Let's agree on this point: Until such time as every licensed Pennsylvania hunter bags a deer each hunting season -- that would be one deer for every hunter -- they are not going to be satisfied that there are enough deer in the state for them to hunt.

That doesn't apply to every hunter, of course. There are plenty of hunters out there -- good hunters, too -- who don't necessarily consider it a bad hunting experience just because they haven't shot a deer. They're insulted at the very suggestion, in fact, that a deer should be handed to them on a silver platter every hunting season as some sort of entitlement.

I raise this issue again because it was announced last week that state lawmakers plan to more closely scrutinize the state's deer management program.

Why? Because hunters are complaining that the state's deer management program is causing a "drastic reduction" in the number of deer remaining on public hunting lands in the state.

Therefore, in the pursuit of "better information," the state thinks it owes it to sportsmen to conduct a comprehensive study on deer populations in the state.

Frankly, lawmakers would stand a much better chance of getting along with deer hunters if they'd simply point them to one obvious fact: There are just not as many deer today as there were yesterday, last year, 10 years ago or 40 years ago.

It's a fact of life. And there's a logical reason for it. So short of spending tons of money conducting an annual deer roundup in the state,

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as in the old days when ranchers rounded up their cattle each spring to determine how many they had, it might just be simpler to accept that deer hunting isn't what it used to be and never will be again.

Consider, for example, that there are exactly 44,816 square miles in this state. That's never going to change. And there are about 278 people living per square mile. That number has changed and will continue to change if population projections are correct.

In 2000, the federal census showed a population of 12,281,054 people living in Pennsylvania. By 2005, that number had grown to 12,426,603. That's a 1.2 percent increase in five years.

In 1990, the state's population was 11,881,643. In 1980, 11,863,895. In 1970, 11,793,909; and in 1960, 11,319,366.

So what I know, doing basic mathematics, is that the growth of population between, say, 1980 and 2005 has been 562,708 -- or almost 5 percent in 25 years.

In another 25 years, say the year 2030, we'll have half-a-million people more than we have today, or something close to that.

This state grows at the rate of about 20,000-25,000 people a year.

They've got to go somewhere. And that's more than likely going to be forests, woodlands, open spaces, pastures and farm
land that used to be the refuge of white-tailed deer and all sorts of other wild critters.

Well, the deer and critters have to go somewhere, too. And they're smart enough not to gather in groups on state hunting lands. When the guns start going off, they head for private land that's protected from hunting.

So all the studies, resolutions and deer counts in the world won't mean hunters will have more deer to shoot at.

It might be helpful to some to know the deer population, but it's probably more important to study human population numbers. Understand that, and you'll have a better understanding of why there are fewer deer to hunt in this state.

There are fewer deer out there because their natural habitat has been destroyed. More humans mean fewer deer.

So let's give the deer some credit for their survival instincts. With all the pressure deer face, it's a wonder there are any of them left at all.

Columns by Larry A. Hicks, Dispatch columnist, run Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. E-mail: lhicks@yorkdispatch.com.