Maybe if Upper Dublin wasnt so greedy in keeping all the hunting to theirselfs in stead of letting tax paying residents hunt maybe the kill would be much hire .From what i see the township police spend much time to prevent people from hunting . I think we shoul;d spent more time catching Crooks breaking into houses and cars such as the lafitness in Viginia drive!!!

John, you don't have a clue as to what you are talking about. I've lived in UD for 15 years and am a tax paying resident and have been a part of the hunting program for two years. The vast number of people in the program are civilians and just a few UD police are actually hunting. Not everyone can qualify to participate and many are unwilling to abide by the rules to participate. If you fail the proficiency test, you jdon't qualify. If you have had game law violations, you don't qualify. Many hunters are unwilling to go to the police station to sign in before they hunt and sign out after they hunt. Many hunters are unwilling to harvest a doe before they harvest a buck. So those hunters won't try to participate...and a lot of UD resident bowhunters that I know don't want to be involved because of those rulles. We can do a better job in controlling the deer population, but it would require UD property owners to help. They need to open up their properties to bowhunters. The current program is working and does help, but the total township acreage we hunt is minuscule compared to the amount of acreage that could be hunted.

I'm sorry, but this story makes me sick. Deer are NOT overpopulated, WE ARE! Every year more and more forests and trees are cleared for yet another strip mall or housing development...and in the process destroying the natural habitat of thousands of animals. The next thing we see are deer on our back lawns. Well, where do you expect them to go? Call it what you want, but hunting is murder. There is no such thing as a humane kill...especially with bowhunters. These animals suffer. They feel pain and fear just like you and me. "Oh, I think your family is getting a bit too big; maybe I should thin it out a bit. Wait here while I go get my rifle." May I remind everyone that the deer were here first. Why does man assume the right to take possession of THEIR land and do with it as he pleases? This usually involves clearing most of the trees, which can't be replaced in a lifetime, and thus removing the deer's habitat. Disgraceful! Wake up people! You're missing the big picture.

Paul,

You can't use emotion when it comes to scientific wildlife management. Hunting and trapping are the most effective, cost efficient, and humane way to control wildlife populations...the facts back me up. Deer are a prey animals and evolution has turned them into prolific breeders. If left unchecked, deer become a danger to themselves and to everything living in their Eco-system including man. BTW, you're absolutely wrong about bowhunters and the facts from the "Camp Ripley Study on Bowhunting and Bow Wounding" in MN back me up. I'd be happy to give you or anyone else the entire report, I have abou 100 copies left.

I'd also like to continue this conversation with you if you will leave the emotion out of it and deal only with the science of wildlife management.

Well i lived and hunted in Udublin township for for 25 years and put over hundreds of hours each seanson hunting and scouting . I tryed getting in 2010 and 2011 and it wasnt happing . And far as signing in and out befor after hunting is a stupid rule That could keep you from being in your tree and waste an hour. Upper dublin goes around looking everywhere in the woods taking peoples tree stands . Like i said be nice if they put more time into other stuff. And far as the club goes tree stands seem to be empty 90% of the time .
And Paul do you know how many deer get hit a years in Upper Dublin? People also get hurt in these accidents . Deer would be a huge problem if they wernt managed .And bow hunting is most ethnical way to do it . Do you eat steak ? chicken etc.......
It is a shame to see all the land developed but no way to stop it Its life

Bob, if by "leave the emotion out of it", you mean that I should disregard the indiscriminant murder of thousands of defenseless animals, then "no, sorry" I cannot leave emotion out of it.

I have no doubt that hunting and trapping may be the most cost effective / cost efficient ways to control wildlife populations, but humane? I think not. If a skilled hunter could put a bullet right between a deer's eyes, or directly through its brain, I might concede that the animal died instantly and it was indeed a painless clean kill. However, can you guarantee me that every kill will end with this result?

You are correct: deer are prey animals and prolific breeders. But once again, man is responsible for their overpopulation because we wiped out all of their natural predators (wolves, pumas, etc). Then we blame the deer for so-called overpopulation.

You site the "Camp Ripley Study on Bowhunting and Bow Wounding." This study was funded by manufacturers of bow hunting gear! That's as ludicrous as asking the Pharmaceutical industry to police itself and do its own testing (which is why there seems to be another drug recall every other month). Nevertheless, I googled the study and this was the top result:

http://www.hnva.net/campripley.html

The above author can do a better job than I of exposing the flawed conclusions of this study, but I'll leave you with this quote:

"The key to the bowhunting controversy, that which the authors did not and perhaps were incapable of grasping, is that the true cruelty of bowhunting lies not within the percent of animals wounded, but in the act of killing an animal with a weapon as inaccurate and vicious as a bow and arrow. Most animals shot by arrows die by catastrophic blood loss, and often they die slowly, in excruciating pain."

