INTRODUCTION

In 2000, the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) began a deer-reduction campaign that has collapsed the herd in many parts of the state, with no intention of returning the deer population to a respectably huntable status.  PGC claimed that reduction was necessary to improve the health of deer and the health of the forest.  This investigation demonstrates that both of these premises are untrue – neither deer nor the forest were in poor health.  Even if deer and the forest had been in poor health, the PGC made no attempt to correct the situation through habitat enhancement – improving the quality of deer habitat toward increasing the carrying capacity of the forest to support deer.  Therefore, with no interest to resolve this supposition, the PGC chose to  unilaterally decimate the dominant herbivore from the Commonwealth's natural ecosystem and to destroy one of the nation's top deer hunting programs -- setting in motion great and increasing impacts to Pennsylvania's hunting tradition and socioeconomy. 

In 2006, the Pennsylvania Legislature's House Game and Fisheries Committee approved a one-year, independent, scientific assessment of the PGC's deer management program – to determine if it was based on sound science and justified. However, former State Representative David Levdansky (acting as an agent for Audubon and the PGC) successfully stonewalled legislative funding for this legitimate study, and replaced it with his own version of a fraudulent audit -- one that had been designed with questions that would yield a positive response in favor of the PGC's deer reduction program.  In addition, Rep. Levdansky hired the original designer of the deer-reduction program to conduct the audit – a blatant conflict of interest and possible violation of state law.  Thus,  Rep. Levdansky  wasted $95,000 of taxpayer funding by hiring a biased auditor to conduct a fraudulent audit.

Aware of this attempt to deceive sportsmen, state legislators, and the PGC's own Board of Commissioners into believing that the deer reduction program was based on sound scientific footing, John Eveland conducted a four-year, independent, scientific investigation that reveals the reason behind the deer reduction program, how it was achieved, and who were the responsible parties. (John Eveland's biography is presented for review within this website.) This investigation has uncovered original documentation that the deer reduction program had nothing to do with science or the best interests of sportsmen, deer, or the citizens of the Commonwealth.  Instead, it was concocted in 1996 to increase revenue for the State (DCNR) through enhancing the salability of lumber and other wood products, and to advance the environmental agenda of a handful of ideologues.

John Eveland was assisted in his investigation by the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League (ACSL) and a growing team of concerned and knowledgeable sportsmen, professionals, and citizens.  The results of the investigation are, herein, made available to the public by the dedicated leadership and members of the Allegheny County Sportsmen's League.  You are encouraged to review the following results from original documents, and then to act appropriately upon your conviction to resolve this travesty – the mismanagement of Pennsylvania's deer herd.