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The Pennsylvania Game Commission reported results from the 2021-22 deer seasons, which ended in January.
Hunters harvested an estimated 376,810 white-tailed deer. The statewide buck harvest was estimated at 145,320 and the antlerless harvest at 231,490.
That take, overall, is down about 13 percent compared to 2020-21, when hunters recorded the largest deer harvest in 16 years, harvesting an estimated 435,180 deer. It is, however, similar to the estimated statewide deer harvests during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.
Twenty-two percent of hunters took an antlered deer, he noted. That's right in line with the previous four-year average and better than in years past.
The harvest also points to how antlerless allocations - and not length of seasons - drive deer harvests. The 2021 firearms deer season featured two weeks of concurrent buck and doe hunting for the first time statewide in more than a decade, yet with the number of antlerless tags available down compared to the year before, the overall harvest was lower.
Of the deer taken by hunters, many of the bucks harvested were older. Sixty-two percent of antlered deer taken by hunters were 2.5 years old or older; only 38% percent were 1.5 years old.
That's an almost complete reversal of how things were even two decades ago. Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans credited that to how hunters have embraced antler restrictions, in place since 2002.
Meanwhile, 25% of antlerless tags issued resulted in a deer harvest this past season. That's right in line with previous years, too.
Among antlerless deer harvested, 69 percent were adult females, 16% button bucks and 15% doe fawns. All of those figures are consistent with long-term averages.
As in years past, bowhunters accounted for a little over one-third of the total deer harvest, taking 130,650 whitetails (68,580 bucks and 62,070 antlerless deer) with either bows or crossbows. The estimated muzzleloader harvest was 21,060 (1,020 bucks, 20,040 antlerless deer).