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What if all the changes the PGC is pushing..

6K views 94 replies 32 participants last post by  Woods walker 
#1 ·
doesn't reverse the decline in hunter (particularly deer hunter) numbers?

What then?
 
#2 · (Edited)
None of it will reverse the decline over the long haul. What is hoped is that the hit that is coming to hunter numbers when the boomers hang it up won't be as harsh. Much of this is meant to slow the decline.

Another thing is as we lose hunters, opportunities will increase for those that still hunt. Part of what is going on is attributable to that as well.
 
#7 ·
It's the fatal flaw in the separate agency concept. Fewer people paying for all wildlife management. It will reach a point where management will suffer.

There are thousands of acres on an SGL here that are being intentionally allowed to revert to old growth. It's to the point now where it is described as being managed largely for neotropical migrants. Which is OK...but how will this direction generate hunting license dollars in the years to come? At some point non hunters are going to have to chip in to support wildlife management in pa. Personally... it's over due now.
 
#9 · (Edited)
I will not hunt in a CWD area, I will hunt another state that does not have CWD when my area becomes infected. When the states that do not have CWD become too far for a reasonable drive, I will switch to wild hogs. As of now the state I hunt hogs in does not have CWD do I will probably do a combo hunt if that time comes.
 
#11 ·
I will not hunt in a CWD area, I will hunt another state that does not have CWD when my area becomes infected. When the stats that do not have CWD become too far for a reasonable drive, I will switch to wild hogs. As of now the state I hunt hogs in does not have CWD do I will probably do a combo hunt if that time comes.
Unfortunately i am in a DMA now. Pretty much screwed to where to hunt now. Juniata and most of Cumberland is a DMA now too and i am in Perry. I might have to venture to Dauphin. With my son being in midget football going the NC region to camp is pretty much out of the question until at least rifle. There has to be a better system in place for speedy test results. I think i read on here some guys still dont have their results. I will not eat a deer until its tested. One thing that has been on my mind and maybe you or someone else can answer this. I butcher my own deer so lets say I shoot a deer, drop the head off at the dumpster, debone the meat and put it in the freezer to wait on the results. I get the results and its positive for CWD, would i have to throw away everything i used to butcher the deer? We have all heard that the prions will stay in the earth for many years, bleach or fire wont kill the prions so would my knife and cutting board be contaminated with those prions no matter how much i clean it? So if i would happen to harvest 2 deer in one day, should i use different knives and cutting boards to process those deer in case one is positive? These are questions i would love to get the experts to answer as everyone should be aware because many of us really don't know.
 
#19 · (Edited)
Hunter numbers will certainly continue to decline. Sat. openers and Sunday hunting will not make a difference. But things will be okay for those that still hunt. Maybe in 5 years or so we will be able to buy an antlerless tag with our hunting license. Or possible more than one buck tag. When Pa hunters get down below 800,000 or so it will be a game changer. I'll be hunting deer in the big woods as long as I can.
 
#21 ·
I believe hunter decline falls in line with land available to hunt. You can't walk out the back door like I could as a kid with a .22 and hunt for the most part anymore. I look back and can't believe how lucky I was. I could carry my rifle on my shoulder in town (rural really) buy a pop and head back out to the woods. Times have really changed.
 
#23 ·
Look at what is happening. Baby boomers are aging out. Land owners are posting their properties more than ever. A poorly understood but scary disease is on the verge of running through our deer herd. West Nile Virus has crushed grouse populations. Society is shifting (every year) to a less rural and more urban lifestyle. Fools challenge our second amendment rights after every mass shooting. Farming practices have reduced rabbit and pheasant populations (pheasants to the point that there is almost no wild reproduction). The PGC annually pushes for a price increase on licenses. Hunting rarely provides the instant gratification that younger generations seem addicted to. Animal rights morons are actually being taken seriously in higher numbers than ever before. The demands of high school sports drastically reduce time available for young people to hunt. Given these and other factors, I wonder in what universe that it is conceivable the hunter numbers wont continue to decline. Not this one, that's for sure.
 