[edit] John, as the above referenced article clearly explains, bow hunting is far from the most ethical way to kill animals. No, I do not eat steak or chicken. I'm vegan. I love animals. I don't eat them. No animals need to die for me to satisfy my hunger. I don't understand how people draw a line between their dog and a pig (which, incidentally is smarter than a dog), and offer love and affection to their dogs, but the holocaust for other animals. When I say this to people, their response is often "yeah, but bacon tastes so good." Your mother or daughter might taste delicious if I cooked and ate one of them too, but that's hardly a valid reason to do it.

Bob, if we're going to take away the deer’s habitat, then we owe it to them to provide a new habitat. This could involve tranquilizing the deer, and transporting them to lands protected against hunting or development.

Paul seriously do you want pumas and wolfs in your backyard? If your a vegan i repect that thats your decision .But i am not .And bowhunting is the most ethnical way to control deer in upper dubblin .Granite yes some deer suffer no doubt when hit right a deer is dead in less then a minute .I would rather see a deer harvest and not go to waste then see them spattered all over the roads.

John, obviously I don't want pumas and wolves roaming our neighborhoods. My point was simply that man was responsible for removing the deer's natural predators, because WE are overpopulated, and we keep encroaching on more and more of the wild animals' habitat. Now it's our job to responsibly deal with this problem.

I don't know how you can go on claiming that bow hunting is the most ethical means to kill deer...when the facts say otherwise. They don't die in less than a minute. These are quotes from bowhunters:

"The rule of thumb has long been that we should wait 30 to 45 minutes on heart and lung hits, an hour or more on a suspected liver hit, eight to 12 hours on paunch hits, and that we should follow up immediately on hindquarter and other muscle hits, "to keep the wound open and bleeding"." Glenn Helgeland - Fins and Feathers Winter 1987.

"For a bow hunter to easily recover a wounded deer, the blood loss must be extensive. A deer will have to lose at least 35 percent of its total blood volume for the hunter to recover it rapidly." Rob Wegner - Deer and Deer Hunting August, 1991.

To me, this doesn't sound like these hunters are describing deer that have died in less than a minute.

In my vision of a perfect world, everyone would be vegan. However, I am not so naive to believe that you will change your habits simply because I've asked you to, or even because the medical data shows conclusive evidence that this is the healthy way to go. I just want the animals to be treated humanely. A bow rarely accomplishes this. Tranquilizer darts and relocation is my 1st choice. A sharpshooter with a rifle is my 2nd.

For one thing you woulkd have a very hard time tranquilizing transporting deer to high strung and obiously you never never killed a deer i have doubled lunged many deer they are dead less then a minute trust me. I have done it watched it witnessed it. And also im sure your house and my house was once natural habbitat

John, you may have the skills to affect a quick clean kill, but forgive me if I don't have the same confidence in most other hunters. If you're skilled-enough to make a clean kill, then you should be skilled-enough to tranquilize them effectively too.

You're right, in this area, many trees were cleared to build practically all of our houses. My house is 52 years old. There was far less environmental awareness in those days. By your theory, we should zone all areas for housing development and eliminate all forests and animal habitats. Where does it end? As the most intelligent species on this planet, it's time for us to step up to the plate, and act responsibly. We caused this problem, and we can fix it without a massacre.

Very well said cholly27 Amen !! And iheart no comment to you

chvolloy27 -- I am not forcing my lifestyle on you or on anyone else. Since you obviously missed it the first time, I'll repeat my exact words for you, "I am not so naive to believe that you will change your habits simply because I've asked you to...."

You can call this whatever you want (family tradition, sport, annual meet-up with friends, etc), but that doesn't change the fact that this is barbaric and cruel. There's a big difference between my lifestyle choice and yours: mine doesn't involve the murder of innocent animals.

So now you are comparing yourself to the caveman? Our ancestors hunted for survival. You know damned well that you would not starve if the law was changed tomorrow and hunting was made illegal. Animals also hunt for survival. No animal (except man) hunts for sport.

