Five or six years ago, Marjorie Zerweck says, she could count 16 or 18 deer using the salt lick or eating the corn that she puts out in her backyard. Now, she says, there may be one or two.
``We don't have the deer we used to have,'' said Zerweck, who owns about seven acres in Middletown Township, Delaware County.
Those who have collided with a buck on the highway or whose shrubs have been munched by deer might challenge her assertion, but statistics bear her out.
After years of hand-wringing and heated debate by officials and residents over the proliferation of deer in the Philadelphia suburbs, both hunting totals and deer-density estimates provide strong evidence that the herd is being thinned out.
``We think we're making progress,'' said Bob Boyd, assistant director of wildlife management for the state Game Commission, whose job it is to create a proper balance between people and wildlife.
One big factor in the change, he said, is the commission's decision in 1995 to start selling an unlimited number of hunting licenses for antlerless deer in Philadelphia, Bucks, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery Counties, as well as in populous Allegheny County in the western part of the state.
All told in 1995, 76,158 antlerless-deer hunting licenses were issued in Philadelphia's four suburban counties, up 51 percent from the year before. As a result, 12,707 deer were killed in 1995, about a third more than in 1994.
``We're getting the harvest pressure up where it needs to be,'' Boyd said.
Chester County witnessed the biggest change. Double the number of licenses were issued in 1995, and the number of kills soared - from 3,630 to 6,003.
The impact has been dramatic. Chester County's estimated huntable-deer population after the 1995-96 hunting season was 13 deer per forested square mile, down from a high of 61 in 1988, according to a Game Commission report. The estimated density does not include state or county parklands where hunting is restricted or isn't allowed.
In Bucks County, antlerless-deer permits were up 32 percent from 1994 to 1995 and the deer kill was up 28 percent. Its huntable-deer density was estimated at 21, down from a high of 52 in 1988.
In Delaware County, the density figure was 20 after the 1995-96 hunting season, down from a high of 59 in 1992. The corresponding figure for Montgomery County was 15, down from a high of 34 in 1993.