#27 ·
All very valid points. When you spread fear about the safety of the meat harvested from a hunt it only gets worse. Hunters are now fearing something that don't exist and I can only imagine how non hunting spouses are reacting to the fairy tails that fellow hunters spread out of ignorance. Waugh!
 
#30 ·
Absolutely nothing is going to reverse the decline in hunter numbers. Stats from all the other states that already have these changes prove that. What these changes are going to do is provide more opportunities for those who remain. Not really a bad thing I suppose; I just wish those who actively support such changes would just admit that. Some changes I support, some I think are going to actually be bad for hunting, and others I simply don't care one way or the other.


No matter the changes that will happen, I'll be out there following the new rules till I'm physically unable to. Nothing will ever stop that.
 
#32 ·
I think it is short sighted to think that the result of a decline in hunter participations biggest effect is "those who remain will have more opportunity". Liberal seasons and bag limits wont stop the decline either. What happens once there are too few hunters to effectively control the deer population? Who would that fall to? DCNR sharpshooters? Coyotes? And who would pay for it? Chances are, if you see the silver lining of hunter decline as "more opportunity for me", then you are too old to be able to live to see what wildlife management will become. Which is good because you wouldn't like it.
 
#39 ·
So it will be a game for the rich and connected only, hunting drastically reduced populations of game in very limited places after taking the equivalent of college courses to obtain a license? Wow, hope I don't live to see that.
 
#40 ·
I am with you 25 ftup, I will never stop deer hunting. I hunt in Huntingdon county and we have the same 9 guys showing up every year and we are still excited. 4 of them I started them out deer hunting. IMO the problem today is everybody's kids are playing every sport that comes down the road. My son played sports but they didn't have the travel teams, playoffs didn't go into December and when it came to hunting he would rather be in the woods than playing with his video games. Lets face it todays youth is not into hunting and that's what will hurt the sport
 
#43 ·
To the OP's question, around me within 7 or 8 miles there is probably 5 large hunting clubs with large tracks of land they hunt and the numbers are declining quite a bit already and it's not for a lack of some of the older members trying to get the kids out hunting.
I don't see where any change that the PGC does is going to change that, kids today in this area, are more into electronics and social media and really just don't seem to care about hunting. Most will give it a try a time or 2 but when they get cold and don't see any deer within 2 minutes of being on the stand they get bored. That's what I'm told from a few older fellas from these hunting clubs.
Can more opportunities fix the decline, I would hope so.
 
#44 ·
You cant force something on someone with no interest, or hand out the silver spoon. When all the little perks goes away and reality sits in ones with little interest will stay. I thinks its a trend and will take a lot of time to come back to. The PGC has went out of its way to promote things I don't see how or why they should go farther. Us boomers at age 12 played by the same rules and seasons as a Sr. did and we are still there. The reason is we had the interest and desire to do so.
 
#55 ·
In my opinion CWD has been blown way out of proportion. By the PGC's own numbers there have been 250 deer test positive for CWD in PA since 2012. PA hunters harvest an average of lets say 350,000 deer each year. That means there have been approximately 2.5 million deer killed since testing began. 250 tested positive, that is .0001% of a chance to be positive for CWD. Your odds of winning powerball are probably as good as shooting a deer in PA with CWD. I own land and a cabin in the CWD hotbed of WMU 4A. It is sad to see the amount of tags issued for that area. I also believe we will definitely continue to see a decline in hunter numbers as long as the PGC continues to keep the deer tag allocations high and the herd numbers low. You can give a kid 100 extra days to hunt each year but if they go a few times and do not see any deer why would they want to go back. I am 40 years old now and grew up hunting and fishing. I have always loved it. Would I love it if I never caught any fish or saw any deer when I started? I have no way to answer that. perhaps I would have found something else to interest me if hunting and fishing didn't. Fortunately for most of us we didn't have to deal with that. We saw lots of game when we started hunting and had many opportunities. If you missed a deer, so what? You knew you were going to see more and have another chance. Today that may not be the case. You might only see one deer and if you blow the opportunity may not have a chance again all season. Imagine if you could only fish for wild trout. There are some guys who would do well but the vast majority of fisherman in the state rely on the fish commission to stock the stream and then they catch trout. If there were no stocked trout for a few years how many guys do you think would still buy a license and trout stamp. Now, encourage herd reduction and limit the total number of deer in the woods and how many people do you think are going to continue to buy licenses. It is simple, bring the herd numbers back and the hunters will be back. We will be fighting an uphill battle as long as the numbers remain low no matter how many extra days of hunting opportunity there are.
 
