Commonwealth of Pennsylvania House of Representatives House Game and Fisheries Committee

COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES HOUSE GAME AND FISHERIES COMMITTEE

NORTH OFFICE BUILDING HEARING ROOM 1 HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

THURSDAY, MAY 24, 2007 9:00 A.M.

BEFORE:

HONORABLE EDWARD G. STABACK, CHAIRMAN HONORABLE SAM ROHRER HONORABLE BRYAN CUTLER HONORABLE GORDON DENLINGER HONORABLE GARTH D. EVERETT HONORABLE KEITH GILLESPIE HONORABLE NEAL GOODMAN HONORABLE GARY HALUSKA HONORABLE JOHN HORNAMAN HONORABLE ROB KAUFFMAN HONORABLE MARK K. KELLER HONORABLE DEBERAH KULA

1 (CONT'D) 2 HONORABLE DAVID R. MILLARD 3 HONORABLE DAN MOUL HONORABLE SCOTT PERRY 4 HONORABLE HARRY READSHAW HONORABLE TODD ROCK 5 HONORABLE CHRIS SAINATO HONORABLE DAN A. SURRA 6

7 ALSO PRESENT: 8 STEVE MCMULLEN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR (D) 9 CHARLES T. MILLER, RESEARCH ANALYST

11 BRENDA S. HAMILTON, RPR REPORTER - NOTARY PUBLIC 12

1 INDEX 2 NAME PAGE

3 HON. ROBERT GODSHALL 6

4 MR. TOM MARSHALL 29

5 MR. BRYON SHISSLER 65

6 DIRECTOR CALVIN DUBROCK 77

7 ACTING DIRECTOR RICHARD PALMER 90

1 P R O C E E D I N G S

2 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. The hour of

3 nine o'clock having arrived, I'd like to call

4 the hearing of the Game and Fisheries

5 Committee to order. We thank the members and

6 guests for their attendance.

7 At the outset, I'd like the members

8 to introduce themselves, if they will, telling

9 us the district that they represent. I will

10 start that out.

11 My name is Ed Staback, and I

12 represent portions of Lackwanna and southern

13 Wayne County up in the northeast. I'm

14 starting at my far left.

15 REPRESENTATIVE HORNAMAN:

16 Representative Hornaman, Erie County.

17 REPRESENTATIVE READSHAW: Harry

18 Readshaw, Allegheny County.

19 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: Gary Haluska

20 from Cambria County.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: Neal

22 Goodman, Schuylkill County.

23 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Dan Moul, Adams

24 and Franklin.

25 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Dan Surra from

1 Elk and Clearfield.

2 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: Good

3 morning. Keith Gillespie, York County.

4 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Garth

5 Everett, Lycoming County.

6 REPRESENTATIVE ROCK: Todd Rock,

7 Franklin County.

8 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: Deberah Kula,

9 Fayette and a portion of Westmoreland County.

10 REPRESENTATIVE KAUFFMAN: Rob

11 Kauffman, Franklin and Cumberland Counties.

12 REPRESENTATIVE CUTLER: Bryan Cutler,

13 southern Lancaster County.

14 REPRESENTATIVE PERRY: Good morning.

15 Scott Perry.

16 REPRESENTATIVE MILLARD: David

17 Millard, Columbia County.

18 REPRESENTATIVE SAINATO: Chris

19 Sainato, Lawrence and a small section of

20 Beaver County.

21 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. This

22 morning we need to accept testimony on House

23 Bill 251, prime sponsored by Representative

24 Bob Godshall who is here today to offer

25 testimony on this bill and has been invited to

1 join the Committee afterwards to listen to

2 other presentations and to ask questions as he

3 sees fit.

4 Representative Godshall's bill amends

5 Title 34 and addresses hunting near feeding

6 stations, specifically prohibiting any hunting

7 within 150-yard distance of such areas.

8 There is a similar bill in our

9 Committee as well sponsored by a member of the

10 Committee, who is here today I believe,

11 Representative Gordon Denlinger. If he is not

12 here, he will be shortly.

13 That legislation, House Bill 881, is

14 identical to House Bill 251 except the yardage

15 it uses is one hundred.

16 With that I will turn the mike over

17 to Representative Godshall for his description

18 of his legislation and his testimony.

19 Representative Godshall, when you're

20 ready.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Thank you

22 very much, Chairman Staback, and committee

23 members for taking the time to conduct a

24 hearing on House Bill 251.

25 I am happy to note that this bill

1 quite specifically would prohibit hunting

2 within 150 yard of game feeding area and,

3 therefore, defining a much needed specific

4 distance from where feeding -- from such

5 feeding areas so hunters will finally know

6 whether they're hunting legally or illegally.

7 This legislation would also provide

8 that movement through a feeding area or past a

9 feeder to an area outside of the 150-yard

10 parameter would not be construed as an illegal

11 hunting activity and place the onus of proof

12 of violation on the Game Commission.

13 I had a case, which involved my

14 brother actually, of three people walking down

15 a road to -- going back to the house for lunch

16 past the feeder, and they were all arrested

17 for hunting in a baited area. And they were

18 traveling back for lunch to their camp

19 together in a group.

20 As an avid sportsman, I've been

21 involved with this issue for more than two

22 decades. In 1985, when we recodified the Game

23 Laws I inserted into the legislation a measure

24 that is similar to House Bill 251. All but

25 one member of the committee, the Game and Fish

1 Committee, supported the measure.

2 Later I agreed to the Game

3 Commission's request to withdraw the amendment

4 with its assurances that the Commission would

5 clean up its act with regard to enforcing the

6 feeder violations and act with discretion.

7 Discretion was their word.

8 Obviously, the Game Commission did

9 not adhere to that commitment or we would not

10 be here today discussing the matter.

11 The phrase in and around can be

12 interpreted many different ways.

13 In many more -- in my more than two

14 decades as a state representative, I've often

15 heard a bill referred to as common sense

16 legislation. Ironically House Bill 251

17 wouldn't be necessary if the Game Commission

18 and the game wardens would exercise, in some

19 cases, common sense.

20 The problem is that everything that

21 related to these types of violations places

22 you at the mercy of the individual game

23 warden. Game feeders, which have been in

24 existence with no problem for ten to twenty

25 years, can all of a sudden become a problem

1 under a new game warden.

2 The Game Commission will tell you

3 such things like each station -- situation is

4 different and it depends on the landscape.

5 But these are just excuses to continue

6 allowing enforcement officers far too much

7 leeway in deciding who is cited.

8 This is leeway they should not

9 have -- need or have and defining a specific

10 distance will help eliminate such situations.

11 Violations for baiting or hunting

12 near feeding areas are very serious in that

13 they can result in loss of license for two or

14 three years and fines up to $300.

15 Thousands of dollars are spent in

16 defending these violations. While large clubs

17 may begrudgingly be able to bear some of this

18 expense, it is almost impossible for an

19 individual to do so. They are left totally at

20 the mercy of the Game Commission.

21 Recently, on two occasions in the

22 Williamsport area, 25 people have been charged

23 for hunting in a baited area only in the one

24 case to see charges dropped to two individuals

25 before the trial but after already spending

1 thousands of dollars in defense, the court

2 decided against the Commission stating that

3 with no specific distance in the law the judge

4 is not in a position to establish one. And

5 that's important.

6 Earlier this year, at the State Farm

7 Show, a police officer asked me if I was

8 familiar with the baiting laws in

9 Pennsylvania. He came up to me -- and I just

10 want to give you that brief story of what

11 developed there.

12 He came up to me and said, you're

13 Representative Godshall? I said, yes. He

14 said, do you have anything to do with the Game

15 Commission? My answer was yes and no, I

16 guess. I said, not really.

17 And he said, well, are you familiar

18 with the rules and the laws? I said, yes. At

19 least to some degree. Why? And he said, a

20 friend of his, a son who was 16-years-old, got

21 arrested up in the northeast -- or the

22 northwest, in the Erie -- Erie area, and he

23 was arrested for hunting too close to a

24 feeder. When the young guy -- man asked the

25 warden just what the law was, he got really

1 nothing back except, you know, I decide what

2 the law is as far as how close to hunt.

3 Anyway, the kid's father went back

4 home. And the father called the game warden

5 and really got the same answers and there were

6 no answers.

7 So the father called the State Police

8 officer who talked to me down at the Farm Show

9 and he said the father told him what had

10 developed. The police officer said, when I

11 called the officer on the phone, the first

12 thing out of his mouth was don't ask me for

13 any favors because you're not getting any.

14 And that's a good way to start -- a

15 good way to start a conversation.

16 And then he said, well, what I'd

17 really like to know is how far away from this

18 feeder did this young man have to be? And he

19 said, that's up to -- for me to decide.

20 And he said, well, what about the

21 loss of license? The father has been, you

22 know, upset. Is there going to be a license

23 loss? And the officer -- the game warden

24 said, that is up to Harrisburg.

25 Now, in my 25 years, with acting with

1 the Game Commission, usually those

2 recommendations on loss of license come, in at

3 least 90 or 95 percent of the cases, from the

4 warden who gives the recommendation to

5 Harrisburg whether there should be a loss of

6 license or not.

7 So what developed out of the whole

8 thing? You know, I'm not sure. But at the

9 same time, it's hard for a young man going out

10 hunting for the first time to run into a

11 situation like this.

12 In feeding and -- feeding game in

13 Pennsylvania, and many other states, is a

14 tradition with game fed on a year-round

15 basis.

16 Back at the time of the

17 recodification, which I was involved in along

18 with Jim Lovette who works for Bill DeWeese at

19 this time, biologists from around the country

20 were here at a hearing stating that high

21 protein -- or the Game Commission had

22 recommended that there be no feeding between

23 September 1st and February 1st.

24 Biologists were called in, and they

25 testified that, when deer had starved over the

1 winter, putting them on a high protein at the

2 beginning of February was really no good for

3 the deer and no good for anything and probably

4 would do more damage than good. So that was

5 thrown out at that time.

6 And I have one area -- I'm not going

7 to go into a truck load of -- brick load of

8 situations that I do have, but I just want to

9 read a little bit of an article here that I

10 got out of one of my magazines.

11 "The real curse against our national

12 world of God-given rights so unique to the

13 American dream is a one-two sucker punch

14 provided by the non-involved, apathetic,

15 lunatic fringe in our own hunting community

16 and industry. They are those holier-than-thou

17 squawkers who refuse to listen to reason and

18 attack their own; the stingy who demand that

19 others do not hunt on Sunday for selfish,

20 personal, un-American reasons, the crybabies

21 who condemn compound bowhunters and in line

22 black powder enthusiasts; the ignorant who

23 criticize the use of bait, but who actually

24 use deer lure and food plots, which, by the

25 way, is bait, instead of just shutting up and

1 hunting the way they choose while supporting

2 fellow sporters in their choices.

3 The inbred and cannibalistic fringe is the

4 only real force compromising recruitment,

5 growth, and progress for conservation in

6 America today. That any hunter anywhere could

7 possibly rationalize not being a member of the

8 NRA is beyond comprehension in this cultural

9 war. It's like hanging out at the Alamo and

10 refusing to shoot Santa Ana's attacking army

11 while complaining that Davy Crocket shouldn't

12 be using a 50-caliber rifle. It is that

13 insane and that serious."

14 This is a situation that our hunters

15 run into and it's just time that they know

16 that they're break -- they're either breaking

17 the law or they're not.

18 And the state trooper and I were

19 talking afterwards. And he said, you know,

20 what -- a situation that I would -- the same

21 situation could be for myself, to be standing

22 alongside of a road and arresting everybody

23 coming down the highway and charging them for

24 driving too fast for conditions and if they

25 questioned what the conditions are, he said, I

1 decide what the conditions are. But he said,

2 what's the difference?

3 You know, you should -- he also said,

4 how can they arrest somebody when they have no

5 definition of -- and it's up to somebody's

6 discretion. How can they arrest a young man

7 who doesn't have any idea that he's breaking

8 the law?

9 And I said, unfortunately, this is

10 what's happening in the state of

11 Pennsylvania.

12 It's time it changes. Thank you.

13 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

14 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Thank you, Bob.

15 First off, let me -- let me say that

16 I agree with you that the statute of the Game

17 Commission's enforcement of the baiting

18 regulations simply cannot continue as they are

19 today.

20 Let me ask you a question. Does your

21 bill make any stipulation at all regarding

22 game species or are we more concerned about

23 deer, bear, turkey, or is it a combination of

24 both?

25 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: It was a

1 just broad-based 150 yards from a feeder at

2 any season.

3 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. So we're

4 not talking about any species in particular.

5 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: No.

6 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Tell me about what

7 kind of response have you gotten from your

8 constituency or the outdoor community

9 throughout your area regarding the

10 enforcement?

11 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: There have

12 been enough people fined over the years that

13 it just gnaws at a lot of people and they

14 don't forget it.

15 And -- and it's -- it's the same as,

16 I guess, today which we have another situation

17 of you shoot a deer by mistake and you turn it

18 in and pay $25. Well, you take it and they

19 charge you $500. They decide you were

20 careless instead of making a mistake. There

21 is no definition of the two.

22 But if you kill a deer, cut it, and

23 take it into the game warden, it was obviously

24 a mistake, you know, or else you wouldn't take

25 it in. But they can decide it's

1 carelessness.

2 And it's these kinds of situations

3 that we have on a daily basis that just build

4 up a lot of sentiment against the Game

5 Commission and the way they do things.

6 But there's people every year getting

7 nailed on these kinds of game feeding

8 violations and there's nothing in the law to

9 say, you know, that -- like in this case, this

10 kid could have to go to court and it would

11 cost him thousands of dollars and he's

12 probably going to lose.

13 So it was accidental when the police

14 officer came to me. I have no idea how he

15 picked me out or how he knew who I was. But

16 that was an actual case in January, and it

17 just annoyed me.

18 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Bob, thank you

19 very much. Any questions on my right?

20 Representative Gillespie.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: Chairman

22 Godshall, thanks for coming today and

23 explaining the bill.

24 Just one question. How did they come

25 up with the -- the 150 yards?

1 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: That was

2 mine. I came up with that in '85. Just come

3 up with that as something reasonable.

4 I'm not -- I'm not set and dried on

5 185 (sic). There's no -- but 185 is a little

6 further out than 100 and it was just something

7 I picked out of the sky. It's 14-and-some

8 acres, by the way, is -- would compromise

9 (sic) the circle of 150 yards.

10 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: Thank you,

11 Mr. Chairman.

12 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: It's

13 nothing in stone.

14 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

15 Kula.

16 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: I guess this is

17 just more of a comment. As a former district

18 judge where these hearings came before me, I

19 can tell you something like this would be a

20 great benefit because of just cutting down on

21 the number of cases that are filed before you

22 for these types of violations where I believe

23 a lot of mentality was, well, you know what,

24 we're not sure, or we'll just let the judge

25 decide.

1 So these types of cases were -- they

2 were important to everyone involved, but there

3 was also other cases that something such as

4 this should not have required that person to

5 take off work to appear, a lot of times with

6 an attorney, to argue something such as this.

7 Thank you.

8 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Thank you.

9 I'd like to find out why a district justice

10 would take a job down here. I'd rather have

11 yours. I think it's a lot safer.

12 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: I don't know if

13 safer is the word considering I was shot at,

14 my office nearly exploded, and my home was

15 threatened. So I don't know about that.

16 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Oh, all

17 right. Then you're safer down here.

18 REPRESENTATIVE KULA: I'm safer,

19 yes.

20 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

21 Rock.

22 REPRESENTATIVE ROCK: Thank you.

23 I can see -- I agree with this bill,

24 but I can see some smoke from potential

25 problems. If you're out hunting and over --

1 or a feeder within a 150 yards or -- or if you

2 think you're on -- you're at the 150 yards,

3 who -- if the game warden comes and checks

4 you, who decides it's the 150 yards?

5 I had a situation with game wardens

6 and -- and -- not that I was breaking the law,

7 but they just came on my property and they

8 made sure that I understood that they had as

9 much authority as the FBI.

10 So -- so is he going to step it off

11 and say, okay, you're 149 yards and I'm going

12 to fine you? And I can see how that's going

13 to be a problem also.

14 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: I think we

15 have it here that it's up to the Game

16 Commission to prove that it's 150 yards, you

17 know, and so forth.

18 And I think at one time we also

19 passed a bill that said you couldn't hunt

20 within 25 yards of the road and our former

21 chairman got nailed, you know, on that when he

22 took 25 or 26 steps and they were a little bit

23 short. That was Russell Letterman, if you

24 will remember.

25 And -- but at the same time you have

1 to pick something, you know, and it's --

2 you've got to make sure that you're outside of

3 that 150-yard circle.

4 REPRESENTATIVE ROCK: Okay. Also

5 this just doesn't apply to private property?

6 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Yes. Yes.

7 You can't put a feeder or feeding area into

8 public.

9 REPRESENTATIVE ROCK: And what -- do

10 you know what the current law is, what's

11 written with regards -- in regards to bait?

12 Is there no bait on your property? I

13 don't know what it is.

14 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: There --

15 truthfully, down in the southeast where I come

16 from, you know, there's unlimited baiting.

17 We have feeding or baiting. And

18 feeding is a better word. We have unlimited

19 down there and up -- you have to have --

20 remove all feed 30 days prior to the opening

21 of the season and you remove in an area where

22 you are feeding.

23 Now, you can hunt beyond that, you

24 know, some place but we don't know exactly

25 where. That's the reason for this bill.

1 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

2 Everett.

3 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Yes. For

4 the Committee's benefit, if I could just

5 direct you, there's a -- in your packet

6 there's an exhibit to one -- some of the

7 testimony that has an A marked in the lower

8 right-hand corner that contains the existing

9 statute, if you want to refresh your -- your

10 memory of it and the rule that we're

11 specifically dealing with is -- is

12 Subparagraph (8), contains the legislation

13 that we're -- the existing statute.

14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

15 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Thank you for that

16 tip.

17 Representative Goodman.

18 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: Thank you,

19 Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Bob.

20 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Hi.

21 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: Two things

22 of clarity. You're not actually promoting the

23 hunting over bait. You're more or less saying

24 there are situations that arise in the course

25 of hunting where a hunter may find himself in

1 the vicinity of a -- of a baiting setup

2 unbeknownst to them.

3 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: That's

4 exactly right. I think there's a federal

5 court -- there's a federal court case that

6 came down that gives you some protection on

7 that.

8 That was with water fowl hunting.

9 That they -- the federal case said that you

10 had to be aware of the fact that there was.

11 If somebody puts a bait station over

12 here and you have no knowledge that it's over

13 there, you know, that federal case gives you

14 protection, as I understand it, over, you

15 know, with no knowledge at all. This is not

16 your property. You didn't know it was there,

17 you know, and you might be within a 150 yards

18 but it would -- you know, you get some

19 protection out of that.

20 I'm not promoting hunting over bait,

21 though it's allowed down in the five -- five,

22 I guess, six, seven, eight counties down home

23 where you live in -- no, you live in

24 Schuylkill. Yeah. That's -- that's still in

25 that area.

1 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: You know,

2 just some of the sentiments being used against

3 House Bill 251 is that the members are

4 promoting or trying to expand hunting over

5 bait, which is not very palatable with those

6 people who are not involved in the hunting

7 community.

