Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Every resident in the first round for 21 days is guaranteed an antlerless tag of the WMU of their choice.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And if you think a deer can do some damage to a field, you ought to see what a bear can do to a cornfield when they lay in there and roll over and over and just drag all those corn stalks in and sit there and gorge themselves.
[00:00:17] Speaker C: I can remember years ago when there was a question about Sunday hunting and somebody asked, do you really need Sundays in order to manage wildlife? And our response at that time was, not really.
Now I think that answer has changed.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: For Pennsylvania hunters and conservationists, our roots run deep. The episodes we bring to you on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's podcast, Call of the Outdoors, will take a deep dive into exposing the incredible work being done by agency staff and partners, including statewide habitat projects, the science behind wildlife management, and what drives agency decisions. The Pennsylvania Game Commission's mission is twofold. To manage and protect wildlife and their habitats for not only current, but future generations, and to promote hunting and trapping in the Keystone State.
Hello and welcome to Call the Outdoors, the podcast of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Can y' all believe it's June already? Halfway through the year, but it's the start of a new hunting license year, with hunting license going on sale here in a couple days. We're here to talk about a lot of different things, a lot of the changes that are happening here at the Game Commission and for the rest of the hunting license year. Joining us today will be Executive Director Steve Smith and Deputy Director Dave Gustafson. So I got to be on my best behavior, but thanks for tuning in to Call the Outdoors. Can you all believe that we're here again one year later? I mean, a lot of things have happened this year. Steve, it's great to have you back and you brought a guest.
[00:01:43] Speaker C: I did. I did. Thanks for the invite. Glad that we could be here and catch up on talk about all that's taken place over the past year. And some things are going to be happening moving forward.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: It's hard to believe we're halfway through the calendar year already. It's June. And, you know, Steve, you came on last year, right? You know, when, when you moved up into the executive director position. And Dave Gustafson, one of our new deputy executive directors. And it's kind of like a holiday here at the Game Commission. Lots of things going on. New hunting license year is just, you know, at the end of the month. But, you know, I wanted to kind of recap came out of the April board meeting and Just for a lot of folks that tune in to call the outdoors and following along with the Game Commission, just how the process works here at the agency. Because so many times, you know, people are under assumptions of different things. And let's talk about the process and the board meetings and why we have and how the board works and just get real in depth with that.
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Sure. Be glad to. So we, as the agency, were created by Statute, Title 34, the Game and Wildlife Code, and it sets forth the Board of Commissioners. And these are nine individuals representing different districts across the state. They are appointed by the governor and then confirmed by the state Senate. So once they are in place, they represent our board of Commissioners, and it is their job to vote and pass regulations, also including seasons and bag limits for the upcoming hunting year. So that process starts with us. It begins in January, where our board has their initial meeting.
Staff provides them with information, recommendations, and the board makes an initial vote. Then they come back in April. And as you said, we just wrapped that up about a month ago. They come back in April and make a second vote on those regulations. That second vote finalizes everything.
So our role as staff primarily is to give the board the best information that they need to make the decisions.
Setting the season, setting the bag limits, and then after they've done so, after they finalize them in April, our job is to communicate those to our hunters. And we do that through a variety of means, including our Hunter Trapping Digest, which we just finalized. Got it back from the printer the other day. So everybody, when they buy their license, they get that digest that has all those regulations.
[00:03:52] Speaker A: It's a short turnaround for the digest.
[00:03:54] Speaker C: It is.
[00:03:54] Speaker A: You know, we have to be at print a couple weeks after the board meeting.
[00:03:58] Speaker C: Absolutely. That clock is ticking really, all throughout the year. And I had to laugh. Somebody the other day said to me, this is your slow season. Right. There really is no slow season. We are always revising those regulations, providing recommendations, gathering the information that goes into making recommendations again so that we can give the board the best information.
Then once they make them make those decisions, it's up to us to educate our hunters, explain the decisions that the board made, why they made them prepare to implement those seasons and bag limits and all that's happening behind the scenes right now.
[00:04:29] Speaker A: Right. And, you know, it is quick turnaround time. And, you know, when we look at license going on sale, you know, there's a lot of changes that we want to talk about today that's happened this year. And, you know, one thing that happened at the board meeting this year. If anybody tuned in, there was, there was some floor amendments that happened. And can you just weigh in on that a little bit what happened at the meeting in April, Dave?
[00:04:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So you know, Steve talked about how there's two votes, there's the preliminary vote in January and then the final vote in April to adopt everything.
What, what happens pretty much every year is we don't always have all the final results from what happened in the previous hunting season before that January.
So we're still collecting that information. We're still collecting, you know, harvest reports for antlerless deer, things like that.
So the January meeting kind of sets what we think is, is the best case scenario for the next year's hunting seasons. But then we continue to gather more information, more up to date information about harvests and then work with the board, you know. And so when they come to their April meeting, they now have a little more information than they had in January.
So that's when you see sometimes what we call a floor amendment where a commissioner may propose a change to what they had proposed in January. So you have January is the preliminary, then they might bring in a floor amendment to say, hey, we've got some different information now. We want to make a little bit of an adjustment to either the season length or the bag limit or the start stop dates, things like that.
And then so they put amendments in place before the final vote in April.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: It makes perfect sense, you know, and you know, as an agency, we're always collecting the best, most current data. I do have one question for you, Steve, because you've been here a year. Have you seen one check from any car insurance companies that are paying us to shoot deer?
[00:06:11] Speaker C: I have not. I have though received invoices from people who had a collision with a deere and they've asked me to reimburse their invoice, which we're not able to do either. But no, I haven't received any checks. If anything, I've had people asking me for money.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing, you know, you hear so much. There's, there's always those tales out there and it sounds good, but you know, our job as the agency, you know, when we use hunting as a tool to manage wildlife populations and you know, a lot of that's what we're going to talk about today with some of the new antlerless, you know, we're on year three of our antlerless system with the pink envelopes are going and this year is pretty awesome because residents in the first round of Antlerless season are guaranteed a DOE tag for the WMU of their choice. And I, we have 21 days to get our analyst tags and I think that's a big win. And I thank you to the staff for getting that done this year because I think that's going to be big for our, for our customers out there, for everybody. And us being customers as well, I like to have my first choice.
[00:07:12] Speaker C: Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up. And you're right, this is year three. And every year that we've implemented the change in the law that allowed us to sell analyst licenses, we've been trying to improve that process.
We remember the first year, it was definitely a rough first year. There was a learning curve there where we saw that demand come in that Monday morning at 8 o' clock. That really slowed that system way down.
