posted
This message was sent by Larry Linford of the Lyme Disease Assn. of Southeastern PA
Note the many references to Lyme disease. Check out the reference cited: Deer, Communities & Quality of Life =============================
HOUSE AGRICULTURE AND RURAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
Public hearing re deer damage
By Peter G. Trufahnestock, PLS
4-4-06
The House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee held a public hearing on deer damage.
Members in attendance included Chairman Art Hershey, Minority Chairman Pete Daley and Representatives Martin Causer (R-McKean), Tom Creighton (R-Lancaster), Richard Grucela (D-Northampton), Dave Hickernell (R-Lancaster), Babette Josephs (D-Philadelphia), Rob Kauffman (R-Cumberland), Mark Keller (R-Perry), David Millard (R-Columbia), Sheila Miller (R-Berks), Tim Solobay (D-Washington), and Jerry Stern (R-Blair).
Chairman Hershey began by explaining that due to the early call for House Session, the hearing would end at 10 a.m. and all testifiers not heard would be rescheduled at another time. He apologized for the inconvenience and noted that the situation was beyond his control and should not be seen as a sign that the Committee does not take the issue of deer damage seriously.
Gregg Robertson, President of the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery Association (PLNA), testified that his industry is being devastated by deer overpopulation. A 2004 survey showed that PLNA members were spending an average $20,000 annually in deer control measures and deer damage, he said, estimating that the industry overall sustains losses and costs in the range of $5 million to $8 million per year. He noted that the survey did not include damage to installed landscapes at homes and businesses, as most species of landscape plants were once thought to be deer resistant. PLNA members now report, however, that professionally landscaped properties are now being completely consumed, he said.
Robertson stated that PA now leads the country in reported incidents of Lyme disease, for which deer are vectors, and in deer/automobile collisions. He said the current deer management programs used by the PA Game Commission (PGC), such as DMAP and Red-Tag, are ineffective and cannot achieve deer population control sufficient to reduce agricultural crop damage. He said that in November of 2005, PLNA presented a set of recommendations to the PGC, which came out of a series of seven public seminars held across Pennsylvania sponsored by 65 agriculture and conservation organizations, including PLNA, the Pennsylvania State Grange, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, Pennsylvania State Tree Farm Committee and the Pennsylvania Vegetable Growers Association. Details of the recommendations can be found in his written testimony.
Robertson was very critical of the fact that the PGC has not revealed the scientific basis for its policy decisions. He said "the fact that the agency has abandoned its population model and has provided no factual or analytical basis for its antlerless license reductions for the 2005-06 season strains the credibility of the agency with stakeholders and the public. As the agency that has prime responsibility for deer management in the state, the PGC cannot credibly claim that it does not know how many deer exist in Pennsylvania while making sweeping decisions regarding their management." He called on the PGC to implement a transparent process that involves the Governor, General Assembly and other public stakeholders.
Robertson also distributed the following document for further review: DEstroyERs.
Dan Fest, who farms 500 acres and owns Cole's Nurseries in Bucks County, testified that the deer problem in his suburban community has risen sharply in the last 12-15 years. Despite spending $25,000 on deer deterrents including fencing and guards, he said his business loses approximately $15,000-$20,000 per year due to the deer. He called the problem "an embarrassment," and said with the intense competition from other states PA can no longer accept the high losses to what is a $5.6 billion per year business. He added that on a personal level the outdoors is something his family and he have always enjoyed but he now often finds himself discouraging them from a walk through the woods because of the high chance of Lyme disease.
Bryon Shissler Director of the Ecosystem Management Project testified that there is broad agreement within the scientific community that much of the state's forests are in a seriously degraded ecological condition as a result of high deer densities and impacts. The problem is not new, he noted, as he gave a full history dating back to 1917 when Joseph Kalbfus, the PGC's first Executive Director, said that the biologist who tries to manage Pennsylvania's white-tailed deer herd based more on science and less on social pressures was in for a fight. Shissler stressed that he does not believe the people within the Game Commission or hunters are bad people. However, he said, "we have a system designed to fail the interests of the majority of our citizens and our commonly held natural resources. The existing system uses the deer resource as a crop for hunters, 94% of whom hunt deer. It is these hunters who pay the bills for the Pennsylvania Game Commission and so obligate Commissioners to respond to their desire to maintain more deer than the habitat can support."
