To the Editor:

At the turn of the millennium the PGC, DCNR and groups like QDMA (now NDA) told PA hunters that deer were responsible for nearly every forest woe and the way to fix those woes was to drastically reduce, to unhuntable numbers in some areas, the deer population. With deer eliminated, the understory would magically burst forth again; plants other than ferns would return to the forest floor; and all the forest would again be happy.

Many of us balked at the notion that deer were the sole cause of forest woes and we cringed at the number of deer they wanted eliminated. But we were...