It was inconvenient for our hunters, there's no doubt about that. And we certainly have apologized for that. And we made a decision right then that we were going to get better and we were going to take that data that we got from that first year, as tough as it was, and make changes to the system. And that's what we did in year two. So we looked at that hunt or those hunters, when they bought their licenses, which units they bought their licenses, and made projections about when or how often we could extend that period for hunters to buy their licenses. Now, we withheld three units last year and said we're going to guarantee everywhere else across the state for that first round. But then with the exception of three units, but then when we looked at how those units sold coming into this year, we said, we don't need to hold back those three units. We're going to allow it so that anybody, any resident of Pennsylvania who wants to buy an antlerless license for any unit, we're going to guarantee them a license during that entire first round, which, as you said this year, because of the way the calendar falls, that first round lasts for three weeks.
So if we look back on year one, there was that rush, 8 o' clock on that 8 o' clock Monday morning. Everybody felt like they needed their license at that time, which is understandable, right? Like, hey, it's, it's.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: We're passionate.
[00:08:46] Speaker C: We're passionate.
[00:08:47] Speaker A: I mean, it's just how it is.
[00:08:48] Speaker C: You don't want to go into a season without your license.
[00:08:49] Speaker A: Right?
[00:08:50] Speaker C: This year, there's. What we're hoping is there'll be absolutely no need for that rush. You got three weeks to buy that license whenever, during that three week period you go to buy it, it's going to be there. We're guaranteeing you'll get that antlerless license. We think that's really going to decrease demand, certainly then what that'll do is decrease the strain on the system. Which means when you go in to buy that license anytime during that 21 day period, it should be a pretty smooth transact.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: Right. And let's talk about antlerless license, antlerless deer real quick because last year we were up 11% in harvest in estimated harvest. And you know, Dave, obviously your background in forestry and let's talk about why we harvest does and how we manage the herd with antlerless deer.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think there's, you know, there's several issues. When you look at the deer plan, you look at the goals for healthy deer, you know, healthy habitats and acceptable levels of deer and human conflicts. Those are the three main parts of our deer plan.
You know, we've been seeing changes that happen on the landscape in parts of the state that are seeing increased pressure for our agricultural community. We've had a tremendous amount of engagement in the past year with our farming community out there, listening to their concerns about increase in damage from, from deer. In particular, we look at forest health metrics and while some of our big picture metrics aren't really pointing to anything, we've got some localized information that's showing us, you know, hey, people are placing their properties in the DMAP program because they need to see some additional harvest to manage those issues. And so when we look at all of those things together, when we look at our urban units, you know, we're freeing up how many licenses an individual can get in some of our most urban units to allow for folks to harvest antlerless deer at an adequate rate.
So lots of adjustments coming into this year.
Yeah, that increased harvest is great. It's because we increased allocations and licenses.
So you know, the other thing about Steve was talking about the first round guarantee for non residents to get that one tag. I'll emphasize that first round you get one tag of your choice for residents. For residents.
So during the first round, which is residents only, they can get one antlerless license, but they can get it in whichever WMU they choose.
And because like Steve said, with that three years now of kind of buying pattern information, we're not concerned that we're going to oversell in any unit to a level that's going to impact deer management on the big, in the big picture.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Right. When you talk to, you know, wildlife management. And you know, they kind of in a big number, it's like one, one deer harvested per four issued. That's kind of the ratio. And that ratio is actually going up a little bit with more allocation. So I mean, the reason that we, the scientific methods that are used to calculate our harvest rates and our deer herd, I mean, it's important, it's important that people report, you know, when you are successful in like the DMAP stuff and you know, just like the second turkey tag, we have to report even when we're unsuccessful, that data is crucial to the agency to make those decisions. And the only way we can manage the deer herd is through antlerless harvest.
[00:11:58] Speaker C: That's exactly right. And just to build on what Dave was saying, if you look at the indicators that go into how many antlerless deer should be harvested, they're all indicating a need to harvest more deer because you have those suburban areas, urban, suburban, southeast in particular, where deer, human conflicts seem to be on the rise. You look, just look at the number of roadkills and the complaints that we're getting there. Then on the other end of the state, where Dave mentioned the agricultural community, we're certainly hearing from farmers out there about the impacts that deer are having on their livelihood. Then you have the forest community and Dave mentioned how even more DMAP properties are coming online every year, including on our game lands. We're d mapping a lot more game lands than ever before.
And then you have cwd and it's been unfortunately spreading across the state despite our best efforts to keep it under control.
So all those indices are saying we need to reduce that deer population. The primary way to do it is through antlers deer harvest. And that's why our board, or we set those allocations and our board approved those seasons to allow that to take place this year.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Right. Plus, as a hunter, a doe is way better to put in the freezer, in my opinion. I don't know about how y' all feel.
[00:13:05] Speaker C: I couldn't agree more. I absolutely. Hey, when you're having that bowl of venison chili, you don't care if it was a buck or a dough, right? So, you know, given the choice, when I look to the year ahead, if it's like one buck or couple dough, I'm gonna take the couple dough.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:13:20] Speaker C: All day long.
[00:13:21] Speaker A: Plus they're a lot easier to get out of the woods.
[00:13:22] Speaker C: There's that too.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: As we get older, I got my 13 year old daughter dragging the deer now.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: That's why you had canc kids, right?
[00:13:31] Speaker B: Yeah, they got to help me out as I get older.
[00:13:33] Speaker A: Let's talk, let's just switch gears to bears real quick because, you know, we live in a state, you know that we have some of the largest black bears in the country. And you know, there's so many people that that tradition rolls on and you know, you look at last year's harvest, about 20, just over 2600 bears. And there were some changes to the bear seasons this year. And if you want to go on that one, Dave. Yeah, well, both of you are.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: Yeah, we both love to hunt bears.
We're wearing black too. I don't know if that's a good now. Yeah, Pennsylvania has probably one of the best bear hunting traditions anywhere around. I mean, I don't think you'll find a state where you can't bait, you can't use dogs. And we still have a couple hundred thousand people out there chasing black bears every year. So it's pretty special.
[00:14:14] Speaker A: And you, let's talk about your tradition because you have a pretty cool tradition with your group that you bear hunt.
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a group of guys that we started doing it in college at our fraternity and core group of us have stuck together ever since. But there's been spin off groups to where we have probably four or five different camps now where guys are hunting in different parts of the state and we get together every year. And some, some of us, it's the only time we see each other all year long, even though we might text or email here or there. But it's the only time of the year where we really get together and see each other and we hunt hard, you know, for however many days we get in the season to hunt, we hunt pretty hard and, and we're, we're fairly successful. We have a good time and we enjoy each other's company and we enjoy bear hunting for what it is. But you know, when you look at our bear harvest this year, it's still, still in line with kind of recent history of bear harvest. I'll say. I think back to like 1999. I shot a bear in 1999 and I was one of only like I think 1600 successful bear hunters that year.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: That must have been a dumb bear.
