HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania. – More opportunities in more places await hunters across much of Pennsylvania this fall, thanks to additional state hunting areas participating in the Deer Management Assistance Program.
DMAP, as the program is commonly called, works like this: Hunters can obtain permits that allow them to harvest horned deer – one per tag – on the specific property or area for which the permit was issued.
The program has been around for years and is popular with hunters and landowners – both public and private – who want to achieve specific property and wildlife management goals. Last year was the first year DMAP was offered on state hunting lands. There were 22 enrollments.
This year, DMAP is deployed on 41 hunting areas in the Northwest, North Central, Northeast and Southeast, with a total of 7,000 tags available on 360,014 acres.
DMAP permits for state hunting areas and other public and private lands participating in the program will go on sale at 8 a.m. on Monday, August 12.
DMAP permits are available in addition to antlerless deer licences issued on a Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) basis, and this has real benefits for hunters, not least across the northern range.
Pennsylvania is divided into 22 WMUs. In three of them – 1B, 2G and 3A – antlerless licenses began at 8 a.m. on June 24 of this year. WMU 2G sold out by 5:48 a.m. the next day. WMU 1B and 3A sold out next, less than 10 days after licenses went on sale in the remaining 19 WMUs.
DMAP offers hunters who have not obtained a license to hunt antlerless animals in one of these three WMUs the opportunity to still hunt there.
Equally important, wherever implemented on state game lands, DMAP will help the Game Commission manage habitat for all species of wildlife in the face of overgrazing by deer.
Paul Weiss, chief of the Game Commission’s forestry division, said most forest management on state game lands is aimed at creating a desirable distribution of tree age classes, including early-successional forests, but deer limit the success of those efforts.
This year, for the first time in a long time, foresters across the state are installing deer-proof fences on state hunting lands around new logging, Weiss said, because otherwise excessive deer would gnaw away at all the young saplings, which would grow back so quickly and so vigorously that new forests cannot regenerate on their own.
“DMAP is an important aid for us because it targets hunting pressure in the areas where it is needed,” said Weiss. “It brings people who want to hunt and kill deer to areas that are actively managed, but where that management is not successful due to game pressure.”
Both Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), which manages state parks and forests, and the Allegheny National Forest use DMAP. They are two of the state’s three largest public landowners, along with the Game Commission. The state’s two largest private landowners, Collins Pine and Lyme Timber Co., also use DMAP.
All have been participating in DMAP for years, often on lands adjacent to state hunting areas. Registering these hunting areas with DMAP gives hunters the ability to better manage the lands funded with their license money.
The state hunting areas included in DMAP this year were, as in the past, selected after a thorough assessment. They are places where all other options for promoting successful forest regeneration have been exhausted.
DMAP tags for specific hunting areas can be used anywhere on that property. But Weiss said hunters can increase their chances of encountering deer by focusing on the locations where timber has been cut in recent years. These cuts provide deer with food in the form of woody branches and new growth, as well as opportunities to escape. Cuts made in the last five to 20 years are particularly good.
“If you find logging areas on a DMAP property, your chances of success should be good,” Weiss said.
An interactive, mobile-accessible map (Opens in a new window) showing the locations of wildland DMAP units is available at www.pgc.pa.gov. Clicking on a DMAP unit on the map will show how many tags are still available. When a unit is sold out, it will appear red instead of blue.
Hunting areas offering DMAP this season, their corresponding four-digit DMAP unit number and the counties in which they are located are:
Northwest Region
- SGL 24 (DMAP 5838) – Forest/Clarion
- SGL 29 (DMAP 5839) – Warren
- SGL 31 (DMAP 6714) – Jefferson County
- SGL 54 (DMAP 5840) – Jefferson
- SGL 74 (DMAP 5841) – Clarion/Jefferson
- SGL 86 (DMAP 5842) – Warren
- SGL 96 (DMAP 6718) – Venango County
- SGL 122 (DMAP 6719) – Crawford County
- SGL 143 (DMAP 5843) – Warren
- SGL 195 (DMAP 6720) – Jefferson County
- SGL 244 (DMAP 6721) – Jefferson County
- SGL 283 (DMAP 5844) – Clarion/Jefferson
North Central Region
- SGL 30 (DMAP 5824) – McKean
- SGL 34 (DMAP 5825) – Clearfield/Elk
- SGL 37 (DMAP 5826) – Tioga
- SGL 62 (DMAP 6753) – McKean County
- SGL 75 (DMAP 5827) – Lycoming
- SGL 78 (DMAP 5828) – Clearfield
- SGL 90 (DMAP 5829) – Clearfield
- SGL 94 (DMAP 5830) – Clearfield
- SGL 100 (DMAP 5831) – Center/Clearfield
- SGL 134 (DMAP 6773) – Lycoming/Sullivan
- SGL 331 (DMAP 6756) – Clearfield County
Northeast Region
- SGL 12 (DMAP 5890) – BradfordSGL 13 (DMAP 6210) – Sullivan/ColumbiaSGL 35 (DMAP 6833) – Susquehanna
- SGL 36 (DMAP 5891) – Bradford
- SGL 57 (DMAP 6209) – Wyoming/Alfalfa
- SGL 66 (DMAP 5892) – Sullivan/Wyoming
- SGL 70 (DMAP 6834) – Wayne/Susquehanna
- SGL 123 (DMAP 5893) – Bradford
- SGL 142 (DMAP 6829) – Bradford
- SGL 159 (DMAP 6835) – Wayne
- SGL 172 (DMAP 6830) – Bradford
- SGL 206 (DMAP 5894) – Alfalfa
- SGL 219 (DMAP 5895) – Bradford
- SGL 239 (DMAP 6831) – Bradford
- SGL 250 (DMAP 6832) – Bradford
- SGL 289 (DMAP 5896) – Bradford
Southeast Region
- SGL 168 (DMAP 7108) – Northampton/Carbon/Monroe
- SGL 217 (DMAP 7109) – Lehigh/Carbon/Schuylkill
Details about these properties, such as the total number of DMAP permits available and the number of permits still for sale, can be found at https://www.pgcapps.pa.gov/Harvest/DMAP. You can search for state hunting properties by region, county or WMU.
Hunters can purchase up to two DMAP permits per state hunting land unit beginning at 8 a.m. on the day the third round of antlerless licenses go on sale, which this year is August 12. Permits can be purchased any day thereafter as long as they are available.
DMAP permits cost $10.97 for Pennsylvania residents and $35.97 for nonresidents. They can be purchased at any licensing office or online at www.huntfish.pa.gov. Hunters must provide the DMAP unit number when purchasing a permit.
Of course, DMAP permits will again be offered on other public and private lands throughout the state. There are a number of DMAP units that apply to geographic areas, rather than specific properties, for which the Game Commission wishes to collect additional samples to test for chronic wasting disease (CWD).
These can all be purchased in the same way and at the same price.
On some of these other DMAP areas – those where landowners provide vouchers to hunters – deer hunters may purchase up to four DMAP permits.
All hunters who receive a DMAP tag must report whether or not they harvested a deer at www.huntfish.pa.gov or by mailing a stamped report card available in the Hunting & Trapping Digest.
