Why?? If unreal population numbers and COMPLETELY out of whack buck:doe ratio can produce tons of great bucks and supreme hunting out there then why not elsewhere??
I will give you 700,000 reasons why
Put NY population of hunters in Montana, now it's completely differnet herd to manage. A few more natural predators who are not as selective as hunters are also.
+ Hunters are tad bit more selective than NY or MI hunters. Like you pointed out, they are not shooting the first buck that comes by.
If NY went back to TDM, for sure the population would go up. TDM has proven it can and does that well
I am only guessing to[8D], that NY is a tad bit more populated than Montana, would people of NY put up with a larger herd? I do not know. I herd a great quote.
"Deer bioligist want hunters to kill deer, hunters want to see deer. These two groups will Continue to work against each other."
I don't know what the best answers is, I try to look for a happy medium. I think for MI getting herd numbers in check is the answer. I prefer DNR manangesthe herd, not respond to high number. I feel the response from our DNR have been to drastic. The herd NLP was just hit hard. Hunting in NLP has suffered for it.
After seeing the results of 4 MI QDM CO-OPS of 2000+ acres each I know where I want my area to go. I can tell you there are some long time TDM followers who have had their minds change, Uncle Trigger
. In March I am having a meeting to start a CO-OP in Southern MI, I am going to bring HNI a long for the ride.