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, he ran out of the last drive on the last day at noon and he ran right to me. So we hunt them till the closing bell. But yeah, I mean, the last 10 years or so we've had increased bear harvests because we've had an increased bear population, a Lot of that was in response to expanded. We implemented expanded seasons in response to complaints about bears. The agricultural areas once again were suffering crop damage. And if you think a deer can do some damage to a field, you ought to see what a bear can do to a cornfield when they lay in there and roll over and over and just drag all those corn stalks in and sit there and gorge themselves in a cornfield like us at Thanksgiving. Yeah, indeed. But, you know, so we had some increased complaints. We had some human conflict issues, particularly northeast part of the state, Poconos area up there.
So we instituted some expanded seasons and earlier muzzleloader season, which that got ratcheted back a little bit. Last year it had been, what, seven days a week long. That got pulled back to three days. This past season, we still had a three week archery season. And now that's going to be reduced a little bit.
We want to keep our bear population healthy.
We also need to be responsive to our constituents, the public out there that are dealing with bears where we don't really want a lot of bears, but there's places where we can probably have some more. So we make these adjustments in these season lengths to allow for more opportunity where we need it to get bears harvested and shorten some timeframes in other places where we're not getting complaints and we feel like we can allow the bear population to expand a little bit again.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And this year, you know, the changes that happened, you know, it's a great. When you look at it, it puts the spotlight on our hunters because we can definitely get the job done.
[00:16:57] Speaker C: Absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up, because if you look at what the law says, it's that the commission shall manage wildlife through the use of regulated hunting and trapping. And nationally, there's a debate as to whether or not that's sustainable.
Should that be the method for regulating wildlife populations? We've shown in Pennsylvania, just through black Bear, that it absolutely works. Because as Dave referenced, there was a year where there was a high level of complaints. The bear population was higher than ever before.
And as an aside, that's when I shot my bear, because I'm not as good as Hunter's Dave is. I couldn't shoot it when the population was low. I shot.
[00:17:29] Speaker A: You've shot a couple bears, though, haven't you?
[00:17:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think you have. But only. I have. But only when the population was high.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: Guns.
[00:17:35] Speaker C: So I had that.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: But you got the triple trophy too, didn't you?
[00:17:37] Speaker C: Well, thank you for bringing that up. Yes, I did. Okay.
How about you?
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Okay. I'm sorry.
[00:17:44] Speaker C: We're going to tell hunting stories all day now.
So the bear population was high, the complaints were high. And so our board expanded the bear seasons. They did the early muzzleloader season. They did the archery season concurrently for a good part of that, then extended it. So we. And now what happened is the population decreased to the point that complaints are no longer. No longer coming in, certainly not to the level that they were five, six years ago.
So because of that, we're rolling those seasons back. Our recommendation to the board that they followed was to curtail that archery season down from three weeks down to one. The muzzleloader season has been shortened from a week down to three days.
So what we're doing is constantly making adjustments based on the population level and based on what we're hearing from the citizens of Pennsylvania who we manage wildlife on their behalf. So it demonstrates again, at a small level that hunting still works for controlling wildlife populations. It's worked here for over a century now. And it shows also how the board makes decisions based on the data that we give them and are continuing to refine those decisions so that we're getting it.
Managing the population at a sustainable level.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Can I put two things on that?
[00:18:52] Speaker A: Yeah. But when you look at the statewide brush that we have to manage, too, I mean, we say localized, and our job is to manage it from border to border. When you look at the big picture, that's not an easy task.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: But I think to that point and where we started this conversation with our board and how they make decisions, I think it's really important that we acknowledge our board can adapt that regulatory season structure pretty quickly, pretty quick response to changing circumstances out there in reality. And the board can respond because of how they set regulations yearly. If that was law in statute, that said this season is this long or this. You can do things this way. Think about how long that would take to make a change.
We could be in real trouble if we can't adapt. So having the board in place to be able to adaptively change regulations quickly in response to changing circumstances on the ground is super important. And I think it demonstrates the validity of how Pennsylvania manages wildlife. And the second thing I would say is, even though we're rolling back some of these bear seasons, there's still a ton of opportunity for bear hunters, and more than historically, because I remember we had a slogan in my crew. So many bears, but only three days. Right. Because you only had three days to kill them and hunt them. And now we've still got a four day rifle season statewide where it used to only be three. We still have a statewide archery season, we still have a muzzleloader season and we still have expanded seasons in some of our urban units where you can get out there in archery earlier and shoot bears, you know, during the time when archery deer season. So we still have tremendous amount of opportunity. Even with rolling some things back a little bit.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: We do. And if you look at when that bear population really started to increase in certain areas of the state, you had a bad weather right before the season started and that was contributing toward that population increase, which is why Dave said now we still have plenty of opportunities, so we're not so dependent on a shortened season where weather can really impact it. It's the opportunities are spread out throughout the course of the year. So I suspect we'll still have a good harvest for this year as well.
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I was just, I was going to say the same thing. If you look at turkey season that just ended, you know, there wasn't many days where the sun came out this year. It was kind of, it was tough.
[00:21:03] Speaker C: Certainly not on Saturdays.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Right. Exactly.
[00:21:05] Speaker C: We seem to get in a pattern where every Saturday was rain and then of course, Sunday was beautiful.
[00:21:09] Speaker A: But yeah, it started out with youth season, you know, where it was a monsoon and then. Exactly. And you know, obviously there's a higher power that gets that done. We can't, we can't help there. Even though there's probably some folks out there that think that rained, it was.
[00:21:21] Speaker C: Our fault, I'm sure. And you know, to Dave's point also, because you look at Sunday hunting, that's a legislative issue and it shows, you know, we've been working, we've been chipping away at that one for decades. But the legislative process takes a long time. So when something set in statute, you're not able to make the quick adjustments versus regulations and how we set our seasons where we can make them annually and make adjustments based on the data in real time.
[00:21:45] Speaker A: Do you feel pretty confident going into this year with Sunday hunting? Do you think that we're going to maybe get some movement or stay away from that?
[00:21:53] Speaker C: I will not feel confident until I am watching the governor sign the bill.
[00:21:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:21:57] Speaker C: So up until then it's going to. And that day is going to happen, by the way. It's just a question of when, up until then.
There's too many factors at play within the legislature, especially right now you have a divided legislature. I think I read the other day that only 3% of bills got passed and actually signed into law. So right there, the deck's stacked against you. 97% failure rate. Certainly Sunday hunting is a huge issue, one again that we've been chipping away at for decades.
But the momentum seems to be behind our side and even now to have not only the support of a lot of the sportsmen, sport women community, but the Farm Bureau has come out in support of Sunday hunting.
I can remember years ago when there was a question about Sunday hunting and somebody asked, do you really need Sundays in order to manage wildlife? And our response at that time was not really.
Now I think that answer has changed. And I think that shows why the Farm Bureau is behind it, is because they recognize additional days means more opportunity.
