Hunters required to report deer kills, and should want to anyway
Hunters who killed, field-dressed, and dragged a deer last week have one other task to complete. Law requires that hunters report all deer killed to the Game Commission within 10 days of the harvest. Not only is reporting a legal requirement, the simple act of reporting a deer kill enables hunters to play an active role in managing the state无毛视频檚 wildlife resource. Data from reported kills helps Game Commission biologists estimate the deer harvest statewide and in various wildlife management units, estimate the deer population and recommend seasons and antlerless allocations for the following year.
There are three ways to report a deer kill, all easy and convenient. The traditional way is by filling out and mailing in the pre-addressed and pre-stamped post card that every hunter gets when he or she buys a hunting license. The card is bound into Pennsylvania Hunting and Trapping Digest issued with each license sale.
Filling out the card probably takes about 20 seconds. Hunters are asked to provide the date and time of the kill, county and township, number of antler points and a few other simple facts.
Successful hunters can now also provide the same information to the Game Commission by reporting on-line through the agency无毛视频檚 website: www.pgc.state.pa.us.
The site works well and the information takes only a few minutes to submit.
The third option is to report by telephone at: 1-855-PAHUNT1 (1-855-724-8681. This option can present problems, however, if the successful hunter has taken the deer to a processor without remembering to write down the tag number.
The tag, of course, must remain attached to the deer when taken to a butcher. In order to complete the report, the hunter无毛视频檚 tag number must be entered by punching the appropriate phone keys.
People who do not follow hunting and wildlife management closely would be surprised to learn how few hunters actually comply with the reporting requirement. Many hunters would be surprised too. Unfortunately, only about 30 percent of deer killed by hunters are reported, despite the legal requirement. In some counties and management units the reporting rate is even lower.
A natural question then is how is the reporting rate known if so many hunters fail to report their deer? And how can wildlife biologists carry out their analyses and form their recommendations in the absence of so much information?
The answer is that the reporting rate, too, is an estimate; it needs to be since reporting is incomplete. Every hunting season teams of biologists and their aides visit butcher shops around the state.
The teams examine deer brought in by hunters and record the tag numbers attached to each deer. The teams examine about 30,000 deer in this way every season.
Then the agency simply waits to see what proportion of those examined and recorded deer are actually reported by the hunters who killed them.
That determines the estimated reporting rate. For example, if biologists examined 1,000 deer in a particular wildlife management unit, and 330 of those deer are ultimately reported by the hunter who killed them, the reporting rate for that unit is set at 33 percent.
The Game Commission then uses that reporting rate to estimate the total deer kill in that unit. The total must be estimated because so few hunters follow through and report their deer. If the agency receives reports on, say, 1,200 deer the estimated total deer kill in that unit is 3,636 (1,200 actual reports/.33 estimated reporting rate = 3,636 estimated deer killed).
The system works well enough but it could be more precise if successful hunters provided more information. Every reported deer reduces the amount of error that can reside in the calculations.
Some hunters have recommended that Pennsylvania use mandatory check stations to amass deer-kill data, as was done in West Virginia for many years. But hundreds of check stations would be needed to assess the entire state. The expense to the agency and inconvenience to hunters would be considerable.
Hunters can make that whole debate unnecessary by simply reporting the deer they were fortunate to kill through one of the three easy and convenient means provided.
无毛视频淏y reporting their harvests, Pennsylvania无毛视频檚 hunters help to provide the best information possible to aid the Game Commission in managing the state无毛视频檚 wildlife,无毛视频� said Game Commission executive director R. Matthew Hough.
无毛视频淓very time a hunter reports a harvest, wildlife management in Pennsylvania improves, and I thank them all for their effort,无毛视频� Hough continued.
It takes only a couple of minutes and very little effort to report, but it无毛视频檚 satisfying to know that you provided important wildlife data.