Pennsylvania Game News - September 2022 - 4

MATURE BUCKS MAKE MAJORITY
Gone are the days when spikes ruled the
world.
Sixty-two percent of the antlered deer
harvested across Pennsylvania last season
were at least 2.5 years old; only 38% percent
were yearlings. Game Commission Executive
Director Bryan Burhans credited that in part
to hunters embracing antler restrictions, in
place since 2002.
" Pennsylvania is routinely producing some
really impressive deer, on both public and private
ground, " Burhans said. " We couldn't have
any of that without a well-managed deer herd
and cooperation on the part of our hunters. "
Some of those bucks are exceptional. After
last season, hunters entered 108 into Pennsylvania's
Big Game Records Program. Archers
accounted for 91 entries, 79 in the typical category
and 12 in the nontypical. Firearms hunters
took the other 17, 12 in the typical category and
five in the nontypical.
As is usual, those deer came from all over.
Hunters took record-book bucks in 50 of the
state's 67 counties. Twenty counties - Armstrong,
Bedford, Berks, Bradford, Crawford,
Dauphin, Elk, Erie, Lebanon, Mercer, Monroe,
Potter, Somerset, Susquehanna, Tioga, Venango,
Warren, Washington, Westmoreland and Wyoming
- produced more than one.
There's potential for more of the same this
fall and winter, as the age structure of Pennsylvania's
deer herd remains similar to last year.
In 2F, CWD is the issue. Nine WMUs
across the state are touched by CWD.
WMU 2F is the only one of those getting
additional antlerless tags, though, because
the disease is still new there.
" We previously increased antlerless
license allocations over time in the WMUs
where CWD was present for multiple
years to increase the antlerless harvest, "
Stainbrook said. " Essentially, we turned
the dial each year to get that harvest to a
high enough level to start decreasing the
population.
" CWD was just detected in WMU 2F
last season, so this was the first year to turn
the dial to start the process of getting that
population trend to go down. "
The allocation may need to be adjusted
up or down even if the objective is to
maintain the population at existing levels.
That is what occurred in the six other
WMUs with additional antlerless licenses.
Meanwhile, one WMU - 2H - has
4
fewer antlerless tags than last year.
" For the 2020-21 season, we recommended
increasing the allocation in 2H
because the population was significantly
increasing and the objective was to stabilize
it, " Stainbrook said. " The trend is no
longer increasing, so our objective is to
stabilize the population in 2H. "
This season's allocations in the other
14 WMUs did not change from last
season.
Clearly, there's a lot that goes into managing
white-tailed deer. The good news
is that Pennsylvania's deer herd - and
consequently its deer hunting - remain
remarkably consistent.
HEALTHY HARVEST
The numbers bear that out.
Hunters harvested an estimated
376,810 whitetails across 2021-22.
That includes 145,320 antlered deer and
231,490 antlerless deer.
Pennsylvania Game News - September 2022

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