8 And I'd like to use an example that

9 was recently told to me that I think is a very

10 good reason why we should be supporting House

11 Bill 251.

12 There was -- recently, I spoke to a

13 hunter who purchased a seven-acre lot in a

14 tract of land that was subdivided into many

15 seven-acre lots. And the purchase was made

16 for hunting. This was going to be his little

17 place where he could go and he could hunt.

18 Well, one of the property owners, who

19 was a nonhunter, decided they were going to

20 put bait out and the WCO in the area decided

21 since that one game -- since that one owner on

22 that one tract of land for seven acres is

23 baiting year-round, because he does not permit

24 hunting on their property, that none of the

25 adjacent seven-acre lots could be hunted.

1 Now, put yourself in this guy's

2 situation. Goes out, buys a seven-acre lot,

3 says to himself finally I have my own place

4 where I know I can go. You know, I can take

5 my family there. We can hunt safely on this

6 seven-acre lot and some person purchases an

7 adjacent seven-acre lot, puts a feeder up, and

8 posts it no hunting and now blocks every other

9 seven-acre lot in that from hunting.

10 This is a reason why we should be

11 supporting, just one of the reasons and one

12 that you used this morning supporting House

13 Bill 251.

14 I commend you for bringing it to the

15 Committee.

16 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Thank you.

17 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

18 Moul.

19 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman.

21 Good morning, Bob.

22 Just two quick things, and you can

23 correct me if I don't know what the laws are

24 on baiting and feeding.

25 Would it be helpful to put in a

1 feeding legislation amendment that says if

2 you're going to have a feeding station or a

3 feeder that you must post the 150 yards

4 diameter around it so that anyone that would

5 be walking into that area would not have the

6 excuse I didn't know I was that close?

7 And the other thing would be would we

8 want to make -- add to that also that you

9 can't set up a feeder within 150 yards of the

10 property line? That would protect you from

11 what this gentleman was just talking about.

12 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: That is

13 telling you what you can do on your own

14 property.

15 If -- the answer to your first

16 question is most of the large -- most of the

17 large clubs do post 150 yards by virtue of the

18 fact that they don't want their members, you

19 know, caught. So they actually do post their

20 feeders at, say, 150 yards or 200 yards now,

21 that, you know, say feeding area. And they

22 put those signs up to try to keep -- make sure

23 that there's no problems.

24 On the other side, I'm not sure what

25 I can do with somebody who does not in Neal's

1 situation. But again 150 acres is 14 -- a 150

2 yards is 14 acres. That would cover his own

3 lot probably and one other lot, you know,

4 that -- by what he's doing.

5 It's -- you know, I don't know how

6 far you can go as far as regulating what a

7 private guy who doesn't hunt, you know, can

8 do.

9 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: I can see where

10 someone who is a nonhunter that didn't want

11 you hunting on your land with this law could

12 put feeders on the corners of their lots and

13 shut down your farm for hunting by doing

14 that.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: But that

16 can be -- yeah.

17 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: That's why I

18 say move it away.

19 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Yeah. That

20 can be done. That can be done and is done

21 now. That is absolutely the case now and they

22 have every right to do it.

23 And right now that 100 -- when I say

24 150 yards, at least you can get within a 150

25 yards of that, you know, situation.

1 But under the present law you could

2 be 500 yards or 600 yards and still get

3 arrested.

4 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: I understand.

5 I just thought it might be -- since -- since

6 the Game Commission does control and make the

7 rules with baiting and things, why not just

8 make it a rule that you can't bait within 150

9 yards of your neighbor's property line and

10 that would eliminate him screwing up your

11 hunting.

12 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: That's a

13 suggestion and --

14 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: It's a thought.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Yeah.

16 Okay.

17 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you.

18 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Okay.

19 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Bob, thank

20 you very much. You agreed to join us up at

21 the top here and take a seat and listen to the

22 rest of the testimony.

23 Since we began, we were joined by

24 Representative Keller and Representative

25 Denlinger.

1 Next to offer -- next to offer

2 testimony is Mr. Tom Marshall of Concerned

3 Sportsmen of Pennsylvania.

4 Mr. Marshall is here to offer

5 testimony, which the members have a copy of --

6 MR. MARSHALL: Yes.

7 CHAIRMAN STABACK: -- as well as to

8 present members of the Committee with a large

9 packet of information to which Mr. Marshall

10 owes my staff a very, very large thank you for

11 all the copying that had to be done.

12 Mr. Marshall you can start when

13 you're ready. If you will take a moment to

14 describe the organization that you represent

15 and the role which you have.

16 MR. MARSHALL: Thank you very much.

17 And good morning, Mr. Chairman and to the

18 Committee members.

19 And we certainly appreciate this

20 opportunity to discuss this very important

21 issue to the sportsmen of Pennsylvania.

22 I'm Thomas C. Marshall. I'm an

23 attorney in Williamsport with McNerney, Page,

24 Vanderlin, and Hall, and I represent the

25 Concerned Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, which is

1 a group consisting of numerous hunting clubs

2 with several hunter -- several hundred hunters

3 that are actively involved and the primary

4 focus of Concerned Sportsmen at this time is

5 this very issue.

6 And what's driving the issue and why

7 we're all here today is the vagueness of the

8 statute which must be clarified by the

9 legislature.

10 In fact, Judge Gray -- in your packet

11 at Exhibit H there's a copy of Judge Gray --

12 the transcript of a hearing held before the

13 Court of Common Pleas in Lycoming County and

14 at the conclusion of that trial, I should say,

15 whereby three hunters were acquitted of these

16 charges, the judge implored this, quote, the

17 sportsmen and the commission officers and the

18 Game Commission should be asking the

19 Pennsylvania legislature again to clarify this

20 issue.

21 And he was speaking directly to the

22 need for a distance.

23 We thank you for responding to that

24 call for clarification. The many hunting

25 clubs, as Representative Godshall explained,

1 have long histories of supplemental feeding

2 year-round that go back 70, 80, 90, 100

3 years.

4 In your packet you'll see photographs

5 of feeders that we refer to, and those are

6 year-round supplemental feeding programs.

7 Corn is typically placed in those feeders.

8 We have Bryon Shissler here as a

9 certified wildlife biologist that can talk

10 about the benefits to the game in particular

11 regarding those feeding programs.

12 Until recent times this hasn't been a

13 problem because the Game Commission has been

14 reasonable in its enforcement of a vague

15 statute. However, in recent times that

16 reasonableness has disappeared.

17 And as Representative Godshall also

18 alluded to, at this point there are no limits

19 as to what the Game Commission can determine

20 is hunting over bait and subject -- therefore,

21 subjecting hunters to arrest.

22 The -- in your packet is a copy of

23 the actual section that we're dealing with,

24 and there was a question about the law, and

25 I'd like to just spend a moment on that.

1 Under Title 34, Section 2308,

2 Subsection (a) (8) -- I'm sorry -- (a) (8), it

3 is unlawful for any person to hunt, aid, abet,

4 assist or conspire to hunt any game or

5 wildlife through the use of:

6 And it we jump down to (8) and it

7 says: Any artificial or natural bait, or any

8 other food as an enticement for game or

9 wildlife, or to take advantage of any such

10 area or food or bait prior to 30 days after

11 the removal of such material and its residue.

12 It's not intended to apply to farming

13 practices, that is, crops or food plots, and

14 it also does not apply to habitat management

15 programs.

16 You'll hear from our expert that

17 supplemental feeding is a habitat management

18 practice.

19 I'm sure you'll hear from the Game

20 Commission that they disagree, and that's

21 certainly a bone of contention here.

22 The problem is the term bait is

23 undefined in the statute. The term enticement

24 is undefined in the statute. The term --

25 terms take advantage is undefined in the

1 statute.

2 And just for clarification purposes,

3 it is not illegal to feed during hunting

4 season. There is no requirement under the law

5 that those feeders be emptied 30 days prior to

6 the hunting season.

7 There's a presumption provided that

8 if you do empty the feeders 30 days prior to

9 the hunting season and remove all residue that

10 you can't be accused of taking advantage of a

11 baited area. And that's a important

12 distinction.

13 And what we're dealing with are very

14 large clubs of anywhere from a thousand acres

15 to 8,000 acres that have feeders placed out on

16 the club property.

17 And as Representative Godshall

18 correctly stated, a 150-yard diameter would be

19 a 14-acre area.

20 The current state of the law allows

21 those feeders to be full year round, and until

22 the recent overzealous enforcement by the Game

23 Commission of a vague statute, the way that

24 that was always interpreted is that a stand

25 hunter, that is, someone who is perhaps in a

1 tree stand or stationary, certainty can't sit

2 within view of a pile of apples or a corn

3 feeder and wait for game to take advantage of

4 the bait so that they can also take advantage

5 and harvest the game.

6 We consider that unfair chase. We

7 consider that a classic case of baiting. And

8 that was typically the activity that led to

9 enforcement.

10 In recent times, large clubs have

11 been targeted by the Game Commission, in

12 particular in the northcentral region, and

13 I'll discuss those cases in a moment.

14 Those clubs engage in drive-style

15 hunting. Drive-style hunting involves a

16 roster of hunters up to 25 in number who are

17 divided into drivers and watchers.

18 Now, think for a moment about the

19 differences as I tell you how a drive is set

20 up between stand hunting and drive-style

21 hunting.

22 A stand hunter would go out and

23 through the use of stealth, and monitoring

24 wind conditions, and using scent black

25 clothing, would do everything they could to

1 get into their position as quietly and

2 stealthily as possible without disturbing the

3 area.

4 Drive-style hunting is not like that

5 at all. Drive-style hunting the hunters are

6 transported in trucks that drive past the

7 feeding stations and feeding areas. They make

8 no effort to conceal their scent.

9 In fact, the running joke is they

10 smell like bacon and eggs when they hit the

11 woods. They are -- they set up a drive with a

12 line of drivers and watchers are in a

13 stationary position and the drivers move

14 through an area making noise, hooting and

15 hollering, to locate each other and to push

16 game out of an area.

17 In those situations, now what the

18 Game Commission has said, is that regardless

19 of the proximity of a particular drive to a

20 feeding area, they determine an entire

21 property is a baited area because of what they

22 say is the home range of wildlife.

23 In a case that occurred recently that

24 we're going to trial on in September, the Game

25 Commission actually shut down 3600 acres,

1 which is over five-and-a-half square miles for

2 hunting for the entire 2006 hunting season

3 based simply on the allegation that they

4 believed that this hunting party was hunting

5 through the use of bait.

6 The egregious nature of that

7 enforcement is highlighted by the fact that

8 all they had to do was come with signage and

9 post it against hunting and without any due

10 process, or any opportunity to be heard, or

11 without any citations being issued at the

12 time, this hunting club lost the ability to

13 hunt for the entirety of the big game season.

14 And we dispute the fact, and that's

15 what we're going to trial on, that it was a

16 baited area and they only hunt drive-style in

17 that situation I'm referring to.

18 And, again, I think it's the best

19 analogy, and Representative Godshall mentioned

20 it, and I'll just mention it again. Imagine

21 there are no posted speed limits on the

22 highways and byways and it's left completely

23 to the discretion of law enforcement whether

24 you're traveling at an excessive rate of

25 speed.

1 It's a subjective determination and

2 you, as citizens, have no idea when you're in

3 compliance with the law or not because you

4 don't know what the law is. You're subject to

5 being pulled over and being told that you're

6 violating the law.

7 That would offend you as upstanding

8 citizens of the Commonwealth because you've

9 never intended to violate the law and, in

10 fact, you do everything you can to avoid

11 violating the law and nobody warns you that

12 the speed limit might change from day to day,

13 just as the distance may change from day to

14 day.

15 We're asking for clarity. The judge

16 has asked for clarity. The Commonwealth Court

17 in a case known as Sellinger, which you also

18 find in your packet at Exhibit F, in 2000

19 adopted a definition from the Fourth Circuit

20 in attempting to answer the question what

21 constitutes a baited area.

22 And they stated that the extent of a

23 baited area is defined only by the capacity of

24 bait placed anywhere within it to act as an

25 effective lure for the particular hunter

1 charged.

2 So now they've raised a new question

3 for the court. What is an effective lure?

4 In the case that went to trial in

5 Lycoming County, in connection with the

6 arrests that were made at a club known as

7 Frozen Run, also Mountain Meadow Lodge, where

8 they arrested 16 hunters -- I'm sorry -- they

9 arrested 25. Everybody on the roster,

10 regardless of where they were on the

11 property.

12 There were three feeders placed over

13 a 1400-acre property. Four bear were

14 harvested in two separate drives.

15 By the time we went to trial, they

16 had only charged three of the hunters who had

17 harvested three of the bear. They let the

18 fourth bear go.

19 Now, when -- when they make their

20 presentation today, and you hear a lot of

21 testimony about we can't give you a distance

22 because it's all subjective and it depends on

23 the range, to this day we can't draw a clear

24 distinction between the bear they let go and

25 the three that they prosecuted on. And I

1 don't think they can either.

2 But suffice it to say, after trial,

3 which was a trial in the Court of Common

4 Pleas, which took over three days in front of

5 Judge Gray, Judge Gray determined -- and his

6 opinion is at Exhibit I in your packet -- that

7 a reasonable hunter would not believe they

8 were hunting in a baited area and a reasonable

9 doubt exists as to whether the feeders on

10 Frozen Run property were an effective lure to

11 the bear actually shot.

12 In that case the bear were harvested

13 between 430 yards and 862 yards away from the

14 nearest feeder.

15 Considering the lay of the land or

16 topography, if you will, that's a tremendous

17 distance up very steep inclines, down very

18 steep inclines, through cover so thick that

19 literally you and I would have a hard time

20 seeing each other through that cover.

21 And the court was persuaded that the

22 bear were not harvested as a result of the

23 corn in the feeders. They were harvested as a

24 result of it being bear country and there

25 would be tremendous opportunities for cover.

1 Once hunting activity begins on any

2 property, whether it was on that Frozen Run

3 property or adjacent property, any certified

4 biologist will tell you that game is seeking

5 to evade and escape.

6 They're not looking for food at that

7 point. They're looking for cover. And in the

8 drive-style setting that's precisely what

9 happens.

10 Well, despite losing the Frozen Run

11 case and putting that club to tremendous

12 expense to defend itself, they -- in 2006, the

13 same regional office, involving many of the

14 same officers, conducted a sting operation at

15 another club known as Black Wolf. And that's

16 the 3600 acre club that I referred to.

17 In that club they came in under cover

18 of darkness, just as they had in the prior

19 case. They laid in wait for hunting activity

20 to begin.

21 Remarkably in the Black Wolf case no

22 bear were harvested. No bear were harvested.

23 Yet they arrested 16 members of the hunting

24 party and they accused all of them of hunting

25 through the use of bait because they

1 considered them to be in too close proximity

2 to a feeder.

3 They then proceeded to post the

4 entirety of 3600 acres against hunting and

5 take away the privilege of hunting for all of

6 the members and guests and family of those

7 individuals while the matter is litigating.

8 The -- here we are again, a year

9 later going to trial again, defending law

10 abiding hunters that don't have any prior

11 citations -- we're not talking about outlaws

12 here -- they are very organized, spend a great

13 deal of time, effort, and resources to improve

14 their property, manage their property, always

15 have cooperated with the Game Commission, and

16 they have to prove their innocence.

17 How the Game Commission can prove

18 that a food substance acted as an effective

19 lure where no game is harvested is beyond me,

20 and I believe it's going to be beyond the

21 court to comprehend, given the fact that

22 others were acquitted that harvested bear in

23 proximity of feeders.

24 It's important that the legislature

25 clarify by providing a distance so this

1 doesn't continue to happen. This will

2 continue to happen.

3 The Game Commission has now taken a

4 position that there's no distance. They will

5 not set a distance. You can ask them till

6 you're blue in the face. None of them will

7 ever give you a distance.

8 It could be yards or miles and it

9 just depends. They say it depends on the

10 situation. And we don't know what that

11 means.

12 So we're here seeking relief, and

13 we're here seeking clarity of an extremely

14 vague law. And we thank you for your

15 attention to that matter.

16 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Tom, thank you

17 very much for your testimony.

18 A question. Can you go into a bit

19 more detail when you respond to criticisms of

20 the practices that you describe? That

21 criticism is that supplemental feeder programs

22 that you went over have a tendency to draw

23 animals from other areas, even off public

24 land, and as a result you tend to create an

25 unnatural population level of animals in a

1 given area that if these programs did not

2 exist there, these areas would not be able to

3 support the number of animals that you now

4 find there.

5 MR. MARSHALL: Yes. And that's a

6 very good question. Because the Game

7 Commission has gone so far as to say the

8 reason they're enforcing the statute in this

9 manner is that they would like to stop all

10 feeding during the hunting season and at least

11 30 days prior.

12 That's not the law, and that

13 highlights something for us. They're trying

14 to make law through their enforcement of a

15 vague statute.

16 And that's not their job. That's

17 your job. And the courts are asking everyone,

18 please help. Please clarify.

19 Supplemental feeding programs -- and

20 Bryon Shissler, our certified biologist, can

21 speak further to this -- but they improve the

22 quality and condition of the game.

23 Mr. Shissler will answer your

24 questions concerning home ranges of deer and

25 bear.

1 Animals travel in search of high

2 quality food. A cornfield could attract them

3 just as well as a game feeder. And where

4 there's food and cover, if it's in their home

5 range, regardless of what the food is, whether

6 it's in a feeder or whether it's fruit trees,

7 or acorns, they'll stay in a general area.

8 Utilizing a food substance to lure to

9 the gun is the focus. The focus is not will

10 game avail itself of food that is placed on

11 the property. We know they will.

12 So private clubs that have the

13 resources and the inclination to spend the

14 time and the money to feed game should not be

15 penalized, frankly, because they're doing a

16 better job of maintaining and sustaining than

17 the state is.

18 So we're offended by the Game

19 Commission's position that private clubs are,

20 quote, stealing game from the public.

21 Again, given the scale of the

22 properties that we're talking about, they're

23 merely maintaining their properties and

24 managing it for, not only game, but also for

25 timber and planting food plots and -- and

1 various other things.

2 If I may, there's an interesting

3 distinction between food plots and a feeder.

4 If I took an ear of corn off of a cornstalk on

5 my property out of a cornfield and placed it

6 in a feeder, that corn in the Game

7 Commission's eyes -- it's the same substance;

8 has the same nutritional value as the corn in

9 the field -- once it's placed in a feeder,

10 that becomes bait.

11 I can harvest game in my cornfield.

12 I can't harvest game anywhere near the

13 feeder.

14 This becomes problematic for clubs

15 such as Frozen Run, for instance, who doesn't

16 have the topography and terrain and property

17 that would avail itself to planting the types

18 of crops that are legal.

19 So they're being penalized for

20 feeding the game the best way they can given

21 their particular -- particular terrain.

22 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

23 Haluska.

24 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: Thank you,

25 Chairman Staback.

1 Tom, thank you for your testimony.

2 I did some research four years ago.

3 This is 2005. The Game Commission obviously,

4 when they go to court, they're an independent

5 agency obviously, but the Attorney General's

6 Office is the one that provides their legal.

7 They had over 300 hours in -- 2005 is

8 the last data I got from them, and that's the

9 time that the Attorney General's Office spent

10 defending lawsuits that were brought against

11 the Game Commission similar to your case.

