| The following list is a compilation
of suggestions made by participants at the Deer in Your
Backyard: How to Deal with the Challenges of
Overabundant Deer in Your Community seminars.
1. Allow landowners, community
associations, conservancies, etc., to apply directly to
the PGC for deer control permits rather than restricting
the process to municipalities.
This suggestion was based on
making the application process as user friendly and
effective as possible without overburdening local
municipal governments. Why, for example, should a
local conservancy with a deer overabundance problem
on one of their properties be required to involve
the local municipal government in acquiring a deer
control permit from the PGC rather than going
straight to the PGC? Why should the local government
take on the cost and time commitment of being
involved in applying for the permit on behalf of the
conservancy including the need to address the action
in public meetings while assuming liability issues
connected with conservancy actions?
2. Allow for Community Level
Deer Management by permitting the local applicant to
decide on what deer management tools are most suitable
to their needs based on their property goals, land use,
and values.
The PGC should allow
communities as much control as possible in directing
their deer control programs providing a wide range
of options. The more control communities have, the
more effective they are in moving forward and being
successful.
3. Permit deer removals under deer
control permits to begin on November 1 and not be
restricted by recreational hunting seasons.
Deer removal permits are not in
competition with hunters for deer. If hunting could
be effective or was compatible with other land uses
and community values it would be the first choice.
Restricting deer removal periods to after the close
of the last deer hunting season restricts the
effectiveness of these programs.
4. Permit the use of trap and
euthanize under deer control permits.
“Trap and euthanize” can be an
effective tool for communities particularly in the
context of an integrated deer control program. It
can be used in areas where firearms are determined
to be inappropriate or as a maintenance program
carried on following an initial deer reduction.
5. Permit the use of 4-poster feeders
on properties where hunting may be
occurring simultaneously.
For communities attempting to
manage Lyme disease, deer reductions and 4-poster
feeders, used to treat deer for tick control, are
important tools. To be effective, both need to occur
at the same time of the year. Under current PGC
regulations it is unclear whether 4-poster feeders
are considered illegal on properties where hunting
is occurring simultaneously due to laws regarding
”hunting over bait”. The PGC should make clear that
4-poster feeders are not an obstacle to deer hunting
on properties involved in community deer reduction
programs.
6. Avoid arbitrary restrictions that
reduce hunter effectiveness such as the
requirement of tagging a harvested deer before taking
additional deer.
If hunters are to be used
effectively to reduce deer impacts on residential
landscapes where deer vulnerability is low, they
must not be restricted by arbitrary rules regarding
“sport”, fair chase and equitable distribution.
Currently, for example, a hunter with two antlerless
permits who has the opportunity to shoot two
antlerless deer standing below his tree stand, must
by law, shot only one, climb down and tag it, before
he may shoot the second. In states committed to
using hunters to play a role in Community Level Deer
Management, there are no such arbitrary restrictions
on hunter effectiveness.
7. Permit regulated baiting by hunters
to increase deer vulnerability and to
lure deer to areas where they can safely be removed.
Regulated baiting is an
extremely effective tool for increasing deer
vulnerability, hunter effectiveness and luring deer
to locations where they can be safely removed. It is
an essential tool for managing deer in residential
landscapes and problem areas and should be
legalized.
8. Allow deer removals outside of
normal seasons on properties enrolled in the Deer
Management Assistant Program (DMAP) in order to allow
those property managers to attract highly skilled
hunters who are often not available within normal
hunting seasons.
Hunting is a skill and a craft.
Some individuals have mastered it while others have
not. Deer control within residential landscapes and
problem areas requires skilled hunters to be
effective. Yet many of the most skilled hunters have
hunting commitments elsewhere during the states
regular deer seasons making them unavailable to
community hunt managers. By allowing deer removals
for residential landscapes and problem areas outside
of the normal recreational hunting seasons, managers
would have much greater access to more highly
skilled hunters and thus safer, more effective
programs.
9. Provide DMAP permits, at no cost,
directly to the landowner and communities
for their respective properties to be distributed
directly to hunters, eliminating
the current time lag and the inefficient, burdensome
process for acquiring
coupons and subsequently permits.
Pennsylvania is the only state
in the country that charges hunters for DMAP permits
and has a bureaucratic, convoluted system that
encumbers hunters/landowner cooperation. In other
states DMAP permits are provided to the landowner
for distribution directly to hunters at no charge.
