BOARD MOVES TO ALLOW USE OF BAIT ON ‘RED TAG’ FARMS IN SOUTHEAST
To further the Game Commission’s efforts to find effective tools to manage the deer populations on agriculture lands in the southeast corner of the state, the Pennsylvania Board of Game Commissioners today gave preliminary approval to a regulatory change to create a focused, limited authorization permitting the use of bait for deer hunting in WMUs 5C and 5D on approved properties enrolled in the agency’s Agriculture Deer Depredation Program, commonly referred to as the “Red Tag” program.
“Earlier this year, the Game Commission’s three-year evaluation of the effectiveness of permitting the use of bait for deer hunting across the southeast Special Regulations Areas counties expired,” said Carl G. Roe, Game Commission executive director. “The agency concluded that broad scale and widely accessible baiting did not establish viable increases in harvest rates to justify an extension of the experimental program.
“Under this proposal, the agency is seeking to focus the use of bait on those farms most in need of deer control assistance during the ‘Red Tag’ deer harvesting timeframe. Farmers applying to enroll in the Red Tag program would need to include in their application justification for the need to use bait.”
Farmers enrolled in the “Red Tag” program are provided with a specific number of antlerless deer permits, which are red in color. Farmers then give these permits to hunters to use to harvest deer from Feb. 1 to Sept. 28 each calendar year, excluding Sundays, during the hours of dawn to dusk only. The permits are not valid from May 16 to June 30, and can only be used to take antlerless deer.
The listings of farms enrolled in the “Red Tag” program are maintained by the respective Region Offices as those landowners enrolled in the program change from year to year.