And we talked about the impact that the deer population is having on that agricultural community. They'd love to see more opportunity, more hunters out there on those weekends because from their view, it's necessary if we're going to get the deer population under control so that it stops impacting their livelihood to the extent that it is. So having that coalition, and it's a pretty broad coalition at this point where you have sportsmen and women coming in support of it, groups like backcountry hunters and anglers, Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen and Conservationists, and also the Farm Bureau, I mean, that was never conceivable decades ago, but now both sides saying the same thing.
It's building momentum and I'm optimistic and hopefully this will be the session where we can get that done.
[00:23:42] Speaker A: And when we look at allocations and analysts and the opportunities that are out there, you know, to get to our goals, that we need to have a healthy herd out there, you know, obviously people see the allocation and these numbers, they're mind blowing when you look at that, you know how many there are. But our goals are an additional deer, maybe additional two deer per square mile to get to our, where our targets are. And let's talk about the forest. You know, when we go to your home turf and what those deer do up there and some of the issues that we're struggling with in the northern tier with regeneration, I think that's important to look at. You know, we don't always see the big picture and I'll let you hammer that one out.
[00:24:22] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, it's tough because it's. You don't see it quickly that that's the hardest thing when we're looking at forest habitat health with regards to deer management, it takes a long time to see improvement in, in forest habitat health. When you see new Wildflowers growing that haven't been there in a long time. When you see new tree seedlings growing that haven't been there in a long time, that takes a long time to occur, but it can go the other way really quickly.
We just spent some days in the woods looking at a few sites where 10 years ago, we were able to do some timber harvesting and really regenerate. A good diverse mix has a lot of deer browse pressure on it, but it's able to succeed. And there's bird life in there, there's grouse in there, there's deer all through it. There's even elk all through this one particular area.
And so 10 years ago, when that was done, things were pretty well in balance and it was successful. And we literally went three quarters of a mile away to a recent harvest where the only place anything is growing is where deer can't get to it. Like in a treetop where when they did the timber harvest and the treetops fell down, they cut the logs off, took the logs out of the woods, and left the treetops there. The only thing, the only place where something's growing is in that. Where the deer kind of can't get into it.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: When you're saying something's growing, we're talking about oaks.
[00:25:40] Speaker B: Oaks, maples, poplar, cherry, any. Anything that can regrow a new forest. You know, we can probably grow beech brush, we can probably regrow birch trees. But even in that site, the birch seedlings were even getting browsed. And birch is super low on deer browse preference. So, you know, there's localized impacts. There's, you know, management unit scale impacts in some places.
When you think about the northern tier, a lot of those deer never see a soybean. They never see a corn stalk. They're living on woody browse pretty much their entire existence. And acorns in a good fall season, and maybe some cherries that fall or some beechnuts.
But the thing that sustains them year round is that woody browse. And we're not saying we want no deer browsing, make no mistake. We're not saying we want to grow forests like in a fence where there's no deer. We want deer to have browse, but we also need to be able to make sure that when a event happens, let's say like spongy moth outbreak that defoliates the forest, and then we get a droughty summer, all of a sudden, those trees are under a ton of stress. They're not producing acorns anymore, and maybe a lot of the overstory dies, well, what's going to be there to grow again? And so that's our responsibility, is to balance those two things. Having a healthy deer herd that hunters can enjoy, but also making sure that that forest can sustain itself. So that's always a tough balance. And I don't know if you want to segue into dmap, but the whole reason DMAP came into existence, the Deer Management Assistance Program, was to create an opportunity for landowners to have an additive deer harvest on their local properties. So if a landowner said, hey, look, I can't achieve my objectives for healthy forest regeneration because I just have too many deer and the landscape allocation wasn't getting the job done, they can say, hey, I want some property specific tags to help me achieve my goals. And so DMAP was always intended to be an additive deer harvest on top of the general allocation of antlerless harvest. So we've seen, like I mentioned earlier, an increase in enrollments in properties in dmap.
We have places like the Allegheny national forest that back 10 years ago was hardly using DMAP at all. They pulled all their stuff out because they were in balance. And in the last several years, it's been growing more acres, more tags, more acres, more tags on the timber industry.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: That's a half a million acres.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: Yeah, just the Allegheny National Forest, about a half a million acres.
[00:28:12] Speaker A: And their goals, whether it's our partners at DCNR and State State Forest or Allegheny national, their goals aren't the same as our goals and their mission's not the same as our mission on our game lands.
Our mission is wildlife centric. And you'll see different, you know, where you came from, Dave, you'll see lots of different methods out there of harvesting timber or what have you.
[00:28:33] Speaker B: Well, I think even Steve said, you know, we've actually included some game lands in D map now, because, like you mentioned, our game lands are there for wildlife, all wildlife, not just deer wildlife.
So when we look at things like ruffed grouse, what do they need? They need healthy young forest and they need diverse plant species composition in that young forest. Same with snowshoe hares. They need healthy young forests. So we're doing more acres of forest management in the Game Commission than we've ever done in history. Right. The last five years. And we want to continue down that path, but we also want it to be sustainable and we want it to be successful. So if we're going to perpetuate habitat for ruffed grouse, we have to have deer in balance to allow that habitat to recover. So it's not about no deer. It's about balanced deer, the right amount.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: What do turkeys need the most?
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Nesting cover that can protect them from predators. So it's not just like one little thick bush in a wide open patch of woods where every predator coming by can zone in and be like, oh, there's a thicket right there. I'm gonna go over there and check it out. Because it's the only place a hen could nest in the whole landscape. So we got to have that and we got to have everything. We got to have the nesting cover next to some good brooding cover, you know, next to some big open woods where they can roost and strut around. So it's got to be a little bit of everything.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: So we had a wet spring, you know, up till June.
Weather's looking pretty good. Now. Let's pray for a little bit of a dry June.
[00:30:00] Speaker B: How about it?
[00:30:01] Speaker A: In my opinion, that we could have a great hatch again this year. And I have heard reports of little ones running around out there already. And yeah, it's a, it's a cool time of year for wildlife. You know, we're seeing. Steve and I don't live too far apart. And seeing lots of little deer around too.
[00:30:15] Speaker C: You know, they're popping up. And agree with you completely on we need that dry spring now because we've, we've been fortunate the past couple ones, at least in this area. And I think the turkey population responded accordingly.
[00:30:25] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:30:26] Speaker C: Reports are a ton of jakes out there this spring, which means it was a good hatch last year. Good number of 2 year, 2 year olds as well. So let's keep it going and hopefully this weather changes because it's been pretty wet and cold up until now.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: A little bird told me that someone sitting at this table has a turkey streak going on and that a jake would have been in trouble the last couple days of turkey season.
[00:30:45] Speaker C: I think that might be true. I had a chance to, for the first time hunt with that individual turkey hunt with that individual a couple days ago. And he told me a story that this shows what happens when that streak is in jeopardy. You get kind of desperate. And he was convinced that his calls weren't sounding good.
So he recorded himself making a call and then went 50 yards away to listen to it. And he's concluded that he still sounded pretty good. So he doesn't know what was going on.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: Guess who had to confirm that it sounded good?
