Published: June 23, 2008 11:44 pm            

Changes urged for deer restrictions

HARRISBURG — Only seven people offered testimony on Monday during the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s public-comment period, and they covered a range of topics from allowing crossbows as regular archery tackle to deer management in special regulation areas.

The session was the first for newly appointed commissioner Ron Weaner, a school teacher and dairy farmer from Adams County.

Weaner fills the vacancy left when Steve Mohr’s term expired. Mohr has since become chairman of the board of the Unified Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, which has sued the game commission over it’s deer management plan.

Weaner’s appointment brings the board to its full complement of eight members, although the terms of Russ Schleiden and board President Roxane Palone will expire after the next meeting.

That likely will leave the board with two vacancies for the annual seasons-and-bag limits meeting in January.

Cal DuBrock, head of the agency’s Bureau of Wildlife Management, recommended that the commissioners approve three proposals, one of which would lift restrictions in special regulations areas on hunters taking more than one deer at a time without immediately tagging them. He also recommended allowing hunters with DMAP permits to shoot antlerless deer during buck season on the four wildlife management units – 2D, 2G, 3C and 4B – that will have delayed antlerless season openers this year. DuBrock asked the commissioners to also approve staff-recommended revisions that would expand the types or organizations that could apply for permits to control deer in urban/suburban areas.

Dan Brauning, head of the agency’s Wildlife Diversity Program, gave a report in which he noted that the game commission is responsible for 467 species of mammals and birds, 85 percent of which are not considered game animals. Of the 402 birds species on that list, he said, 18 are classified as endangered or threatened and 79 are considered species of concern. The list also includes 65 mammals, he said, of which seven are endangered or threatened and there are concerns about 25.

Brauning said the game commission devotes about $250,000 of its own funds to the diversity program each year, and that is used to leverage more than $1 million in federal grants to support studies and other management projects for non-game species. He said the program also gets about $300,000 a year from the state’s Wild Resource Conservation Fund.

Executive Director Carl Roe reported that the company under contract to develop and implement the game commission’s long-awaited electronic licensing system is being sold to a competitor.

The system was expected to be online last year, but failed testing.

Roe said the contract is being renegotiated and a pilot program is scheduled for delivery on Sept. 15.

He also reported that the agency’s magazine, Pennsylvania Game News, will soon be available by subscription on the game commission Web site. He said putting Game News on the Internet would make it possible to provide it free to farm-game cooperators, schools and libraries. Formerly, the game commission mailed free copies of the magazine to those groups, but was forced to stop free distribution because of budget cuts.

Roe said posting the magazine on the Web will cost about $16,000 a year, which he said is less than the cost of printing and mailing one edition.

        

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