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Teen Tinnitus

big success

Editor:

On April 12, the fourth annual "Teen Tinnitus" concert was held at the Coudersport Consistory. More than 400 people attended this event, designed to promote Potter County's suicide prevention efforts.

The bands, Painsville Hill, The Slant, Fool Hardy, Brittany Garrison and Perfuma, performed to a packed house. Local students also presented personal accounts on how others' suicide had impacted their lives.

These students did an amazing job in making Teen Tinnitus successful and should be given a loud round of applause: Stacey Whitney, Nathaniel Kosa, Liz Paisley, Dough Sheppard, Chelsea Hoover, Greyson VanPelt, Gerianne Tomb, Tyler Cole, and Shannon Keating, along with all local Yellow Ribbon Club volunteers.

More than 30 adults volunteered their time in making this event so successful. The Potter County Suicide Prevention Task Force would like to thank: Lagrew Printing; school districts of Austin, Galeton, Coudersport, Northern Potter and Oswayo Valley; Dickinson Mental Health Center; Potter Leader- Enterprise and the Coudersport Consistory.

Come out next year and support our local youth. And remember, "It's OK to ask for help."

Jessica Moon Dickinson Mental Health

Center

Agrees with deer audit

Editor:

Since 2000, the Pa. Game Commission (PGC) has allowed deer populations to be reduced far below acceptable levels.

This over-harvest has been detriment of our hunting tradition, our rural economies and the financial future of the Game Commission. It has driven hunters from the northcentral counties, causing many camps to go vacant. Hundreds of business owners have confirmed an adverse economic impact.

Formerly, almost 1 million hunters hit the woods every year for rifle deer season. Over the past six years, adult resident license sales have declined 12.1 percent. Junior resident license sales have declined 19.3 percent in that same period.

The PGC readily admits it has no idea how many deer exist in Pennsylvania. A true, independent audit by out-ofstate experts is necessary to establish accurate, verifiable deer population numbers.

A number of new groups have joined the deer management debate. Audubon, the Pa. Chapter on Biodiversity and the Humane Society, just to name a few, all say that Pennsylvania is "overrun with deer." We also have the traditional economic forces, such as foresters and farmers, consistently arguing to reduce deer populations.

These groups are organized, well-financed and apply considerable political pressure.

In their effort to demonize deer as a negative impact on our forests, anti-deer forces have spread misinformation.

Deer serve a critical function in reforestation. Deer thin the forest by causing some tree mortality. Deer reduce the density of trees so, later in the reforestation cycle, sunlight can hit the forest floor and new plant species will prosper.

Deer eat more than 150 different types of flora and do not concentrate on valuable hardwoods. Deer reduce competition among trees so more water and nutrients are available to the remaining trees.

Initially, the scientific reason for herd reduction was to facilitate forest regeneration. However, this has failed to materialize. Now, the new scientific reason to continue deer reduction is to improve the health of our deer herd.

All good management begins with an accurate estimate of deer across the landscape.

Deer hunting and the PGC are near financial collapse. An objective review of our deer management program is long overdue.

Stephen Mohr, President

Unified Sportsmen of

Pennsylvania

PGC errors

To the editor:

When the Pennsylvania Game Commission changed the rules a couple of years ago to allow hunters who possess a doe permit to harvest a doe during the entire two-week antler season, I predicted the demise of our state's deer population.

I have talked to many other sportsmen who agree that our deer herd is indeed diminishing. After spending the first two days of the past deer season in the woods and only seeing three deer, I am convinced. While standing in the woods hour after hour and not seeing a deer, I thought the Game Commission had made the biggest blunder in my 50 years of hunting experiences.

These past few weeks have proven me wrong. The commission had already made a new ruling that children of any age, when accompanied by a licensed parent or guardian, could shoot a deer.

That hare-brained decision was followed by a proposal to extend the shooting hours to one-half hour after sunset and relax the rules about wearing florescent orange.

Anyone who has ever been in the woods during the winter deer season knows that by 5 pm it is too dark to positively identify your target. Under the new rules we can have toddlers discharging highpowered rifles at shadows well after dark. Were it not for such potentially deadly results of the Pennsylvania "Lame" Commission's recent decisions, I would suggest that they appear in the newspaper under the comic section instead of in sports.

James Ellenberger

Mt. Pleasant