Their goal was to kill 150 of the landscape eaters. In the end they killed 6. Apparently they have a lot to learn about whitetail deer. But the reason they cancelled the plan of action was pathetic. it was taking upwards of 10 or 11 shots to the head to kill a deer. Their ammo apparently was too politically correct and not sufficient to do the job quickly and humanely. I guess they failed to realize how tough a cute little Bambi really is.
What gets me is that while hunters and non hunters agreed that the plan was unethical... we still have not heard a word about allowing an archery season there to offer some hunting opportunities and solve the problem at the same time. I was born 100 years too late!
And why didn't they use regular ammo???!!!
You have a link with more info?
The contract with the company was for around $45,000 or so; YES, around $45K to eliminate a goal of 150. The TV reports worked it out that it would cost ONLY around $300 for EACH KILL. !!!!!!
Even me, the "Gatherer" Archer of the group, wants to whack somebody upside the head, and ask "Are you friggin crazy?"
The Archers of this region could have taken care of the problem, and MANAGED the issue, more quietly, effectively, humanely. And there wouldn't have been a story to tell.....
But NOOOOOOOOO.
Gotta throw money at something, I guess, to fix it.
I'm still scratching my head.....
Just let the professionals shoot them with real bullets.
SA
I'm not defending these guys because I wasn't there.Most likely some anti's got a hold of the story and ran with after they embellished it.It's a shame to see hunters jump on the band wagon.
There's a part of me that says " let em die of starvation in the yards of these folks..... Then they'll change their minds" but I know better.
A big victory for anti hunters herd.... But only temporary.
Rut Nut's Link
I think the owner of the company(Merlin Benner) was a forester with the state(DCNR if I remember correctly). He gave a tour(lecture) to us at one of Mark Hogan's deer tours back in the late 90's or early 2000's I think Brad Gehman was with us also. Saw deer exclosures for the first time up there in Tioga. He must have retired and now owns this company. He seemed to really know his stuff.
I would be surprised if the original story is true about "special bullets" and hitting deer 10 times in the head and not killing them. Probably made up by antis as was suggested above!
We were butchering pigs one year and my neighbor wanted to shoot them first.Normally we'd just grab them by the back leg,lift them with the bucket of the tractor and slit their throat.My other neighbor wanted to shoot the first hog and it took about 5 shots.It was a mess.Sometimes crap happens.
More than once in my life I've had to put more than one shot in a deer.
Also, it wasn't 10 shots for one deer but 3-4 shots per deer were required, based on reports. They did have vandalization of the pens too which limited the kill, amongst other things.
I don't think those deer will every starve with all the landscaping out that way but, their numbers will be partially controlled by the vehicles, one way or another.
They were using subsonic loads from a suppressed .223.
For the record: There are plenty of patches of woods large enough to legally hunt in Mt Lebanon.
Heck... there are lots of places within the city limits of Pittsburgh that are big enough to hunt... with guns. Anyone who lives there knows that there are tons of shotgun hunters around Pgh during deer season.
"With all the protests from anti-hunters and hunters who are actually anti's......"
Please explain what you mean by "hunters who are actually anti's" and specifically whom among us you are you referring to?
SA
These deer need killed and there's no way hunters can go into a place like that and remove the number of deer needed.Hunters kill deer,wound deer and deer suffer.That's just the way it is.Trapping them and killing them is no better and no worse.The end result is the same,deer die.Calling that a massacre or appalling is a play right into the anti's playbook.What it comes down to is many hunters simply want more targets for themselves,without any regard to the actual problem at hand or the best way to take care of the problem.
As an aside... Farbeit for us to hold an 'appalling massacre' on a native species that WE moved in on :^)
... see map above :^)
It was anything but an intelligent ethical or effective event.
I guess I could have just used the word clusterf__k.
Let's not forget that in addition to moving in on their habitat a good number of the residents there feed them! If it's that big of a problem screw the buffer zones. Make some rules, qualify the hunters, and let the people who have spent their lives practicing deer culling handle the situation.
