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They do listen.
During a public meeting hosted by state Rep. Gerald Mullery with the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission last week, Joe Rutchauskas of the Nanticoke Conservation Club spoke about his group’s opposition to change a rule allowing kids to use bait year round in delayed harvest areas.
The change also included allowing bait for all anglers in the delayed harvest stretches during the harvest period as well.
Delayed harvest areas have always been set aside for those using flies and lures, and they’ve been primarily catch-and-release. Allowing the use of bait in such areas seemed to compromise the intent of the program, and Rutchauskas said there are only a couple of delayed harvest areas in the county so why not leave them unchanged?
PFBC executive director John Arway and board president Norm Gavlick told Rutchauskas they received quite a few similar opinions, and those positions will all be considered.
On Friday they were.
That’s when the PFBC board voted to withdraw the delayed harvest proposal, and they did it because enough anglers spoke up.
By March 31, the agency received 343 comments on the proposed change, and only five supported the measure.
That was enough to cause the board to take action and address angler’s concerns.
Now it appears it’s time for hunters to speak up and be heard by the Pennsylvania Game Commission if they want change.
During Monday’s working group meeting, the board listened to the proposed antlerless license allocations from deer biologist Chris Rosenberry.
The recommendations call for an increase in antlerless licenses in all but two of the state’s 23 Wildlife Management Units. Here’s the list for the northeast, with last year’s allocation in parentheses:
WMU 3B – 37,000 (33,000)
WMU 3C – 41,000 (32,000)
WMU 3D – 37,000 (25,000)
WMU 4C – 33,000 (25,000)
WMU 4E – 26,000 (21,000)
That’s an increase of 38,000 for the northeast region.
During the meeting, Rosenberry pointed out that the board decreased allocations in many WMUs the previous year so the increases really aren’t that much of a hike over what biologists originally recommended for 2014. He also said the allocations are designed to compensate for the WMUs that were changed from a two-week concurrent to a split season.
Still, after two tough winters – this one harder than the last, any attempt to increase the antlerless harvest seems a bit excessive.
Even if those allocations are meant to stabilize the deer population in certain WMUs.
Considering it’s April and we still have a layer of ice and snow covering the forest floor in some northern areas, I think there’s a chance the winter has already stabilized the deer herd, and then some.
The biggest wild card when it comes to winter’s impact on deer won’t be known until May. While starvation could certainly be a factor, what could be more of an issue is the number of does that aborted their fawns due to winter stress. That’s something that needs to be considered when it comes to setting allocations.
Commissioner Jay Delaney, who represents the Northeast Region, sounded reluctant when he said he would go along with the recommended allocations after he grilled Rosenberry over the figures for the northeast.
Delaney was most troubled by the allocations for WMU 3D, which increased from 25,000 to 37,000. He pointed out that WMU 3D has the third-lowest population in the state based on deer per square mile, and even though the goal for the unit is to stabilize the numbers, Delaney said he was “troubled” by an increase of 12,000 antlerless licenses.
“How do I tell northeastern Pennsylvania we’re going to increase it when the population is the third-lowest in the state?” Delaney said. “I’ll support it for right now unless I hear an outcry from the northeast.”
Now’s the time to speak up if you’re concerned about the antlerless license allocations. Just like the PFBC board did when they heard from anglers about the delayed harvest changes, the PGC board, which will vote on antlerless allocations on April 10, may be ready to react to hunters’ opinions as well.