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03-24-2010, 04:58 PM
by PJ REILLY from LancasterOnline.com
Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania's leadership has read and reviewed the so-called "deer audit" commissioned and recently released by the state Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.
Not surprisingly, while Pennsylvania Game Commission staff view the audit as a vindication of the agency's deer management program, Unified believes the audit condemns it.
In a written analysis of the audit performed by Wildlife Management Institute, Unified says WMI "claims the scientific foundation of the PGC deer management system is sound, but there are important components identified that need revision, improvement, modification, abandonment and additional evaluation and assessment.
"With so many major recommendations by WMI that bear heavily on deer management, it is difficult to accept that the PGC's deer management is scientifically sound or on a fundamentally sound foundation."
Some of you might be thinking, "Enough with the deer audit already."
And with the warm days of the past week pushing my thoughts to trout and turkeys, rest assured, I'm with you.
But Unified's view of this audit is a critical component of the ongoing debate over the success or failure of the PGC's deer management program.
Unified is suing the agency for allegedly mismanaging the state's deer herds.
This WMI audit, no doubt, is going to be a hammer both sides turn to as the fight progresses.
Unified's report was crafted by the group's legislative liaison, Charles Bolgiano, of East Hempfield Township, and radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist Jim Slinsky.
As one might expect, Unified claims the audit found that the Game Commission's efforts counting embryos in road-killed does are insufficient and should be scrapped and that the annual harvest estimates and forest regeneration assessments are pure bunk.
Those flaws in the program, the Unified analysis states, have led to a "garbage-in-garbage-out" method of deer management.
"The determination by WMI that antlerless [license] allocations using PA's ... methodology, in conjunction with poor harvest data, is flawed and unreliable is a theme USP has emphasized for a decade," the Unified report states.
Unified rates WMI's audit a "5" on a scale of 1-10.
A glaring omission from the audit, Unified states, is any discussion of what Unified calls "the true, core deer management fallacy" which is "the absence/presence theory. If a tree species is absent from the woods, allegedly there must be too many deer present," Unified's analysis states.
"This is the erroneous mindset driving our deer management for decades. ... It would not matter if we killed every last deer in this state, we will not achieve satisfactory regeneration. Our soils are in terrible condition."
Unified claims acid rain is the main reason regeneration is so poor in Pennsylvania, and the organization recommends "liming and/or burning our forests" to improve conditions.
"WMI speaks of silvicultural prescriptions for our forests, which is a fancy word for tree farming," Unified's report states. "If we are going to tree farm PA, we will always have conflicts with deer.
"In essence, we are allowing foresters to establish our goals for regeneration in direct conflict with wildlife management."
(This point is particularly interesting, since researchers at Penn State University recently concluded the PGC hasn't been aggressive enough with its "tree farming" in recent years. And the PGC says that's because the agency doesn't manage forests for timber sales, it manages them for wildlife habitat.)
Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said agency officials saw no need to respond to Unified's report on a point-by-point basis.
In essence, he said the report is what the PGC expected.
"It's clear Unified does not support the deer management program," Feaser said. "We're not surprised by that, and we are engaged in a lawsuit with Unified over the program."
Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania's leadership has read and reviewed the so-called "deer audit" commissioned and recently released by the state Legislative Budget and Finance Committee.
Not surprisingly, while Pennsylvania Game Commission staff view the audit as a vindication of the agency's deer management program, Unified believes the audit condemns it.
In a written analysis of the audit performed by Wildlife Management Institute, Unified says WMI "claims the scientific foundation of the PGC deer management system is sound, but there are important components identified that need revision, improvement, modification, abandonment and additional evaluation and assessment.
"With so many major recommendations by WMI that bear heavily on deer management, it is difficult to accept that the PGC's deer management is scientifically sound or on a fundamentally sound foundation."
Some of you might be thinking, "Enough with the deer audit already."
And with the warm days of the past week pushing my thoughts to trout and turkeys, rest assured, I'm with you.
But Unified's view of this audit is a critical component of the ongoing debate over the success or failure of the PGC's deer management program.
Unified is suing the agency for allegedly mismanaging the state's deer herds.
This WMI audit, no doubt, is going to be a hammer both sides turn to as the fight progresses.
Unified's report was crafted by the group's legislative liaison, Charles Bolgiano, of East Hempfield Township, and radio broadcaster and newspaper columnist Jim Slinsky.
As one might expect, Unified claims the audit found that the Game Commission's efforts counting embryos in road-killed does are insufficient and should be scrapped and that the annual harvest estimates and forest regeneration assessments are pure bunk.
Those flaws in the program, the Unified analysis states, have led to a "garbage-in-garbage-out" method of deer management.
"The determination by WMI that antlerless [license] allocations using PA's ... methodology, in conjunction with poor harvest data, is flawed and unreliable is a theme USP has emphasized for a decade," the Unified report states.
Unified rates WMI's audit a "5" on a scale of 1-10.
A glaring omission from the audit, Unified states, is any discussion of what Unified calls "the true, core deer management fallacy" which is "the absence/presence theory. If a tree species is absent from the woods, allegedly there must be too many deer present," Unified's analysis states.
"This is the erroneous mindset driving our deer management for decades. ... It would not matter if we killed every last deer in this state, we will not achieve satisfactory regeneration. Our soils are in terrible condition."
Unified claims acid rain is the main reason regeneration is so poor in Pennsylvania, and the organization recommends "liming and/or burning our forests" to improve conditions.
"WMI speaks of silvicultural prescriptions for our forests, which is a fancy word for tree farming," Unified's report states. "If we are going to tree farm PA, we will always have conflicts with deer.
"In essence, we are allowing foresters to establish our goals for regeneration in direct conflict with wildlife management."
(This point is particularly interesting, since researchers at Penn State University recently concluded the PGC hasn't been aggressive enough with its "tree farming" in recent years. And the PGC says that's because the agency doesn't manage forests for timber sales, it manages them for wildlife habitat.)
Game Commission spokesman Jerry Feaser said agency officials saw no need to respond to Unified's report on a point-by-point basis.
In essence, he said the report is what the PGC expected.
"It's clear Unified does not support the deer management program," Feaser said. "We're not surprised by that, and we are engaged in a lawsuit with Unified over the program."