# Shissler, like Robertson, said one of the biggest needed reforms is for the deer management programs to be more transparent to the public. He said he doubted anyone in the room, including those that represent the Game Commission, could explain using real numbers, how the current deer program works or the science upon which it is based. He concluded with the following four recommendations: We need an urban deer management program that includes progressive tools such as those generated from the public comments at the eight seminars sponsored by over 65 Pennsylvania organizations. # We need to improve wildlife conservation funding. If we are to have a wildlife conservation agency that manages all the wildlife for all the people then all the people need to contribute rather than just hunters. # We need a wildlife agency that represents all the people not just deer hunters. One option to achieve this goal would be to broaden the current PGC Board of Directors from being exclusively hunters to include a representative selected by residential communities, forest landowners, agriculture, environment conservation NGO's, etc. # We need a publicly transparent deer management program that tells the public what it is trying to achieve, how and what is being measured, and how we know when the program is successful. We need a program that is open to scientific peer review and which makes the data upon which decisions are made public.
Shissler also distributed the following documents for further review: Challenge of White-Tailed Deer Management Resource Report - December 2005 Issue Resource Report - March 2006 Issue Deer, Communities & Quality of Life
Dennis Wolff, Secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, began by commending the PGC for its efforts in recent years to take deer management to a new plateau. That being said, he acknowledged that the damage done by deer remains a large problem to all kinds of farmers, from those who raise grain to those who raise Christmas trees. He said the PA forestry industry has also been damaged over the last several years due to intense deer populations in wooded areas to the tune of $73 million annually. He referenced a January 2005 report by the Deer Management Forum, which states that "over-browsing by deer has eliminated the tree seedling, sapling and shrub layer in large areas of forest in Pennsylvania," threatening regeneration and species diversity.
Secretary Wolff said that while PA is a leader in farmland preservation, every day the state continues to lose agricultural land to development, which puts even more pressure on the deer herd while simultaneously making those areas less conducive to hunting as a means of control. He added that in recent weeks he has spoken to many farmers from southeastern PA who are working with the Game Commission to consider and develop new alternatives for deer management in PA's more suburbanized areas of the state.
Betsy Huber, President of the Pennsylvania State Grange, testified that the Grange has been concerned about crop damage from deer and elk for many years. Compensation for deer damage is often hard to obtain because of the difficulty involved in accounting for crop damage, she said, noting that payments are usually insignificant and do not cover the actual financial loss of the crop. She recommended that the compensation program be reviewed by the PGC and adjusted to cover and reflect the true financial loss incurred by this damage. She also stated that her members are becoming increasingly concerned with the threat of Lyme disease spread by the deer tick, adding that many of Grange members have been disastrously affected by this disease.
Huber concluded by laying out the following recommendations: # Landowners, community associations, and conservancies should be allowed to apply directly to the PGC for deer control permits instead of applying through their individual municipalities. # Communities should be allowed to decide what deer management tools are most suitable to their needs based on their property goals, land use and values. # The process of deer removal under deer control permits should be allowed to commence on November 1st and should not be restricted by recreational hunting seasons. # Deer control permits should allow for trapping and euthanizing as methods of deer removal. # In order to effectively engage hunters in this effort, arbitrary restrictions that inhibit their effectiveness, such as the requirement of tagging a harvested deer before taking additional deer, should discarded. # A regulated baiting process should be allowed for hunters to safely lure deer into areas where they can safely be removed. # Allowances should be made for the harvesting of deer outside of normal seasons on property enrolled in the Deer Management Assistant Program (DMAP). # The DMAP permits should be provided directly to the landowner and communities at no cost so that they can distribute them to the hunters, avoiding the time consuming and burdensome process of acquiring coupons and applying for permits. # The Game Commission should conduct programs around the state to educate the public-at-large on the health problems attenuated to Lyme disease, explaining the key role deer play in this disease and the need for deer population management in an effort to help manage the dispersal of ticks and the spread of Lyme Disease. # Municipalities should be allowed to sell venison harvested under a deer control permit to help defray the cost of the community's deer control program.
