DEER MANAGEMENT ISSUE HEADED TO COURT
PGC science challenged

Joe Kosack/PGC Photo

A sportsmen's group's challenge against the Pennsylvania Game Commission's (PGC) deer management program will be heard in Commonwealth Court, although the trial could be many months in the future.

In a procedural matter this week, the court struck down PGC objections and agreed to hear the case.

Unified Sportsmen of Pa. (USP) claims the game agency has allowed the state's deer herd to fall too low, based on faulty science. USP has asked the court to order the Game Commission to use a new system of measuring deer reproduction and to suspend antlerless deer hunting on state forest and game land.

The plaintiffs maintain that if Commonwealth Court does not act, "the deer herd will fall even further below the natural and appropriate level . . . and the harm may be irreparable.

The Game Commission argues that USP has no right to compel the agency "to manage the deer herd in a manner consistent with their desires and to the exclusion of all others."

PGC Executive Director Carl G. Roe said the agency "welcomes the opportunity for the agency to present its case to Commonwealth Court to resolve, once and for all, the scientific foundation of (our) deer management program."

"We look forward to the opportunity to have our many expert witnesses expound on the scientific basis and soundness of our management plan," Roe added. "Likewise, those who filed this lawsuit will have to validate their claims by presenting their scientific evidence and expert witnesses."

He said the only troubling part of the process is the expected costs that will be incurred by the agency.

Meanwhile, the 2008 deerhunting seasons will move ahead as planned.

A substantial change is a fiveday, antlered deer only season in some parts of the state, including Wildlife Management Unit 2G, which encompasses all of Cameron County and all of Potter and McKean counties below Rt. 6.

It will start on the Monday after Thanksgiving (Dec. 1) and run to Dec. 5, followed immediately by seven days of concurrent antlered and antlerless deer hunting (Dec. 6-13).

The traditional two-week (Dec. 1-13) concurrent antlered and antlerless season will be in place elsewhere, including WMU 3A, which covers the sections of Potter and McKean counties north of Rt. 6.

Roe said the changes "will allow us to investigate the relationship between antlerless allocations and season length as we move forward with our deer management plan."

WMU 2G was chosen because the area has ongoing deer research, he added.

"Antlerless deer harvest versus number of days of opportunity, or the overall season length, will be evaluated," Roe said. "In the future, stakeholders may be able to provide input by sharing whether they'd like more opportunity via time, such as two weeks or more, or more people involved through perhaps more tags and shorter seasons."

In WMU 2G, there will be 26,000 antlerless deer licenses sold, the same figure as in 2007, with a goal of maintaining a stable deer population. Allotment for WMU 3A has been trimmed to 26,000; it was 29,000 last year. That figure is also geared toward maintaining a stable population of whitetails.