I got a little playback on that one.
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Might have had to have a world Champion turkey caller confirmed that, you know.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: We'Re pulling out all the stops, no kids.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it was a. You can see how rough of a spring it's been.
[00:31:22] Speaker A: Well, let's talk about that real quick. And because both of you on a lot of public land, and which we're very fortunate in this state to have so much public land opportunity. I mean, and if you had some tips out, you know, to our hunters out there that are hunting public land, you know, especially our gameland system, would you have something that you could throw out there that you'd want to give away as a. As a tip?
[00:31:43] Speaker B: I mean, if you're talking turkeys or.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Anything, I mean, for turkeys, I'll hit.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: That one real quick. And just say this. If you're hunting public land, you know, you're hunting pressured turkeys.
And probably, you know, the first week of the season this year, I heard some birds gobbling, acting like turkeys. They were henned up and they didn't want to play the game, but they were at least gobbling the next three weeks. I don't know that I heard a gobble.
And I think a lot of that had to do with pressure, in my opinion. I think the more guys running around, maneuvering, calling loudly, like not recording themselves. Yeah, but that was close to a parking lot.
But, no, I think just understanding that when you're hunting pressured turkeys, be, you know, play it slow, play it quiet, be in close to where, you know, they're at. Use your woodsmanship skills, use your scouting ability, get close, play it, Play it slow and easy.
[00:32:42] Speaker C: And.
[00:32:43] Speaker B: And just be mindful that those pressured birds are going to act different 100%.
[00:32:47] Speaker A: I mean, that's something that we never take into consideration as hunters. You know, we do have still close to a million people that hit the woods every year. And whether it's deer, turkeys, squirrels, whatever, like, we are a predator out there. And, you know, when I talk about habitat, you know, that's important, whether it's turkeys or deer or whatever, to put that in your game when you're getting out there in the woods. Steve, what about you? You spend a lot of time on public. Is there certain things you look for?
[00:33:11] Speaker C: I think that what it comes down to is just persistence.
As Dave said, it's so easy to get discouraged, especially if you go out right when everybody else is. And you might think, there's no deer, there's no turkey. It doesn't matter what it is.
If that's your first time on that property, if you didn't Scout it. And it's easy to just get discouraged and be like, there's nothing here.
And we hear that all the time. But some of those areas where I guarantee you turkeys were quiet this morning on public, if you've been there late April, you would realize there's still a ton of turkeys here. You know, they were sounding off probably at every point. Reality is they're just very good at disappearing. They know how and when to hide, when things get tough, and when the pressure's on. So a lot of times with hunting public land, I have my success at the end of the year, you know, if I'd probably be discouraged and quit if I just went out for the first couple times and didn't hear anything. And it's easy to do. Right. So when it comes to hunting public land, the trick for me is just keep at it, because chances are those animals are there again. Be it turkey, deer, bear, whatever. It's just they're really good at disappearing once they know that they're being hunted.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: When you think about a turkey and we'll get back on track here, I'm getting sidetracked a little bit. But before they even come out of that egg, that mama's on that egg and she's imprinting the language to them the day they're hatched. I mean, if a red tailed hawk flies over, she's letting them know that that's danger. I mean, the day they hatch, everything's out there trying to eat them. And they know that. And, you know, we're predators and they're trying to stay away from us. I mean, it's the bottom line.
[00:34:36] Speaker C: Absolutely. And David and I, we experience. We were talking about the other day where we'd been hunting a turkey that was close to a road and it could hear trucks driving up that road. Truck stopped, somebody got out, called, that turkey wouldn't gobble.
[00:34:50] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:34:50] Speaker C: Truck drove away, that turkey would gobble again. You know, for an animal with a brain the size of a walnut, they're pretty good at knowing when they're being hunted. And it just comes down to persistence.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: You think about it like you get to go out on a date for 45 days or whatever it is every year, and.
CAR door slams, horns honk, OWL hoots.
[00:35:07] Speaker C: Right.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: Eventually you're gonna figure out a way around that. I mean, that's. You know, obviously they can't figure things out like we can, but they're. They're definitely good at staying away. And deer, same way. I mean, every animal out there, pressure means a lot. And that's something that as hunters we should all take into consideration.
Let's get back to deer hunting and license sales and talk about that license go on sale this year June 23rd. Monday, June 23rd at 8am and just to.
To get re centered back on that, everybody, that every resident in the first round for 21 days is guaranteed an analyst tag of the WMU of their choice. And you know, again, there's no rush. You got 21 days to do it. You know, obviously there's a lot of tradition there. We see it at headquarters. There's going to be some folks that we have seen the last 10 years there, opening morning of, of hunting license sales. But then when we get 21 days later, July 14, the first round of non resident and that's a first come first serve basis and you know, then those round systems are going to keep going and you know, like we kind of hit on it earlier. One of the questions we're going to get asked is are those, is there a chance those WMUs can get oversold that first round? And of course there is, but I think one of you said that, you know, through our data that we have, we're still in good shape. Overselling by a minuscule amount isn't going to affect the overall scope of things.
[00:36:36] Speaker C: Right. That's what. Of course that. First of all, let me just say you're right. That risk is going to be there. There potentially will be a unit that theoretically could oversell. We recognize that.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: 2G, I mean, for instance.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:36:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:47] Speaker C: However, that risk is very small based on the data that we have as far as hunter behavior, people typically are going to buy the licenses where they've traditionally bought their licenses. So now we have a couple years of data which shows what that's going to look like. So we're not anticipating that we'll oversell, quote, unquote, any units in that first round. But if we should, you know, worst case scenario, we'll just make adjustments, be it on the, on the allocation for the previous year. But first though is we'd have to look at that harvest data because just because we oversell doesn't mean that the harvest would in turn increase to a rate that we're not comfortable with. So overselling in and of itself isn't going to be a reason for panic by any stretch. We also then will look at that harvest data, see where it took place in each unit and then make decisions moving forward. So we'll be adaptive like we've talked about already. We'll be able to make adjustments in year two and year three. But again, we're not anticipating. I think it's going to be very unlikely that we're going to have any unit sell out.
[00:37:46] Speaker A: And that's why I think, feel strongly to just hit this again. You know, when you, when you are successful, definitely report your harvest. I think that's one of the easiest things. And if we do reach out to you as an agency with a survey, take the time, the five, ten minutes, whatever it takes and be honest and send that back to us. That's how, that's how we collect that data.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Yeah, help us out.
[00:38:04] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: We need it. And I look at it and say the hunters are our eyes and ears out there. The best data comes from them. So you know when you were talking about the non resident licenses going on sale July 14th, so when you talk about could a unit maybe sell out. But that's when the allocation kicks in. Right. So after that first 21 days is over, when the non resident round kicks in on July 14, that's when you'll see how many licenses are still available left in each given WMU. So there may be some WMUs that have very, very few licenses, if any still available come the non resident round. But then you'll see, hey, you know, 3A still has 5,000 tags available or whatever. So that's when that first come, first serve kicks in. And you'll start seeing those numbers each day tick down as people start exhausting that allocation and buying up those antlerless licenses.
