Deer vote will define agency's identity

Thought you guys and gals would find this article interesting. Its from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Regards,

Joe
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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06099/680733-140.stm

By Ben Moyer

On April 17 and 18 the Pennsylvania Game Commission will meet to finalize hunting seasons and bag limits for the 2006-07 hunting year. Its agenda covers small game, wild turkey, bear, elk and fur bearers but the Commission's decisions regarding white-tailed deer will attract the greatest attention.

Under scrutiny by some interests who want more deer and others who want fewer, the Commission will decide the schedule of deer seasons and the number of antlerless deer licenses it will issue.

This meeting finds the Board of Game Commissioners in a position of conflict. After decades of encouraging high deer populations, a majority of the current board members have directed a recent effort to reduce deer to ease damage to forests and farms. Many hunters, though, disapprove and are asking the Commission to let the herds rebound. The agency is in financial crisis and needs an increase in hunting license fees to remain in operation.

Numerous legislators have stated they will block such an increase unless the Commission accommodates dissatisfied hunter demands.

The intensity of pressure on commissioners is evident in two separate hearings convened by legislators over recent weeks. In late March, Representatives Dan Surra (Elk County), Ed Staback (Luzerne), James Shaner (Fayette) and Mike Hanna (Clinton) held a hearing at a DuBois fire hall where most speakers expressed their dismay with recent Game Commission policies they say have reduced the herds.

Reporting on the DuBois hearing, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette quoted Ray Werts, president of the Western Clinton County Sportsmen Association. "As hunters grow up without seeing many deer, it is a disappointment to them. People tell me they saw lots of bear and bear tracks, but the deer [last hunting season] were pitiful," Werts said.

Werts recommended cuts in antlerless license allocations in Wildlife Management Unit 2G, dominated by State Forests in northcentral Pennsylvania.

The Sun-Gazette reported that Bob's Army and Navy Store owner Robert Grimminger testified, "With the shape the deer herd is in, we might as well go hunt in Nebraska ... We have to do something to accommodate Pennsylvania deer hunters."

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee heard testimony in Harrisburg from farm, environmental and forestry groups that want the Game Commission to continue its current policies and provide private landowners and communities with additional options for managing deer.

"Farmers in general are concerned that some constituencies are pursuing policy that would again increase the deer population and those policies would be harmful to most of the stakeholders represented here today. We are truly at a crossroads," said Craig Sweager representing the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.

Tim Schaeffer, executive director of Audubon Pennsylvania said damage caused by over-abundant deer is not confined to farms and that the state's public forests, such as those in Wildlife Management Unit 2G are at high risk. "The abundance of native wildflowers and other forest-floor plants has been greatly diminished, shrub species have been dramatically decreased or eliminated, and the variety of tree species has declined. Birds and other wildlife that depend on forest vegetation have also been affected," he said.

Gregg Robertson, president of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association told the committee his organization's members spend an average of $20,000 every year to control deer damage and that some nursery businesses could not absorb the loss.

Observers of the Game Commission expect hunter concessions to win approval at the meeting, including fewer antlerless tags and, possibly, abandonment of the concurrent two-week season for antlered and antlerless deer in some regions.

The votes could reveal whether the current board of commissioners views the primary responsibility of the Pennsylvania Game Commission as one of providing acceptable outdoor recreation to its financial supporters, or, alternatively, managing the wildlife resources of a diverse Commonwealth.

Outdoors: Deer vote will define agency's identity

Thought you guys and gals may find this article interesting it is from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

By Ben Moyer

On April 17 and 18 the Pennsylvania Game Commission will meet to finalize hunting seasons and bag limits for the 2006-07 hunting year. Its agenda covers small game, wild turkey, bear, elk and fur bearers but the Commission's decisions regarding white-tailed deer will attract the greatest attention.

Under scrutiny by some interests who want more deer and others who want fewer, the Commission will decide the schedule of deer seasons and the number of antlerless deer licenses it will issue.

This meeting finds the Board of Game Commissioners in a position of conflict. After decades of encouraging high deer populations, a majority of the current board members have directed a recent effort to reduce deer to ease damage to forests and farms. Many hunters, though, disapprove and are asking the Commission to let the herds rebound. The agency is in financial crisis and needs an increase in hunting license fees to remain in operation.

Numerous legislators have stated they will block such an increase unless the Commission accommodates dissatisfied hunter demands.

The intensity of pressure on commissioners is evident in two separate hearings convened by legislators over recent weeks. In late March, Representatives Dan Surra (Elk County), Ed Staback (Luzerne), James Shaner (Fayette) and Mike Hanna (Clinton) held a hearing at a DuBois fire hall where most speakers expressed their dismay with recent Game Commission policies they say have reduced the herds.

