Up to his ears in doe applications

By PAT CAMUSO

	TRR photo by Pat Camuso Pike County Treasurer Mike Peifer. (Click for larger image)

MILFORD — County treasurers began accepting antlerless license applications through the mail from residents on Monday, August 5.

“About four thousand applications came in Monday,” said Pike County Treasurer Mike Peifer. “But we have 13,600 permits allotted to us this year. That is almost double past allotments.”

Peifer explained that the increase in antlerless allotments is a part of Dr. Gary Alt’s new deer management plan designed to bring into balance the state’s deer herd by harvesting an across-the-board surplus of female animals. This year’s buck harvest, however, will undoubtedly be lower than normal because of a new “three points on one side” antler restriction during buck season.

According to Alt, Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) Deer Management Section supervisor, the current doe-to-buck ratio is about seven females to one male. Science has proven that a healthy balance would be much closer to a one-to-one ratio. Alt hopes his plan will ultimately curtail over-browsing problems on forested lands while, at the same time, allowing for bucks to grow larger with bigger antlers.

According to Peifer, the state is allowing any surplus antlerless tags, subsequent to the first application round, to be sold as bonus tags and can be used to harvest an antlerless deer on public or private lands during the prescribed season.

Based on the need to increase the antlerless harvest to make room for the roughly 85,000 antlered deer that are expected to be protected by the new antler restrictions for 2002-2003, the Board of Game Commissioners approved a statewide antlerless license allocation of 922,600. (These figures do not include the six Special Regulation Area counties. The statewide total, including the Special Regulation Area counties, is 1,029,350.)

Alt noted that he expected this increase in antlerless licenses to be in place for one year, and that the allocation should decrease in the 2003-2004 season. With the goal of implementing new deer management units in 2003-2004, Alt noted the agency will be able to better direct hunter pressure to those areas in most need.

Wayne County’s antlerless allocation this year is 14,200.

For the second season in a row, antlerless deer season will run concurrent with the bucks season (December 2 - 14).

According to Peifer, a special bear season will take place in Pike County this year in addition to the regular three-day statewide season. It will run concurrent with the first week of buck season (December 2-7). This season was put in place after a special nuisance bear committee found a surplus of black bears and a “potential for human/bear conflicts” in Pike, Monroe and Carbon counties.

Nonresident applications will begin being accepted through the mail on Monday, August 19. County treasurers will begin accepting resident and nonresident hunter applications through the mail for the first round of unsold licenses on Monday, August 26. The second round will be accepted through the mail beginning Monday, September 9.