12 So it's a situation where it doesn't

13 come out of their budget. What do they care

14 how many times they go to court? They don't

15 have to pick up that tab. The taxpayers pick

16 up this tab through the Attorney General's

17 Office.

18 Okay. So I just wanted everybody to

19 know that. I didn't know if everybody knew

20 the Game Commission, you know, was relying on

21 the Attorney General's Office for all their

22 legal counsel as far as going to court and

23 defending lawsuits.

24 I have such a hard time. I watch the

25 Outdoor channel. And as you said, I watch

1 them hunt over the turned fields, all these

2 plantings and everything, and I think this is

3 such a big ta-do about nothing.

4 I've hunted in states where you hunt

5 over bait. It's no big deal. As

6 Representative Readshaw told me, how do we

7 catch fish? We bait them. We put baits on

8 our lines and throw them in and catch fish.

9 It's pretty much, you know, a no

10 brainer for me if we were to put a law forward

11 and say there are no baiting laws in

12 Pennsylvania. If you want to hunt over bait,

13 then go for it. That's up to you.

14 But, yeah, and I agree with

15 Representative Godshall, it is a good start.

16 But obviously, as some of the presenters here

17 and some of the people on the panel today

18 said, even one baiting station can really mess

19 up so much acreage that it can be really

20 unfair for neighbors.

21 So that's where I stand. But I would

22 be totally, totally supportive of just

23 eliminating baiting laws in Pennsylvania and

24 just get over this thing and move on. That's

25 it.

1 MR. MARSHALL: If I may just speak to

2 the acreage for a moment. 150 yards is 14

3 acres and a hundred yards is six-and-a-half

4 acres.

5 So you can see it's quite a

6 difference that the 50 yards makes in a

7 diameter.

8 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Any other

9 questions?

10 Representative Readshaw.

11 REPRESENTATIVE READSHAW: Just a

12 comment, Mr. Chairman.

13 As Representative Haluska stated, I

14 think this feeder, lure, baiting, however we

15 get into the definition of, is somewhat

16 ridiculous.

17 And I did say to him when I catch

18 fish I would use bait and I really don't see

19 the definition difference between a feeder and

20 me sitting beside a feeder or within 150 yards

21 of a feeder or 200 yards of a feeder and me

22 sitting in -- within a 150 yards or 200 yards

23 of 200 acres of standing corn.

24 I just don't -- it fails to -- to

25 define itself to me. And as far as I'm

1 concerned, I would agree with Mr. Haluska. We

2 should do away with the whole concept.

3 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

4 Godshall.

5 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: This is

6 really going to pick up -- excuse me -- on

7 what Gary said.

8 You know, this week encouraged -- the

9 Game Commission encouraged food supplies, food

10 plots. And as that article that I read from

11 the magazine, from one of my outdoor

12 magazines, a food plot is a baiting area. You

13 know, it's a feeding area and no baiting

14 area. There's really very little of any

15 difference.

16 If you put turnips out in the food

17 plot, as I did last year, in a little acre

18 beside myself, it drew in occasionally --

19 there's not a hell of a lot of deer up

20 there -- but it drew in at least some deer.

21 But it's -- it's a, you know, baited

22 area and/or a food plot but if that would have

23 been a feeder with turnips in, you know, it

24 would have been illegal.

25 But as long as they're on -- in the

1 ground, it's legal. It's -- the whole thing

2 is beyond comprehension.

3 MR. MARSHALL: Yeah. There's not a

4 lot of deer up there.

5 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

6 Everett.

7 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you,

8 Mr. Chairman.

9 Mr. Marshall, I just think that I'd

10 like to ask you just a couple questions so we

11 can clarify the 100 or 150, whatever the

12 radius is, that -- that would effectively

13 establish a safety zone that -- that no animal

14 that was within that radius, within that

15 circle, could be shot no matter what distance

16 the hunter was from the feeder. Isn't that

17 correct?

18 MR. MARSHALL: That's correct.

19 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: So I mean

20 I've heard some criticism that there's people

21 with -- with sighted rifles now that can

22 accurately shoot up to, you know, 750 yards.

23 I don't know that I can do that.

24 But it wouldn't matter. If the deer

25 was within 100 or a 150, depending on which

1 distance we settle on, it wouldn't matter

2 where the hunter is. If the hunter is on the

3 outside, they can't hunt if the deer is on the

4 inside of the radius. Isn't that correct?

5 MR. MARSHALL: That's correct. And

6 it's interesting to note the history. And

7 I'll use Frozen Run as an example.

8 They posted their property with

9 radiuses around feeders, based on prior

10 contact with the Game Commission, where the

11 Game Commission showed up during a day of

12 hunting and the officer there said I think

13 you're hunting too close to the feeder.

14 And they said we're hunting

15 drive-style. We haven't seen anything at the

16 feeder. We don't expect to. We just drove

17 trucks by it, and we're making a lot of

18 noise.

19 And he said, well, you're just too

20 close to the feeder. And how far away should

21 we be? And that officer said, well, I'm not

22 going to tell you but you're too close.

23 And based upon where the -- those

24 that were arrested and those who weren't were

25 located -- and this goes back to the early

1 '90s, they used that as a guideline.

2 So the clubs, in our region at least,

3 most of them already post and already observe

4 this type of safety zone that you're talking

5 about, and as they walk through the area they

6 unload their weapons.

7 No one is posted within view of a

8 feeder. Because we share the concern about

9 unfair chase. You can be 200 yards away with

10 the scope and still be in view of, and that's

11 not what we're talking about.

12 So we're just asking for the statute

13 to mirror the facts and the reality of how

14 hunters have been conducting themselves in

15 Pennsylvania for decades, and we're asking you

16 to stop the Game Commission from its arbitrary

17 enforcement

18 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you.

19 Mr. Marshall, if you could, just for

20 the Committee, relate during the testimony in

21 the Frozen Run case when -- when you

22 cross-examined a few of the different WCO's

23 who were involved in that situation -- and you

24 can get our notes out or just from your

25 recollection -- the different standards

1 that -- that they explained to you on how they

2 would enforce the statute as it currently

3 exists and -- and their obvious confusion as

4 to how it should be enforced.

5 MR. MARSHALL: Thank you. That's one

6 of the additional vexing problems here.

7 If you ask five WCO's what's the

8 appropriate distance to define a baited area,

9 you'll get five different answers.

10 At Page 3 of our submission, you'll

11 see that during the Frozen Run trial I

12 asked -- we sequestered the wildlife

13 conservation officers that were involved in

14 that case and I asked each of them on the

15 stand a hypothetical question.

16 And I said: Assume that a hunter had

17 permission to hunt, was hunting in the middle

18 of a cornfield and harvested a bear in the

19 middle of that cornfield with a corn cob in

20 its mouth, is that hunting through the use of

21 bait?

22 And the answers that were given,

23 one -- one -- one gentleman did say no,

24 because you're allowed -- as you've heard

25 already many times this morning, you're

1 permitted lawfully to harvest game in the

2 middle of a planted crop or regular farming

3 practice, as we say.

4 The other answers, however, were

5 remarkable, because one officer said it would

6 depend. And what would it depend on? It

7 would depend how close that cornfield is to a

8 feeder.

9 So think about that. What does that

10 mean? We don't know. The judge didn't know

11 either.

12 Another one said that he'd have to

13 talk to a biologist because it would depend

14 how close it was to a feeder.

15 And I told you earlier that the

16 difference between the nutritional value of

17 the corn in the field and the corn in the

18 feeder, there is no difference.

19 So they're taking it so far as to

20 attempt to say that the bear may have been

21 lured into the cornfield by the presence of a

22 feeder hundreds yards -- hundreds of yards

23 away.

24 So we don't even have clarity now as

25 a hunting community in standing crops. If --

1 if game is harvested in the middle of a

2 cornfield and you're aware that your neighbor

3 has a feeder, let's say, 500 yards away from

4 your cornfield, it's possible, given their

5 answers at trial, which you can read the

6 full -- I also attached the transcript for

7 you, it's possible that a game officer could

8 make a field determination, well, I think it

9 may be there because of the feeder. I think

10 that you've violated and this is a baited

11 area.

12 And that's just absurd. And we --

13 again, it cries out for clarity.

14 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: And just one

15 final question. Is this -- you're not

16 proposing -- we're talking about supplemental

17 feeding that's -- that's done as part of

18 improving the carrying capacity of private

19 property, not dumping out an attractant and

20 some icing -- a big case of icing from a --

21 from the local bakery and other things just

22 during hunting season to attract -- to attract

23 deer as maybe used to be done in the past in

24 places.

25 But what we're talking about is a

1 year-round program of feeding just to

2 encourage the carrying capacity of the

3 property. Isn't that correct?

4 MR. MARSHALL: That's correct.

5 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

8 Gillespie.

9 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: Thank you,

10 Mr. Chairman.

11 Thank you for your testimony. I

12 guess before I ask a question, I just -- the

13 thing that I'm struggling with, I agree that

14 we need some clarity here of the definition,

15 whether it's 150 or 200 or 500, whatever it

16 may be, but I've heard -- I heard you testify

17 and I heard others talk that there's no

18 question baiting, whether it's natural or --

19 or intentional, food, natural or intentional,

20 will hold game in the area.

21 And that's what I'm struggling with,

22 is, you know, the perception, and somebody

23 said it earlier, you know, what is the general

24 public going to say about allowing hunting

25 over bait?

1 You know, is this again going to give

2 hunters and sportsmen the black eye with the

3 perception or misperception of unfair chase?

4 Well, just one question concerning

5 the Black Wolf Hunting Club, the 3600 acres

6 that you testified to and the game officers

7 lay in wait, came in under the cover of

8 darkness, and they caught these guys as they

9 were doing their drive and no bear were

10 taken.

11 How close to the feeders were the

12 hunters?

13 MR. MARSHALL: They were over a

14 hundred yards for the most part. There was

15 one guest that was positioned closer than

16 that.

17 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: How close?

18 MR. MARSHALL: I believe

19 approximately 70 yards. Now, that guest is

20 not going to trial. So those charges are not

21 part of the trial in September.

22 REPRESENTATIVE GILLESPIE: Thank you,

23 Mr. Chairman.

24 MR. MARSHALL: And if I may speak to

25 that. The -- I talked about stand hunting and

1 drive-style hunting.

2 And Concerned Sportsmen are all about

3 fair chase. So make no mistake about that.

4 In a drive setting, in that particular case,

5 that guest that was placed in that proximity

6 to a feeder was dropped off by a pickup truck

7 that drove by the feeder and placed a watcher

8 where he ended up standing.

9 While he was standing there, he

10 didn't see game avail itself of the feeder.

11 Why? Because he was standing there.

12 It goes back to the nature of game.

13 Once the drive is on and the hunting pressure

14 begins, game is not looking for food. Game is

15 looking for cover. Game is looking to escape

16 and evade.

17 And he was certainly not in that

18 situation staking out a feeder, if you will.

19 He was -- the feeder was actually behind him

20 and the drive was coming down a mountain

21 toward him and he was watching in that

22 direction for game to come.

23 So that's that particular

24 circumstance.

25 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

1 Moul.

2 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you,

3 Mr. Chairman.

4 One quick question. In your legal

5 mind, that's curiosity. I've got a lot to

6 learn here obviously.

7 You had mentioned about the WCO's

8 came into that particular parcel, which is

9 obviously posted no hunting, no trespassing,

10 under the cover of darkness. So it's before

11 hunting hours.

12 Were they trespassing?

13 MR. MARSHALL: Well, I'm sure they'd

14 say no. They do have -- they do have broad

15 authority if they believe that illegal

16 activity is or may occur and they did a

17 fly-over actually in a private plane that's

18 co-owned by one of the WCO's, and that's how

19 they spotted corn and the feeders from the

20 air.

21 Now, as an aside, none of these clubs

22 make any effort to conceal the feeders or the

23 fact that there's corn in them. Because

24 they've been doing it for decades.

25 So it's not surprising that a

1 fly-over would show you many clubs with

2 feeders that have corn in them.

3 They then came in and laid in wait

4 and waited for hunting activity to begin.

5 If I can speak for a moment about

6 that, they have the authority under the

7 current statute to come to a club, tell them

8 that they believe that the area is a baited

9 area, and the statute says whether prosecution

10 is contemplated or not.

11 And I have asked repeatedly at the

12 proceedings in these various cases, if you had

13 a problem with this longstanding feeding

14 program, why didn't you approach the club

15 ahead of hunting season before they got in

16 trouble and tell them you had a problem?

17 Because the Frozen Run club, when

18 they were arrested, their first question was

19 why? But they were shocked.

20 Black Wolf, why? Same scenario.

21 And the Game Commission will tell you

22 it's not their job to warn, which leads to the

23 conclusion that it's their job to -- arrest?

24 It's actually their job to protect

25 the game in the Commonwealth. And in the

1 Frozen Run case they stayed hidden in the

2 woods while four bear were harvested and then

3 they jumped out and said, we believe those

4 bear were harvested illegally.

5 Well, there's a $5,000 fine

6 potentially for each of those bear. If they

7 were doing their job properly and they had the

8 authority under the statute to do it, they

9 could have come in ahead of hunting season and

10 warned the club and said we have a problem and

11 posted the area.

12 No one would have been arrested. No

13 bear would have been harvested. But that's

14 not how they conduct themselves. So that's

15 another -- it highlights, again, the abuse

16 that's going on right now.

17 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you.

18 That's exactly what I thought you were going

19 to say.

20 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Well,

21 Mr. Marshall, I want to thank you once again

22 for your testimony, for being here, and for

23 sharing all your thoughts with the Committee

24 regarding the issue of supplemental feeding.

25 MR. MARSHALL: Thank you,

1 Mr. Chairman.

2 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT:

3 Mr. Chairman, could I ask one more question

4 that just occurred to me?

5 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Yes.

6 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT:

7 Mr. Marshall, I know that -- that this may not

8 be something -- something that you want to

9 divulge as an attorney in front of your

10 clients, but how much did it cost Frozen Run

11 to defend their lawsuits throughout the Court

12 of Common Pleas and -- and how much has it

13 cost Black Wolf to date to defend themselves

14 up through the district justice and into the

15 Court of Common Pleas?

16 MR. MARSHALL: Well, the clients are

17 here. Without their -- if you give me a

18 moment, I can ask if I'm permitted to share

19 that with the Committee.

20 The Frozen Run Club between -- and

21 these numbers don't take into account the

22 countless hours that the membership and the

23 officers of those clubs put in in preparing

24 the case and -- and taking the time to do

25 that. But between legal expenses and expert

1 expenses, the Frozen Run club, which went

2 through in total four days of legal

3 proceedings, four full days of trial, incurred

4 costs of approximately $40,000.

5 The Black Wolf Club, who has not yet

6 had their day in court, has already incurred

7 costs of approximately $20,000.

8 And, you know, the old adage, you

9 know, blame it on the lawyers. However, bear

10 in mind, where the standards are this vague,

11 it becomes a battle of the experts as well

12 regarding what an effective lure is and we get

13 into lots of testimony about the biology of

14 bear in these particular cases.

15 The game -- I'd ask the same question

16 of the Game Commission, by the way. I -- I'm

17 curious that -- I'd like to know how much a

18 sting operation in Frozen Run cost, which

19 involved approximately seven WCO's on opening

20 day of bear season -- so there's the first

21 problem.

22 Opening day of bear season in

23 Pennsylvania. There's a 145,000 hunters in

24 the woods. Seven WCO's from the same region

25 are on the same 1400-acre parcel laying in

1 wait for someone to violate a law that they

2 didn't even know that they were potentially

3 violating.

4 Then the prosecution of this case,

5 the time that those officers had to spend

6 going to the proceedings, I'd like to know how

7 much that cost the Commonwealth.

8 And now it happened again in Black

9 Wolf. And, quite frankly, another club has

10 already been threatened by the regional

11 director of the northcentral region and told

12 in a meeting recently that if they have feed

13 in the feeders during hunting season next year

14 they'll be, quote, steamrolled.

15 So if we don't get relief, it will

16 happen again in 2007. And it's just a matter

17 of seeing which club is going to be targeted

18 now.

19 The Game Commission should not be

20 allowed to make law by arbitrary enforcement

21 of a vague statute and policy decisions that

22 are not public. Because nobody knows where

23 they stand until someone jumps out from behind

24 a tree and tells them they're under arrest.

25 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: Well, the

1 cost of the Attorney General's Office is also

2 involved. The Attorney General's costs.

3 MR. MARSHALL: Right.

4 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Thank you,

5 Mr. Marshall.

6 Okay. Our next presenter, also with

7 the Concerned Sportsmen of Pennsylvania, is

8 Mr. Bryon Shissler, wildlife biologist.

9 Bryon, you can begin your testimony

10 whenever you're ready. And please tell the

11 Committee of your profession and your

12 training, if you will.

13 MR. SHISSLER: Thank you,

14 Mr. Chairman, Committee members. I'm a

15 certified wildlife biology with Natural

16 Resource Consultants. Did my undergraduate at

17 Penn State, my graduate work at West Virginia

18 University.

19 I appreciate the opportunity this

20 morning to appear before you to share some

21 information and perspectives that I hope will

22 be helpful to you.

23 From my perspective, the question

24 before you today is not whether it's legal or

25 appropriate to feed wildlife. Clearly under

1 the law, it is legal to feed wildlife in

2 Pennsylvania and about three million resident

3 households in Pennsylvania feed wildlife every

4 year.

5 The issue is the need to provide a

6 clear standard as to when feeding wildlife

7 becomes baiting in such a way as the average

8 hunter and the average landowner can

9 understand when they are and are not in

10 violation of the law.

11 The bill before you uses the term

12 game feeder, but the issue is actually much

13 broader than that.

14 Many people across the state

15 recreationally feed wildlife, primarily birds

16 at their homes and cabins. Deer and turkey

17 frequently visit these sites to feed on grain

18 that's knocked to the ground by both birds and

19 squirrels and also to access the feeders

20 directly.

21 In suburban communities bird feeders

22 are believed to represent a significant source

23 of fall and winter nutrition for deer.

24 Under the current discretion afforded

25 wildlife conservation officers to interpret

1 the law a property with a feeder -- with such

2 a feeder could be considered contaminated by

3 bait by anyone hunting there with the

4 knowledge that deer visit the site and they

5 could be arrested for hunting in a baited

6 area.

7 Of course, logic would suggest that

8 such an action would never take place. But

9 that has not been my experience.

10 For example, on one occasion when we

11 were running a controlled hunt in southeastern

12 Pennsylvania, an officer closed down a section

13 of the hunt area as baited due to a bird

14 feeding station on an adjacent residential

15 property.

16 The Game Commission's response to

17 concerns about the vagueness of the current

18 law in distinguishing baiting from wildlife

19 feeding has not been very helpful in

20 addressing the issues raised by Judge Gray.

21 There's been the repeated suggestion

22 that all you need to do is simply remove the

23 bait 30 -- or the feed 30 days before the

24 opening of the season.

25 For a club and property owners that

1 hunt both turkey and deer this would mean

2 essentially removing the food for over half

3 the calendar year and during the most critical

4 time periods to supply that supplemental

5 nutrition.