Reporting on the DuBois hearing, the Williamsport Sun-Gazette quoted Ray Werts, president of the Western Clinton County Sportsmen Association. "As hunters grow up without seeing many deer, it is a disappointment to them. People tell me they saw lots of bear and bear tracks, but the deer [last hunting season] were pitiful," Werts said.

Werts recommended cuts in antlerless license allocations in Wildlife Management Unit 2G, dominated by State Forests in northcentral Pennsylvania.

The Sun-Gazette reported that Bob's Army and Navy Store owner Robert Grimminger testified, "With the shape the deer herd is in, we might as well go hunt in Nebraska ... We have to do something to accommodate Pennsylvania deer hunters."

On Tuesday, the House of Representatives Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee heard testimony in Harrisburg from farm, environmental and forestry groups that want the Game Commission to continue its current policies and provide private landowners and communities with additional options for managing deer.

"Farmers in general are concerned that some constituencies are pursuing policy that would again increase the deer population and those policies would be harmful to most of the stakeholders represented here today. We are truly at a crossroads," said Craig Sweager representing the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau.

Tim Schaeffer, executive director of Audubon Pennsylvania said damage caused by over-abundant deer is not confined to farms and that the state's public forests, such as those in Wildlife Management Unit 2G are at high risk. "The abundance of native wildflowers and other forest-floor plants has been greatly diminished, shrub species have been dramatically decreased or eliminated, and the variety of tree species has declined. Birds and other wildlife that depend on forest vegetation have also been affected," he said.

Gregg Robertson, president of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association told the committee his organization's members spend an average of $20,000 every year to control deer damage and that some nursery businesses could not absorb the loss.

Observers of the Game Commission expect hunter concessions to win approval at the meeting, including fewer antlerless tags and, possibly, abandonment of the concurrent two-week season for antlered and antlerless deer in some regions.

The votes could reveal whether the current board of commissioners views the primary responsibility of the Pennsylvania Game Commission as one of providing acceptable outdoor recreation to its financial supporters, or, alternatively, managing the wildlife resources of a diverse Commonwealth.

Hunters Save Bird From Extinction

Any news that gets the word out that hunters and conservation go hand in hand is welcomed, way to go!

Tuesday, December 13, 2005WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- A hunting lodge with antler chandeliers and stuffed ducks on the walls seems a strange place to celebrate the comeback of the ivory-billed woodpecker, but wildlife officials are doing exactly that. They credit hunters in particular with helping bring the rare bird back from presumed extinction in the Big Woods section of Arkansas."The people of Arkansas, the hunting and fishing community, conserved these woods," Scott Simon of The Nature Conservancy told reporters on Monday at the Mallard Pointe Lodge, where a coalition of environmentalists, academics and wildlife officials rejoiced in woodpecker's return to the living.Simon said hunters and others helped save the bird in large part by buying Duck Stamps, at $15 each. These stamps are not for postage, but pay for a federal migratory bird conservation fund, and eventually added up to $41 million to reclaim much of the habitat of the endangered woodpecker."The $41 million went into the land before the ivory bill showed up," Simon said.The ivory-billed woodpecker was believed extinct for the last 60 years, and various reports of sightings of the big bird -- jet black and bright white with a red crest on the male -- were dismissed by professional ornithologists.Their skepticism was warranted because of the destruction of the big old trees over much of the American southeast that began after the U.S. Civil War. The ivory bill's large size, with a body perhaps 20 inches long means it needs large trees to nest in. It is known to scale the bark off old, dying and dead trees to get at the cigar-sized grubs that live there.But that was before an amateur naturalist said he saw one while paddling in the Cache River National Wildlife Refuge in February 2004. When he brought two bird experts to the same spot, they saw it too. And when a professor captured the bird in flight in fuzzy but authentic video, an analysis of all the data pointed to the startling fact that the ivory bill was back.The ivory bill's public rediscovery last April energized a massive search in eastern Arkansas. Starting in November, teams of paid experts and volunteers have been scouring the Big Woods for signs of the bird.In this, too, hunters are allies, according to Scott Henderson, director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission."The deer hunter and the duck hunter out there are some of the best eyes and ears we've got," Henderson said. "We have 7,000 hunters in this same area for eight hours at a time or more in some cases."Good observers are essential to catching a glimpse of the camera-shy ivory bill. So far, some 20,000 hours of searching by dozens of trained observers have failed to spot the bird. But that is understandable, given each woodpecker's presumed 12 mile foraging range. Experts do not know how many ivory-billed woodpeckers might exist in this area.The total search area in Arkansas takes in 550,000 acres of forest and swamp. Since last year, searchers have covered about 62 square miles.Henderson acknowledged that hunters were concerned at first that the urge to protect the woodpecker's habitat would limit access to hunting areas, but he said this has not happened.Game officials want to avoid what Henderson called a "spotted owl situation" -- the clash of interests that occurred in the 1980s between wildlife preservationists and loggers in the U.S. northwest over protecting the small bird.