Rarely does governmental spending seem to align with public sentiment regardless of how right or left leaning that particular public many be leaning. Add to that general occurrence the fact there are specialized sub-groups each of which have strong beliefs, often based more on personal bias with a smattering of facts for good measure and it's sure easy to see how governmental spending discourse is born.....heck, this thread has only roughly 20-30 consistently contributing members and our small group would likely not unanimously agree how to spend.
I've said it before....if I could waive a magic wand I would make two specific changes...
1 - you cannot purchase a license or tag until you have reported on every tag that you had purchased the prior year. In the very least this would help data collection processes. I am likely naive about it, but I'd like to believe that folks are less dishonest than they are careless. I want to believe that if REQUIRED to do so, hunters would report accurately their harvests, as opposed to simply NOT reporting anything at all - which I believe is an EPIDEMIC in our State and as such significantly skews data points that the Commission uses in their work to shape everything from WMU boundaries, tag allocations, timing and length of seasons, etc.... It would help clear up urban legends of guys buying 30-tags antlerless tags in regulated WMUs and then burning them...it COULD perhaps decrease or in the very least reshape the need and processes used by biologists with regard to pellet counts, etc... I am not a data geek or anything, but I do very much believe in the notion that bad data into the thinking machine yields bad decisions out....I doesn't take Master's degree in actuarial science to simply look at the disparity in license/tag sales and ESTIMATED harvest reports to notice something isn't adding up. I wouldn't think it would be an overwhelmingly difficult or cost prohibitive process. A completed survey required at each point of sale or the transaction is denied.
2 - a REAL partnership with private landowners that in some way incentivizes them to open their property to public hunting. The program MUST require evidence that the property is open to public hunting, that consideration is given to new hunting members each year and rosters are adjusted accordingly and that harvest data is required to be submitted. The current program is a COMPLETE FARCE with virtually zero oversight. I know of two specific folks in 5C who take advantage of this and their 'public roster' is ONLY family and a friend or two. I specifically directed at least 10 people to each of those property owners this year and all 10 were told, by both owners - sorry our property is at hunter capacity this year. One landowner did allow one father to take his son on a doe only hunt the first week and the kid shot a doe opening Saturday...that was it....the only hunters hunting is 207 acres are himself, his two son-in-laws, his brother-in-law, his two nephews, and one co-worker. Interestingly, those same 6 have been on his roster for the last 5 years.
I know this would be much more of an undertaking and require a level of oversight that may be impossible to design/staff, but done well it could certainly have MUCH more of a significant impact in the regulated management areas than adjusting tag allocations, season timelines, and allowing feeders, COMBINED. There are SEVERAL LARGE tracts (100+ acres) of privately owned ground, ground owned by universities and colleges, hospitals, real estate holding companies, conservancies, municipal townships (yes that is considered private), these are the very places where deer numbers far exceed the habitat's ability to sustain. I challenge any 5C/D locals to cruise 401 west of Ludwigs corner towards Warwick Furnace, South Campus areas of WCU, Linvilla Orchards, Tyler Arboretum, Penn State Brandywine, Neuman University, or the old Devereux Benito, Sleighton Farm and Glen Mills School properties at dusk and dawn and not lose count of the deer you see. YES, many of these properties do have hunting that is often reserved for select members, often employees or others with direct connections, NOT the public and RARELY is there any meaningful management strategy other than fill what tags those members have in their pocket.
Yeah, I know...pie in the sky....but if meaningful change in successful harvests in the regualted WMUs is what they are after, simply lengthening seasons, increasing tags, and allowing feeders isn't going to get it done....again, even the skewed data that they do have highlights that fact....almost no changes in the etimated harvest totals over the last decade during which time, boundaries have cahnges, seasons extended, tags increased, new weapons (crossbows, rim fire, etc..) and feeders.