6 The Commission has made a number of

7 statements on this issue and I would just like

8 to cover a few here. There are more in my

9 testimony. And provide you some additional

10 information in order to provide some balance

11 on that.

12 One is that harm can come from

13 concentrating deer and increasing potential

14 exposure to chronic wasting disease.

15 Based on the Game Commission's own

16 surveillance program, there is currently no

17 evidence that this disease occurs anywhere in

18 the state.

19 Feeding wildlife has no relationship

20 as to whether CWD will find its way here or

21 not.

22 If feeding deer were currently a

23 serious issue with regarding -- with regards

24 to CWD, the Commission would not have recently

25 legalized deer hunting over bait in parts of

1 13 counties where deer densities are the

2 highest in the state and the potential for

3 animal-to-animal contact is at its greatest.

4 These are areas where deer herds

5 often exceed a hundred animals per square

6 mile.

7 However, if CWD does find its way

8 into Pennsylvania, supplemental feeding and

9 baiting as part of an urban deer management

10 amount will need to be reevaluated and likely

11 discontinued.

12 The challenge then will not -- will

13 not be regulating hunters and using bait in

14 urban areas. The real challenge will be tens

15 of thousands of people who recreationally feed

16 deer in their back yards and are responsible

17 for the vast amount of food that's fed during

18 the year to deer.

19 Another statement is that

20 supplemental feeding manipulates deer behavior

21 while feed plots do not.

22 Food plots can be more pleasing to

23 the human eye and more attractive to deer than

24 feeders because a plot of corn provides more

25 inter-animal distance to deer and thereby

1 reduces hierarchical interactions or

2 conflicts.

3 But deer are attracted to both and

4 will use both for the same reason. They

5 supplementally provide high quality food.

6 However, deer will not reach -- deer will not

7 leave their range to take advantage of

8 supplemental food whether it's placed in a

9 feeder or whether it's in a food plot.

10 Another statement is that deer --

11 most deer feeding in Pennsylvania -- most deer

12 feeding in Pennsylvania is strategic baiting

13 and based on personal gratification with

14 little benefit to deer.

15 Why people choose to feed deer,

16 birds, or other wildlife undoubtedly varies

17 from one individual to another. Speculating

18 on people's motives seems imprudent but goes

19 to the heart of this issue.

20 Without a clear standard as to when

21 feeding wildlife becomes baiting, an officer

22 who assumes that everyone who feeds deer is

23 really involved in strategic baiting is free

24 to make his own interpretation both as to the

25 motives as well as to the law.

1 That is why a clear standard is

2 needed.

3 Another statement is harm can come to

4 deer by unnatural crowding behaviors.

5 There's no documented evidence that a

6 well-run supplemental feeding program is

7 harming deer in Pennsylvania.

8 There's also no documented evidence

9 that well-run supplemental feeding programs in

10 Pennsylvania have created any deer problems or

11 any disease problems in our deer herd.

12 At the end of the day there are three

13 facts that -- that you need to deal with, and

14 that is that it's legal to feed wildlife in

15 Pennsylvania.

16 There's no clear standard that allows

17 a hunter or a landowner to know when feeding

18 wildlife might be interpreted by any

19 individual WCO as baiting.

20 And, finally, as Judge Gray

21 suggested, it will require you, the

22 legislature, hopefully working with the

23 constructive and cooperative Game Commission,

24 to resolve this issue.

25 Thank you.

1 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Bryon, thank you

2 very much for your testimony.

3 I have a question that I think you

4 touched on in your testimony, but I hope you

5 can go just a bit further with the CWD.

6 If the day ever comes that we have a

7 confirmed case of CWD in our wild deer

8 population, would your opinion -- your opinion

9 change of supplemental feeding?

10 MR. SHISSLER: Well, my opinion would

11 change in that the way most states have

12 responded to that -- and West Virginia is a

13 very good example recently -- and that is they

14 closed down any sort of baiting or

15 supplemental feeding in the control area.

16 They did not close it down in the rest of the

17 state.

18 One of the things that happens is

19 this is a very challenging problem to deal

20 with and so there's a -- there's an interest,

21 of course, in doing what you can. And one of

22 the things you can do is eliminate any kind of

23 supplemental feeding anywhere in the state.

24 Whether that's effective or not,

25 there's very little evidence -- well, there

1 isn't any evidence to suggest that it is.

2 The challenge is it is extremely

3 difficult to avoid animal-to-animal contact

4 given the hundreds of thousands of people who

5 feed deer recreationally.

6 The challenge is not supplemental

7 feeding by hunters. It will be supplemental

8 feeding by nonhunters in their back yards,

9 which is very difficult to control.

10 So that I think that closing

11 supplemental feeding down in the area where

12 you're trying to control CWD makes a lot of

13 sense.

14 I think a constructive discussion

15 about how effective it is to do it statewide

16 and what value that has to controlling the

17 disease is a completely different discussion.

18 CHAIRMAN STABACK: So you would be

19 content to just shutting down the feeding in

20 the area where the CWD is found rather than

21 shutting it down statewide?

22 MR. SHISSLER: Well, that's been --

23 that's been the strategy people have used with

24 bovine tuberculosis in Michigan. They

25 restricted feeding in the areas where they had

1 the disease outbreaks but not throughout the

2 entire state.

3 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Questions on my

4 right?

5 Mr. Everett.

6 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you,

7 Mr. Chairman.

8 Mr. Shissler, in the package that was

9 provided by the Concerned Sportsmen -- do you

10 have that with you?

11 MR. SHISSLER: I do.

12 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: There's a

13 picture that's marked as K. Are you familiar

14 with that picture?

15 MR. SHISSLER: I am.

16 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Could you

17 explain where that picture came from and your

18 understanding of that picture?

19 MR. SHISSLER: I don't know

20 specifically where it came from. I believe

21 it's from Michigan.

22 And one of the confounding issues

23 here in discussing this is that -- and this

24 certainly comes out in the position paper by

25 the Wildlife Society.

1 There are -- about 41 states allow

2 supplemental feeding. Over half the states

3 allow legalized baiting and by legalized

4 baiting I mean sitting over a pile of bait and

5 waiting for something to come.

6 In some states like Michigan, the

7 tradition has been that you can go out there

8 and dump a truck load of sugar beets, climb up

9 on a deer stand and wait for deer to come.

10 In the south, there is extensive

11 feeding in large quantities on both public and

12 private grounds many times. In those

13 situations it often causes problems.

14 The issue here in Pennsylvania has

15 never been problematic. We just simply don't

16 have those kind of situations.

17 So north of the snow line, there are

18 concerns about deer migratory in those areas.

19 There's issues about changing those migratory

20 patterns by putting large quantities of food

21 out on the landscape.

22 That's simply not an issue here in

23 Pennsylvania.

24 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: And just to

25 be clear, this whole packet of pictures was

1 provided to the Concerned Sportsmen by the

2 Pennsylvania Game Commission at a meeting that

3 you had with them. Isn't that correct?

4 MR. SHISSLER: That's correct.

5 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: And -- and

6 wasn't this picture an attempt to portray the

7 kind of deer activity that we see at feeding

8 stations in northern Pennsylvania when, in

9 fact, it's not even a picture taken in

10 northern Pennsylvania?

11 MR. SHISSLER: Well, I -- I don't

12 like to speculate on people's motives. I will

13 say that you're correct in it wasn't clarified

14 that that was not a Pennsylvania picture until

15 that issue was raised. But what the motives

16 are I can't say.

17 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Okay. Thank

18 you.

19 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Other questions on

20 my right? On my left? Bryon?

21 Bryon, thank you very much for taking

22 the time to meet with us and sharing your

23 expertise on the issue of supplemental

24 feeding.

25 MR. SHISSLER: Okay.

1 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Our next

2 presenter will be the Pennsylvania Game

3 Commission who I believe has a PowerPoint

4 presentation to make.

5 The Game Commission is represented by

6 Mr. Cal DuBrock, the Director of the Bureau of

7 Wildlife Management and Mr. Rich Palmer, the

8 Director of the Bureau of Wildlife

9 Protection.

10 Cal, will you both be offering joint

11 testimony or will you be offering testimony

12 separately?

13 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Mr. Chairman,

14 we'll be offering -- we'll both be offering

15 testimony sequentially. I'll begin and

16 Mr. Palmer will finish up.

17 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Feel free to begin

18 whenever you're ready.

19 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Very good. Thank

20 you.

21 Good morning, Chairman Staback and

22 members of the House Game and Fisheries

23 Committee. Mr. Palmer, who is the Acting

24 Director of the Bureau of Wildlife Protection,

25 and I share then the responsibility, as you

1 mentioned, of testifying on behalf of the Game

2 Commission.

3 I'm the Director of the Bureau of

4 Wildlife Management and I'm also a certified

5 wildlife biologist, as is Mr. Shissler.

6 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I'm going to

7 move down there.

8 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Okay. The

9 substance of my statements will focus

10 primarily on the species and habitat

11 implications of House Bill 251. Mr. Palmer

12 then will comment on the ethical, the legal,

13 the social, and enforcement aspects of the

14 bill.

15 As I read it, House Bill 251 has

16 essentially three features.

17 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Cal, we have

18 a little technical problem here.

19 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: There we go.

20 Okay?

21 It prohibits hunting in game feeding

22 areas and within 150 yards of any game

23 feeder.

24 It makes it legal for hunters to move

25 through a feeding area or past a feeder

1 driving wildlife a relatively short distance,

2 that is, a 150 yards, outside of a feeding

3 area where they can be harvested.

4 And, thirdly, it continues to exempt

5 normal, accepted farming, habitat management,

6 oil and gas drilling, mining, forest

7 management or other legitimate commercial or

8 industrial practices.

9 House Bill 251 effectively, in my

10 opinion, sanctions the feeding of wildlife and

11 essentially legalizes hunting in the vicinity

12 of placed feed everywhere in the Commonwealth,

13 and this is the essence of baiting.

14 Baiting and supplemental feeding have

15 proven quite useful in enhancing wildlife

16 taking. As a result wildlife agencies use

17 this tool, routinely use this tool for

18 research and have had to be very careful in

19 allowing the use of feeding by hunters to

20 control harvest and ultimately populations.

21 In essence to accomplish the mission that

22 you've given us.

23 While some states do allow baiting

24 for various species, in Pennsylvania we have

25 not allowed baiting for big game for decades.

1 And this is neither prudent, nor acceptable to

2 Pennsylvania hunters.

3 Baiting and supplemental feeding are

4 similar activities, but their purposes

5 differ.

6 Baiting as used in the wildlife

7 management profession is the intentional

8 placement of food or nutrients to manipulate

9 the behavior of wildlife for harvest, capture,

10 or viewing.

11 Supplemental feeding is the

12 intentional placement of food for wildlife

13 with the intent of providing for the welfare

14 of wildlife.

15 Supplemental feeding becomes baiting

16 when the feeding area is hunted.

17 Baiting, supplemental feeding, and

18 habitat management are viewed differently by

19 the wildlife profession.

20 Baiting and supplemental feeding are

21 traditionally not considered by the wildlife

22 profession as habitat or forest management

23 practices. However, many states do allow it,

24 as has been pointed out, supplement feeding,

25 because it's popular and because it's a

1 traditional practice among landowners.

2 And, quite frankly, the Game

3 Commission has long questioned the propriety

4 of this practice. If you look through the

5 history of Game News and -- and articles put

6 out by the Commission, I think that would be

7 apparent.

8 Wildlife food plots planted using

9 normal, acceptable, agricultural practices are

10 not considered baiting or supplemental

11 feeding.

12 Managed food plots and agricultural

13 crops differ from feeding and baiting in

14 significant ways.

15 How are we doing, Rich?

16 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: We're almost

17 there.

18 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Okay. Food

19 plots -- food plots and agricultural crops

20 differ from feeding and baiting in significant

21 ways. Foot plots and agricultural crops offer

22 year-round or seasonal availability to

23 wildlife on a 24-hour basis where they can

24 feed at will.

25 Wildlife does not concentrate at

1 densities often experienced in the vicinity of

2 feeding stations. Food plots are natural and

3 healthy, without the mold and toxins often

4 present in feeders and at bait piles that can

5 cause fatalities in some species of wildlife.

6 Food crops and crops left standing

7 for wildlife do not significantly alter the

8 interactions of wildlife or increase

9 habituation to people. These plantings also

10 provide habitat benefits for other wildlife by

11 providing openings for feeding, nesting, and

12 brood rearing.

13 This past March The Wildlife Society,

14 which is the professional society of wildlife

15 biologists and managers, issued a position

16 statement on baiting and supplemental feeding

17 of game wildlife species.

18 While acknowledging a certain amount

19 of controversy about the real and perceived

20 positive and negative impacts of baiting and

21 supplemental feeding, and the scale at which

22 these practices are used, based on a review of

23 relevant research, The Wildlife Society

24 encouraged wildlife management agencies to

25 phase-out supplemental feeding, both in-house

1 and by the public, to maintain populations

2 compatible with habitat-carrying capacity.

3 The Wildlife Society labels policies

4 allowing or promoting baiting and supplemental

5 feeding as conveying erroneous concepts that

6 such practices are suitable replacement for

7 adequate habitat and scientific management of

8 wildlife.

9 It is also Game Commission policy to

10 discourage feeding and instead use habitat

11 management to attract game.

12 And two exceptions come to mind. The

13 first is that baiting or supplemental feeding

14 is used on a limited -- pardon me -- on a

15 limited scale by the agency for research and

16 management purposes. For example, on water

17 fowl banding and bear tagging and so forth.

18 Also, as has been mentioned, this

19 past year the Commission began permitting deer

20 hunters in the southeast special regulations

21 area, which consists of five counties, not 13

22 counties as was mentioned earlier, to use

23 feeding or baiting on a limited basis to

24 improve hunters' success and harvest in this

25 highly developed area where deer poses

1 substantial safety and damage problem for

2 communities.

3 Feeding wildlife for the purpose of

4 harvesting is receiving much more attention

5 today as a smaller percentage of the public

6 participates in or even understands hunting.

7 While many nonhunters value our

8 hunting traditions, they want hunters to be

9 ethical. They want them to utilize fair chase

10 principles and to ensure the populations are

11 being managed on a sustainable basis.

12 So let me briefly touch on some of

13 the concerns of the wildlife management

14 community and the public associated with

15 feeding in the vicinity -- I'm sorry --

16 associated with the hunting in the vicinity of

17 feeding areas. And there are numerous.

18 Feeding locally concentrates wildlife

19 at unnatural densities, reduces home range

20 size, increases birth and reduces natural

21 habitat-carrying capacity.

22 It increases wildlife habituation to

23 humans and diminishes wild behavior of

24 animals. It increases contact among wildlife

25 species and individuals in the social

1 hierarchy of populations and increases the

2 likelihood of disease transmission within and

3 among species by maintaining disease

4 reservoirs.

5 Additionally, feeding can lead to

6 increase habitat and damaged property -- or

7 property damage in the vicinity of baiting and

8 feeding sites, could result in increased

9 predation, and increases inter- and

10 intra-specific competition among wildlife.

11 And people are affected, too.

12 Because feeding can affect the feelings of

13 ownership of wildlife and the desire on the

14 part of people to protect their wildlife. And

15 it can lead to also, finally, to the diversion

16 of limited public agency resources to address

17 the effects of wildlife responses to feeding

18 and to baiting.

19 So let me wrap up my comments by

20 focusing on three of these feeding wildlife

21 management concerns and only three.

22 If our wildlife veterinarian were

23 here, he certainly would focus on the disease

24 issues. And they are real, but I'd like to

25 talk about the effects on animal interactions

1 and behavior and how this might affect hunters

2 and hunting in the Commonwealth.

3 Feeding definitely has a big

4 influence on animal behavior.

5 Dominance behavior at feeders can

6 result in aggressive behavior and even death

7 for some animals. And this particular slide,

8 this bear cub was attacked and killed at a

9 feeding station by an adult male bear.

10 Feeding also has an influence on

11 animal movements. Feeding stations are

12 replete with discernible, well-worn trails as

13 depicted in this first photograph.

14 And in an extreme situation, and

15 admittedly extreme, you're going to see the

16 photograph that you've already -- was already

17 shown here a little earlier can have -- you

18 can have a virtual caldron of feeding activity

19 and extensive pattern of trails.

20 And the photo that appears on the

21 right, and was shown earlier, is actually from

22 Wisconsin, but similar situations do exist in

23 the northern parts of Pennsylvania.

24 When thinking about feeding sites and

25 animal movements, distance is important. And

1 House Bill 251 specifies 150 yards as the

2 distance a hunter must be from a feeder or

3 feeding area to legally harvest game.

4 But 150 yards is not really

5 biologically meaningful. Especially for

6 mobile animals with large home ranges, such as

7 deer and bear.

8 Animals quickly become habituated to

9 feeding areas and spend a disproportionate

10 amount of time in the vicinity of feeders.

11 The zone of influence of feeders can

12 be substantial. Based on deer movement

13 studies that we've conducted, an antlered deer

14 has a range of roughly about 800 acres during

15 the fall hunting seasons.

16 With a home range this size, a deer

17 can move up to a 1100 yards, or nearly

18 two-thirds of a mile, to a feeding site.

19 We regularly observe deer moving far

20 more than a 150 yards to our baiting sites

21 that we use for deer capture as part of our

22 research effort.

23 So this photo that just appeared, it

24 is from an actual investigation conducted by

25 PGC officers involving a complaint of

1 baiting. The zone of influence of each

2 baiting site or each feeding site, based on

3 our experience with deer movements, is nearly

4 800 acres and they're depicted by those

5 sick -- by those circles around each of the

6 feeding sites that occur on that landscape.

7 Given the juxtaposition of feeding

8 sites on the ground, deer and other wildlife

9 are being impacted over several square miles.

10 Or in this particular case nearly 30,000

11 acres.

12 With bears we would expect the zone

13 of influence to be substantially larger given

14 their larger home ranges.

15 Feeding, especially feeding on this

16 scale, can influence hunters' success and

17 changes could yield dramatic -- changes in

18 harvest could yield dramatic changes in

19 hunting seasons and bag limits, and

20 opportunity in order to manage wildlife on a

21 sustainable basis.

22 In essence, to fulfill the mission

23 the legislature has given the Pennsylvania

24 Game Commission.

25 To illustrate how dramatic the impact

1 might be, let's take a quick look at

2 Pennsylvania bear hunting. Pennsylvania

3 licenses approximately 140,000 bear hunters

4 each year. There are no limits on license

5 sales. That is, all hunters can participate

6 who -- who choose to purchase that license.

7 Annual bear hunter success averages

8 between two and three percent. Annual harvest

9 averages around 3,000 bears, or certainly

10 during this decade they have. Or roughly

11 about 20 percent of the population.

12 Harvests greater than 25 percent are

13 not considered sustainable. If bear hunters'

14 success were to improve from the two to three

15 percent that currently exists to something

16 like five percent, we could permit only 70,000

17 hunters to participate to constrain the

18 harvest within sustainable limits.

19 If success were to improve to

20 something like ten percent, we would only be

21 able to permit about 35,000 bear hunters. We

22 know from talking with other states and our

23 viewing the literature that states allowing

24 bear baiting often achieve much higher

25 successes than these. Some even approaching

1 50 percent.

