Out There: Stories from the Woods

I am not much of a morning person. During the week I struggle to wake up before 7am, and during the weekends I catch up on the sleep I lost during the week, typically waking up anywhere between 8 and 9am.

There is some Saturday or Sunday mornings, though, that my wife and I like to wake up super early and drive around town to get our errands done early. There are also some mornings when we like to get out of the house super-early in search of a big breakfast while we road trip.

The point behind me telling you this is: I don’t see deer in my backyard in the morning.

With these oppressively-hot days I enjoy sitting on my back deck after 8pm to take in whatever “cooler” breezes there may be. It seems that I have friends who appear out of the corn fields between 8:15 and 8:30. Like clockwork, they always appear.

Bucky must be quite the ladies man – I generally see him surrounded by 2 or 3 doe. As you can imagine, Bucky is the male of the group. He’s a little 4-pointer who is beginning to put on some late-summer weight. He probably won’t be a legal shot this year, but will make a handsome trophy in 2022. Antlerless deer licenses became available 2 weeks ago for PA residents.

It appears that the NRA’s free hunter education course will satisfy the prerequisite for obtaining a hunter or furtaker license in the state.

“The NRA course will be offered free of charge in addition to the in-person and online courses currently offered by the Game Commission.” “In-person courses are back up and running after a year of being available on a limited basis during the pandemic. Those looking to schedule an online or in-person course can check availability and make reservations from the hunter-education page at www.pgc.pa.gov,” according to the PA Game Commission website.

Though it was also reported last week that license fulfillment online is “slower-than-usual,” the Game Commission assures would-be PA hunters that, “while the new system has been slow, antlerless licenses still are being issued and no doubt will be in hunters’ mailboxes well before the first deer seasons begin in September.”

A publication by the Penn State College of Agricultural Sciences/Cooperative Extension estimates the PA deer population at 1.5 million, or about 30 deer per square mile. By historical standards, it was estimated that deer populations in the 1700s were 1/3 of what they are today, despite the invention of the automobile.

A few months ago, I wrote about how the PA elk population is derived from the famous Yellowstone National Park (Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho) elk. Imagine if their populations were as wide-spread and fast-reproducing as the famous PA whitetail deer!

What would be the most intriguing thing to see in these parts would be what the folklorist, historian, and once-Ambassador Henry W.  Shoemaker and others once called the Black Moose.

The following is an excerpt from his book, Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns originally published in 1915:

“James Hennessy, a farmer residing at the Tamarack Swamp in northern Clinton County, dug up several pairs of fresh looking moose antlers on his property about fifty years ago (1860s), showing that the animals had ranged through that region in comparatively recent times.”

Though moose will probably never be able to return to these parts due to the much warmer climates here in recent years, it is nice to think and dream of seeing a moose in our corner of Pennsylvania.

At the end of the day, I am very happy to see and provide for the deer that call our backyard a safe grazing place. I hope they can continue to munch on the shrubs, crabapples, grass, and corn.