Wednesday during its April meeting, the agency’s board of commissioners approved seasons and bag limits. The two-week concurrent buck and doe season was retained, in addition to an early three-day firearms season for juniors and seniors and a week-long muzzleloader season in October.

The board also approved a slight increase in antlerless license allocations for the 2007-2008 hunting season, from 859,000 last year to 865,000. The number of licenses for the Wildlife Management Units in the northeast remained the same as last year to stabilize populations, according to a PGC news release.

The news was unwelcome to Dallas resident Russ Bigus, who wanted separate buck and doe seasons and an antlerless license reduction.

Bigus is a member of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, an organization that has ardently opposed the PGC’s deer program, claiming the deer herd has been drastically reduced.

The agency establishes antlerless license allocations based on: measurements of deer health; habitat health; the level of deer-human conflicts based on Deer Management Assistance Program participation and Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) input; as well as deer population trends.

Bigus, who hunts in Wildlife Management Unit 3B, says the PGC’s methods are faulty because they are based on deer population estimates rather than concrete numbers.

“I want to see the data and methods they used to trump all these hunters across the state,” he said. “We want to know an actual living count of deer, and they (PGC) haven’t provided it.”

Noxen resident Chip Sorber, who is president of the North Mountain Branch of the Quality Deer Management Association, said he was glad the agency stayed the course with its deer program. Sorber, who hunts State Game Lands 57 in Luzerne and Wyoming counties, said there are areas with less deer and areas where the population needs to be reduced.

He urged hunters to “micro-manage” their hunting areas if they feel there are too few or too many deer.

“That means not shooting a doe or removing some, depending on what the numbers are in your area and how many the habitat can support,” Sorber said. “The closer we get to a ratio of one buck to one doe, the healthier our deer herd will be.”

License allocations

2007-2008 antlerless license allocations for Wildlife Management Units in the northeast:

WMU 3B – 43,000

WMU 3C – 27,000

WMU 3D – 38,000

WMU 4C – 39,000

WMU 4E – 38,000