The Pennsylvania Game Commission's controversial deer-management plan will be audited in a review overseen by the state House of Representatives' Budget and Finance Committee.

Yesterday, the House adopted a resolution sponsored by state Rep. David Levdansky (D-Allegheny/Washington) to authorize the audit. The committee will contract a yet-to-be-determined out-of-state deer specialist to conduct the audit of the white-tail deer-management plan.

Since 2001, the Game Commission has embraced a deer-management philosophy called "quality deer management." The plan seeks to determine deer population, health and sex ratios through qualitative analyses of habitat, head counts at deer processing centers, tallies from hunter-supplied report cards and other means. Deer herds are manipulated by the frequency and duration of doe hunting seasons.

Many Pennsylvania hunting organizations and rank-and-file hunters claim the plan has cut the state's deer population too much in some regions.

Levdansky said an independent audit of the plan will benefit all Pennsylvanians.

"Five years into the plan, we've dramatically changed deer management [in the state]," he said, in a phone interview yesterday.

"Do we need to stay the course? Do we need modifications and alterations of the plan? Are we regenerating the forests as the deer plan called for? All I have so far is a lot of questions. I think it's time we got some answers."

The Game Commission couldn't be reached for comment.

Levdansky, treasurer of the Budget and Finance Committee and member of the House Game and Fisheries Committee, said auditing the plan could help reconcile differences separating the Game Commission and many hunters.

"Both armies in this deer war are talking past each other," he said.

"With a big, diverse state as we have, maybe we could manage for different goals and objectives in different parts of the state."

Levdansky said Budget and Finance will pay for the audit, which will begin this year. The auditor's report will be due in 2009.