Pennsylvania Game News - September 2024 - 4

- Nov. 17 and 24 - and then comes back
in from Dec. 26-Jan. 25. The statewide
archery season kicks off on Oct. 5 and
includes one Sunday, Nov. 17, before
ending on Nov. 22. It reopens Dec. 26Jan.
20.
The antlerless muzzleloader season
is set for Oct. 19-26, while the special
fi rearms season for juniors, seniors and
some other classes of hunters is Oct. 2426.
The
statewide fi rearms deer season
runs Nov. 30 through Dec. 14, including
Sunday, Dec. 1, while the fl intlock season
runs Dec. 26-Jan. 20 everywhere in
the state except WMUs 2B, 5C and 5D,
where it goes through Jan. 25. Those last
three units also off er extended fi rearms
hunting from Dec. 26-Jan. 25.
That's all the same as last year. Here's
what's new: an extended fi rearms season,
for antlerless deer, in three WMUs
- 4A, 4D and 5A - that runs Jan. 2-20.
Those WMUs are three of 10 across
the state to be touched by Chronic Wasting
Disease (CWD), but the only three
where boosting the number of doe tags
hasn't led to the harvest of an additional
one-to-two deer per square mile and
where doe tags didn't sell out before
over-the-counter sales began. That's why
they got the extended season and the other
seven WMUs with CWD didn't.
And be sure, CWD is a real threat that
needs to be controlled to the greatest extent
possible.
CWD OUTLOOK
First detected in Pennsylvania in
2012, CWD is always fatal to deer and
elk that get it, as there are no known
cures. And, said Andrea Korman, the
Game Commission's Chronic Wasting
Disease Section Supervisor, it's spread4
ing
both geographically and in terms of
the number of deer infected.
Three Disease Management Areas
(DMAs) - places with special rules in
place to slow the human-assisted spread
of CWD - expanded for this coming
season. DMA 2 in southcentral Pennsylvania
grew eastward; DMA 3 in western
Pennsylvania expanded south; and DMA
8 in the southeast grew to the south and
west. Up-to-date boundaries for those
and all DMAs are described at https://
arcg.is/1G4TLr.
The Game Commission, meanwhile,
detected CWD in 464 whitetails in the
2023-24 testing season, with 291 of
those deer harvested by hunters. Both are
record highs, even with a few tests from
road-killed deer still pending.
What's especially noteworthy, Korman
said, is the increasing CWD prevalence
in Bedford and Blair counties - the
heart of the Established Area, epicenter
of the disease in the Keystone State.
Prevalence in the EA was 8% in 2020,
the year the Game Commission adopted
a CWD management plan that predicted
" if management strategies are not improved, "
that would likely climb above
30% in " one to two decades. "
Just four years - not two decades -
later, prevalence rates there stand at 32%.
" This illustrates the urgency of doing
something to manage this disease, " Korman
said. " With CWD, we are all faced
with making diffi cult decisions. But
CWD is not going away. And the longer
we delay making these diffi cult decisions,
the worse it will get. Our deer herd
requires protection from this threat, and I
think we can all agree we do not want to
stay where we are now. "
Increasing antlerless harvest is the
most eff ective option available to limit
http://https:// http://www.arcg.is/1G4TLr
Pennsylvania Game News - September 2024

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