The Charleston Gazette covers the story of Gary Alt, hired by the Pennsylvania Game Commission to reduce what officials called an overgrown deer population. According to the story, he succeeded in doing just that and now has resigned his position because of the political backlash that has resulted from unhappy deer hunters putting pressure on politicians.
Alt says the success of his program isn’t what it appears. He says deer have vacated normally high deer density areas because they have eaten themselves out of house and home. The deer numbers are still there, just not where they have always been. He says that as the deer multiplied, they ate up all their food and destroyed habitat. With that, the deer were faced with two options, starve to death or move to areas that provide for their survival. They moved.
Alt says that hunters haven’t caught on to the changes and changed their hunting habits that’s why they aren’t seeing as many deer as they used to.
So, who is right? Did Gary Alt take over the job as chief deer expert and manage to kill off too many deer or have hunters not figured out where the deer are? Read the article and maybe you can decide.
Tom Remington