#57 ·
yes 250 tested positive but around 300,000 dont get tested at all so how many that dont get tested are actually positive? deer do travel further than some think. Years ago the PGC tagged and collared a bunch of doe in ShermansDale, later that year 1 was found on the road in Lewistown and 1 in york. If you were driving that is 41 miles to York and 55 miles to Lewistown, so you have to wonder how many positive deer are in counties outside of the DMA's. The rest of your post i completely agree with. I am the same age as you and the 90's were fun times and plenty of game to be seen.
 
#62 ·
You can down paly it al you want but anytime 50% of the bucks being tested are coming back positive for CWD it is a major concern.

What they have in Wisconsin is certainly not what I would want for this Commonwealth. But, that is exactly where we headed with the apathy of our hunters who don't want to believe it is anything to be concerned about or to take action to prevent or even slow the spread of CWD.

I suspect it ten to twenty years we are going to have an even bigger CWD problem than Wisconsin, maybe worse than any state in the nation with the wild deer densities and the number of deer farms we have.

Dick Bodenhorn
 
#64 · (Edited)
You can down paly it al you want but anytime 50% of the bucks being tested are coming back positive for CWD it is a major concern.

What they have in Wisconsin is certainly not what I would want for this Commonwealth. But, that is exactly where we headed with the apathy of our hunters who don't want to believe it is anything to be concerned about or to take action to prevent or even slow the spread of CWD.

I suspect it ten to twenty years we are going to have an even bigger CWD problem than Wisconsin, maybe worse than any state in the nation with the wild deer densities and the number of deer farms we have.

Dick Bodenhorn

I agree Dick, but I'm going to ask once again. Can you verify that 50% number? I'm not downplaying anything. I see that number thrown around quite a bit. I have never seen it verified. The other thread had Kroll vilified as a self promoting charlatan. I've put the actual Wisconsin numbers there. There is not one county that comes anywhere close to 50% and they have been at this since 2002. It's certainly something to be concerned about and I'm not asking for anyone to quit researching it, drop funding etc. It's important to continue the research until we have a handle on it.

It also is something that EVERY deer hunter should be concerned and informing themselves about. The problem with that is that there is so much misinformation because so little is known about it that in that vacuum this 50% number can be accepted without any data to back it up (once again, if it gets verified I retract this whole post). I have posted the actual Wisconsin numbers, if ANYONE has anything beyond that I'm all ears.

There are a lot of hunters that are going to quit hunting because of the belief that pretty soon every deer will have CWD. It's just not true and people throwing that 50% number out there add to that hysteria. (unless of course, someone can verify it)

It's irresponsible to continue with that number (once again, unless it gets verified) and that is the whole reason for Kroll being in PA last week.
 
#66 ·
Von,Colorado and Wyoming have small areas with cwd concentrations that high as well and the deer herds in those areas are starting to decline rapidly as a result.It's a neurological disease that effects their brains.Most just get stupid and are killed by hunters,cars,predators etc before they succumb to the disease.The mortality rate for cwd deer is way higher than non-infected deer.
 
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