The Pennsylvania Game Commission will consider an antlerless deer license allocation of 797,200 for 61 non-special regulations counties when it meets in Reading next month. Despite a harvest of nearly 400,000 deer last year, the statewide deer population remains more than 40 percent above habitat-based goals set by the Commission.
Deer are common throughout the state, but are particularly abundant in southern counties.
A major objective of the new strategic plan adopted by the Commission in January is to bring deer populations in all management units to within 20 percent of goal by 2003. Commission biologists determined an allocation of nearly 890,000 antlerless licenses is needed this year to bring the state population three percent closer to goal. Following a thorough review of the 1997 deer harvest, post-season deer populations, density goals and social concerns, the agency's staff recommended for Commission consideration the 797,200 allocation proposal. If the entire allocation is issued, it's expected to reduce the statewide over-winter deer population by one percent. But, distributing the entire allocation hinges on whether the Commission approves a proposal that will again permit hunters to use more than one license a year.