Game Commission Requires Archery? UPDATED

Yesterday morning, I sent the following letter to the commission.

According to your website, Kristen is saying that the Game Commission is requiring archery to be included in any plan. Is that a true statement? I have asked this question before and got no response. 

Elaine Gillen            

I finally heard back from somebody. I received a response from the solicitor, Phil Weis. Here is what he sent:

Elaine, that is a requirement as the Municipality applied for two Deer Control Permits.  Below is the applicable section of the State regulations that is relevant to this topic.  Subsection (c) contains the requirement.

§ 147.322. Application for deer control permit.

(a)  An application for a deer control permit shall be completed in conjunction with the Commission and submitted by an authorized officer or employee of the political subdivision, homeowners association or nonprofit land-holding organization in the form required by the Director and contain the information requested by the Director.

 (b)  An application for a deer control permit must contain the following information:

   (1)  A complete map showing the boundaries of the area being considered and indicating the land use within the area, cover types, huntable areas, damage areas, deer concentration areas, all safety zones and proposed control areas within the proposed boundaries.

   (2)  A deer management plan shall be submitted with each application which provides deer management goals and requesting the number of animals to be removed.

   (3)  Each application shall substantiate the background and scope of the deer problem and include alternative approaches to the problem and propose what action is recommended to be taken under the permit.

 (c)  Public land within the proposed boundaries shall be open to lawful public hunting unless otherwise prohibited under this title or as otherwise authorized by the Director. Private land within the proposed boundaries may be closed to public hunting at the landowner’s discretion. However, if closed, deer control activities may not occur thereon.

Source

   The provisions of this §  147.322 adopted July 29, 1994, effective July 30, 1994, 24 Pa.B. 3716; amended December 19, 2008, effective December 20, 2008, 38 Pa.B. 6928. Immediately preceding text appears at serial pages (320730) and (297379).

Philip J. Weis

Buchanan, Ingersoll & Rooney

301 Grant Street, 20^th Floor

Pittsburgh PA 15219

(412) 562-3937

philip.weis@bipc.com

Still confused, I answered with:

Thanks, Phil, for the clarification, but this is where it gets confusing to us. Does Subsection (c) specifically require archery? 

I remember Gary F. from the Game Commission saying that there must be hunting done on public property if or when the sterilization permit is to be granted. Who is the Director? Steve Feller? Is public hunting prohibited in our parks? Is that why it was only open to municipal employees? And finally, since the archery program was "suspended," when will it resume?

(c)  Public land within the proposed boundaries shall be open to lawful public hunting unless otherwise prohibited under this title or as otherwise authorized by the Director.

I heard nothing else, so I looked for answers on Kelly Fraasch's blog. Sure enough, Kelly updated her blog with Little did we know....

It appears that I am not the only one looking for clarification.

Update December 31, 2014 3:18 PM On mtl Magazine's Facebook page, Tom Moertel did some fact checking which I thought would be appropriate to include with this post.

Tom Moertel The risks of deer in Mt. Lebanon have been greatly exaggerated, especially by Commissioner Linfante. Yes, deer can and do hurt people in Mt. Lebanon. But such cases are rare. In the nearly 4 years that Mt. Lebanon has been tracking deer-related incidents, there have been only 6 reports of actual injury, all through car accidents. That’s about 1.5 cases per year, on average.
To put into perspective just how small that number is, consider this: According to police reports, there are on average over 100 car accidents per year in which someone is injured or killed in Mt. Lebanon. Deer – characterized by Commissioner Linfante as a “major public safety issue” – account for less than 2% of those accidents. Further, if Linfante’s culling plan goes into effect and achieves its stated goal of reducing deer-related car accidents by half, your chances of being injured or killed in a car accident in Mt. Lebanon will be reduced by less than 1%. *Less than 1%.*
If the solution to a major public safety issue makes you less than 1% safer, is the issue really a major public safety issue?
There are legitimate arguments to be made for reducing Mt. Lebanon’s deer population. If you want to argue that deer damage gardens, cause car accidents that require costly repairs, or contribute to the spread of Lyme disease across the country (although the research makes it doubtful that culling deer is an effective remedy), go ahead.
But why invent a public-safety scare about something that causes virtually nobody in Mt. Lebanon to be injured or killed? Why play up the fact that there have been over 700 reported “incidents” but neglect to inform the public that virtually none of them have anything to do with people getting hurt by deer? Why spend 3 years developing a solution that, even if it achieves its stated goal, will prevent less than 1 incident per year in which someone actually gets hurt?
Couldn’t we have prevented many more injuries – and quite possibly deaths – by investing that same 3 years in fighting Mt. Lebanon’s larger public-safety problems?
So why didn’t we?