How can a browse line be above the reach of the deer? If they can't reach the browse then they are not responsible for it's absence.

The deer will eat the same things they have been eating for ever. They will eat leaves ,forbes and grasses in the spring and summer and fatten up on hard and soft mast in the fall and then switch to browse and dead leaves and grasses in the winter. The deer have proven over and over again they have no problem finding enough food to be productive enough to increase the herd when the harvests don't exceed recruitment. The fact that breeding rates and productivity didn't increase as the herd in 2G was cut by over 50% , proves beyond a doubt that the habitat was not the factor limiting breeding rates and productivity.

You claim the herd in the mountains was declining before herd reduction began. So can you tell us when you think herd reduction began.