Pennsylvania deer hunters can look forward to more of the same this year. The deer population is stable, so our main concerns when planning our hunting strategy can be based on the weather or the availability of mast crops.

"What we’ve seen the last few years has been a fairly stable deer population and fairly stable deer harvests, so at this point I wouldn’t expect anything much different this coming year in the different wildlife units," said Dr. Chris Rosenberry, head of the Pennsylvania Game Commission’s Deer Management Section.

WHAT DOES STABLE MEAN?
While the deer population is stable in most wildlife management units, this does not mean that hunting opportunities are equal from one area to the next.

The Pennsylvania Game Commission does not make estimates of the deer population. However, by examining some of the numbers related to deer harvests, our biologists could make some reasonably accurate estimates about where hunters stand the best possibilities of tagging a deer.

Without estimates of the deer population, the best information that is available to hunters for estimating hunting potential is the success rate for antlerless deer licenses. Because wildlife management units vary substantially in size, the number of antlerless deer that are harvested in any given wildlife management unit is not a good indicator of hunting potential unless it is combined with other data.

One way to produce a hunter success rate is to divide the number of antlerless deer that have been harvested into the number of antlerless deer licenses that were allocated.

"That would be the best index we would have. That translates directly back to hunters and how successful they are," Rosenberry said. "In general, the areas where we see our hunters having the greatest success on antlerless deer is in our western counties and units. And we see some of the higher success rates in the areas with 4-point restrictions."

One of the most useful pieces of information supplied by the Pennsylvania Game Commission is an annual assessment of each wildlife management unit, which states whether the new antlerless deer license allocations are intended to increase, decrease or stabilize the deer population.

Deer Management Assistance Program (DMAP) tags are the one factor that confuses this information. Deer managers do not know how many DMAP coupons will be requested when the antlerless deer license allocations are set.

"But the DMAP allocation this year remains the same in every unit except one," Rosenberry said.

That one wildlife management unit for which the antlerless deer license allocation has been changed is WMU 5C, which lies along the outside of Philadelphia in the Southeast Region.

So, while not totally accurate because DMAP tags are not factored into hunter success rates, the PGC’s hunter success rates are as good as any information that is available for estimating deer-hunting potential.