Pa. hunters win first round in court
By JIM SLINSKY

Unless you have been in Guatemala for the sailfish bite, you should know the Unified Sportsmen of PA sued the PA Game Commission (PGC) for capricious and arbitrary management of the PA deer herd.Actually, this is their second lawsuit against the PGC; the first case was dismissed. This conundrum has sprawled across almost three years and has played out like a "who dun it" novel. Their first lawsuit was a writ of mandamus, a difficult legal approach. Mandamus is Latin for "we command". The premise was to have the court command the PGC to manage deer per the parameters of PA's Title 34. Title 34 is the PA Game Code, the bible by which the Agency is supposed to operate. The court did not believe Unified's attorney accurately presented a writ of mandamus.

With no other alternative to stop the high doe harvests, Unified sued for the second time with the more conventional "capricious and arbitrary" approach. Written and oral arguments were made and the three judge panel took three months to dismiss the PGC's preliminary objections. The PA Game Commission has a tendency to claim they own the wildlife in PA and as such no one can question their management. While there was an old case in which the court seemed to give the PGC strong authority over management, newer cases dismissed the notion of real property ownership. The PGC is being defended as a state agency by PA's Office of Attorney General, which is controversial in its own right. The PGC is known as one of the last remaining "independent" wildlife management agencies in the nation, financed by PA hunter license fees, P-R money and resource extraction dollars. The sometimes state agency and sometimes independent agency has many critical of the inconsistency.

The reason why this case is so important to both parties is of course, the precedent that may be established for the nation. Can sporting groups successfully sue their management agencies when management policies seem to defy science and common sense; when social, recreational and economic impacts of hunting are ignored? Will the hunting community be shut down by the court and simply must accept the policies of the state employees they pay even if a management program appears to be damaging the resource? I will tell you this for certain. I have radio-interviewed almost every deer project leader of every state east of the Mississippi and PA has undoubtedly the most political deer management in the nation. I am not saying those words; my deer project leader radio guests are saying those words.

Let us not forget the entire deer reduction program in PA was started on the belief that deer were destroying the regeneration of PA forests. Seven years later and with more than 3 million deer dead, forest regeneration has not significantly improved. The Unified Sportsmen of PA insisted at the onset of the deer program that it was acid deposition from the Ohio coal burners that were destroying our forests, not the deer. New Yorkers know this for certain. Antler restrictions have also provided marginal results. The PA boys are relentless hunters. Anything with a legal rack is aggressively pursued right to the last day of the season. Deer managers speak of "E" for effort. Well, the PA homeboys get an "A" for "E". They don't quit until the last legal buck isn't standing.

Jim Slinsky is the host and producer of the "Outdoor Talk Network", a nationally syndicated, outdoor-talk radio program. visit his website at www.outdoortalknetwork.com