2 Finally, it should be noted that

3 baiting is not popular with Pennsylvania

4 hunters. In response to a question on the

5 2006 Game Take survey, hunters stated their

6 opposition to legalized baiting for big game

7 hunting throughout the Commonwealth. 71

8 percent of hunters, or nearly three out of

9 every four hunters, indicated they were

10 opposed to allowing baiting statewide for big

11 game and one out of two were strongly

12 opposed.

13 These results were tabulated from a

14 sample of 9,740 hunter responses and the

15 sampling error rate associated with that

16 survey is plus or minus one percent.

17 At this point I'd like to turn the

18 mike over to Mr. Palmer who will address the

19 legal, ethical, enforcement, and social

20 aspects of baiting.

21 DIRECTOR PALMER: Thank you, Cal.

22 Good morning. As Cal indicated, my

23 name is Richard Palmer. I am the Acting

24 Director of the Bureau of Wildlife

25 Protection.

1 I'd like to begin my testimony with

2 an actual reading of the statute that we're --

3 we're talking about here today.

4 Title 34, Section 2308 (a) (8) is the

5 statute prohibiting the use of bait.

6 Section 2308, unlawful devices and

7 methods.

8 (a) General Rule.

9 Except as otherwise provided in this

10 title, it is unlawful for any person to hunt

11 or aid, abet, assist, or conspire to hunt any

12 game or wildlife through the use of:

13 Section (8). Any artificial or

14 natural bait, hay, grain, fruit, nut, salt,

15 chemical, mineral, or other food as an

16 enticement for game or wildlife, regardless of

17 kind or quantity, or take advantage of such

18 material and its residue.

19 Nothing contained in this section

20 shall pertain to normal or accepted farming,

21 habitat management practices, oil and gas

22 drilling, mining, forestry management

23 practices, or other legitimate commercial or

24 industry practices.

25 Upon discovery of such baited areas,

1 whether prosecution is contemplated or not,

2 the Commission may cause a reasonable area

3 surrounding the enticement to be posted

4 against hunting or taking of game or

5 wildlife. The posters shall remain for 30

6 days after the complete removal of the bait.

7 The primary elements of the offense

8 are that wildlife is being enticed by bait or

9 food, that hunters are taking advantage of the

10 area that is baited to hunt wildlife.

11 Driving, as discussed, driving

12 through a baited area is hunting as defined in

13 Title 34, Section 102 of the Game and Wildlife

14 Code. And it is taking advantage of the

15 enticement of wildlife to the baited area.

16 House Bill 251 would allow hunters to

17 drive the area of a 150 yards around a bait

18 and feed site thereby taking advantage of the

19 enticement of wildlife to the baited area.

20 Pennsylvania has a longstanding

21 hunting ethic that baiting violates the

22 principles of fair chase. It's an ethic that

23 is important enough to be codified by

24 statute.

25 The baiting of game birds was first

1 prohibited in 1869, even prior to the

2 formation of the Pennsylvania Game

3 Commission.

4 In 1897, two years after the

5 establishment of the Pennsylvania Game

6 Commission, hunting deer through the use of

7 salt licks, bait, was prohibited.

8 Baiting violates the principles of

9 fair chase that have been part of

10 Pennsylvania's hunting heritage for over a

11 hundred years.

12 We believe this ethic is still held

13 by most Pennsylvania hunters today as

14 evidenced by the result of the 2006 Game Take

15 survey and the increased complaints received

16 about baiting from the public.

17 There's been a steady increase in

18 baiting complaints and prosecutions for the

19 last three years with 339 prosecutions being

20 initiated in fiscal year '05/'06.

21 A 2004 public opinion survey on fish

22 and wildlife management issues conducted by

23 responsive management indicated that 85

24 percent of Pennsylvanians approve of legal

25 hunting.

1 We believe this is in part because of

2 the perception that hunting conforms with the

3 principles of fair chase.

4 House Bill 251 essentially legalizes

5 baiting and may affect public perception of

6 the fair chase element of hunting, and

7 ultimately public approval of hunting.

8 As an example, other states allow

9 mechanical timed feeders to release bait at

10 specific times to entice animals to a specific

11 area. Eventually the animals become

12 habituated to the sound of the feeders and the

13 specific times that the bait is being

14 distributed.

15 This allows the hunter to entice

16 animals to the area to be hunted at specific

17 times convenient to them.

18 Some companies have capitalized on

19 this habituation by producing calls, for lack

20 of a better term, that simulate the sound of

21 mechanical feeders and entice deer to the

22 sound. And that's an area where there's not

23 even bait or feed necessary. Simply the

24 habituation of the deer that have been enticed

25 to an area over and over and habituated to the

1 sound can then be called not by a natural call

2 but by the sound of a feeder.

3 We believe Pennsylvania citizens,

4 nonhunters and hunters, would perceive this

5 activity as violating the principles of fair

6 chase.

7 Currently in Pennsylvania electronic

8 calls are unlawful to use for deer; but if

9 baiting is legalized, there may be a logic

10 progression of interest in increasing -- in

11 increasing the efficiency of that activity

12 through the use of mechanical feeders and

13 electronic calls simulating the sound of those

14 feeders.

15 Pennsylvania's law prohibiting

16 baiting is not unique. It mirrors federal law

17 in Title 50 Code of Federal Regulations

18 20.21. Hunting methods, prohibition of bait

19 relating to waterfowl and migratory birds.

20 There is no distance specified in

21 this federal statute, and state law cannot

22 supersede federal law. House Bill 251 would

23 create an inconsistency with federal law

24 regarding baiting.

25 The Commonwealth Court of

1 Pennsylvania has provided clear interpretation

2 of the statute in Commonwealth v. Sellinger, a

3 state appellate court case from the year

4 2000.

5 The court ruled that a reasonable

6 hunter standard applied and not strict

7 liability, requiring evidence that the hunter

8 knew or reasonably should have known bait was

9 present.

10 It also ruled that the statute was

11 not unconstitutionally vague and that the

12 extent of the baited area is defined only by

13 the capacity of the bait anywhere within it to

14 act as an effective lure for the particular

15 hunter charged, and that -- an arbitrary

16 spatial limitation would fail to protect those

17 animals attracted to bait in areas outside any

18 arbitration -- any arbitrary limitation that

19 may be set.

20 This case sets the precedent of

21 interpretation for lower courts to follow.

22 The court in Sellinger quoted an

23 unpublished Superior Court opinion, the

24 Pennsylvania Superior Court also an appellate

25 court, that expressed a consistent view.

1 The identical quote is also found in

2 federal case law relating to challenges to the

3 federal baiting statute based partially upon

4 the lack of a specific distance being

5 specified by the federal statute.

6 The case is United States versus

7 Shandler -- or Chandler, and it was a 1985

8 decision.

9 The specific quote is "it would have

10 been impossible for the legislature to

11 delineate a specific area within which baiting

12 in general could be limited. Animals habits

13 and geography in the myriad of possible

14 situations represent variables that defy

15 reduction to a legislative formula."

16 It should be noted that Commonwealth

17 v. Sellinger involved the exact scenario that

18 we're talking about here. It involved hunters

19 driving through an area that was baited, an

20 activity that would be legalized by House Bill

21 251.

22 The courts have clearly identified

23 that these statutes require a fact-specific

24 analysis of each case.

25 We believe that the courts are the

1 appropriate governmental entity to make this

2 analysis, and that they have not had any

3 difficulty in interpreting the statute and

4 analyzing these cases.

5 PGC officers have used appropriate

6 discretion in enforcing the statute as

7 evidenced by a successful prosecution rate of

8 93 percent for 315 cases of cases initiated in

9 fiscal year '04/'05 and 97 percent for 339

10 cases initiated in fiscal year '05/'06.

11 There are also a number of social

12 issues that must be considered when evaluating

13 the implications of House Bill 251.

14 Many Pennsylvania hunters rely on

15 public land as their primary hunting

16 location. House Bill 251 may result in

17 reduced hunter success on public lands as

18 wildlife populations are drawn to adjoining

19 private properties with large scale feeding

20 and baiting operations.

21 This raises the question: Should a

22 public resource be allowed to be drawn off

23 public lands, open to public hunting, and onto

24 private property to be hunted solely by those

25 limited few who have access to this private

1 land?

2 This concludes our testimony. We'd

3 be happy to respond to any questions the

4 Committee may have.

5 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Cal and Rich, I

6 want to thank you both for your helpful

7 presentation. It was both interesting as well

8 as informative.

9 Cal, I do have one or two questions

10 of you and then of Rich.

11 Cal, you mentioned inter- and

12 intra-species competition at the feeding areas

13 on your -- on your PowerPoint.

14 Can you give some examples and

15 explain more in detail what that's all about?

16 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: All I'm inferring

17 there is there will be interactions among

18 animals visiting feeders, and there are

19 multiple species. You're going to have -- you

20 could have interactions between deer and elk,

21 for example, at feeders; between bear and

22 deer, animals driving other animals off, and

23 competition for the limited resources there

24 resulting in interactions that wouldn't

25 normally occur, at least not at the frequency

100

1 that one would see in -- in, say, a food plot.

2 CHAIRMAN STABACK: I was always under

3 the belief that if there was a bear in the

4 area, you couldn't find many deer around

5 because they would go the other way.

6 But you're saying that at a

7 supplemental feed station it's possible to

8 find both deer and bear feeding at the same

9 time?

10 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Not feeding at the

11 same time, no. They will exclude one

12 another. Certain animals will exclude other

13 animals.

14 But that interaction is what excludes

15 them, the presence and sometimes the arrival

16 of another animal, for example.

17 So you've got -- you've got

18 interaction between species but, more

19 frequently, interaction among species, among

20 the social hierarchy that might exist within a

21 group.

22 For example, again, the picture that

23 we illustrated with the bear cub that was

24 killed at a feeding station, again, in the

25 vicinity of a feeding station. There is a

101

1 dominance hierarchy. Animals will compete

2 with one another for resources, at times even

3 when resources are -- are quite abundant.

4 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Cal, you

5 also testified on disease issues regarding

6 feeding.

7 Could you elaborate a bit on that and

8 how big a problem is that today and could it

9 be even a bigger problem in the future?

10 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: I'd say

11 fortunately in Pennsylvania we have relatively

12 few examples of it being a significant problem

13 at this time.

14 We're certainly concerned about it,

15 though. We do have a -- a policy basically or

16 a procedure that if chronic wasting disease,

17 for example, were to show up in Pennsylvania

18 that -- within the defined containment area,

19 there would be no feeding of wildlife that

20 could occur.

21 So that is a reactive, if you will,

22 approach to -- to dealing with this

23 situation.

24 Other states have had significant

25 health problems associated with feeding. As

102

1 an example, TB as -- as one example.

2 But -- but fortunately at this point

3 we don't have a real issue. We're just

4 cognizant of the fact that it is a potential

5 problem and a problem that, quite frankly, we

6 could and probably should manage in a

7 proactive rather than a reactive way.

8 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. I think

9 you've answered my next question, and that was

10 going to be does the Game Commission have the

11 authority to shut down supplemental feeding.

12 And I think you've already answered that

13 basically by --

14 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Yes.

15 CHAIRMAN STABACK: -- saying yes, and

16 seeing if it was a problem that did occur you

17 would shut down feeding in the area that the

18 disease problem was located in.

19 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: That is --

20 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Is that correct?

21 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: That is part of

22 the state's response plan for chronic wasting

23 disease, yes, sir.

24 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. I think

25 it's important for the Committee members to

103

1 understand that it would not take an act of

2 the legislature to shut down supplemental

3 feeding. That, in fact, you can do that by

4 your -- your own hand, your own regulation.

5 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: That's correct,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Rich, I

8 have just one question for you.

9 For a better way of putting it, can

10 you -- can you discuss the practice of long

11 range hunting?

12 By that I mean, where -- where a

13 hunter, an individual, would take a stand with

14 a -- with a heavy caliber rifle and cover a

15 substantial yardage area with that gun. How

16 do you see that practice in light of House

17 Bill 251?

18 DIRECTOR PALMER: I'll take the first

19 part of your question first, Mr. Chairman.

20 Long range hunting has increased

21 dramatically in popularity over the years.

22 Partially due to dramatic increases in

23 technology. Firearms that weren't previously

24 available to the public.

25 Some of these 50-caliber-type sniper

104

1 rifles now are capable of literally shooting

2 up to one mile. Not saying that the skill

3 level of all shooters is obviously there, but

4 you can have some very extensive distances.

5 One of the most visible examples that

6 I'll use, because some of the board members

7 may have seen it traveling back and forth

8 across the state during that time of year is

9 in the Seven Mountains area above 322, and

10 there's a group of very dedicated long range

11 hunters that hunt there pretty much every

12 year. And they'll set up on one mountain side

13 and literally shoot to another mountain side.

14 I think that it is a valid concern.

15 To answer the second part of your

16 question, I don't see that this bill really

17 addresses that issue. The way that it says is

18 that it's unlawful to hunt within the 150

19 yards.

20 I heard testimony today that that was

21 not the intent of the bill. Even if it

22 wasn't, at a 151 yards of an animal traveling

23 to that particular feed side across the side

24 of a mountain, the hunter can see the feed

25 site, see the animal traveling to it, and take

105

1 a shot from whatever distances they're capable

2 of.

3 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

4 Rohrer.

5 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: Thank you,

6 Chairman Staback. Sorry I wasn't here for a

7 little bit of your testimony, but -- but

8 appreciated the thoroughness of what was

9 presented.

10 I think, as most of us would say,

11 we -- we have clearly an obligation to the law

12 that is before us and that's what you're

13 operating under and I understand to this

14 extent. And I think you did well with your

15 presentation putting it all together.

16 In the interest of trying to further

17 define the applicability of the law with

18 intent for fair chase and all of these things

19 that we're talking about, which I think are

20 important, the question I would have would be

21 a couple here.

22 Number one, when you see the map up

23 there of the --of your feeding stations and

24 all the different circles that you had in the

25 impact on the surrounding areas, part of what

106

1 I think you presented was that the -- perhaps

2 the unfair impact of a private area on the

3 surrounding public grounds. Okay.

4 Is there or are there regions perhaps

5 where food plots, not just a pure base

6 station, but something that could be defined

7 as that, could be positioned where the impact

8 on public grounds would be near negligible

9 and, therefore, that aspect of concern be

10 eliminated?

11 Or are there perhaps regions of the

12 state where the constraints that you posed

13 would not apply and could find some allowances

14 for some change based on the region? Is that

15 a possibility?

16 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: If I

17 understand the questions correctly, and

18 correct me if I don't, I'll paraphrase what I

19 think I heard, is could food plots be used in

20 these private land settings adjacent to public

21 land with less impact than a baiting site?

22 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: Yes.

23 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I would like

24 Cal to probably offer more of a formal

25 response on that, but, in my opinion, I would

107

1 think a natural food plot, sure, it has

2 habitat value. Sure, animals are going to use

3 it.

4 But I don't think it's going to

5 concentrate animals at the density that a

6 baiting or feed site does.

7 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: A connecting,

8 a statement reflecting connection to this.

9 Some of the difference seems to be

10 obviously the natural setting, the orchard,

11 the cornfield, as compared to an area where

12 you're bringing in corn and somehow laying it

13 around or whatever, natural versus unnatural.

14 On the other hand, thinking along

15 this line, is there -- is there a way that

16 things could be constructed perhaps where if

17 you are going to -- perhaps in an area that

18 doesn't sustain an orchard, in a wooded grove,

19 cornfield, that -- that -- that supplementing,

20 bringing in a supply, or whatever that would

21 be, if -- if that were to be done in such a

22 nature where the -- where the -- perhaps the

23 amount of food and the guarantee of the

24 accessibility of that food wouldn't be short

25 term, but it would be for a long-term presence

108

1 of that type, so you're not disturbing feeding

2 patterns, but you're making it as -- you're

3 duplicating a natural ability in a place

4 perhaps where it couldn't -- couldn't be

5 done.

6 Is there room within the

7 interpretation, as you're viewing it, that

8 something could be done of that type to really

9 define differently perhaps what we're now

10 entering into right now, natural versus

11 unnatural, perhaps an area where you just

12 simply are not going to have the natural

13 ability to have food?

14 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Again, I

15 think I'll defer the biological aspect of that

16 question to Director DuBrock.

17 Under the current statute, as

18 written, the use of any artificial material

19 would be prohibited.

20 To answer a little bit more in detail

21 though, we've spoken at length with our land

22 management staff, who also is more than

23 willing to provide help and direction to any

24 private landowners that wish to establish food

25 plots, since that's a practice that we

109

1 advocate.

2 And even -- and I'm going -- land

3 management is not my specialty, but I'm going

4 by what I've been told by my land management

5 staff, the Game Commission has a lot of state

6 game lands that are rocky mountaintops and

7 every bit as bad of soil and -- and area that

8 everybody else has and roughly $2,000 an acre

9 from start to finish a food plot can be

10 established and then be a permanent habituated

11 addition to that particular area.

12 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: If I might then

13 just add to that. Certainly food plots by the

14 wildlife profession are viewed as a -- as a

15 more acceptable way of altering the carrying

16 capacity and -- and, quite frankly, in some

17 cases the movements of animals that's a more

18 natural process.

19 But you don't yield the results. And

20 I think Mr. Palmer has alluded to that and our

21 testimony basically stated that. That you

22 just don't get the immediate gratification,

23 nor the dramatic results that one might get by

24 putting out a feed and putting it out

25 abundantly.

110

1 But I think your question pointed to

2 might you limit the quantities in some way to

3 more closely simulate the amount of food that

4 might be available through a food plot.

5 I think that's a reasonable question

6 to ask and unfortunately I don't have a

7 reasonable answer for you on that.

8 Conceptually that -- that sounds like

9 it might work. But I think that's on the

10 surface. We need to scratch a little deeper

11 and at this point I think I can't give you a

12 good answer on that or that suggestion.

13 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: I appreciate

14 the response on that. I'm obviously trying to

15 find a technical bit outside the plots and

16 thinking of things perhaps that we can come at

17 this from a little bit of a perspective that

18 would permit some of what is considered their

19 intent or the desire by many, and still fit

20 within your overall philosophy of

21 reasonableness as more thoughts come forth and

22 so forth.

23 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

24 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

25 Surra.

111

1 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Thank you,

2 Mr. Chairman.

3 Thank you for your testimony. The

4 more you listen to this the more confusing it

5 gets.

6 And something came to mind in my own

7 personal life that shows where there's a --

8 there could be a problem in this and I'd like

9 your interpretation.

10 I have 15 acres of ground. There's

11 eight on one side of the road, seven on the

12 other. My house is right there along the edge

13 of the road with maybe an acre and a half of

14 yard.

15 Right outside my wife's kitchen

16 window there's a bird feeder. I've never seen

17 a deer there. I did have a bear knock it down

18 maybe -- well, 18, 20 years ago.

19 But could technically I not be

20 allowed to hunt on my property because there's

21 a bait station?

22 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think the

23 exact question that you're asking is exactly

24 why the officers do need discretion. All

25 right?

112

1 I honestly think that a simple bird

2 feeding station, that's incidental, that's in

3 a back yard, that is not placed in a wooded

4 area, that essentially is in your yard, is not

5 going to be deemed to be baiting under this

6 scenario.

