Apparently you still don't understand that the effects of high grading have nothing to do when the when the doe are bred or a change in the gene pool The decrease in rack sizes occurred within the first five years of ARs, which is far to soon to be the result of a change in genetics.
Many environmental variables extend into decades. The habitat and antler development variables across the northern tier of this state changed greatly over each of the past several decades before antler restrictions were even a thought in this state. That can be seen pretty easily by looking at the variance in the number of record book bucks from the various regions of this state over the past decades before antler restrictions. What is to say that similar habitat and environmental variables didn’t create the change in the antler development in Mississippi?
The deer management experts say the decrease in rack sizes was not due to changes in variables or habitat. they attributed the decrease to the effects of high grading and you can't provide anything to refute their position.
As for spikes taking longer to catch up that has been reported by the professional researchers as nothing more then an age or early stage nutritional factor and the length of time it takes the younger bucks to catch up in both body and antler development. It is about like comparing first grades to forth graders in size and development. By the time they are both in college as a freshman and senior though that first grader that is now a college freshman might very well be the larger more dominate of the two.
It is ridiculous to assume it takes 3 years for a spike buck to make up the effects of being born 2 months later.
No one was mislead about the need for or the intent to reduce the deer numbers across this state or about the need for a more balanced buck/doe ratio. Those were biological facts that the deer were screaming out to every professional willing to even look at the facts the deer were providing. Some hunters just refuse to accept those facts, perhaps because they are self serving and could care less about the future of the resources.
As you know , the B/D ratio before ARs was 1:2.1 and now it is slightly better than 1:2. But breeding rates and productivity have decreased ,so the B/D ratio was not the problem and Alt misled the hunters in order to get HR.
Oh my no! The people like you that have worked to undermine the direction of sound scientific deer and habitat management have been the biggest factor in damaging the present deer population. That has been the case for many decades. We could and would have a lot more deer over most of this state today if the hunters and politicians had allowed the professionals to do what they have known needed to be done for a long, long time.
That is nothing more than PGC propaganda. the fact is the PGC issued more antlerless tags in 1998 and 1999 than they did in 2000 and 2002. For decades hunters harvested as many deer as the PGC would allow and to blame the hunters for the current mismanagement is irresponsible on your part.