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By GEORGE SMITH [email protected]
Saturday, March 24, 2001 Page: 3B
Pennsylvania’s hunters had a record-breaking white-tailed deer season and
tallied a harvest that exceeded the half-million mark for the first time.
Hunters killed 504,600 whitetails during the state’s 2000-’01 hunting
seasons, according to figures released by the Pennsylvania Game Commission on
Friday.
That is 126,008 more deer than the 378,592 killed during the 1999-’00
seasons, and it is 74,017 more than in 1995, when hunters took a record
430,583 whitetails in Pennsylvania.
In Luzerne County, hunters killed 4,206 antlered deer last year and 4,132
antlerless deer.
That compares to the 3,909 “buck” and 2,844 “doe” taken in the county
the previous hunting year.
Statewide, hunters took 203,221 buck – a record number – last year compared
to 194,368 during the 1999-’00 deer hunting seasons. Last season, doe hunters
made 301,379 kills. In 1999-’00, 184,224 doe were taken.
The buck kill exceeds last year’s record harvest by 8,853 animals, and the
doe kill exceeds that 1995 record doe harvest of 248,348 by 53,031.
Both archers and flintlock hunters had an outstanding season.
Bowhunters took 78,522 whitetails, including 38,453 antlered and 40,069
antlerless, compared to 72,071 (37,709 antlered and 34,362 antlerless) last
year.
Flintlock hunters harvested 30,405 (1,189 antlered and 29,216 antlerless)
compared to 13,949 (967 antlered and 12,982 antlerless) last year.
Despite last year’s record harvest, the overall autumn 2000 deer population
of about 1.5 million did not suffer or plummet dangerously, officials claim.
“This harvest was necessary just to stabilize the herd. But, with this
year’s fawn production, we anticipate the statewide deer population this
coming fall to be very similar in size to that of last fall,” said Gary Alt,
the game commission’s Deer Management Section supervisor.
State game managers wanted to stabilize the herd through hunting last year.
This year, their goal is to reduce the herd by about 5 percent to improve
woodland habitat.
The game commissioners will vote on new deer hunting regulations April
9-10. They include a 53-day antlered deer season for archers, a 79-day doe
season for archers, a 13-day doe season to run concurrently with a 12-day buck
season, and other initiatives.
Alt said the proposed seasons are intended to correct the buck-to-doe ratio
imbalance in many local deer populations, to reduce the emphasis on buck
hunting, to provide greater hunting opportunities and to reduce the
possibility that weather may negatively impact the deer harvest.
Last year, the statewide antlerless deer license allocation, including the
Special Regulation Area counties, was 830,650, which was lower than the
1998-’99 allocation by more than 60,000.
This year’s proposed antlerless allocation has not yet been released.
George Smith, a Times Leader staff writer, can be reached at 829-7230.