7 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Well, I really

8 think that Gordie McDowell wouldn't pursue

9 that --

10 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Right.

11 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: -- but I don't

12 have that faith across the state. I mean I

13 think that's why we're in this situation, is

14 because of the openness to interpretation.

15 You've brought up an interesting

16 point when you mentioned that we can't

17 supersede federal law. Is that not accurate?

18 And that's interesting and probably

19 accurate. But then how do other states like

20 that have legalized baiting, are they in

21 violation of federal law?

22 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: No. And

23 I -- and I will clarify that for you. The

24 federal law applies only to migratory birds

25 and waterfowl.

113

1 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Oh, okay. I

2 wasn't clear on that.

3 So then where -- how many other

4 states do have some type of baiting law? Do

5 you know?

6 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I believe

7 the previous testimony, I don't have

8 first-hand knowledge of this, but I believe

9 what Mr. Shissler had testified to was 25

10 states actually allow baiting.

11 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: All right.

12 The normal ag practices situation seems to be

13 acceptable.

14 So does the commission -- let's say

15 I'm a large landowner who happens to utilize

16 my property to hunt a lot. And I plant 25

17 acres of corn and I let it stand to -- to

18 lure, feed, keep game on the property.

19 Is that considered a normal ag

20 practice?

21 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I wouldn't

22 say that it may be considered a normal

23 agricultural practice, but it certainly would

24 fit into our habitat management practice.

25 It's a practice that we use on our own state

114

1 game lands.

2 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Okay. So if I

3 planted 25 acres of corn and let it stand,

4 that's acceptable.

5 But if I took the manure spreader

6 full of corncobs and spread that across the

7 field, that's baiting?

8 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: That's

9 correct.

10 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: That's

11 interesting. The -- it seemed like a lot of

12 these problems -- or are all these problems in

13 the northcentral region? Or -- I mean the

14 major ones seem to be coming out of

15 northcentral region and there has been an

16 increase in -- in enforcement of baiting

17 issues according to your chart.

18 Is it -- is it a statewide thing? Is

19 it's more northcentral region? If so, why?

20 Shed a little light on this.

21 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I'm aware of

22 more current litigation at higher levels in

23 the courts in the northcentral region

24 currently than in any other area of the

25 state.

115

1 The actual distribution of those

2 cases I'd have to dig into the data a little

3 bit deeper.

4 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Well, that

5 would be interesting to find out.

6 There was some testimony

7 previously -- you know, the Commission has

8 been criticized since I've been here about

9 being totally focused on law enforcement and

10 too much focused on law enforcement. And even

11 the United States official wildlife map report

12 said it was too much focused on law

13 enforcement.

14 And the testimony that, you know,

15 revealed the fact that, hey, look, all the WCO

16 had to do was go up and say, hey, listen, you

17 better empty those feeders before the season

18 starts or you guys could be in trouble. There

19 -- you know, that could have avoided a lot of

20 this.

21 Secondly, I'm amazed at the time and

22 effort put into a fly-over, counting the

23 feeding stations, all of this data to arrest

24 some people when a simple visit might have

25 avoided it.

116

1 And I wish that maybe you should do

2 the same kind of research and work on studying

3 how many deer there are in an area.

4 But what's your thoughts on that? I

5 mean should the Game Commission not try to

6 prevent the killing of game that's possibly

7 questionable how it's brought into an area or

8 should they just lie back in stealthiness and,

9 hey, you're under arrest?

10 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think that

11 I would clarify that the Game Commission does

12 not have a hard policy that they would advise

13 the landowner or post an area first. They

14 may.

15 But we also certainly don't have any

16 policies that prohibit that.

17 There are scenarios where very often

18 the officers will post a particular area. If

19 they're -- if they're notified of it well

20 enough in advance of the season.

21 But very often there's times where

22 there is no indication of who the landowner

23 is. Who do they notify? And -- and --

24 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Well, in this

25 situation, they already knew who the landowner

117

1 was. They knew where every station was.

2 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: In this

3 situation they did, that is correct.

4 And as far as, you know, the

5 recommendation that maybe we'd be more

6 proactive and try to prevent those violations,

7 that point is well taken.

8 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Ahh. When you

9 sat there and listened to that portion of the

10 testimony, as someone that works for the Game

11 Commission, how did you feel?

12 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think

13 that, you know, I'm a little disappointed that

14 it was perhaps slanted slightly in one -- in

15 one vein because overall I think the officers

16 have exercised exceptional discretion.

17 And, you know, just as Mr. Marshall

18 indicated in his testimony, in some ways the

19 officers, if they wait until animals are

20 killed, they're criticized. If they don't

21 wait until animals are killed, then there's

22 said there was no violation of statute.

23 So I think the officers are really

24 trying to utilize their best judgment.

25 Obviously, if we could prevent a violation or

118

1 prevent animals from being taken, we would

2 prefer to do that. Sometimes that contact

3 isn't made.

4 REPRESENTATIVE SURRA: Thank you.

5 Just as a comment to the Committee, I

6 mean the more you listen to this, the problem

7 is in the discretion, I think, and it's

8 something that we have to deal with.

9 Thank you very much.

10 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

11 Denlinger.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Thank you,

13 Mr. Chairman.

14 Thank you for your testimony.

15 Mr. Palmer, as I was reading through,

16 following with you as you were testifying, I

17 think the most disturbing section, which for

18 the members' benefit is on Page 6, would be

19 these two sentences. The courts have clearly

20 identified that these statutes require a

21 fact-specific analysis in (sic) each case. We

22 believe that the courts are the appropriate

23 governmental entity to make this analysis.

24 And then you go on to detail the

25 number of cases that you have successfully

119

1 prosecuted, I guess, being 315 in '04/'05, 339

2 in '05/'06.

3 As someone who is concerned about the

4 direction of hunting in the state, I realize

5 that there are a lot of court situations where

6 a judge involved is not necessarily friendly

7 to the sport.

8 Does that not concern you that -- we

9 will call them anti-hunters sitting on benches

10 could not do serious damage to what we all

11 enjoy?

12 That -- that statement just seems

13 amazing to me that you view the courts as the

14 best place to resolve these issues.

15 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think

16 there's a two-part question there I'll try to

17 answer.

18 I have not had any scenarios

19 personally or that I'm aware of where specific

20 anti-hunting sentiments have been part of a

21 judicial decision-making that I'm aware of.

22 As far as the second part of it, I

23 think what I was trying to allude to is the

24 very fact that there are a variety of factors

25 involved with determining the elements of this

120

1 statute.

2 And, you know, just from the

3 testimony that you've heard on home range

4 size, what might be an enticement for a deer

5 with a home range of 800 acres, all right, may

6 not be an enticement for another animal

7 species; or, conversely, what might be a home

8 range or an enticement for a black bear, with

9 a male black bear having a home range of 20 to

10 25 square miles, those are -- those are what I

11 meant by the fact-specific analysis.

12 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Well, I

13 would think that even a statute revved to your

14 liking and clearly defined would be a better

15 way to go than having this thing decided in

16 court case after case after case. But that's

17 a statement of opinion.

18 I am also curious to know -- and --

19 and the concept or the issue of court costs

20 was raised I think by an earlier -- in an

21 earlier case here.

22 Do you have any idea how much the

23 Commission spent to prosecute 315 cases in

24 '04/'05 and how much it spent to prosecute 339

25 cases in 05/'06?

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1 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I appreciate

2 that question, because it also gives me an

3 opportunity to correct the statement that I

4 heard earlier.

5 And with all due respect,

6 Mr. Haluska, you are right, the Attorney

7 General's Office does represent the Commission

8 in matters of lawsuits or civil litigation

9 against the Commission or its employees.

10 But the cost of prosecution for a

11 criminal prosecution, what we're talking about

12 here, the first level of that prosecution is

13 actually the officers themselves where these

14 are summary offenses, they are brought in

15 front of a magisterial district judge, and in

16 most cases the officer does their own

17 prosecution. So there's not even an attorney

18 there prosecuting.

19 If -- if that conviction is appealed,

20 then it goes to the Court of Common Pleas and

21 then the county District Attorney's Office has

22 jurisdiction over the prosecution of that

23 case.

24 And, finally, to answer your

25 question, no, I have no financial data on what

122

1 those specific costs might be.

2 Our cost tracking is -- is for

3 general code categories. It would not be

4 specific on individual prosecutions.

5 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: I

6 appreciate many of the cases are resolved

7 initially at the district justice level.

8 I would appreciate, though, that as

9 you go back to the Game Commission if you

10 could provide to this Committee, to all

11 members here, the costs involved.

12 I realize maybe it's a limited number

13 of cases that have to be followed all the way

14 up through the process, but I -- I think that

15 would be beneficial information to this

16 Committee.

17 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: We'll try to

18 put that together for you, sir.

19 REPRESENTATIVE DENLINGER: Thank you.

20 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

21 Haluska.

22 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: Thank you,

23 Mr. Chairman.

24 I'm sorry if I didn't make that

25 clear, that it was defending lawsuits and most

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1 of the time what happens through these

2 prosecutions is where the lawsuits arise out

3 of obviously.

4 Just a general statement that, you

5 know, I've been here -- this is my, I think,

6 13th year on the Committee and we've gone

7 through this over and over and over again on

8 the Game Commission and their zealous

9 enforcement of, you know, the law, people

10 supposedly breaking the law.

11 You know, if there weren't any

12 hunters, there would be no need for a Game

13 Commission and, you know, the Game Commission

14 seems, as the conversation you had with

15 Representative Surra about going to these

16 clubs and informing them up-front, it just

17 seems like the Game Commission is antagonistic

18 against their own people that they serve.

19 Because without the hunters, there's

20 no need for the Game Commission. But at the

21 same time, they keep attacking the same people

22 that are keeping them in a job.

23 And it just boggles my mind that the

24 Game Commission is so antagonistic towards the

25 people that support them, and especially the

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1 hunting club members.

2 And it just -- you know, it just

3 makes me think that -- you know, why does the

4 Game Commission have this mindset? Why do

5 they go out there constantly and constantly

6 looking to persecute people?

7 And obviously these hunting clubs

8 probably do a lot of good, I would imagine.

9 I'm not personally familiar with either one of

10 them.

11 But, you know, it just boggles my

12 mind that you attack the people that support

13 you the most.

14 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: May I

15 respond?

16 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: Sure.

17 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I understand

18 that you as representatives often receive that

19 type of anecdotal information, and I can

20 understand your sentiments because of some of

21 that information that you receive.

22 But I think that probably one of the

23 best things that this Committee ever did was

24 force the Game Commission to have a complaint

25 tracking system. Because once we started that

125

1 tracking system we had a better handle on

2 trying to respond to some of those type of

3 allegations.

4 And just as a very general rule, we

5 had over an estimated 168,000 enforcement

6 contacts last year. And that doesn't include

7 service calls. That doesn't include nuisance

8 wildlife calls, any of those. 168,000

9 enforcement calls.

10 That averages out to a little bit

11 over 1200 enforcement contacts per district.

12 And out of that we had over 7500 citations

13 that were issued.

14 But to show that we're not being

15 overzealous, look at the rest of the

16 statistics. We issued over 9,000 warnings out

17 of those contacts as well.

18 We have routinely, every year, for

19 the last five years, issued more warnings than

20 citations. And out of those 168,000

21 enforcement contacts, take a look at what our

22 complaint ratio actually is. It's less than

23 one percent.

24 I think that most enforcement

25 entities -- and the Game Commission is a

126

1 wildlife management agency first, enforcement

2 is only part of that, and it's geared toward

3 wildlife protection -- but any enforcement is

4 inherently fraught with some level of

5 controversy.

6 But overall -- and I completely

7 understand your sentiments, Representative,

8 because I understand that's what you hear from

9 your constituents from time to time, but I'm

10 trying to give you a statewide perspective of

11 the overall wildlife protection efforts.

12 And, very honestly, I want to take

13 the opportunity to say I'm extremely proud of

14 the men and women out there that are enforcing

15 this game code because I think they're doing a

16 tremendous job.

17 Thank you.

18 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Cal?

19 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Thank you,

20 Mr. Chairman.

21 I just need to follow up on one

22 comment made by Representative Haluska. And

23 I -- I really hope you misspoke.

24 You said without hunters there would

25 be no reason for the Game Commission. And I

127

1 would agree that without hunters our job would

2 certainly be much, much more difficult.

3 But we are not the Pennsylvania

4 hunting commission. This is just one of my

5 personal pet peeves, and I fight this battle

6 every day with -- with the press, with members

7 of the public, with our board, with -- with

8 our employees. We are not the Pennsylvania

9 deer commission.

10 We're the Pennsylvania Game

11 Commission. Game defined very broadly as

12 birds and mammals, wild birds and mammals

13 within the Commonwealth.

14 We certainly treasure our hunting

15 heritage, and I think it's something we need

16 to be very, very proud of and do everything we

17 can to support.

18 But we have a very broad mission, a

19 mission that you've given us. The duty to

20 protect the wildlife, the wild birds and

21 mammals of this Commonwealth and the habitats

22 on which they depend.

23 That is our mission.

24 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: And -- and

25 why I said that basically was if it wasn't for

128

1 the Robertson-Pitman fund, if it wasn't for

2 the hunters licensing funds, you really

3 wouldn't have a whole lot of money in the Game

4 Commission to do what you do today.

5 I don't know what the percentage is,

6 but I'm sure it's a rather large percentage of

7 what you get, other than your timber, gas, oil

8 income that you get off of the property that

9 you own that actually, you know, funds the

10 Game Commission and actually, you know, allows

11 you to be a functionable agency, 700-some-odd

12 employees.

13 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Absolutely. And

14 that's absolutely true. And we'd be asking

15 the legislature for alternative ways to fund,

16 certainly, wildlife conservation within the

17 Commonwealth.

18 So hunters do pay the bills, that's

19 true. That is true. But, again, our focus is

20 on the resource and the service we can

21 provide.

22 And hunters do provide a tremendous

23 service to the people of this Commonwealth by

24 helping us manage and control wildlife

25 populations and the impact that they have on

129

1 us individually as well as our communities.

2 REPRESENTATIVE HALUSKA: Well, I look

3 at that as a restaurateur, it's my customers

4 who would be my basis, you know, why I'm

5 there. And basically hunters are your basis

6 of why you're there.

7 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Absolutely. Yes.

8 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay.

9 Representative Keller.

10 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Thank you,

11 Mr. Chairman.

12 Thank you for your testimony, and I

13 appreciate you taking the time to enlighten us

14 with your thoughts.

15 I want to get to something that deals

16 with baiting complaints. You made testimony

17 here that you had 359 complaints last year.

18 That number means nothing to me. I

19 need to know whether that complaint increased,

20 decreased, where it came from, where the

21 complaints came from, was there specific

22 areas, and was that a high number of

23 complaints that the Game Commission received

24 or is it a low number of complaints that

25 the -- baiting as one complaint, maybe

130

1 nuisance habitat or nuisance animals in the

2 area, or wildlife, that might have been a

3 higher.

4 That 350 number means absolutely

5 nothing, and I'm trying to get a handle on

6 exactly what you were trying to portray to us

7 on this -- this committee.

8 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think the

9 number that you're referring to was 339

10 prosecutions in the last fiscal year?

11 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: No. It was

12 complaints. You said complaints on baiting

13 specifically.

14 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Well, if I

15 did, then I misspoke. My intent was to say

16 339 prosecutions.

17 Now, this represents an increase in

18 the complaints. The prosecutions have

19 increased as the additional complaints that we

20 receive and then ultimately have to

21 investigate go with them.

22 The analysis there is looking at the

23 bar graph that over the last three years we

24 have had more prosecutions and -- primarily

25 resulting from more complaint of baiting.

131

1 The -- can I give you an exact

2 number? Not at this time. But what I can

3 tell you is, is that very rarely do the

4 wildlife conservation officers find these

5 sites themselves. It's someone else calling

6 us and letting us know that a particular area

7 is affected when they were out doing whatever

8 it was they were doing.

9 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Are you done?

10 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: You really

11 didn't answer what I'm trying to get here.

12 You are talking about prosecution.

13 Is it prosecution of baiting incidents alone

14 or incidents in general? That's -- that's

15 what I'm trying to -- trying to get a handle

16 around.

17 You know, and is it a -- is it an

18 over -- abounding amount versus other

19 complaints? And --

20 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I

21 understand.

22 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: And I don't

23 expect you to have those numbers on hand. I'm

24 asking if you could provide us with those

25 numbers so we can put it in relationship to,

132

1 you know, prosecutions, prosecutions of what,

2 was it solely baiting, the prosecutions you're

3 talking about, or is it, you know, other

4 issues in general?

5 That's what I'm trying to -- you

6 know, because this basically comes down to the

7 bottom line of whether or not we should

8 enforce or how we should enforce the baiting

9 issue. That's really at the genesis of this

10 whole discussion.

11 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think I

12 understand your question a little bit better

13 right now. And, again, detailed numbers I

14 don't have readily available.

15 As I said, we issued over 7200

16 citations. The 339 number would have been a

17 percentage of that. As far as where they --

18 where that particular violation would rank in

19 frequency for overall violations, I would say

20 that it is probably in the top 15 of the

21 violations. But I can't give you an exact

22 ranking of where. We can follow up.

23 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Would the

24 department --

25 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Sure.

133

1 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: -- please do

2 that or the Committee? I think it would be

3 important for us, Mr. Chairman, upon your --

4 so thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN STABACK: You'll see that we

6 all get copies of this or at least we will and

7 then we'll distribute it?

8 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Yes,

9 Mr. Chairman.

10 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Are you

11 okay?

12 REPRESENTATIVE KELLER: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

14 Goodman.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: Thank you,

16 Mr. Chairman. Mine is just a point of clarity

17 here, refers back to your testimony.

18 Your testimony previously said there

19 are 25 states that currently allow baiting and

20 then other testimony we heard today there are

21 dozens of southeastern counties in

22 Pennsylvania that currently allow baiting.

23 Okay. Well, when I go to your

24 testimony, it says Pennsylvania has

25 longstanding hunting ethic that baiting

134

1 violates the principles of fair chase, an

2 ethic important enough to be codified by the

3 statute.

4 You later go on to say baiting

5 violates the principles of fair chase that

6 have been part of Pennsylvania's hunting

7 heritage for over a hundred years.

8 If hunting over bait is unethical,

9 why do you currently allow it in the

10 southeastern part of the state?

11 I know you're going to say it brings

12 the deer in the area and you get a better

13 shot, blah, blah. But think about that.

14 Isn't that an oxymoron? It states it's

15 unethical for people to bait in the southwest

16 or northeast or anywhere else, but it's okay

17 to do it in the southeast.

18 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I don't

19 think so and let me explain why. That area is

20 actually only about five counties, I believe.

21 Not as many as was indicated.

22 And that program is being done as a

23 needed control measure in that area. That is

24 a method of deer control. The Commission is

25 simply trying to utilize hunters to be part of

135

1 that process.

2 And the reason that baiting was

3 allowed in that area, and if you refer to the

4 Commission meeting minutes when this was

5 discussed in detail at the Commission

6 meetings, it clearly indicates that there was

7 never any intent to have that expanded to

8 anywhere else in the state and it also clearly

9 indicates that they were very cautious in

10 making certain everyone understood that was

11 being done as a control measure.

