That's what we're trying to change on our QHE sites. Those sites are the Quehanna Wild Area in Elk State Forest in southern Cameron County and Tioga State Forest in Tioga County. The Sand County Foundation has four study sites established in the country - one on its own property in Michigan and three in Pennsylvania. The third site here is in McKean County and is a combination of state forest and national forest property and ground owned by the Bradford Water Authority. The Foundation has identified two other sites where it would like to work in Pennsylvania, one at Ohiopyle in Fayette County and one at Mt. Davis in Somerset County.
Agreements are pending at both areas.
The benefit to setting aside such demonstration areas and then aggressively managing them for a healthy forest ecosystem is that they can serve to show how deer hunters can promote a healthy forest ecology, according to Gary Alt, head of the pennsylvania Game Commission's Deer Management Section. If we can go into one of those areas where overabundant deer have just destroyed the forest ecosystem and use hunters to turn that around, it's a win-win. That's exactly the theory behind Quality Hunting Ecology, according to Kevin McAleese, program director for the Sand County Foundation. Quality Hunting Ecology is an attempt to repair degraded habitat for wildlife. It's ironic that Pennsylvania is providing so much of the momentum for QHE, he says, since the state is known nationwide for lagging so far behind others in terms of wildlife management innovation.