This allows for the maximum efficiency and
effectiveness of the program and encourages
landowner and hunter cooperation. In those states,
if a hunter fills all his antlerless tags or
discovers he has more time to hunt, he can approach
the landowner, pick up a DMAP permit and hunt all in
the same day. In Pennsylvania the landowner must
apply to the PGC by July 1 to be in the DMAP
program, receive approval, be mailed antlerless
coupons, distribute the antlerless coupons to
hunters, the hunter must then contact the PGC to buy
a DMAP antlerless permit, wait to receive the
permit, and then can only use the permit on that
landowners property during the deer season and
cannot exchanged the permit with any other hunter or
property.
10. Provide a 2-week, any tackle,
antlerless deer season for DMAP properties
On DMAP properties where the
landowner has been granted additional antlerless
permits because of an inability to control deer
impacts within the normal recreational hunting
model, hunters should have access to all tackle
options during all deer seasons and an additional
antlerless season to maximize the potential for the
program to be successful in meeting landowners or
community goals. Deer respond to hunting pressure by
becoming nocturnal, reducing movements resulting in
reduced vulnerability to hunters. An additional
2-week season would give hunters more time to meet
the DMAP landowners goals and increase deer
vulnerability by allowing deer to return to their
normal behaviors.
11. Allow the use of rifles during all
seasons for DMAP properties if permitted
by the community and property owner.
Deer vulnerability and hunter
effectiveness vary dramatically with the tackle used
by the hunters. Rifles with scopes, for example, are
far more effective than archery equipment,
independent of the hunters’ skill level. On DMAP
properties where the landowner has been granted
additional antlerless permits because of an
inability to control deer impacts within the normal
recreational hunting model, hunters should have
access to all tackle options during all deer seasons
to maximize the potential for the program to be
successful in meeting landowner or community goals.
12. Maximize hunter effectiveness by
allowing DMAP tags to be exchanged between hunters with
no limit on how many any one hunter fills until the
property has removed the number of deer sought by the
property owner.
DMAP antlerless tags are issued
to a specific property to reduce deer numbers and
impacts. Landowners in such situations have as their
goal a successful deer herd reduction not the
equitable distribution of deer among hunters. Since
some hunters are more skilled than others and
therefore more consistently successful, landowners
using hunters are more likely to achieve their goals
if antlerless tags can be exchanged between hunters
for an individual DMAP property. New York allows
DMAP tags for a given property to be transferred
from one hunter to another for exactly this reason.
13. The PGC should provide assistance
to Community Associations, conservancies and
municipalities in developing plans for addressing deer
management challenges in residential landscapes.
Community Associations,
conservancies and municipality staff often have
little or no wildlife management experience. Yet,
these professionals are often confronted with public
attitudes and expectations on wildlife issues that
are diverse, impassioned and conflicting. What
evolves out of these often volatile situations is
inaction or programs based on compromise that fails
in actually reducing deer impacts. Archery hunts,
for example, are often employed as the single
treatment to resolve the conflict despite the fact
that nowhere is there an example of archery hunting
alone successfully balancing deer with their habitat
in these situations. Compounding the problem is that
many deer management programs lack both compliance
and effectiveness monitoring, resulting in the
continuation of ineffective programs that squander
scarce resources while spending political capital.
The PGC is the logical state agency to provide such
education, consulting and assistance.
14. Provide an urban community hunter
education and certification program and a
registration system by which landowners or communities
can contact and
interview certified hunters. Certification should
include a marksmanship
test, safety training relevant to hunting in residential
communities, deer
behavior, hunting techniques, and hunter etiquette.
Hunting deer within an
residential landscape is a specialty that is very
different from hunting in rural areas and requires
special training. If communities and property owners
are going to embrace hunting within their open space
they have the right to expect that those individuals
to which the PGC sells a license have the training
required to hunt safely, effectively and with the
proper sensitivity to community needs and values.
The PGC should develop a training and certification
program for hunters who wish to hunt in residential
landscapes and provide a system for matching those
hunters with communities that wish to use them.
15. Conduct educational programs
around the state’s residential communities on
Lyme Disease management.
Pennsylvania is the number one
state for new cases of Lyme disease in the country
with tick populations continuing to spread and
expand within the state. Programs are available for
communities to manage this disease including deer
population management. Given the key role deer play
in this disease, the Pennsylvania Game Commission
should be a key player in educating the public and
in working with communities about the disease and
its management.
16. Permit the sale of venison from
deer taken under a deer control permit by a
municipality to help defray the cost of the community’s
deer control program.
Deer management in residential
landscapes, by whatever method, is expensive. Costs
could be reduced if deer taken under a deer control
permit by a municipality could be sold to help
defray the cost of the community’s deer control
program. Venison is recommended by the American
Heart Association as an alternative to beef and has
a commercial value. Allowing its sale by a
municipality to defray the cost is a win-win.
|