12 It's a control measure that allows us

13 to utilize hunters to help with a problem

14 situation in a limited area of the state.

15 REPRESENTATIVE GOODMAN: Okay. But a

16 lot of my -- when I'm sitting here listening

17 to the statement from both sides, I have to

18 say I agree with Representative Surra, I think

19 a lot of this could have been avoided if the

20 Game Commission would have been prudent in the

21 way they handled this right from the

22 beginning.

23 And I do also believe that it's all

24 about enforcement anymore with the Game

25 Commission. I've been in this building for 17

136

1 years and the only time you really seem to get

2 their attention is if you're talking about

3 something with law enforcement. And we ask

4 you about Sunday hunting, and we don't have a

5 stand on Sunday hunting. We ask you about

6 crossbows. We don't have a stand on

7 crossbows. You ask me something about

8 enforcement, I can see the enforcement. The

9 enforcement does seem to be the tail that wags

10 the game enforcement, and this is the kind of

11 thing that bothers me when I hear testimony

12 presented in front of this Committee about the

13 amount of money, hunters' dollars being spent

14 in court doing these things, the amount of

15 time and effort that have gone into some

16 things like this, when all of this could have

17 been avoided if the Game Commission just would

18 have used common sense and good judgment in my

19 opinion.

20 Now, you're the one that has to sit

21 here and listen to this, and you're not the

22 one that did the infringement, and I know you

23 have a great deal of pride of the people with

24 you, but there's not a meeting that goes by

25 that I don't walk out of here scratching my

137

1 head wondering what's going on and it has to

2 do with issues similar to this.

3 When I look at some of these numbers,

4 and I'm a understanding guy, 339, the

5 prosecutions, the timing of this seems to me

6 to be -- the number of prosecutions have

7 steadily gone up with regards to baiting since

8 2000, which just so happens to be the same

9 time that you increased your antlers'

10 allocation.

11 So, on the one hand, you're telling

12 us we have deer out there eating us out of the

13 house and home, and we have organizations that

14 are trying to increase their habitat and put

15 food on the ground to help these deer, to keep

16 them on their land, and you're prosecuting

17 them for it.

18 On the other hand, you're telling us

19 the deer are eating us out of the house and

20 home. We need to knock down the deer-carrying

21 capacity. On the other hand, the Game

22 Commission is going out and prosecuting people

23 who are trying to improve their land in a way

24 to keep the deer on their property where

25 traditional farming methods are not available

138

1 to them.

2 I hunt every year in Ohio. I started

3 three years ago. First year I went out there

4 they had the stands over baits. I wasn't

5 comfortable with that. I'm a typical

6 Pennsylvanian. I thought it was sort of like

7 cheating.

8 I've been going there three years.

9 Seen some of the biggest deer in my life.

10 Haven't gotten one yet.

11 In the last two years I've been

12 successful in Pennsylvania with two very nice

13 deer.

14 My point is, I don't think it's

15 cheating, number one, but I'm not comfortable

16 with it, but that's my own personal.

17 We have organizations, hunting clubs,

18 that are trying to sustain hunting in this

19 Commonwealth and it just seems to me that the

20 Game Commission in these two cases went out of

21 their way to -- to prosecute something that

22 could have been very easily handled with a

23 simple conversation, a simple common

24 courtesy. And what, you know, what do you

25 say? If we would have done it before the

139

1 season, we would have been wrong. If we would

2 have done it after the season, we would have

3 been wrong.

4 I think if you just would have went

5 to those hunters and explained your side of

6 the story to them, this whole thing would have

7 been avoided.

8 The last thing I'd just like to say,

9 I never seem to get what your opinion is.

10 We're talking about a House Bill now. Every

11 other committee I sit on, when we're talking

12 about House Bill 1, 2, 3, whoever testifies in

13 front of us specifically says this is what we

14 can do to make this bill better.

15 The Game Commission never does that.

16 They just come in and say no. The current law

17 is fine. Anyone who reads, no magistrate or

18 judge can read this and come away with a clear

19 understanding.

20 Can the Game Commission, as this bill

21 moves forward, put together their opinion on

22 how current legislation should be drafted?

23 We do have to do something about

24 this. Baiting is not going to go away. We

25 have to address this issue. What can we do in

140

1 your opinion to make this a better law?

2 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

3 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

4 Millard.

5 REPRESENTATIVE MILLARD: Thank you,

6 Mr. Chairman.

7 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

8 A lot of the questions and concerns

9 that I actually had have been asked, but I

10 think that through the course of this hearing

11 today we're talking about statistics and

12 everything, it really brings to the forefront

13 additional questions and I too have questions

14 concerning the 339 citations that were issued

15 in fiscal year '05/'06.

16 And the additional questions I have

17 on that would simply be, how many of them --

18 you gave us a percentage how many went to

19 trial -- how many of those trials were in

20 favor of the Game Commission? Were more

21 citations issued in one area of the state

22 compared to the -- to another? Were more

23 citations issued by one or two or three

24 wildlife conservation officers than others?

25 And, you know, is this a situation

141

1 where in some of these instances where the

2 citations were issued that might have -- might

3 have involved out-of-state hunters that just

4 paid the fine, left the state, like getting a

5 speeding ticket in Indiana and if you're in

6 Pennsylvania you don't want to go back and

7 fight the ticket? Easier to pay it and walk

8 away from it.

9 So, you know, when answers are

10 arrived at those types of questions and we

11 achieve other statistics through that, I think

12 we really have to ask ourselves at the end of

13 the day are we encouraging hunting in

14 Pennsylvania or are we discouraging it?

15 I know that we have to have rules and

16 regulations. We can't have people simply go

17 into the woods unknowledgeable about some of

18 the rules and regulations.

19 But I had a constituent not too long

20 ago that hadn't hunted in many years and said

21 to me that from the time he hunted and had a

22 booklet that he got with the rules and

23 regulations and now he wanted to take his

24 grandson hunting, applied for the license and

25 got the booklet, you know, it went from

142

1 something that fits in your pocket to

2 something that you almost have to carry a

3 holster to hold the booklet in.

4 Are we really achieving what we're

5 setting out to do?

6 And I think that this house bill that

7 we're looking at today is again reactionary.

8 It's because of the actions that were taken

9 unsuccessfully in the Lycoming County incident

10 that -- with, you know, baiting.

11 And the Chairman is right,

12 subchairmen and members are correct also that

13 we need to know the direction that you feel

14 that we should take on this as well. We're

15 all partners in this.

16 I really don't, I guess, have a

17 question for you, but I'm going to end with

18 something that I guess Representative Surra

19 got into, which is in the back of my mind.

20 I've got ten acres of ground. I got

21 a lot of fruit trees. I take the unwanted

22 produce from the fruit trees and I have an

23 area on my ground that I dump them. I don't

24 consider it garbage. It's degradable and I do

25 have wildlife come in, not just limited to

143

1 deer, but we use that as an example.

2 Now, if I'm going to be a kind

3 neighbor, I live in a development, at least on

4 the fringe of what you would call state game

5 land or farmland, but nevertheless I'm in a

6 development, so I have to be careful about

7 allowing people to hunt with any proximity to

8 the house and anything else.

9 But if I were a good neighbor and I

10 allowed somebody to come in and -- during

11 archery season and they were able to bag a

12 deer within 150 yards of where I dump the

13 apples and the pears and everything else,

14 would I unknowingly be subjecting that person

15 that has asked me permission to a fine?

16 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think in

17 the exact scenario that you're describing,

18 composting of leftover produce, and most

19 farming operations, is considered a normal

20 agricultural operation.

21 REPRESENTATIVE MILLARD: Even though

22 I'm not a farmer?

23 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Even though

24 you're not a full-time farmer. I think

25 composting of normal, residential agricultural

144

1 product, as you're talking about, and

2 obviously the Department of Agriculture is the

3 one that determines normal agricultural

4 practice, but in my opinion it would be.

5 REPRESENTATIVE MILLARD: Now, that's

6 your opinion. Now, would this also be the

7 wildlife conservation officer's -- would it be

8 subject to his opinion as well?

9 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think

10 that, with the explanation that you've

11 provided, I think that would be his opinion as

12 well.

13 REPRESENTATIVE MILLARD: Thank you.

14 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

15 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

16 Everett.

17 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you,

18 Mr. Chairman.

19 Thank you for your testimony today.

20 I just want to get back to the current

21 statute. So under the -- under the current

22 statute is it the Game Commission's position

23 that any supplemental feeding within 30 days

24 of hunting season is baiting?

25 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: In a

145

1 simplified answer, if that feeding -- just as

2 Director DuBrock explained, supplemental

3 feeding becomes baiting as soon as it's hunted

4 over.

5 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: So the

6 circles that you had drawn on your one chart

7 you showed, how big are those circles?

8 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Those were

9 1100-yard radius.

10 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Radius.

11 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: 1100-yard

12 radius. So anybody that would hunt within a

13 1100-yard radius of supplemental feeding

14 during hunting season is guilty of this

15 statute under its current form?

16 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Not

17 necessarily. Again, this goes back to the

18 fact of why officers need discretion. Not

19 every single case scenario of an 1100-yard

20 circle may be a legitimate enticement.

21 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: So how can I

22 tell any hunter or myself where I am safe to

23 hunt in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania right

24 now?

25 Until I'm arrested -- until I'm

146

1 arrested and told that I'm wrong?

2 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I believe

3 that anyone that has a supplemental feeding

4 program, the Game Commission has made an

5 extended effort previously. If you have a

6 question about whether your activity is legal,

7 we're happy to come out and look at that area

8 and give you that determination.

9 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: In the

10 northcentral region that is not true. Our

11 clubs have asked repeatedly to have the WCO's

12 come out and work with them and they've been

13 repeatedly denied that opportunity.

14 That's what used to happen in the

15 past. It's not happening now. Now they show

16 up with helicopters and SWAT teams and take

17 hunting camps down.

18 They never went to Black Wolf and

19 talked to them first. They never went to

20 Frozen Run. And now they're threatening not

21 just clubs but private owners that we're going

22 to shut you down.

23 And that's what this statute and --

24 and, again, how is any WCO going to establish

25 what the distances are going to be from

147

1 feeders? What criteria are they going to use?

2 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I think what

3 you have to look at is, again, go back to what

4 is the enticement. All right?

5 If you want to take the stringent

6 line and a very hard line of, we have to have

7 an automatic distance, then that distance

8 would be whatever home range those animals

9 could be impacted in.

10 I think that the discretion of the

11 officers is being very reasonable in

12 recognizing that that may not always be the

13 case.

14 But I think if you're looking for a

15 bright line, then that bright line would need

16 to be more conservative to ensure that all

17 those animals are potentially protected.

18 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: And, again,

19 there's no problem in habitat that was

20 supporting, to planting buckwheat, apple

21 orchards and leaving that crop there

22 throughout the hunting season and enticing as

23 many deer, bear, turkey, whatever other

24 species onto that property, that's -- that's

25 not a problem?

148

1 But if that is -- if it's on the

2 ground and put there, then that's the whole

3 night-and-day different situation. Is that

4 correct?

5 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: That's

6 correct. That's the difference between a

7 artificial and natural. That's the difference

8 between a artificial being put there and a

9 natural habitat management technique.

10 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you.

11 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

12 Perry.

13 REPRESENTATIVE PERRY: Thank you,

14 Mr. Chairman.

15 And thank you, directors. Again, a

16 few questions and I'm just going to go on a

17 stream of consciousness here.

18 I've been listening diligently

19 because I really don't have a dog in the

20 fight, so to speak. I don't have a club that

21 has been violated that I represent.

22 But I'm trying to make an informed

23 decision so I kind of saved my questions until

24 I heard both sides.

25 I got to tell you, you haven't made

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1 the case for me about the difference between

2 the feeders and the feed plots. I do some

3 flying, quite honestly, all over the state of

4 Pennsylvania and particularly over the feed

5 plots in the northern gap and I see the

6 feeders and food plots.

7 The only statement that you made that

8 made sense, quite honestly -- and I'm looking

9 to what you have to offer to make me change my

10 opinion -- the stuff that's in the feeder that

11 sits there over time and molds and rots and

12 could present some hazard to the animals that

13 are going to eat that, but it literally could

14 do it while standing in the field, too, while

15 on the stalk. I'm going to need a little

16 clarification there.

17 And as far as commingling the animals

18 at the feed plots, I mean it doesn't take a

19 genius. We've all observed wildlife and the

20 bird by the feeder and the cat catches it.

21 The birds leave.

22 And if the deer feed at the plot when

23 the bear show up, they're just wandering

24 through, the deer are going to hang out to see

25 what happens next? They're not going to hang

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1 out. They know what happens next.

2 I'm not sure the feeder is any

3 different than the plot. I need some help

4 there.

5 I, too, am concerned about the WCO

6 situation. To me, if the folks laid in wait,

7 as alleged, if that's not true, I need to

8 know, for the folks that are violating the

9 statute, to me it's tantamount to knowing

10 someone is going to be murdered and being more

11 intent on the murderer than the victim. If

12 they knew it was going to happen, wouldn't it

13 be better to err on the side of the people

14 there?

15 To me, if I show up to work a hundred

16 times in the course of my employment early or

17 on time, that's great. But all it takes is

18 one time for -- to show up late and my boss

19 has a question of whether I'm timely.

20 And so to me, to protect your side of

21 the story, your industry, so to speak, you

22 would want to err on the side of caution

23 there. I mean I understand you're walking a

24 fine line and I understand the delicate

25 balance of protecting wildlife and then

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1 serving the hunters and the sportsmen; but if

2 you're going to err on one side or the other,

3 it's got to be on the people. You don't

4 prosecute people without absolutely knowing.

5 You have to know that there is no question.

6 And so that concerns me greatly and

7 I'll tell you I just had a run-in, very minor,

8 with the WCO. I used to have some turkeys

9 down at my folks place. There was a pen.

10 Quite honestly, there was a pen, usually open,

11 except at night because we had to keep the

12 critters out. So we had regular institutional

13 white birds in there, some browns, bronze,

14 reds, whatever. They got some wild turkeys in

15 with them. The WCO, you can't have wild

16 turkeys. Now, the pen is open. You can't

17 have a wild turkey in the pen. It's not very

18 wild if it's in the pen itself. I'm standing

19 right here. It's in the pen.

20 That's what I'm talking about. To

21 me, your goal -- now that goes to your

22 policies and procedures and I don't see you

23 folks, quite honestly, going the extra mile to

24 prove to us your policies and I understand

25 you're proud of your folks, but don't your

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1 policies kind of advocate -- or ask them if

2 you're going to err, err on the side of

3 caution, err on the side of the sportsmen.

4 I'm wondering about the cost of

5 prosecution as well. And that is edification

6 for me.

7 Where does the fine money go?

8 Because if you have a direct fiduciary

9 interest in prosecuting and you have no

10 liability, so to speak, in the cost of the

11 thing, to me that's -- that's not a good

12 thing.

13 And, you know, telling me that the

14 WCO has to show up in the courts, you know, a

15 day's pay is a day's pay. Let's face it. It

16 counts whether he's out on the water or in

17 court, but the end of the day he's paid and to

18 me that worries me.

19 And, finally, you got to tell me, the

20 Game Commission, if you want to show some

21 leadership, because you want us to show some

22 leadership, and I'd like to see you be able to

23 err on the side of discretion, if it's shown

24 that you are using discretion, but you need to

25 show some leadership here and tell us where --

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1 what's -- what's best and where you stand on

2 this bill and how to make things better

3 because obviously there's a problem or we

4 wouldn't be spending our time sitting here.

5 I know I'm going on a rant, but I

6 appreciate your time.

7 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I'll let

8 Director DuBrock answer your question. I just

9 want to know your point is well taken, as well

10 as Representative Haluska's and Representative

11 Surra's, and I'd say we do need to make some

12 efforts to be more proactive.

13 As far as policies and procedures and

14 direction to our officers, I just want to make

15 it clear, because I've heard that come up a

16 couple times today.

17 We do specifically direct enforcement

18 effort. Right now we have well over 50

19 standard operating procedures where we provide

20 our officers guidance. So I just want to

21 clarify that point.

22 It's not like they're not receiving

23 guidance in any of this. They receive annual

24 updates, annual updates. They receive annual

25 training on operating procedures. As issues

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1 come up, we're more than willing to provide

2 them guidance.

3 I'll let Cal answer the questions you

4 have on the food plot.

5 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: I thought --

6 frankly I thought most of your questions and

7 comments dealt with law enforcement, but the

8 question concerning feeders versus food plots,

9 I think the crux of that issue is the

10 difference -- the differences between them are

11 basically the animal response and the

12 magnitude of that response.

13 Again, there is a -- there is

14 literature out there. There are studies that

15 have been done showing the impact of feeding

16 as opposed to what one might consider a normal

17 agricultural practice and for examples, like

18 deer, the dominance behavior, the interactions

19 between animals are much different at a

20 feeding site as opposed to natural habitat or

21 agricultural practices.

22 The densities are higher. The

23 animals become much more selective in terms of

24 their feeding activity away from the feeder

25 but still in the general vicinity. And there

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1 is an impact to the habitat.

2 So it really relates principally to

3 the ability of that -- that artificial feeding

4 situation to attract numbers of animals at a

5 much higher level than one might see in a

6 practice that might be considered normal

7 habitat management practice.

8 And, quite frankly, as I pointed out,

9 the profession of wildlife management does not

10 consider supplemental feeding and baiting, if

11 you will, a normal habitat management

12 practice.

13 REPRESENTATIVE PERRY: Excuse me,

14 Mr. Chairman, if you'll indulge me. Do you

15 have that empirical data? Do you have

16 supplemental feeding equals this and a food

17 plot equals this? Or is it just conjecture?

18 Because right now your opinion is as

19 good as mine quite honestly.

20 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: We can provide you

21 with copies of scientific reports, studies

22 that have been published in the literature

23 relative to feeding and baiting and management

24 practices.

25 REPRESENTATIVE PERRY: Thank you.

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1 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

2 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Representative

3 Moul.

4 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you,

5 Mr. Chairman.

6 Cal, since you were the last person

7 to talk, I'll start with you, if you don't

8 mind.

9 I think, given the tone of the

10 Committee up here, and we are the guys that do

11 decide whether House Bill 251 goes forward or

12 not, given the tone, I think you understand

13 we're going to take this bill pretty

14 seriously. So we're not here to determine

15 whether your PowerPoint show legalizes deer

16 feeders or not because they're already legal.

17 So I want to ask you straight up, how

18 far?

19 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Well, I think as

20 part of our testimony we've said the effect,

21 for example, for deer and its distance will

22 vary by species, as an example. And that's

23 the conundrum for you and for us.

24 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: We got to pick

25 a number. How far?

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1 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: In my testimony I

2 said where I see the effects up to 1100 yards

3 that we see deer move and see deer feeding.

4 For bears that distance could be

5 three times that distance. For turkeys it

6 might be less, it might be more. I can't

7 really tell you relative to that species.

8 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Okay. So let's

9 try this dance. Each season then we want to

10 have a different distance as far as how far

11 we're going to hunt from that feeder to make

12 it legal? Because I think from the general

13 gist I'm getting from this Committee is that

14 we're going to say an arbitrary decision by

15 WCO is not good enough for us. We want

16 something defined.

