ORIGINAL: Cornelius08
"All the Game Commission really needs in order to greatly improve wildlife management is the adequate funding needed to have a full staff of people and to implement the best possible research and management objectives."
I disagree. The changes that need made to better the sport of hunting in our state wouldnt take one additional dime. Unless you are saying maybe if they get more fundingthey won't "lean" so hard on theadded money from far too many doe tags? I dont think they are planning on cutting the allocation anytime soon, added funding or not. Audubon wouldntstand for it.
Bluebird, great points made, there are NO STATES that use management strategies Pgc employs. The reasons are clear and dont really need pointed out to most.
"The fact is deer are managed based on a number of different criteria many of which are actually proved by the real deer that live in each management unit."
Then which criteria is it that necessitates herd reduction when human conflict is low, the herd and habitat are healthy? That condition exists in more than one wmu, yet they recieved severe reduction anyway. Its this statewide blanketcarpet bombing approach that most directly led it to be a miserably failed program, as has been proven by pgc's own data.
" That is where the Citizens Advisory Council comes into the deer management picture."
The cac is a very ineffectivejoke. People on it that have no business on it, hunters having very limited voice, and tiny minority stakeholders dictate that increase is a near impossibility in anywhere but nearly deer void areas. Legit suggestions arent accepted and some even vote against their own stakeholder groups!! ITs a joke and needs to be done away with. IF results are skewed, then we must "live" with itfor 5 years, until they can be once again skewed.
"The Game Commission is well on their way to having the best management of our lifetime."
Not hardly. Unless someone were born during the "alt era"or unlesschange is coming soon, thats not an accurate assessment.
My opinion is no deer= no funding.
All of your comments are so far off base they could only have come from someone who is completely clueless of even the most basic principles of nature or wildlife management.
First of all the herd and habitat are not healthy. Even though the deer herd indices indicate the deer herd is presently healthy the habitat is poor in many if not most of the northern tier traditional deer range areas. It is very likely that the hear is only showing good health indicators right now because we have had another couple of mild winter years that come with ideal environmental conditions. Lets just wait and see how the herd health indicators look following a couple of those harsh winter years and see if you can sing that same tune.
The second thing that proves you are clueless is that none of the northern tier is geared toward further herd reduction at his time and hasn’t been fro the past couple of years. Pretty much everything is in a state of just holding the current herd stable until the habitat improves enough to support more deer. Once the habitat will support more deer there will be more deer and hunters will not be able to over harvest them where they truly do have suitable habitat.
Those are among the points many of you either haven’t bothered to educate your selves on or simply choose to ignore because it will not fit into your misguided agenda.
Dick Bodenhorn