[00:38:54] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:38:55] Speaker C: But to reiterate your point, you know, for hunters, report your harvest. Because I talked about, our board makes decisions, right. And we give them the data to make decisions. Our job is to give them the best data. That includes those harvest reports. So by filling that, you know, postcard out, by making that report online, that data then goes into, into what we take into consideration and then present it to our board. So it's, it's ways for hunters to play a role, not just by harvesting a deer, but by them reporting it. So we can't stress that enough.
[00:39:21] Speaker A: When you look at conservation and as a whole, we're all in this together. Exactly whether we work at the agency and a friend of mine is on the board in Ohio and he, he had a great point. He said no matter what decision we make as a board, and this is in Ohio, but it ranged across the country, 50% of the people love us and 50% of the people hate our decision. And it's true. I mean, you know, even us sitting Here at the table, like there's always conversation. We don't always agree with each other, but we have to make the best decision for wildlife and the future.
When we look at it as a whole, you know, if we make the wrong decision, the good thing is we not the wrong decision. If things aren't exactly lined up, we can always get to the right, the right decision the following year in some manner.
[00:40:05] Speaker C: We can always adapt, but it's dependent upon having good data to make those recommendations for our board to make good decisions.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: The basis of everything.
[00:40:13] Speaker A: So let's get back into the dmap, you know, and we actually have two definitions of DMAP or dma, I should say, you know, disease Management area and Deer management area. Correct.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: Deer Management Assistance Program.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Okay, I speed that all up.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: That's okay.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: Do that again.
[00:40:30] Speaker B: Deer Management Assistance Program. That's dmap.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: Okay. So don't confuse that with, don't confuse.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: That with Disease management areas. Perfect.
[00:40:39] Speaker A: Good luck. I'm confused right now.
Let's talk about dmap. And you know, why properties, but you kind of hit on why they're in it and you know what they're used for. Whether it's big properties like the big timber companies or there's lots of individuals out there that are trying to manage their property and keep the deer herd where they feel it's imbalanced. But you know, this year there was a big change in the DMAP season. So if we can hit on that.
[00:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, a couple of years ago the forestry community from the northern tier started talking, you know, at our board meetings about, hey, we're not seeing the success with DMAP tags that we'd like to see and we'd like to maybe have some more opportunity for folks to use those tags that they have in their pocket.
And kind of like bear season, we used to say, so many bears, only three days. Well, there's two ways to get more animals harvested. It's either with an increase in the available tags or the bag limit. Right. Or an increase in time of opportunity.
So I think what there was a feeling out there that maybe the two week rifle season and the archery seasons, people were harvesting deer, but then not enough time still to use those DMAP tags. So it was offered as a floor amendment during the April meeting this year to add time to be able to use those DMAP tags to get more deer harvested this year. So that amendment was made and voted on and passed by the board. So now you're going to have this year for the first time on for DMAP tags, you'll be able to use those tags with a rifle after Christmas for about a full month, which is a pretty big change, but one that the board felt was necessary to see if we could kind of move the needle a little bit on getting a higher proportion of those DMAP tags being used by hunters actually, actually going out there and harvesting a deer with those tags. And again, we'll see how it goes this year. Those harvest reports will be crucially important to determine. Hey, is a month the right amount of time? Is it too much? Can we do it in two weeks?
The board will be able to adapt going forward once they get a year under their belt with this new proposal here.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it's a positive step in the right direction. When you look at it too, is those opportunities are crucial. And you know, we hear it all the time about the number of hunters and you know, we're still lucky in Pennsylvania that we have that hunting force out there to get the job done. And you know, when we give those opportunities like that, taking advantage of that is another thing that's going to happen. Shooting a deer, harvesting a deer. Late season can be tough. I mean, because those deer in survival mode.
[00:43:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. And of all the things that we monitor, we'll probably be watching this one closest to see what the impact of this extended season is. And no one can predict right now, especially in the northern tier, we know it's going to be weather dependent. I mean, there's areas on state forest that it's hard to get into come second week of rifle. So nobody knows how accessible some of those areas are going to be after Christmas. So that's absolutely going to play a huge role in what the harvest looks like. But we'll be monitoring it. For dmap it's required that an individual harvest. So hopefully we'll get good data. We'll take a look at what the impact is. We'll talk to those landowners who are enrolled in the program, see if it helped them. I think it's important to remember too, for dmap, it's not designed to be a permanent program. The goal of DMAP is to address a hotspot on the landscape on that private property or public property in state for state forest or ANF to address the problem and then have that property come out of the program because the deer population has been reduced to a level that's no longer impacting it.
Clearly that hasn't been working in some areas we've had some DMAP properties that have been in existence for over a decade.
So what this is designed to do is be targeted to those areas and really increase that harvest for this year. And then potentially you'll see some properties no longer needing to be enrolled in the program if it goes the way it's intended. So we'll be monitoring all that closely.
[00:44:38] Speaker A: And like we, like you said earlier, we have some game lands this year over the last couple of years that are in the DMAP program where we're not seeing, you know, those targets met and you know that. I know that all the regions are monitored, monitoring those, you know, in a rigid sense.
[00:44:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:54] Speaker B: Our foresters, they collect a tremendous amount of information before they take any kind of habitat management action. They're looking at deer impacts, they're looking at regeneration. You know, where is it, how far along is it? Is it getting over browsed? So we collect a tremendous amount of data on our, on our management activities as we go. And if we see things going well, you know, I would anticipate that we would reduce the use of dmap. I mean, that's the plan, like Steve said. But if we see things aren't going well, we may keep it in place for another season or two to see if we can, can, can bring that balance back. And the last thing in the world we want to do is be putting up fences on game lands to lock deer out of habitat and lock anything else out of that habitat. So we'd rather have hunters out there enjoying deer hunting and helping us achieve that balance rather than taking some other measures to do it right.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: And you know, when you, you kind of hit. The last thing we want to talk about is the, the impact of the overall harvest of that dmap. Obviously we don't have a crystal ball and we don't know what's going to happen. And, but it, you know, hunters really should take our, their hats off to giving something a try. That's different. Change is tough as we know it out there. I mean, change is tough for any of us in life. And a lot of the things we do and you know, we're very fortunate to have the leadership team we have now at the Game Commission that's willing to stand up and look at issues that we have.
It's hard for any of us to look past this fall, but we have to look at 10, 20 year impacts on a lot of things that we do out there. So just to, just to top this off on the DMAP program, third round of antlerless license sales for unsold will be first come, first serve on August 11th. And that's when DMAP will go on sale statewide as well. So that'll be a pretty big day at the Game Commission online because there's going to be a lot of people that have some strategy on that DMAP program.