17 So do we want to go in turkey season

18 it's this far? In deer season, it's this

19 far? You're talking about 1100 yards. It's

20 over half a mile away.

21 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: That is correct.

22 And, again, that is the difficulty in trying

23 to get your arms around this particular

24 issue. That's going to vary by topography and

25 seasonal food sources as well and the more

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1 natural food sources. So that's the conundrum

2 for you and for us in specifying a particular

3 distance.

4 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: I'm hoping that

5 with your biological expertise that you would

6 give us an arbitrary number rather than us

7 farmers and storekeepers and whatever we are

8 up here just pulling a number out of a hat.

9 How far? What number should we plug

10 into this bill? Or is Mr. Godshall's number

11 good at 150 yards? Because we got to define

12 how far that WCO is allowed to lay down and

13 wait.

14 How far?

15 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Again, that's a

16 decision we have to have among our staff, if

17 we were to give you a number, and that's a

18 decision our director will give you, that I

19 will not make today.

20 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Okay.

21 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: Again, I suggested

22 1100 yards based on empirical data for deer.

23 We've got overlapping seasons with turkey

24 season going on at the same time as deer

25 season that presents another dilemma for the

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1 particular model you discussed.

2 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: I'd much rather

3 work with you than just us on our own.

4 If you want to come back and sit down

5 and discuss what number to plug into

6 Mr. Godshall's bill, just let us know. I'd be

7 willing to take the morning. But I'd much

8 rather work with you.

9 DIRECTOR DUBROCK: We appreciate it.

10 We'd much rather work with the Committee than

11 be at loggerheads.

12 Again, we'll take that under

13 advisement and appreciate the counsel. We're

14 going to need to come up with a decision.

15 We're going to need to have a discussion of

16 that particular element.

17 But, again, we presented a number in

18 the testimony, which was 1100 yards, and I

19 would submit that seems less than acceptable

20 to some of the folks here today.

21 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: I think that's

22 a little unrealistic. Over half a mile, I

23 guess that would be -- I think that's

24 unrealistic.

25 I appreciate it. If you come up with

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1 a number, I'm sure we all would like to know

2 what your thoughts would be, what would be an

3 accurate number for his people to start

4 leveling fines from a feeder.

5 And, Mr. Palmer, this case of your

6 man being in the woods before daybreak and

7 springing up and arresting these guys, when I

8 got the nod from these gentlemen sitting back

9 here, obviously from that club, that your men

10 did know that club was in existence, did know

11 their practices, why didn't they go to those

12 guys? And is this the way you instruct your

13 WCO's to behave, is to just, you know, sneak

14 around in darkness when they know this club

15 by -- they know the guys?

16 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: The -- the

17 issue again becomes until the area is hunted

18 over, there is no violation. So understand

19 where we're at.

20 We can try to be proactive in certain

21 times and go in and say, look, you can't hunt

22 here. Well, we're not hunting there. It's

23 supplemental feeding. We can try and go in

24 and post it. You can't post it. We're not

25 hunting there. It's supplemental feeding.

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1 So, understand, you know, I agree and

2 I have acknowledged that we should be more

3 proactive, but also understand that sometimes

4 the only time that the violation is actually

5 occurring is once those people enter that

6 particular hunting area.

7 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: So if I'm

8 living next door to a cop and he knows my

9 vehicle is in violation and he sits down the

10 street and waits for me to back out of my

11 driveway and he pulls me over and writes me a

12 fine by the time I get to the end of the

13 street when he could have just said, hey,

14 neighbor, you know, your inspection is out.

15 Don't drive that till -- you know, get that

16 thing inspected or somebody is going to give

17 you a ticket.

18 Instead your guys, living right next

19 door to this club, working that area, decided

20 to be the cop that sat down at the end of the

21 street and waited for a chance to nab them.

22 I don't understand the mentality

23 there.

24 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: And, again,

25 as long as we're going to use traditional law

162

1 enforcement analogies, I think the one I would

2 make in response is it's legal to drink and

3 it's legal to drive but you can't do them

4 together.

5 It's legal to feed and it's legal to

6 hunt but you can't do them in the same area.

7 That's as simple of an analogy as I can make.

8 The officers, could they have said,

9 hey, this is a feeding area, you shouldn't

10 hunt here?

11 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Right.

12 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Yeah. They

13 could have.

14 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Why didn't

15 they? They're out there to help the hunters.

16 They're not out there to bust the hunters.

17 And if they knew the practice was

18 going on, why didn't they simply make a stop

19 and say, guys, you know what you're doing we

20 feel is illegal so let's work this out before

21 we get to this point where we have to arrest

22 you and waste our taxpayer dollars fighting

23 you in court.

24 If they spent 40 grand so far, how

25 much did we spend?

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1 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Again, I

2 don't have the numbers for you on that. As

3 far as the reason why they did not in this

4 particular case, I think there had been

5 efforts previously to try to inform these

6 clubs that their practices were not

7 acceptable.

8 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Had they ever

9 stopped to talk to you guys?

10 MEN IN AUDIENCE: No.

11 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Well, I'm

12 sorry. I just -- I just think that practice

13 stinks, and I'd like to see you change the

14 attitude of your officers to be more

15 proactive, as you say, and work with the

16 hunters, with some of these clubs. After all,

17 they're the ones supporting you guys.

18 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: Point well

19 taken.

20 REPRESENTATIVE MOUL: Thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Okay. Rich, I

22 have one wrap-up question for you.

23 In your testimony you highlighted

24 several court cases that seem to imply the

25 current statute is not at all vague and it's

164

1 not in need of clarification.

2 The cases that you were alluding to

3 were all in the 1980's. Could you discuss

4 briefly a recent court case in January of 2007

5 where Judge Gray pleaded with the Game

6 Commission and to sportsmen across the

7 Commonwealth, that the General Assembly, in

8 fact, get involved in this issue and clarify

9 the issue, clarify fully the issue the way he

10 put it? Can you comment on that briefly?

11 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I can

12 comment briefly. I don't have a lot of detail

13 on the January 2007 case other than the fact

14 that the judge also clearly stated that he

15 wasn't setting a precedent. This was not a

16 reported opinion.

17 All right. The judge very well may

18 have made those comments. I don't have any

19 reason to believe that he didn't. But the

20 judge also made clear in that case that he

21 wasn't going to set a precedent.

22 And the cases that I referenced, the

23 appellate cases, the Commonwealth appellate

24 court, the Commonwealth Court case on

25 Sellinger was actually from 2000. That is the

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1 most recent appellate decision that we have on

2 the issue from the Commonwealth Court.

3 The federal case, U.S. versus

4 Chandler was a 1985 case. And they're

5 referenced because all of these appellate

6 court cases that have evaluated this issue

7 have consistently said there are so many

8 variables involved here, it is extremely

9 difficult to send this to a specific

10 legislative formula. Deer are different from

11 bear. Bear are different from turkey.

12 And I think that's the gist of what

13 those courts were trying to say.

14 I hope I answered your question,

15 Mr. Chairman.

16 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Well, you did in

17 part. But I still think it's going to be

18 necessary for the Game Commission, and perhaps

19 members of this Committee, to get together, to

20 get together to try to find a reasonable

21 solution to the baiting problem.

22 This has been plaguing us for a long

23 time. I don't see a way, a end in the near

24 future.

25 So, again, I would extend that offer

166

1 to you and people within your bureau to sit

2 down and see if we can find a reasonable

3 solution to the problem itself.

4 With that being said, yes, I'd like

5 to recognize Representative Godshall for a

6 closing statement.

7 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: I just have

8 a couple comments based on what we did here

9 today. And Neal, I hunted out in Ohio also

10 over bait two evenings and the only time the

11 deer came out they came out -- the only place

12 they came out was the other end of the field.

13 They weren't near the bait.

14 And, you know, I don't think -- I

15 think sometimes baiting is a little bit

16 overemphasized on the effectiveness.

17 But it comes down to the point of,

18 you know, in looking -- well, public

19 perception of fair chase, ethical, fair and

20 ethical, and I've heard this throughout this

21 testimony, taking game in an ethical manner

22 and so forth.

23 You know, these feeders that we've

24 been talking about are feeding areas that have

25 been here for decades. It's not new. They've

167

1 been here. And nobody is talking about taking

2 game in an unethical manner. I don't know

3 where that is. I don't know where it's coming

4 from.

5 And -- but at the same time, down in

6 my area, we can hunt over bait and I haven't

7 heard any person yet say this is un -- there's

8 been no public outcry that this is an

9 unethical manner of taking game.

10 We're not talking about baiting in

11 this case. We're talking about game feeding,

12 which is done on a year-round basis. It's

13 totally different, you know, from baiting and

14 putting a bait pile underneath the tree, which

15 we can do, and yet there's been no public

16 outcry, you know, even on that issue.

17 And I guess, you know, I do know that

18 the bird feeder issue, which, as Mr. Palmer

19 said, probably he wouldn't have done it, you

20 know, not knowing all the circumstances, but

21 unfortunately the other -- the officer in

22 Montgomery County felt otherwise. So that

23 bird feeder became a game feeder and the guy

24 said they were hunting over bait and the area

25 is closed down.

168

1 It's -- it's something that has to be

2 there in black and white to dictate so that

3 people know if they're breaking the law or if

4 they're not breaking the law.

5 And I looked in here at the

6 testimony. Each bait station has its zone of

7 influence, and not reading the whole thing,

8 but clearly indicates that the bait affects

9 the entire area, approximately 30,000 acres.

10 The little feeder in the back of my

11 house I'm positive doesn't affect 30,000

12 acres. I don't know how many, you know, but

13 it's -- it goes -- it's just beyond me.

14 And I guess -- I did want to ask one

15 question. On the part-timers, the game

16 wardens, the part-time, how are they educated

17 and so forth as to the game laws and what,

18 say, the laws of common sense and ethics and

19 so forth are?

20 ACTING DIRECTOR PALMER: I believe

21 what you're referring to is our deputy

22 wildlife conservation officers.

23 Our deputy wildlife conservation

24 officers do go through our training program

25 for initial training. Then they're on a

169

1 probationary status and an on-the-job training

2 scenario for over a year before they're given

3 permanent commissions.

4 And they also receive an in-service

5 training on a regular basis, annually both by

6 various instructors within the regions and

7 mandated district training meetings.

8 REPRESENTATIVE GODSHALL: I don't

9 know if this is where a lot of the problem

10 comes in. I don't know how these people are

11 rated, if it's on the number of citations they

12 write or whatever, but a lot of my -- a lot of

13 my complaints have come from the part-time

14 people, but at the same time their actions are

15 usually condoned by the officer in charge.

16 So really it makes them just about

17 as, let's say, guilty of lack of discretion as

18 the person that's issuing.

19 I had a citation at one time because

20 the deer weren't on the chart -- weren't on --

21 that the deer weren't on the roster. The

22 middle of the afternoon of the first day.

23 That's when we still had some deer in Potter

24 County. And I knew there was nothing in the

25 law that says that they had to be.

170

1 But that citation was issued and I --

2 I was also told that if I didn't pay it or the

3 guy, when he handed it to me, that if the

4 captain didn't pay it -- and it was the last

5 time I was captain -- that it would -- he'd

6 arrest everybody in the camp.

7 And I did inform the officer when I

8 went out that night that I really think there

9 was nothing in the law that says they had to

10 be on there at noon, by the middle of the

11 afternoon of the first day. But I was given a

12 citation by a deputy.

13 That's why I was wondering what, you

14 know, what training these people had.

15 And I have some closing,

16 Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate the

17 attendance of the Committee but I still go

18 back to the Erie situation with the young man

19 who was 16-years-old hunting out in the woods,

20 fined or given a citation for hunting too

21 close to a feeder, and his father going to the

22 Game Commission asking how far away he had to

23 be and the answer is that's up to me to decide

24 and then having the State Policeman trying to

25 find out the same, you know, and the answer is

171

1 don't ask me for any favors because you're not

2 getting any.

3 And, secondly, you know, as far as

4 how far up -- away you have to be, that's up

5 to me to decide. And then going back to his

6 comment, you know, with no speed limits I

7 could sit along the highway and arrest

8 everybody coming down the road for driving too

9 fast for conditions.

10 You know, it's something that the

11 people of Pennsylvania, I think, hunters of

12 Pennsylvania have a right to know whether --

13 they have a right to know whether they're

14 breaking the law or whether they're not

15 breaking the law when they go in the woods.

16 If they're a designated amount, a

17 distance from the feeding area, they know it's

18 up to them. Anything short of 150 yards out,

19 or whatever, they then know if they're

20 breaking the law.

21 It's not up to somebody's

22 discretion. And these feeding areas that we

23 had a problem up in the northcentral part, as

24 I said, it's been decades that these have been

25 in place. They weren't in violation last year

172

1 or the year before, again, in the -- in the

2 estimation of the enforcement officer but all

3 of a sudden the same area a new officer coming

4 in then they are in violation.

5 You know, this is a situation we find

6 ourselves in and then if you don't have --

7 this was brought out. I'm not going to bring

8 this up again in detail, but the 93 percent

9 and 96 percent success ratio, taking thousands

10 of dollars to defend ourselves, just isn't the

11 way things should be done for Pennsylvanians

12 or our constituents.

13 Thank you.

14 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Thank you,

15 Representative Godshall.

16 Chairman Rohrer.

17 REPRESENTATIVE ROHRER: Thank you,

18 Mr. Chairman.

19 Just a couple of concluding

20 comments. I know when I asked my first

21 question in the beginning, how could we come

22 back to this and define this or whatever to

23 address the issue, to me as I have further

24 listened to the discussion here today and then

25 knowledge of how it got to this point, to some

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1 extent I'll repeat what Representative

2 Godshall said. The parts that we have to deal

3 with here, most importantly, is an

4 understanding of the law that we have

5 passed -- well, this legislature has passed to

6 which you have to confine yourself.

7 If that law is of such a nature that

8 its subjective application makes our

9 law-abiding citizens breakers of law, then the

10 law has got to be changed. If the law is of

11 such a nature that it is subjectively

12 enforced, as in the southeastern area you can

13 do, the rest of the state you can't do, then

14 define that law with guidelines.

15 If there are guidelines, we need to

16 define those guidelines. If it's law, then it

17 needs to be consistently enforced throughout.

18 When it can't be consistently

19 enforced throughout, then it must be clarified

20 in law, which is what I was trying to say at

21 the beginning, to define it differently or --

22 or we very clearly change the level of offense

23 if someone accidentally breaks it perhaps or

24 something of that type.

25 But we cannot have ourselves in a

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1 position where we're having to represent the

2 rights and interests of our citizens and

3 having them, through no efforts accidentally

4 walk into a mystical perimeter that can change

5 at will and step into the category of

6 criminality.

7 We can't allow that. And I think

8 that's kind of at the heart. So I look at

9 that and I say is it law? Then it has to be

10 allowed everywhere.

11 If it's a tool, then it's a guideline

12 and, therefore, let's enforce it as a

13 guideline. Then let's not enforce it as law.

14 And the other aspect of it would be

15 just the concept of the selective

16 enforcement.

17 I mean there's been some innuendo

18 that this area of the state has -- has been

19 selectively enforced or targeted. All right.

20 For other reasons perhaps than what have been

21 represented here today.

22 If that's at all a true statement,

23 then that goes far beyond what we're talking

24 about here of what the law says, what it

25 means. And that's something that rises to a

175

1 far different level and is something that just

2 can't be happening either.

3 But so from my perspective, as we're

4 having -- where we're going to take this

5 information and go from here, those are my

6 thoughts relative to directing what we should

7 be doing and what you all perhaps ought to be

8 thinking about fixing to it.

9 But certainly letting it go the way

10 it is any longer is not acceptable. And so

11 with that you have some stuff on your platter.

12 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Finally,

13 Representative Everett.

14 REPRESENTATIVE EVERETT: Thank you,

15 Mr. Chairman Staback.

16 I just want to thank both the

17 chairmen of the Committee and the Committee

18 members and the Game Commission for coming out

19 to discuss this today.

20 And this is a very important issue up

21 in the northern tier, and not just in Lycoming

22 County, and not just in 2 G and 3 B, but

23 across the region.

24 And on behalf of the Concerned

25 Sportsmen we'd like to invite the Committee,

176

1 the Commission, staff, Commission members, and

2 if we can get the Senate committee to come up

3 at the same time, I think that would be great,

4 and -- and see the topography and the kind of

5 private land we're talking about, the habitat

6 management that these folks are engaged in,

7 what the feeders look like, how the hunts are

8 conducted, so that everybody kind of is on --

9 not that you can find a level playing field up

10 where we're talking about, but so that we're

11 all on a level playing field on the

12 understanding.

13 And as we were talking about this

14 today, I thought maybe this is an issue that

15 needed to be dealt with in different WMU's in

16 different ways.

17 I mean it's a large state. It has

18 different topography, different deer density

19 in different parts of the state, and I think

20 we need to look at it outside the box and see

21 what we can do about this.

22 What makes sense down where

23 Representative Godshall lives doesn't make

24 sense up in the northern tier. So we just --

25 we need a solution. I think that's obvious.

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1 And -- and the sportsmen up there are

2 willing to work with the Committee and the

3 Commission and the legislature to find a

4 solution.

5 And the last thing I'd like to point

6 out is this does not just impact the folks

7 that live up in Lycoming County and those

8 hunting areas.

9 There are people that come from all

10 over the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, as

11 Representative Godshall knows, to hunt up

12 there. It impacts people over all the whole

13 Commonwealth.

14 It's hunting country and

15 unfortunately what's happening is we're not

16 getting the turnout of hunters anymore for a

17 number of reasons, but one of them is they're

18 not going to come up and get arrested and have

19 to spend $25,000 to defend themselves with

20 this kind of uncertainty.

21 There's communities up there that

22 thrive on hunting season and fishing season,

23 and this is a real detriment and real drawback

24 to those communities.

25 And so I really just want to thank

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1 everybody again today for -- for listening to

2 our issue and for participating and I

3 appreciate the time.

4 Thank you.

5 CHAIRMAN STABACK: Well, ladies and

6 gentlemen, that concludes the testimony and

7 the questions for this hearing.

8 I want to once again thank all of you

9 for being here, those that traveled any

10 distance to offer testimony, the Pennsylvania

11 Game Commission for the excellent PowerPoint

12 presentation.

13 The Committee has scheduled a second

14 hearing on House Bill 251 and related issues

15 on June 12th at 9:00 a.m. in Room 205 of the

16 Ryan Office Building.

17 After that the testimony will be --

18 that we heard today, and you're welcome to

19 listen on June 12th -- will be studied and

20 disseminated at that point in time.

21 The Committee will then make a

22 decision as to what direction we'll take

23 regarding the issue of supplemental feeding

24 and the language of House Bill 251.

25 With that being said this hearing is

179

1 now adjourned.

2 (The proceedings were concluded at

3 12:10 p.m.)

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2 I hereby certify that the proceedings

3 and evidence are contained fully and

4 accurately in the notes taken by me on the

5 within proceedings and that this is a correct

6 transcript of the same.

9 ______Brenda S. Hamilton, RPR 10 Reporter - Notary Public