Death is a fact of life. If you don't want to see deer dying don't turn your neighborhood into a deer farm. Or better yet... don't turn the deer woods into a neighborhood!
Guess what... someone whacked that filet mignon you have on the grill out back too.
I'll do it :)))
With the right guys and with a majority of the home owners cooperating. It can be done with archers
Bill v
I know exactly what it takes to get a hunt implemented in a residential area.I organized and formed a committee to do exactly that in a private residential community in northern Clearfield county.I understand the opposition and what it takes to overcome that opposition because we were successful in doing so.As the only bow hunter on that committee,it was my job to sell bow hunting as the solution.I did so successfully and had to deal with anti-hunters on a daily basis,both at meetings and their constant harassing phone calls to my house.The way some of you are describing this cull are the exact words they used to describe a legal hunt.They liked to use the word massacre.I find that appalling.Unless you've spent several years fighting the good fight to expand hunting opportunities,you have no idea the challenges that are presented.Believe it or not,hunters,especially bow hunters are looked at in a very poor light to most non hunters.That's an image that has to change and calling the culling of animals a massacre is not the way to go about it.We got it done in a rural remote area with over 3500 acres of undeveloped land that was a perfect place to hunt and little to no chance of interaction between hunters and residents.That isn't the case with Mt Lebanon.Even with that,it was a very,very hard sell.I had people worried about deer dying in yards,wounded deer crashing through screen doors in a fit of rage,kids getting shot by bow hunters etc,I had people calling my house and calling me every name in the book.Again,this was in a rural area of Pa with a very deep hunting heritage.Heck,there was even a sportsman's club,rifle range and 3D archery range already on the property and opposition was still very strong.Getting a hunt approved in a suburb of Pittsburgh with practically no open land that isn't residential lots would be extremely difficult.Even with a hunt approved,which the PGC is pushing for,there's not enough open areas to hunt to effectively reduce the population.Like it or not,hunting is not always the best solution in every case.This crap took over my life for about 6 years so I have a pretty good handle on what will work and what won't.The way I hear some of you talking is word for word how the anti-hunters describe hunters.
What you re telling us is simply that some people are completely uneducated about the subject.
What I'm telling you is that this cluster that happened in ML has NOTHING to do with hunters. It has to do with what the results can be when you don't let hunters become involved. You could really use the situation to shed some positive light on real hunting. Instead you choose to let the situation be related to actual hunting.
Somebody somewhere made a big mistake. People with impressionable mind got to see or hear about what happens when deer aren't killed quickly and cleanly. That sucks!
I consider hunters, the majority of people on this Pa forum, to be highy trained professional. Collectively we have centuries of experience. When we aren't involved in a "herd reduction" it means we gave way to the sentiments of anti hunters. When the results of that are the massacre that took place a little "I told you so" doesn't hurt.
They attempted to lure the deer into a pen. OK... maybe that's not soooo bad. But those politically correct projectiles they used could surely take a kids eye out or break a window just as easily as an arrow.
We could have used the whole situation to make improvements on our relationship with non hunters. But NO. Instead they now think that even trained professionals do nothing but cause pain and suffering to animals. Nice... real nice. They probably assume that those pros are also hunters. In reality that may very well be true. So in the end where does that leave us? I'll tell you where: Worse off than we were before we let some else do our business for us. Call it what you want. It may not be a deer massacre because they barely killed any. But it was a massacre as far as what those non or anti hunters think about deer hunting and that's even worse.
I do know that Mt Lebanon would be an extremely hard place to get hunt approved and successfully implemented enough to effectively reduce the population.It could possibly be used in conjunction with other methods but good luck with the current attitude in that area.
