But the Village Idiot should also be able to figure out that when hunters are harvesting fewer and fewer and the numbers continue to decline it is time to suspect something other then hunting is causing the reduction.
But even most Village idiots would realize that when high antlerless harvests reduce the over wintering deer density,fewer fawns will be born and even though hunters harvest fewer doe , that harvest may be enough to reduce the herd OWDD even more.
The solution to the problem most certainly would not to harvest fewer deer in an area where the deer herd is already naturally reducing its own numbers. If the deer herd is reducing its own numbers of it nature is reducing the herd through natural causes it obviously because the area can’t support more deer under the present natural conditions.
As yet you have failed to provide any evidence or data that shows the deer herd is already reducing its own numbers. Nature only reduces deer numbers when non-hunting mortality exceeds recruitment and that is not happening in 2G or any other WMU.
Then explain why hunters can harvest three and four times as many does in the unit that makes up and surrounds the city of Pittsburgh for over fifteen years and the deer populations there can continue to increase if that isn’t a result of habitat that can sustain more deer.
The habitat in 2B can definitely support more deer than the habitat in 2G. But the PGC experts disagreed and claimed 2B could only support 10 DPSM while 2G could support 15 DPSM. Hunters can harvest 3 or 4 times the amount of doe as in 2G because there are 3-4 times as many OW doe,producing 3-4 times as many fawns. Furthermore, even with high antlerless allocations and high antlerless harvests the harvests in 2B did not exceed recruitment the the herd and the harvests continued to increase.
Explain why hunters can harvest two to four times as many does in the metropolitan units of 2A, 2B and 2D then they can in the big woods forested areas year after year for more then a decade if it isn’t habitat related and it isn't habitat that influences and controls the fawn birth and survival rates?
Maybe I have identified why you can't understand what is happening. You appear to be concentrating on fawn survival rather than on the effects of the harvests. Nature controls the number of fawns/doe that survive ,but the pGC controls the number of adult doe that survive hunting season and produce fawns the following year. Therefore , it is the PGC and hunters harvests that are reducing the herd in 2G ,rather than nature as you claim.