ORIGINAL: yano
Your are correct at least about the political part, that's exactly why PA's AR/HR program was implemented simultaniously. AR was the carrot for HR; there weren't two seperate selling video's done for AR and HR.
Bottom line is here are the current results, of PA's joint AR/HR progam. I guess you must want Virginia to have similar results. Not only is their buck harvest down, but so is the number of general tags sold (which will translate into a future license increase).
Year total buck # of tagsSuccess/general tag
1998 = 181,449 / 1,071,205 ======== 16.9%
1999 = 194,368 / 1,033,315 ======== 18.8%
2000 = 203,221 / 1,038,486 ======== 19.5%
2001 = 203,247 / 1,047,820 ======== 19.3%
2002 = 165,416 / 1,017,154 ======== 16.2%
2003 = 142,270 / 1,018,248 ======== 13.9%
2004 = 124,410 / 1,013,866 ======== 12.2%
2005 = 120,500 / 964,158 ======== 12.4%
I know several successful farmers, but I don't know of any that ever got that way by killing off their prize bulls.
I could be wrong, but Iseem to recallthat AR in Pa was first implemented in 2002 or 2003. Idon't have a good handle on this date, because, although I hunt Pa every year, I shoot only does and/or mature bucks.One would logically expect the total buck kill to decrease with AR in effect.
Also, the general idea is not to kill off the "prize bulls". Deer are not barnyard animals, and anyone who has hunted extensively knows thatmature bucks are not that easy to kill. The idea is to perpetuate their genetics and allow time for these genetics to surface intheir progeny. But, it you want to use the cattle analogy, killing off young bucks is like your farmers sending their young bulls to slaughter before they have a chance to prove themselves.