ORIGINAL: bluebird2
That does not explain why the PGC experts disagree with your observations. Their survey plots are spread out over the entire WMU and their location is kept secret in order to prevent tampering.All of the plots have adequate sunlight, so if the plots aren't regenerating at 12 PS DPSM, then isn't the obvious solution to reduce the herd in 2G to 5 DPSM or less?
Boy what a load of bologna. Where did you get the idea the survey plots aren’t regenerating or improved from what they had been just a few years ago?
You are wrong, very wrong.
Even though the survey plots are still listed as poor the habitat in 2G is still much better then it was just few years ago. The habitat used to be horrible, from years of far too many deer, and now it is slightly better then that because the numbers have been lower for the past few years.
And no the deer herds don’t have to be taken down to 5 deer per square mile in order to continue having habitat improvement, so that isn’t the obvious solution as you suggested. Your comment was nothing more then pure nonsense posting in order to generate more misunderstanding and misinformation.
All that is required to continue having habitat improvement is holding the deer herd in check from becoming higher then what the long term habitat carrying capacity is. We have been marginally successful at that the past few years, even though the herd is presently on the increase. It will probably be decades yet before many areas of unit 2G will support many more deer then already exist there. In fact, if we were to have another couple of harsh winters like those we had a few years ago the winter grounds habitat most likely wouldn’t support the deer numbers we have in unit 2G right now or what we will have following this fall’s hunting season.
The plain and simple fact is that the fastest way to have more deer for the long term in unit 2G, or nearly any other unit, is by trying to keep fewer deer then the habitat can support. If you do that the habitat will recover and when it does the deer numbers will also increase to match the habitat and can also be sustained at the higher numbers as long as hunters continue to harvest about as many deer as they can.
What is also true is that if hunters don’t control the population we will have too many deer through the winter until the habitat declines. Then the deer numbers will decline to meet the reduced food supply. That is simply the way nature works and it has nothing to do with what you or anyone else wishes were true or different. That is what the deer and nature have already proved to us. It is time to listen to messages of the deer and nature instead of people that don’t understand much of anything about either deer or nature.
R.S.Bodenhorn