I get the whole "family tradition thing". Really I do. But you need to wake up and realize that ANYTHING that involves the murder of innocent animals is wrong. Many years ago, my mother wore fur coats. It was a fashion statement. Then she learned that it takes upwards of 6 pelts to create 1 coat. This was appalling to her. Most people don't connect the coat to the real animals that were killed to create it. She woke up. At one time, a coat like this may have been necessary for survival. This is no longer true. Today we have synthetic materials that look and feel like real fur that can keep us even warmer.

We once had slavery, but people woke up and it was abolished. One by one, more and more countries are outlawing animal testing. I'm asking you to wake up and re-examine what you're doing...to realize that hunting is from a bygone era. It's patently wrong.

Obviously, I don't want to see deer or humans injured or killed in auto accidents. If you don't see that there's something wrong with...taking away an animals habitat, then complaining that they're in ours, then saying that the only solution is to kill them...then I have nothing more to say to you. There are always viable alternatives to killing.

The biggest threat facing mankind is starvation. The worldwide population is growing far too quickly, and this planet simply does not have the natural resources to support this growth. By your logic, there will eventually be so many of us, that it will be justifiable to have an annual open hunting season on humans. If you think this sounds ridiculous, then you need to re-think what you're doing now.

Paul you are absolutely wrong about bow hunting. Broadhheads work by causing immediate massive hemmorhaging to the cardiopulmonary system. When a razor-sharp broadhead enters the heart lung area of a mature whitetail deer, 35% bloodloss occurs within 11 to 14 seconds. I've harvested over 150 deer with a bow and I've witnessed firsthand how effective and humane it is. Most time when the deer is hit it might take a few bounds and stop after 30 yards or so to look back to see what just scared them...and then they fall because they've lost conciousness. I've had quite a few sort of shiver after the hit, look up and than go right back to feeding only to drop over in a few seconds after they've lost conciousness.

You brought up sharp shooters - they're a joke and nothing but killers at best and in many cases, incompetent boobs. Not only that, they're very expensive. Why should any township spend a few hundred thousand dollars to have deer killed when hunters can do it better and do it for free?

You also mentioned trap/tranquilizer and transfer the deer. Once again you really don't know what your talking about. Trap and transfer has about a 30% mortality rate because of the stress that is put on the animal. Trap & transfer does not solve the problem of the overpopulation of deer in the Commonwealth. Why should one are move their problem only to compound another municipality's overpopulation of deer?

Hunting is here to stay Paul its the American tradition you just dont realize what would happen to the whitetail deer if it wasnt controlled .

John, you don't like my talking points, because you love to hunt and you don't want to give it up, and you refuse acknowledge that your hobby could be renamed "the taking of innocent lives." Hunting may be here for now, but public perceptions change. Nothing is forever.

Bob, you argue that "trap and transfer" is bad because it has about a 30% mortality rate. But you support a "solution" with a 100% mortality rate? Seriously? You're kidding, right? I'd say that 70% survival of the targeted deer is considerably better than 0% !!!

The deer can be moved to where hunting and land development are prohibited. These areas already exist (although I wish there were even more of them). It's not like I'm advocating to move the deer from my backyard to yours.

I've re-thought my position on this subject. I can't justify killing deer no matter what weapon is employed. Killing is murder no matter how humanely you claim to do it. These animals have survival instincts just like you and me. They want to live. They have emotions and they experience pain and fear. They love and care for their young.

"Until he extends his circle of compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace."
~ Albert Schweitzer

Thank you John. And Paul I am far from a "barbarian" or "murderer", I love and enjoy the outdoors and animals and would be devastated if something happened to it , and I was obviously poking fun at the fact you look as us as inhumane and uncivilized people, when that is far from the truth. So now i will go into a rebuttal that I was hoping to avoid but here goes nothing.

Sharpshooters are out there to make money, they shoot the animal and leave it there to rot, while myself and the other "cavemen" enjoy the meat, and use it to feed our families and save money instead of buying it from the grocery store, where those animals are butchered in much less humane ways.

Now you move into relocating the animals through tranquilizing, again its expensive and poses a risk of doing nothing but injuring the animals and stressing them out as mentioned before.

To go on, comparing hunting with slavery makes zero sense, we are dealing with human beings in that case, and I have no idea why it was brought into a hunting conversation. To go on, they say a vegan diet is the best, but those starving people overseas and on the home front are going to survive off of meat and protein, and guess what, hunters on many occasions will donate their kill to those starving people, so WOW look at that logic, us hunters do have hearts!!!!

