Pennsylvania's Estimated Deer Kill

The Pennsylvania Game Commission recently released its estimated deer harvest figures for the 2022-2023 seasons. It estimated that hunters killed an incredible 422,960 deer, of which 164,190 were estimated to be bucks. Bowhunters were estimated to have killed more than a third of these deer: 145,640, of which 75,770 were supposedly bucks. David Stainbrook, PGC Deer and Elk Section Supervisor, says that Pennsylvania’s deer population is likely increasing. So, the PGC is planning to increase the number of doe tags by 147,000 to 1,095,000 this year. Game hogs are chomping at the bit.

I’m no math wizard. However, independent deer researcher John Eveland is competent with figures, and he wrote in an email that the “claimed harvest of 422,960 whitetails is so far beyond the realm of scientific possibility that it’s not even worthy of a debate with the agency.” He said that this harvest figure would require a population of more than two million deer. Eveland notes that this means “there would have to be 48-59 deer per square mile on every square mile of agricultural and forest lands or 38-47 deer per square mile of land area in the state, including the city streets of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia…What is wrong with this picture?”

What’s wrong is that this type of deer population does not exist, especially on public lands. When an infrared survey was conducted on a state forest area near a hunting camp in Clinton County to which I belong, the survey located only two deer in more than 10 square miles — not per square mile. Casual observers realize that public-land deer numbers are low. When Donna and I take our evening drives, we see healthy numbers of deer along posted, private properties but not along unposted parcels.

Eveland has long publicly analyzed the PGC’s deer harvest figures. He noted that the estimated figure of 378,000 deer taken regularly prior to 2000 required a population of 1.5 million deer. Eveland’s research verified these figures. Then Gary Alt and his minions took over. Eveland writes that the five-year slaughter between 2000 and 2005 mathematically reduced deer numbers to 604,710. He writes that the estimates between 323,070 to 361,560 deer harvested during the next four years would have rendered deer extinct.

This places doubt on the game commission’s figures. Perhaps the PGC should do what Tom Boop suggested when he retired as a commissioner. Because of the commission’s “fatally flawed” deer policies, “the program needs to be ‘scrapped,’ and we need to start over with the best and brightest professionals we can hire.”

Note: Thanks to John Eveland for permission to use his research figures.