[00:46:40] Speaker C: I think so. And we of course encourage hunters. Get that analyst license. You got 21 days there, get the unit of your choosing. But, you know, it doesn't end there. There's still going to be an opportunity to come back, maybe get a second one and participate in this DMAP season, especially with the extended season that's going to be in place for this year. And if you look at talking to several members of the board, their motivation for doing this was we had some DMAP game lands that we just weren't selling those DMAP coupons. They weren't getting in the hands of hunters. So I have a suspicion that the extended season and potential to hunt with a rifle after Christmas for a couple weeks is going to make those DMAP tags more desirable by hunters than ever before. So remember to come back in mid August and get your DMAP tag as well.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: Can you see Deputy Director Mitchell's brain right now? When all this year like he's been. Because he always has a strategy. I mean, what other person out there has a golf bag full of rifles? He decides which rifle he's going to take, you know, which day. So this, this after the holidays D map season, I can just see his brain spinning.
[00:47:42] Speaker C: There's no doubt about it.
[00:47:43] Speaker B: I look at that opportunity through the lens of a father's eyes right now because, you know, my girls are getting into hunting. And when you look at when the regular rifle season is, you've still got school going on, they can only get out pretty much on the weekends.
So having that time after Christmas where they're going to be off school and we might head up north, there's going to be some, some hopefully fun hunting days.
And you know, hey, I'm kind of picky with what bucks I want to shoot. So if I don't end up shooting a buck, that's, that's a great opportunity to still put some meat in the freezer at the end of the year. So I'm looking at it through that lens of, hey, kids will get a great opportunity to get a little more antlerless deer hunting in if they haven't been able to previously in the season. And it's kind of Your last big chance to put some chili meat back in the freezer.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: And, you know, you talk about that like your son in college. I mean, he's home at that time, and you can spend some quality time outside and outdoors. I mean, you look at those opportunities and we, you know, in today's world's, a whole different world than it was even 10 years ago to get the time to spend with your family and your kids and aunts and uncles, what have you. I think that's the opportunity I'm looking forward to the most myself. But let's talk about limits. I mean, there is a limit on how many analyst license you can have, and if you want to hit that one. Dave Gustafson.
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the biggest thing, biggest change this year was in our, say, the deuce.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: I'm sorry, in our.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: In our highly urbanized units, particularly the Southeast 5C, 5D.
One of our biggest constraints down there is access to where the deer live. So it's not all the hunters that have the access to hunt a lot of those private properties down there. And previously they were, you know, limited to only having six licenses.
And there was a new change this year to go to a 15 license limit. So we want to make sure we get those antlerless licenses in the hands of those that have the access, that can use them to achieve the harvest objectives.
[00:49:40] Speaker A: That's just in those urban zones.
[00:49:42] Speaker B: And just in those zones and the rest of the state, it's still six.
[00:49:44] Speaker A: Right, Right. Is there any. Any on dmap? Is there any limits on dmap?
[00:49:48] Speaker B: DMAP is property specific.
So some places it's two per property. In other places it's four per property.
[00:49:56] Speaker C: That's correct. And I think for public land, it's two per property.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:50:00] Speaker C: But as far as how many units that an individual can buy, it's up to availability of tags. And I wish there was a limit because I've purchased many tags over the years in DMAP properties. So, yeah, the only limit is how many you want to buy.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And you can have a pocket full of them.
[00:50:17] Speaker C: You can have a pocket. You can go into the pocket. Pocket full. Which actually then creates a lot of opportunity, to Dave's point, because you can then be selective about where you hunt and when and where.
[00:50:25] Speaker A: Let's talk about antlerless, too. And I've heard this a bunch. And you can, I know you can hit on it, but like, there's a mechanism that we have in place that the funding for antlerless tags, it goes to Specific places. And a lot of folks don't know this.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Yeah, there is.
I'm not going to quote the dollar amounts off the top of my head because I don't have it, but.
But it's. In Title 34, there's a requirement that a certain proportion of every hunting license and also every antlerless license issued goes to a special restricted fund just for habitat improvement work.
I think last year the required amount was somewhere in the $8 million range, which was what the requirement was. And we're very proud that we overspend that requirement every year. So we're always doing more for habitat than what that requirement is. But for hunters to know that there is a dedicated proportion of those licensed dollars that must go to certain habitat management practices on game lands and that we achieve and exceed that every year.
[00:51:29] Speaker A: And I encourage anybody that's never been to a game lands, never just walked around or, you know, taken a tour to get out there and look. Because like, I know we spent some time in the North Central and even closer to home. And you go out and look the work that's getting done out there, you know, and if you want to, you know, throw your hat in the ringer and try to find a new hunting place, when you look at these places where there's a lot of work getting done, you know, you get timber projects and stuff that looks, it looks ugly to the naked eye. That's where the animals live. You know, when you create that habitat like that, if you're out in the wide open woods, a lot of times, you're not going to see a whole lot, nothing to hide by and that habitat, you know, you look at our foresters and people that are really into it, really into hunting, they get to where the game is. And when you do that, I mean, you just up your chances.
[00:52:17] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up. I spent more time this past year on the ground with our crews that do that work on a daily basis. And I'll tell you what, as a Game Commission employee and all of our hunters should just be incredibly proud of the efforts that they do, because it's all about wildlife habitat. And our game lands are pretty actively managed. And we've all been in places where there, you know, that property isn't being managed and it's that old growth forest with just nothing underneath. And sure, you can see for a long distance, but if you're an animal, why would you be there? You're not going to survive. So you go to some of our game lands and Again, the work that our crews are doing is tremendous and I, I wish everybody could see it because it is such a source of pride and you realize they're doing it for the future. If there's going to be sustainable wildlife populations for generations to come, it's because of the work that they're doing right now.
[00:53:04] Speaker A: Yeah. And if you, if you watch social media, if you've never been on a gamelands, which probably blow our minds, how many people haven't been out there and just experienced game lands. If you watch social media or emails or just the information. We have gameland tours across the state every fall where you can get just a bird's eye view of what's going on across the state. And it's, it's really, it's a neat way to spend a Sunday afternoon and in one of the prettiest places in the state. You know, whether, whatever area you're in.
[00:53:30] Speaker B: Of Pennsylvania and it's amazing how close to population center you can be and still get out and see wild things in wild spaces. You know, we're right here in Harrisburg and not too far away is one of our largest game lands within what, a 15 minute drive of where we're sitting right now. Steve is one of the largest game wins in the state.
[00:53:47] Speaker A: Steve doesn't want to talk about this.
[00:53:49] Speaker B: I'm not going to, I'm not going to dial it out.
[00:53:50] Speaker C: I'm just saying, unfortunately there's no deer turkey on that game lands. But yeah, but it's close proximity and in fact, we just bought a nice track of land. Really proud about this because it's going to give access to an area that otherwise would be landlocked. And you can see the track that we bought right from just about getting to the Capitol. So I mean, just a tremendous opportunity now. We're going to open up hundreds of acres there across that ridge. But what a gem that game lands is and we have those all across the state.