When we implemented a hunt,it was for areas that really didn't have close contact with residents adjacent to residential areas.It was 3500 acres of undeveloped land which is bigger than many SGL's.Regardless,in order to get a hunt approved,we had to jump through a bunch of hoops.Every hunter had to have a BOWHUNTED ED CERTIFICATION,PASS A PROFICIENCY TEST WITH BH'S and attend an orientation meeting.At this meeting we stressed the importance of taking good shots and backing out on poor shots.On a poor shot,hunters were expected to call someone on the committee to help recover the deer.In short,we tried to get experienced,"professional" type hunters.Well,I was on the committee so I got called out at least 6 times a week to recover deer.Some of the guys were very good and backed out immediately.We recovered 100% of those deer.Unfortunately more than 50% of the hunters didn't do what they were told and they went right after gut shot deer.It wasn't a real problem as far as the residents were concerned because most of these deer were shot in areas where the residents wouldn't know.Overall,the program could be called a success because there weren't any problems between hunters and non hunters but again,there really wasn't much interaction because of the way the property was layed out.I can tell you that we had many,many problems that people never knew about.Several guys on this site have hunted there and they'll tell you the same thing.If you think the majority of hunters in Pa are professional,you're off your rocker.The guys on this site most likely are but they're a drop in the bucket.I will also tell you that the actual wounding rate for bow hunters is pathetically high.I have real world experience with it and it's bad.Hunters need to do much better.We had every hunter turn in a questionaire at the end of the season asking about deer seen,missed wounded etc.I know for a fact that very few admitted wounding any because I was out looking for the deer.Whether you want to believe it or not but the wounding rate is way above 30%.That's just counting the one's I had first hand experience with over a several year time period.I would have no problems believeing that it's close to 50% like many studies have shown.
Since these deer weren't "hunted",I don't see how anyone could corelate this cull with hunting.
My pojt exactly. That's why I disagreed that it matters what we call the cluster. It has nothing to do with hunting or hunters. Therefore calling it a massacre doesn't fall into the trap of the antis.
RC... I learned from the best Mr Mentor. lmao :-)
I would guess the team that accompanied me compiled a minimum 72 hours in organization, prepping the gear, travel, teaching and meals. We trained and certified the initial personnel and hunters. It was quite involved. I would guess Doug would tell you that my team didn't even make up 1/900 of his particular iceberg.
It is also high for humans injured by knives, guns, automobiles and even falling church ceilings. Human bodies and wildlife are amazingly resilient and survive wounding. The best place for instant firearm kills are on television shows and movies where the bad guys or innocent victims go down like a broken elevator.
Years ago my friend and I were driving near Watertown New York on our way to a Canada moose hunt. We had just switched drivers when he hit two deer with my truck while towing a trailer that belonged to a third party. One died immediately and the other was wounded. In about ten to fifteen minutes two sheriff's deputies arrived. One quickly drew her service handgun and put three bullets in the doe's head at PBR.(point blank range)
Ten or more minutes later while we were filling out reams of paperwork for the accident,(one driver, two separate registrations for truck & trailer) and the discharge of a firearm, we noticed this firearm wounded doe raising her head. The deputy retrieved a shotgun from her patrol car and shot the doe again. Bowhunter wounding rates aren't the only ones that are high...
Those people see wounded deer. They see them hit by cars. They see them laying dead in the middle of their streets. AND... since they live in Pennsylvania some of them are hunters and the vast majority of them at least know someone who is a hunter whether it's a family member or a coworker. Since when are snipers any more ethical than hunters anyway?
I see it as an opportunity to make them appreciate what we do. Your cup is half empty, mine is half full.
These situations always come back around to emotions not facts.I used facts to overcome the emotions of people who didn't think a hunt would work and it took several years to do so.In my case,it was a rural area with 3500 acres of open space where there was little chance of contact between hunters and non-hunters.Trust me,getting a hunt approved in that case was no easy task.If the hunting were to take place on private residential lots,there would still be no hunting.
That should be a sufficient amount to kill all the deer in that area. Unless, of course, the squirrels and 'coons get into it. Then they may have to extend the feeding to 15-20 days.
To those who say there isn't enough room: You can shoot deer off of a person's back porch as long as him and any adjacent neighbors give you permission.
Rut Nut's Link
Dave G. 's Link
http://www.whitebuffaloinc.org
