PITTSBURGH — Some northern and south-central parts of the state will get fewer antlerless deer licenses, based on the Pennsylvania Game Commission's study of deer health, habitat health and population trends.

Buck season throughout the state will otherwise remain unchanged, but the commission reduced the overall number of antlerless licenses issues for does and bucks with antlers shorter than three inches to 863,000 from 879,000 last season.

Hunters may only kill one buck, but may apply for permits to shoot more than one antlerless deer.

For the first time, the commission studied habitat, the ability of a forest to replace itself when trees die or are harvested; deer health, based on doe embryos and fawn pregnancy rates; deer-human conflicts and recent population trends in determining how many antlerless licenses to issue in its 22 wildlife management areas.

Christopher Rosenberry, the commission's deer management section supervisor, said the findings largely echoed hunter concerns that deer numbers were down in some areas, particularly the northern part of the state.

"But rather than go on what people may have thought, or may have said, we actually had a measurement," he said Wednesday, a day after commissioners voted 6-2 for the plan. "And for our role and the science side, that's extremely important."

Whether there are too few or too many deer is a recurrent concern in Pennsylvania. Some hunters argue the herd has significantly declined in recent years — particularly in the northern part of the state — and some farmers and urban dwellers are concerned about overabundance.

Melody Zullinger, executive director of the Pennsylvania Federation of Sportsmen's Clubs, an umbrella group representing more than 100,000 sports clubs and individuals, said the federation was largely pleased with the commission's changes.

"We asked them to listen to the biologists and it appears they did that," she said.

"Some of the hunters wanted to go back to the old way of doing things, the three-day doe season," she said, but commission biologists wants the concurrent season to continue to compile data on which to base deer management decisions.

The commission several years ago switched from separate buck and antlerless seasons to a concurrent two-week season.

In the study, the commission found populations decreasing in management units covering all or parts of Bedford, Fulton, Franklin, Adams, York, Cumberland, Perry, Juniata, Snyder, Mifflin, Huntingdon and Blair counties in the south-central part of the state.

The commission reduced by 13,000 the number of antlerless licenses for the three management units covering those counties to stabilize or increase the population.

Populations also decreased in all or parts of Warren, McKean, Forest, Venango, Clarion, Jefferson, Clearfield, Elk, Cameron, Potter, Tioga, Lycoming, Clinton, Centre, Bradford, Wyoming, Lackawanna and Susquehanna counties in the northern part of the state.

The commission made its largest antlerless license decrease — from 29,000 to 19,000 — in the unit covering all or parts of Elk, Cameron, Clearfield, Centre, Clinton, Lycoming, Tioga and Potter counties. The commission cited poor forest habitat.

"If (a management unit) has poor deer health or poor habitat, at a minimum, we are looking to stabilize it," Rosenberry said.

Zullinger agreed.

"We've got to make sure we have a good habitation to maintain a good deer population. So, we may need a few years of lower deer harvest so habitat can come back," she said.

The commission found populations increasing in parts of Allegheny, Beaver, Butler, Butler, Washington and Westmoreland counties around Pittsburgh and in Erie and parts of Crawford, Warren and Venango counties.

The commission wants to decrease the population in the urbanized areas around Pittsburgh and in southeastern Pennsylvania.

However, the commission called only for 8,000 additional licenses in the area covering parts of Bucks, Montgomery, Northampton, Lehigh, Chester and Berks counties; hunters around Pittsburgh and Philadelphia did not buy all the antlerless licenses allocated in those areas last year, so the commission kept the numbers the same.