Deer hunting is a way of life for thousands of Pennsylvanians, but with thousands of deer and hunters, there comes a great need for the appropriate regulation of the deer population.

With the help of Penn State researchers, the Pennsylvania Game Commission has been actively managing the state's deer population for years.

This management is crucial to achieving the game commission's primary goals, explained Marrett Grund, a wildlife biologist and deer management specialist for the game commission.

These goals include balancing the statewide deer herd with what their habitat can support and to get the right number of deer of the right sex and age harvested in the appropriate areas, Grund said.

Each March, the previous hunting season's deer harvest totals are released, and this information is used to determine which management strategies are working and which need to be revised.

This year was the second highest antlerless deer harvest in state history, while the total deer harvest numbers rank fourth overall.

"Hunters harvested a sufficient number of deer to roughly stabilize the statewide deer population," he said. "In some areas, hunters may have slightly reduced deer densities; in other areas, the populations may have stabilized or slightly increased."

To further study the effects of hunters and harvest totals, outside researchers are approached to aid the game commission in improving its deer management strategies.

One such researcher, Duane Diefenbach, adjunct assistant professor of wildlife, recently studied
the hunters and their impact on a local deer population.

Diefenbach and his associates decided to track hunter movements using Global Positioning System (GPS) units and similar technology, as opposed to merely asking hunters about their experiences.

No technical study of this type had ever been done, explained Diefenbach, even though hunters play a large part in Pennsylvania's deer management scheme.

"Very little research has been done concerning hunter movement," he said. "We used to just ask hunters 'what did you do?' or 'what do you like to do?' or just follow them in the field."

The research team found most hunters eager to participate, and more than 350 agreed to carry the GPS units, Diefenbach said. One conclusion drawn from analyzing the hunter data was that many hunters hunt near roadways and large tracts of land are not showing even distribution of hunters.

In his research area, the Sproul State Forest in Clinton County, Diefenbach found that hunting pressure is low, contrary to popular belief. This research may show that in some areas across the state the hunters may not be having as large an impact as suspected.

While his results may only be applicable to large tracts of land, one solution to improving hunter distribution and the effect on the deer population is to increase the access to these areas, said Diefenbach.

Diefenbach also suggests this study shows that if the game commission has an interest in reducing deer populations, they should not focus on just how many deer are harvested, but also where the individual deer are harvested.

This study may have more of an effect for landowners, since they are often more interested in how many deer are harvested and how they manage hunters on their property, Diefenbach suggested.

The deer harvest data, along with outside research, will be used to estimate deer population sizes from which the game commission will establish next year's harvest limits and hunting license allocations, Grund said.

Grund said one such regulation, instated more recently to limit the size of antlered deer that hunters were permitted to harvest, is indeed working.

"The antler restriction appears to be working biologically ... the regulation is reducing the yearling harvest mortality rates," he said. "The statewide yearling buck harvest percentages averaged 57 percent, which suggests that the antler restriction regulation is effective statewide."

The game commission relies heavily on research done by institutions like Penn State to help develop the proper management strategies, Diefenbach said.

"I would say [our research] is important since they fund a good deal of it," he said. "The game commission has always taken a science-based approach to their deer management program and focus on recommendations biologists provide based on experimental data they have collected."

Grund expressed similar accommodation for the research done here at Penn State and its value to the game commission.

"Collaborative research between [Penn State] and the [game commission] is imperative to help us learn more about deer ecology and management in Pennsylvania and how we need to adjust our management philosophy to accommodate deer management challenges."