Though she did not say the following out loud, the following short paragraph appeared at the end of Huber's written remarks: And while this hearing is on deer damage and management problems, I'd just like to call to your attention that many of our livestock farmers who pasture either cattle or sheep are experiencing more and more losses from coyotes. One farmer lost 125 lambs last year and has now engaged his own coyote protection by buying two Great Pyrenees dogs who live and sleep with the sheep and protect them from the coyotes. However, coyotes are getting to be more and more a generator of economic loss and are creating another control issue that this Committee might want to address in the future.
Rep. Josephs, picking up on the unsaid remark, asked if the coyote population is in any way related to the size of the deer heard. Huber said she does not know.
Rep. Grucela said it seems to him that recommendations #1 and #2 are in conflict. Huber said they are not, explaining that the communities could choose different control devices if they wanted to, but if not, then people should be able to apply directly to the PGC.
Craig Sweager, a farmer from Washington County representing the PA Farm Bureau, said he is also pleased that the PGC has recognized the affects deer are having on the farming industry and have instituted policies and programs to help. While he thinks the programs "are helping and working well...they are not always enough to solve problems where deer are not huntable or are protected by nearby posted lands." He said the PA Farm Bureau believes that the damage deer do to agriculture and the green industry may exceed $90,000,000, which he noted is the same annual dollar amount received by PA farmers from government farm program assistance, including emergency disaster payments.
Sweager asked that the Committee support a full scientific study on the deer damage issue, similar to one conducted by Penn State University from 1994 through 1997, which led to many of the new successful landowner programs. He said the Farm Bureau has spoken to researchers at Penn State about updating the now 10 year old study and they are amenable to doing so. He noted a study update would come at a much lower cost than to begin a new study, and it would provide a sound science platform for the PGC.
Minority Chairman Daley asked what the cost of the recommended research would be. Sweager said he does not know, but will find out and report back.
Dr. Timothy Schaeffer, Executive Director of Audubon Pennsylvania, first noted that contrary to the opinion held by some, Audubon Pennsylvania strongly supports hunting as a means to bring deer into balance with their habitats. He cited a survey that showed Audubon members are 53% more likely than the general public to be hunters. Schaeffer then reiterated many of the points already discussed and spent some time giving more details from the Deer Management Forum's January 2005 report, which was convened, in part, by his organization.
Like most of the testifiers before him, Schaeffer called for the PGC to be more transparent, noting that "the longer the Game Commission goes without revealing the science behind its deer management decisions, the longer we must question whether the agency is responding to its perception of what licenseholders want rather than managing in the best interest of our wildlife resources." He encouraged members of the Committee to ask the State Senate to ask Game Commissioner candidates who come before them for confirmation to commit to using transparent science to make their decisions. He also encouraged the Committee to work with the rest of the General Assembly, the Governor's Office, and the PGC to "identify a funding base that is more stable and equitable than funding derived almost exclusively from sources such as license dollars and timber sales on game lands, in order to facilitate the shift from single-species management to ecosystem management."
At this point, Chairman Hershey recessed the meeting, but again stated that it would be reconvened as soon as possible. The following individuals were scheduled to testify had the meeting not been interrupted: # Debbie Plotnick, Homeowner, Bryn Gweled Homesteads # Michelle Davis, Deputy Secretary for Health Planning and Assessment, PA Department of Health # Dr. James Grace, Director of the Bureau of Forestry # Paul Lyskava, Executive Director, Pennsylvania Forest Products Association # Jim Chapman, Operations Manager, Hyma Devore Lumber Mill, Youngsville, PA # Calvin DuBrock Director of the Bureau of Wildlife Management, Pennsylvania Game Commission
-------------------- Lou B Posts: 2200 | From Mount Hope, New Jersey, USA | Registered: Oct 2000
| IP: Logged |
The Lyme Disease Network is a non-profit organization funded by individual donations. If you would like to support the Network and the LymeNet system of Web services, please send your donations to:
The
Lyme Disease Network of New Jersey 907 Pebble Creek Court,
Pennington,
NJ08534USA http://www.lymenet.org/
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
Printer-friendly view of this topic