One more thing Paul do you know how much money The Ameican hunter puts into conservation of animals with the cost of hunting license?? Because of us animals get a better chance and their are laws to keep poaching reduced as much as possible . Its better all around

chvolly27, so you would be devastated if you couldn't go outside and kill something? Forgive me if don't share your sentiment (I'm just razzing you).

obviously I used the wrong terminology when I wrote "sharpshooters". I was merely referring to anyone with the skill to hit the center of a target (or a moving target). Maybe "marksman" is a better term?

While I don't condone hunting, I'm glad to learn that you actually use the meat, and that the animal is not merely a trophy to you.

I'm sure the developers who cleared the trees and built new houses or strip malls pocketed huge sums of money. When land is repurposed, there should be an accompanying fee to cover ongoing wildlife relocation.

I used "slavery" only as an example to show that public perceptions can and do change over time. What was once considered "acceptable" is now considered cruel and inhumane. Do you see the similarities? To me, ALL life is precious.

I'm also glad to learn that some of the meat goes to starving people and isn't left to rot. As a simple "FYI", cattle (for meat production) consume vast quantities of grain and water. If the water was used to grow more crops, and these grains were instead sent to the people of these starving countries, we could virtually wipe out starvation in a day (without giving them a new problem - heart disease)...but that would be too logical.

John, so is it "poaching" if you do not have a license, but "hunting" if you do? Oh, I can see how that saves a lot of animals [sorry for the sarcasm]. I can see that you have the best intentions. We're going to have to agree to disagree on the method of implementation.

Paul, you may not be in favor of moving the into my backyard but you are in favor of moving them somewhere else thus compounding someone else's problem. let me ask you, where in the sate of PA has the wildlife biologists said are under the habitats carrying capacity for deer? You do understand that the deer don't only affect the habitat for themselves but they affect it for all living creatures in the habitat don't you?

You're supposed compassion is dangerous to all wildlife that share the habitat with the whitetail deer. The sad part is that you don't even know it.

Dorothy, rather than hurl a political insult and/or act like a cheerleader, why not share your wisdom with us?

Poachers are thieves and should be treated as such.

I would be devastated if something I have been doing since I was 12 years old was unnecessarily and irrationally taken away. It would take away a activity I enjoy and a activity in which I get to spend countless hours with my father outdoors hiking, enjoying the beautiful outdoors.

And it is my opinion that hunters are all marksmen, we all should practice to ensure the most humane shot and the quickest kill on the animals we hunt.

to finish, I see your slavery approach, but slavery has died out after a change of opinion, hunting has been around for all humanity, if after thousands of years it has not died out, obviously it is an entrenched part of humanity, and is a vital part for millions of hunters in our country. (There are still thousands of hunter who DO need to hunt to feed themselves and their families).

And I understand your stance on relocation, but it just does not work, once we take out one part of the herd, more herd will just come on in, deer are very versatile and adapt to their environment, that's why even in the city you still have deer out running about, along with a recent uprising of coyotes in the area, they have been adapting for hundreds of years and they will continue to do so.

And also poachers are hunting illegally and should and are treated as criminals, we go through a course to be able to obtain our license to ensure that we learn the rules and regulations that accompany the privilege of being able to hunt.

Just because they care about animals you want to insult them? Listen, there isn't much of a difference between people like Paul and people like myself. We all came about animals, we just differ on what is an acceptable way for them to die or be used for man's benefit. I'm just trying to get them to consider the big picture rather than an individual animal when it comes to wildlife management.

It should have read "we all care about animals."

http://www.adaptt.org/animalrights.html#

Check out the above link and click on "What's Wrong With Hunting"

http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/deer/11949

Organization has Doctors, biologists, and trained and educated employees.They have antler restrictions, some WMU's have special rules to make sure the populations maintain and are healthy.

What Adaptt has posted are opinions, and emotional thoughts that some have, you know the saying opinions are like @@@@@@, everyone has got them and they all stink.

So we are going to have to agree to disagree, I enjoy my traditional, as you i'm sure enjoy yours, I have enjoyed the debate, but I have moved on from the topic

When people understand the agenda of animal rights organizations, they then know that they do nothing but lie and/or tell half truths in order to achieve their radical goals. They are masters at preying upon the emotionally weak and those that don't use critical thought.

Exposing the Big Game: Forget Hunter's Feeble Rationalizations and Trust Your Gut Feelings: Making Sport of Killing Is Not Healthy Human Behavior

Top 10 Retorts to Hunters’ Fallacies
http://exposingthebiggame.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/top-10-retorts-to-hunters-fallacies/