Some hunters oppose 2021-22 concurrent buck and doe seasons
Weeks after announcing that Pennsylvania’s 2020-21 deer harvest was the highest in 15 years, state game commissioners gave final approval to a 2021-22 season that includes 14 days of concurrent statewide antlered and antlerless firearms hunting.
Last year, a concurrent season was held in 10 wildlife management units where priority was given to slowing the spread of chronic wasting disease among free-ranging wild deer. Simultaneous antlered and antlerless hunting, it was believed, would allow hunters to remove more deer from areas where CWD had been detected.
The Game Commission said in a statement that expanding concurrent seasons to all WMUs would give hunters more opportunities to harvest antlerless deer, and there would be no question as to which WMUs are open to antlerless hunting. The goal is to ensure that more does will be shot without increasing antlerless allocations in most WMUs.
“Allowing antlerless deer hunting throughout the season is not intended to increase the antlerless harvest,” said the statement. “Deer populations are managed through the allocation of antlerless licenses. On average, one antlerless deer is harvested for every four antlerless deer licenses allocated. In most WMUs, antlerless license allocations were decreased with the move from a sevenday to a 14-day concurrent season.”
That formula doesn’t necessarily apply to management goals in every WMU.
“For example, in WMUs where the deer population is increasing but the deer management plan goal is to stabilize the population, an increase in harvest is needed,” said the Game Commission statement. “As a result, the antlerless allocation has increased to achieve a higher harvest. In WMUs with chronic wasting disease, similar increases in allocation and harvest are necessary.”
According to the agency, a longer antlerless season will compensate for something the Game Commission can’t control: the weather.
The current long-term deer management plan states that when poor conditions kept hunters at home in 2005, the failure of management goals was prevented by concurrent seasons. The opening day of the 2005 rifle season was mostly foggy, resulting in low visibility. The second day brought wind and rain.
“Statewide, the harvest the first two days dropped from 49% of the firearms harvest in 2004 to 35% during 2005. For the first week, the firearms harvest dropped from 78% in 2004 to 68% in 2005,” states the management plan. “In other words, the second week of antlerless hunting in 2004 accounted for one-fifth of the harvest. In 2005, the second week accounted for onethird of the harvest.”
The plan speculates that if the 2005 doe season had lasted just one week, the effectiveness of that year’s antlerless allocation likely would have been reduced.
“Instead, the effectiveness of the antlerless allocation to harvest antlerless deer remained stable between 2004 and 2005,” it says. “It took approximately four licenses to kill an antlerless deer in both years, in spite of the differences in weather.”
In 2004-05, hunters took 284,910 antlerless deer. In 2005- 06 the harvest was 233,890, according to the Game Commission.
Some hunters oppose concurrent buck and doe seasons.
“Do you not recall back in 2001, when the agency went to concurrent seasons, the deer herd was decimated in many units?” Randy Santucci, southwest regional director of United Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, said in an open letter to the Game Commission published on the group’s website.
“Hunting licenses began in 2004 to plummet in direct response to the hunt becoming a waste of time in many areas,” he wrote. “The buzz statement was, ‘Taking my rifle for a walk.’”
Santucci suggested that hunters will kill more deer than can be replenished as a result of the coming concurrent season.
“Your claims [that] antlerless allocations will be reduced proportionally to offset the extra hunting time will unfold like it did in the early 2000s — [it will] not happen,” he said. “And if it does, it will be after numbers are reduced far below hunting needs.”