[00:54:16] Speaker A: Absolutely. And you know, the mapping systems that we have today and you know, you know, some of the apps that are out there, like finding a piece of land to hunt is not a problem. And I'm proud to be from Pennsylvania and that's one thing that we all should be proud of, that, you know, our forefathers were smart enough to put this in forever. I mean, we're always going to have a place for wildlife in Pennsylvania.
[00:54:37] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:54:38] Speaker A: So let's talk about the changes to the elk seasons and not elk seasons, but the elk tags. And you know, we're very fortunate to you know, have this great resource in this state. And there has been some changes that have happened this at the last board meeting, but the changes do not go into effect until next calendar year. So they're not going to affect this hunting license year.
[00:55:01] Speaker C: Yeah. So one thing our board did is they put a cap on the number of licenses that could be sold to non residents, and that came out at 10%. So for the total available number of tags, 90% of them will be going to Pennsylvania residents. And if you look at what's happening across the country, and certainly Dave can speak to this probably better than I can, a lot of states are doing or already have done something similar. So this is just going to be consistent with the practice where we've seen it in a lot of the country.
As far as the impact, it's really not going to be substantial when it's all said and done, because traditionally non residents have only been drawing about 12 to 14%. So not a huge change, but it is something now that our Pennsylvania residents know when they're putting in for a license, that of the available tags, Pennsylvania residents are going to get 90% of them moving forward.
[00:55:50] Speaker A: Right. And, you know, one of the other changes to next year, you're going to have to have a hunting license to apply for an elk permit. And that's a big change for us.
[00:56:02] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's meaningful, and it's not unprecedented. There's other states that have recently done the same thing, where there's western states where it used to be, you could just, you know, jump in, spend $40, buy a preference point every year. And then when you were ready to try to apply for a tag, you had all those points that you had built up, and you could go in and into the lottery that they have and buy a tag. And those states realized, like many other states, they were losing out on extra money through the Pittman Robertson Act. So the formula for the Pittman Robertson federal dollars that we receive here in Pennsylvania and every other state is based on two things. Your land area, but also your hunting licenses sold. So when other states started figuring that out and saying, hey, we need to force folks to buy a hunting license to participate in that Pittman Robertson cycle, we're losing out if we're not participating in that as well.
And I think it would be our hope that maybe a lot of these non residents would come and experience Pennsylvania because now they have a hunting license, and before they come to elk hunt, maybe they'll come and check Pennsylvania out because they have a hunting license.
[00:57:07] Speaker A: One Thing when you look at hunting license, it's funding conservation.
[00:57:10] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:57:11] Speaker A: When I go to another state and have my whole life. But, you know, I don't mind going out there and buying a hunting license, even if I'm just going out there to turkey hunt with somebody and not carry a gun and just go along with the hunt. Because I know that money is going to the future and someday my grandchildren's experiences will be affected by it. And it's an investment in conservation no matter what you do. I mean, there's so many people that go from Pennsylvania out west every year and apply out west. And you know, when you look at our agency too, our agency, we don't take any general fund money. We're completely funded by hunter's dollars, you know, in many different ways. But I mean, that's pretty special. I mean, when you look at it tenfold across the board, across the country, it absolutely is.
[00:57:55] Speaker C: And it's a great point. Everything that we have in Pennsylvania, including those game lands that we were just talking about, is because of hunters and the money that goes into conservation. So it's of all the ways to, to waste money, so to speak. There's no better way than to buy that hunting license even if, you know, even if you're not intending to use it or even if you're just helping out like you talked about somebody else who's going hunting and you're just tagging along. Whatever the case may be, there's no better way to spend that money than on a hunting license, in my opinion.
[00:58:20] Speaker A: Right. I agree. 100. And you know, the other big change this year too is like if you do are lucky enough to draw a bull tag, it's going to be a once in a lifetime opportunity.
[00:58:31] Speaker C: Correct. And I think again, that's the change that takes place in 2026, I'm not mistaken. But yeah, it'll be a one and done essentially for those who buy a bull tag, they won't have that opportunity moving forward to. Which just gives more chances for somebody who hasn't drawn yet.
[00:58:44] Speaker A: Right, Absolutely. And I mean, if.
[00:58:46] Speaker C: Including us. Right.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: I was gonna say if you draw, if you do draw one in your lifetime and are lucky enough to, to take one home, you're probably like bucket list accomplished. Absolutely, 100%.
So I just want to remind everybody, general LICENSE go on sale June 23rd. You didn't even have to look, did you? June 23rd in 21 days to get the WMU antlerless license of your choice.
So we don't need to rush here on the 23rd, we welcome anybody that wants to show up at headquarters and online and all that stuff. We want you to get it, but you do have 21 days to get it. And new this year, too, when you're going into the system. And I have to say this.
Do you guys know your CID number?
[00:59:27] Speaker C: I do. Known for a long time, so I don't.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: And I'm one of those. I have lots of things to remember. You can't look your hunting license up with your Social Security number anymore.
Really important to memorize your CID number or if you're going to a vendor, bring last year's hunting license because your CID is right on top. And, you know, if you're. If you're online on Hunt, Fish, pa, Update your. Update your profile. Make sure all the information's right to make it painless when you get there.
[00:59:53] Speaker B: But yeah, make sure we have your email address, things like that.
[00:59:56] Speaker A: Yeah, you know, we. We do email, you know, once a month to anybody that signs up or we have your email address. You know, we don't overload you. We send you the information that you need to know, and it's important that we stay in touch. And again, we all have to work together. But, gentlemen, thank you. Anything you want to say before we take it on out of here?
[01:00:13] Speaker C: No, just looking forward to it. It seems like last hunting season just ended and here we are already talking about next one. And I couldn't be happier.
[01:00:21] Speaker A: You look at June, and I just realized this. This year of 55 years on this earth, June is halfway through the calendar year. I mean, the holidays are six months away. And, you know, the store's going to be putting holiday stuff up pretty soon, which is kind of crazy. And kids aren't even out of school yet. How about you, Gus?
[01:00:36] Speaker B: Everybody else is going to the beach, and I'm just counting the days till October, so, you know, the summertime for me is all about anticipation of hunting season again.
[01:00:45] Speaker A: I'd recommend practicing some. Some turkey calls this summer, too.
[01:00:48] Speaker B: I mean, I appreciate that. I'll take any tips you're willing to give.
[01:00:51] Speaker A: Well, thanks, gentlemen, and thanks for a great year and looking forward to getting together next year with some. Some more exciting news. But good luck to everybody out there. Hunt safe and keep in touch and, you know, let us know anything you want to let us know. I mean, we want to work together. We're all in this. This game together. And thank everybody for tuning in to call the outdoors.
