ORIGINAL: Crazy Horse RVN
Have you included DMAP figures in this listing?
The data I posted does not include DMAP harvests since they are not included in the calculated harvests.
It seems that the DMAP deer harvests are very insignificant in the big picture of deer harvests though.
During the 2004/2005 season there were only 34,135 DMAP permits across the entire state. Of those permits 7,946 hunters reported killing a deer and 19,874 hunters reported that they did not kill a deer. There were 6,315 hunters that didn’t file a report.
At that rate there were 0.76 permits per square mile and hunters reported harvesting an additional 0.18 deer per square mile. Even if you were to assume that all of those hunters that failed to report had actually killed a deer, which I am sure didn’t happen, it would only have increased the statewide harvest by an additional 0.32 deer harvested per square mile.
Even if you were to assume that all of the deer killed had come from units 2G and 2F, due to those areas having the most DMAP permits, it would only have only increased the antlerless deer harvest in those two units by 1.22 deer per square mile.
Therefore when you look at those facts in a logical and objective manner it is obvious that even with DMAP harvests included the 2G antlerless harvests have not been excessive when compared to past harvest history.
Perhaps it is time for hunters to face that fact that the environmental factors instead of high hunter harvests are what have been controlling the preseason deer populations in the northern tier areas of poor habitat the past few years.