Starve Them or Save Them

[Outdoor Talk Network by Jim Slinsky]
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Starve Them or Save Them ©

By Jim Slinsky
04/14/07

It has been my distinct pleasure to travel to Harrisburg for the past eight weeks or so and visit with a growing number of our distinguished senators and state representatives. I was a bit apprehensive at first that our legislators would be too busy with other issues to discuss deer management, the PGC and where hunting is headed. It was a pleasant surprise to find out that our legislators are as concerned as we are.

In any event, I think it is safe to say no one at the PGC is on any of our legislators’ Christmas card list. Actually, many legislators are at wits end with the PGC. The number one phone call coming into Harrisburg is – you guessed it – deer management. Our legislators have tried just about every civil method to reason with the PGC. Unfortunately, any pleading for compromise has fallen on deaf ears. Frankly, I detect an elevated arrogance by the PGC ever since the Unified Sportsmen of PA lawsuit was dismissed. I sense the PGC now believes they are untouchable, subject to no one’s input or control.

The PGC’s current adversarial relationship with our hunters and our legislators has been ongoing for decades. In the past our legislators would wait for the PGC to request a license increase and seize the moment and force change on the Agency. Unfortunately, it appears this time that conventional wisdom may fail. The PGC has aggressive resource extraction planned and they intend to weather the collapsing license sales storm. Starving the PGC of a license increase for the next few years will not force them to compromise, but it will afford them more time to possibly eradicate our deer herd.

Over at Elmerton Avenue the PGC Commissioner Meeting is rapidly approaching. Scuttlebutt says “stay the course” for deer management will prevail. Actually, there is a rumor that the PGC will request higher doe allocations based on the deer harvest increasing in 2006. (I have not found a single person who believes the PGC harvest numbers.) At this point the PGC probably needs the revenue from high doe allocations. Increasing costs and diminishing license sales has the potential to push them into insolvency. Merger may be the game and it might be imminent if circumstances do not change.

What I am suggesting is that we revive the Unified Sportsmen of PA hunting license increase proposal and get it passed. Within their proposal doe permits will come with the basic license and doe hunting will be regulated by individual days, not two weeks of concurrency. Everyone will have a doe permit, but doe hunting will be one day on state land. Hunters will also be limited to one deer on state land.

It is possible that Commissioners Russ Schleiden, Roxanne Palone and Gregory Isabella are agents for merger. (I wrote that column.) At this point their insistence to continue the killing disregarding that regeneration has failed is evidence that their real agenda never was deer management. It appears their real agenda is the financial ruination of the PGC.

In essence, I am saying starving the PGC of their license increase will move them closer to insolvency and merger. Allowing the Commissioners for merger to continue to decimate our deer herd moves the PGC further toward financial collapse. I can certainly understand our legislators’ frustrations, but curative legislation should prevail over emotions at this time. The game plan should be to save the PGC from itself and special interest agendas, which can be achieved with a license increase rolled into a new, sensible deer management plan whether the PGC likes it or not.

Obviously, hunting can not survive without a deer herd and an insolvent agency. The strategy question at this moment is whether to starve them or save them. The other question that must be answered is equally complex as all of the above.

Has the PGC been a victim in this entire travesty or a willing participant?

Jim Slinsky is the host and producer of the “Outdoor Talk Network”, a nationally syndicated, outdoor-talk radio program. For a station near you or to contact Jim, visit his website at www.outdoortalknetwork.com.

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