While the Pennsylvania Game Commission prepares to take its Certified Hunter Program statewide to combat agricultural losses, some veteran farmers say the move is “too little, too late” to save their fields from a skyrocketing deer population.

The commission recently approved the expansion of the program, which was piloted last year in southwestern Pennsylvania. The initiative pairs vetted hunters with landowners to thin herds that the U.S. Department of Agriculture ranks among the most destructive to U.S. crops.

“They keep trying to do this program or that program, but if they really want to solve this problem, they need to get data on how many deer are actually out there,” said Fred Slezak, 71, who owns and operates Lone Maple Farm in New Alexandria. “They’re finally getting around to doing something, but I think it’s probably too little, too late.”

Slezak, now in his 50th year of farming, was part of the initial pilot. While he remains willing to work with the state, he represents a growing contingent of producers who feel the commission is addressing a known problem that has already reached a breaking point.

“We ended up certifying about 260 hunters, and in total we worked with about 60 landowners,” said Tyler Strohecker, landowner resources director for the program. “We also have a waitlist of about 1,500 hunters, and that’s without doing any marketing whatsoever.”

For hunters, the program provides an opportunity to access productive hunting grounds and harvest antlerless deer to help primarily farmers meet their deer-management goals. Landowners retain full control of their properties.

“We tried to design a program with both of them in mind,” Strohecker said. “The landowners love that they can open their land to vetted hunters who will be safe and responsible. And hunters appreciate gaining access to some of the most game-rich property in the state. They don’t have to go knocking on 30 doors to try and get permission and access for good hunting.”

Strohecker said the pilot program last year resulted in about 400 harvested deer.

The cost of damage

Crop damage from wildlife has grown in recent years, and Pennsylvania farmers face some of the nation’s highest losses directly tied to wildlife, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agri­culture.

In a study conducted by Penn State University in 1997, more than 1,000 surveyed farmers reported estimated damage among six key crops — corn grain, silage, alfalfa, soybeans, oats and wheat — at more than $70 million. Roughly 25% of those surveyed rated the level of wildlife damage as severe or very severe, with white-tailed deer as the top culprit for every crop except soybeans.

The intervening years do not seem to have produced a solution: In late 2025 and early 2026, state officials held three public town hall-style meetings in response to concerns and reports about increased deer damage to crops across the state.

On April 20 at his Mt. Pleasant Township farm, Joel Milowicki was in the process of putting up several thousand feet of 8-foot-high fencing to keep the deer out.

“The first couple years we were growing produce, it was alright,” said Milowicki, 42. “But as soon as the deer figured out what was going on up here, they started eating it.”

As a browsing animal, Milowicki said the deer’s eating habits cause more damage than they mean to.

“It would be one thing if they ate a whole ear of corn,” he said. “But they just bite the end off, and then it’s ruined. They take bites from a few more, and now those are all ruined.”

Pennsylvania is currently home to roughly 1.5 million deer, according to game commission estimates. That is about 32 deer per square mile, a far cry from the estimated eight to 10 per square mile that existed prior to the state’s colonization.

The game commission itself was established in the late 1800s in response to Pennsylvania residents nearly hunting the white-tailed deer population to extinction. Around the same time, its forests were nearly clear-cut to supply the burgeoning timber industry. As forests regenerated, much of their original composition was gone, and an exploding deer population also began taking its toll.

“The (early) game commission was super-successful in changing the ethos of Pennsylvania hunters, especially putting into place the ‘no does’ rule, and it took a long time for people to get over that once deer numbers really started to skyrocket,” said Roger Latham, an ecologist and conservation biologist with Continental Conservation in Rose Valley.

Latham’s father, also named Roger, published a study in the 1950s about how deer were destroying ecosystems and habitat for other species.

“My father was chief of research for the game commission at the time,” Latham said. “The commission could have changed its regulations, but they refused. He told them what needed to be done, and when they didn’t do it, he left to become the outdoors editor for the Pittsburgh Press.”

Both Milowicki and Slezak added that, even if they were to take advantage of all the programs the state makes available to cull nuisance deer, they still have no way to manage deer on adjacent property.

For Slezak, it’s a constant source of frustration. For Milowicki, it’s the reason he’s building the first of what will eventually be two massive fences to keep his crops from being destroyed.

A history of conflict

In the early 2000s, the commission charged Gary Alt with formulating a strategy to address the deer population. Up to that point, Alt had run a very successful program managing and boosting the state’s bear population. In 2002, on Alt’s recommendation, the commission put new regulations in place to protect yearling bucks and boost the harvest of does. Fewer does would also mean fewer fawns and less overall competition for food, allowing Pennsylvania’s woodlands to recover and grow more food, which in turn would produce a healthier overall deer population.

The plan had some very vocal opponents, and at one point during a statewide tour explaining them, Alt received death threats and began wearing a Kevlar vest for protection.

“Gary essentially left the state to protect himself and his family,” Latham said.

In 2005, a group of scientists and naturalists convened by Audubon Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Habitat Alliance, including Latham, looked at the effect the current deer population has had on the state’s forests.

“To the casual observer, the woods still look green, but they are much altered,” the study says. “In place of the diverse, multi-storied vegetation that was the norm, there are just a few species, either not preferred by deer or resilient to repeated browsing, for example, hay-scented and New York ferns, striped maple, American beech and several introduced, invasive species.”

“Once the few tolerant or resistant species spread, their shade makes it difficult for most other members of the native flora to regenerate even if deer numbers are later reduced,” the study concluded.

Essentially, Latham said, a massive overabundance of deer had browsed native plant species to a breaking point, and their absence allowed invasive species — most of which deer do not eat — to begin dominating the landscape, further reducing the state herd’s food supply and driving them toward easy pickings in farm fields.

Slezak said less steady rainfall in recent years has also exacerbated the problem for farmers.

“If there’s not enough for deer to browse in the woods, they start coming to farm fields and eating crops and doing real damage,” he said. “This problem, as I understand it, is more concentrated in our part of the state. It’s sad when a species takes over as much as the deer have.”

Building trust

Strohecker said that as the game commission looks to expand the Certified Hunter Program to the entire state, one of the goals is building trust with landowners like Slezak.

“When we sit down with a landowner, we create a flexible usage guide for their land,” Strohecker said. “If a landowner wants to allow additional harvests like turkey or goose, they can do that. Right now it’s focused mainly on deer, but we do allow for additional takes.”

Certified hunters will need to have held a hunting license in at least four of the past five years and pass a specialized course before being accepted into the program. Annual background checks will be required, and any applicant convicted of recent Game and Wildlife Code violations or other crimes will be ineligible for a permit. Certified hunters also will be required to report their deer harvests electronically within 24 hours, unless out of service.

Latham said he supports any tools to help farmers control deer damage.

“I’m totally sympathetic to farmers. I think the Certified Hunter Program is awesome,” he said. “It helps farmers who maybe aren’t as interested in hunting, and it lets skilled hunters give them a hand.”

Slezak said he’s willing to work with the game commission, but didn’t think they were doing enough to get the deer population in check.

“They don’t even know how many deer are really out there,” Slezak said. “Until you understand how big the problem is, how can you propose a real solution?”

More information about the program is available on the Certified Hunter Program page at Pa.gov/pgc.

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