‘Too many deer’
Farmers to meet with Game Commission to address crop damage
Observer-Reporter
An out-of-control deer population is wreaking havoc on crops in the region and throughout Pennsylvania, impacting crop yields and farmers’ livelihoods.
To address the issue, a meeting has been scheduled for 6 to 9 p.m. July 23 at the Lone Pine Community Center in Washington with members of the Pennsylvania Game Commission. Farmers from Washington, Greene, Fayette and Westmoreland counties have been invited. A similar meeting in September drew more than 100 people.
“We’re trying to ask the Game Commission why they cut so many deer-hunting tags this year from the farmers,” said Lisa Wherry, president of the Washington County Farm Bureau and Scenery Hill farmer. “That wasn’t the plan, but they did. That’s not going to help us. They said that won’t change until next year. We’re dealing with the problem now. We want to ask them what we’re allowed to do legitimately to control this deer population that we have a problem with. There’s more of them than there are hunters.”
The Agricultural Deer Control (Ag Tag) Program enables farmers to address deer damage by allowing hunters to harvest deer on their properties. However, farmers don’t think the program goes far enough. Farmers have called for other options, such as extending the hunting season and a reimbursement program for crop losses.
Recently, the ban on Sunday hunting was repealed, but Wherry doesn’t think that will solve the problem.
“There’s less hunters out there now,” she said. “They say it’s going to make a big change. No, it’s not. It’s not going to make that big of an impact to help us. I’m not putting the Game Commission down, but they’re not listening to what we’re asking. They’re not looking at the big picture and how it’s affecting us, how many crops we’re losing, how much damage we’re having. They’re not paying the indemnities if we lose anything. That’s the problem.”
Pennsylvania is ranked as one of the top states in the nation for wildlife-related crop losses, particularly from deer. Deer browsing, trampling, and feeding on crops like corn and soybeans can lead to substantial economic losses for farmers.
“The Game Commission knows our concerns,” said Harley Gapen, president of the Greene County Farm Bureau. “We want to mainly alleviate the financial problems that farmers are having with the crop loss they’re getting because of the deer. You put a lot of money into planting a cop, then you get nothing out of it. You have crop insurance, but it doesn’t cover deer damage.”
Gapen said the problem has increased during the last five to 10 years, and a reduction in the number of hunters is a significant reason.
“A lot of the hunters are just hunting the antlers; they’re not looking for meat,” he said. “More of the land is not being farmed. It’s opened up, and that’s where the deer stay during the day, then they come into their ‘dining room’ in the evening.”
Earlier this year, Mark Duda, president and owner of Duda’s Farm Inc., cited deer as the reason their roadside markets have been pared from as many as 12 to just three. Duda said then that the farm is growing “the best variety of sweet corn you can grow,” and deer come along and devour it.
“”We can’t even grow strawberries anymore,” Duda said. “They just blast through the fence.”
Don Carter, a member of the Washington County Farm Bureau, said the hope is to have as many people attend the meeting as possible.
“We’ve been working together in conjunction with our people at the state level through the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau and with the Game Commission to address the issue,” he said. “We had farmers that were losing thousands of dollars worth of crops. We’re talking acres and acres of crops across the board. There were fields of crops that didn’t even get harvested because it wasn’t even worth driving the combine in. In this farming season, there are farms that have had to replant field corn already. There’s just too many deer.”