Didn’t you also notice that in Mississippi and Arkansas they harvest their bucks before the peek of their breeding season. That means that not all of their bucks were getting to contribute to the gene pool and indeed many of their best bucks had been harvested before ever breeding even once. That is not the case in Pennsylvania, where our season occurs after the rut and all adult bucks including the best and the worst of the even those 1 ½ year old have already had the chance to contribute to the gene pool before they are available for harvest.
If the results of the Koerth Study are valid and spikes have the same genetic potential as 4 pts, then the fact that Miss. harvests their buck before the rut would be irrelevant. Furthermore, in Miss. they carryover at least 70% of their 1.5 buck, so there are plenty of 1.5 bucks passing on their genes. Also, in Miss. they carry over around 50% of their 2.5 buck ,so if the theory of dominant breeding works, the 2.6+ buck will be doing most of the breeding.
Furthermore, what measures of other possible contributing factors, such as other environmental factor influence, having on the antler development either before or after antler restrictions, did either of those state evaluate. If they didn’t evaluate the other possible influencing factors then they simply don’t know what caused any change in the antler development of their bucks.
The decrease in rack sizes was observed across the entire state over a 12 yr. period, so you are simply trying to induce other variables to muddy the waters since you have nothing to refute the facts.
The simple fact is that the best genealogists and deer researchers in the Nation clear say that the affects of antler restrictions need more study but to date they find nothing that indicates any adverse affects to the genetics of wild deer populations where the harvest occurs after the peek of the breeding season as occurs in Pennsylvania
While that may be true, their are no studies based on genetics that prove ARs have no negative effect on the gene pool. As yet, I am not aware of any study that has established acceptable criteria for determining how ARs effect genetics in a wild herd. But we have the Koerth which documents spikes develop slower than 4 pts. and we have the results from Miss, that documented a significant decrease in rack size over 12 years. And, we also have PA which refuses to release the data on rack sizes of various age classes and the head of the deer management team that claims he doesn't know if rack sizes have increased or decreased.
You have proven yourself to be a leading among those adversely affecting the future of hunting in this state and the nation. Congratulations.
I didn't reduce the buck harvest from 203K in 2001 to 119K in 2007. I didn't implement concurrent seasons which magnifies the negative effect of HR. I didn't mislead the hunters and tell them the B/D ratio was skewed and we needed to shoot more doe. Those are just a few of the things the PGC did to adversely affect the future of hunting. I just point out their mistakes on the MB,which has no effect on the future of hunting.