Attention Members:

Here we go again.  The 2025-26 deer harvest numbers are out, and if this isn't enough to make your head spin, nothing will. Does PGC think we are that stupid?

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I have been in contact with John Eveland, Independent Forester, Wildlife Biologist, and Ecologist, and asked him to review the PGC Harvest report for USP. Below is the email he sent to me.

Blaine M. Toy

"Quote from John"

As requested, I have again reviewed the Pennsylvania Game Commission's claimed deer harvest report for the 2025-26 hunting season. The Commission estimates that 505,600 deer were harvested last year, up 6% from PGC's estimated harvest of 476,850 the previous year. It is noteworthy that this year's estimate of 505,600 deer is based on about 150,000 report cards and an additional 25,000 deer that were processed at check stations.

Based on my analyses of their annual deer harvests since 2000 and earlier, this year's estimate, as well as their estimated harvests dating back to 2005, are grossly overestimated and biologically impossible. I have attached my brief assessment of annual harvests over the past two and a half decades, which I sent to you on April 10, 2024. Permit me to discuss some relevant points.

PGC's deer-management deception began around 1999 when a new philosophy was inserted into the PGC by a handful of anti-deer activists from Audubon, DCNR, and within the Commission itself. PGC's Title 34 mission, "to support the interests of sportsmen for recreational hunting," was replaced by an intent "to support nongame wildlife and wildflowers". (While some may think that this is an exaggeration of reality, it has been thoroughly documented.) 

It is important to note that prior to 1999, PA's deer population had been fairly stable at 1.5 million deer with a harvest of roughly 378,000 deer per year. This balance resulted in Pennsylvania being recognized as one of the top two deer-hunting states in the nation. 

For five years from 2000 through 2004, PGC decided to upset this balance. By increasing the kill of antlerless deer and fawns by about 100,000 per year, PGC harvested 2,382,353 deer over these five years -- 500,000 above the normal pre-2000 balanced harvests. As a result, by 2005, PGC had succeeded in reducing the statewide herd by 60% to only 597,386 deer. In reality, this reduced-population scenario has persisted to the present.

However, in 2005, PGC claimed that 354,390 deer were harvested, which, if true, would have been half of the state's deer population. The Commission continued to claim such biologically impossible high harvests during 2006 and 2007. If this had been true, the herd would have been exterminated by 2007. (See my attached assessment.) 

PGC has continued reporting such absurd harvest numbers to the present. If these numbers were accurate, PGC would have needed to import 5,474,406 deer as of 2023 and shot every last one of them. Additionally, if their harvest estimates were accurate, there would need to be 80 deer per square mile on every square mile of forested area in the state, or 47 deer per square mile on all land area in Pennsylvania, including the city streets of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia. 

Obviously, these scenarios are not true, nor are the Game Commission's harvest estimates. Whether the grossly overestimated harvest numbers are based on incompetence or deception is not known. However, I remember a statement by a former chief of wildlife management: "I get what I want. I baffle them with bu____it."



John Eveland - Independent Forester, Wildlife Biologist, and Ecologist