Here are the history of 2 ½ year old bucks harvested across the state for the past twenty five years so al can see how close that number has come to doubling since Doctor Alt first brought the topic to the forefront in 1999. Starting in 1999 we started to see some voluntary movement toward antler restrictions among the hunting fraternity so the period between 1998 and 2002 showed some improvement from the previous fifteen years.
Years…………..2 ½ and older bucks harvested per square mile
83-87.………………………….0.65
88-92.………………………….0.68
93-97.………………………….0.68
98-02.………………………….1.07
03-07.………………………….1.29
As you can see the number of 2 ½ and older bucks has almost doubled as compared to the old traditional data for 2 ½ and older bucks.
It is truly a sad day in PA when we have a PGC WCO intentionally misleading and deceiving the hunters of PA. Although he attempted to cover this deceit by choosing his words carefully and claiming " the number of 2 ½ and older bucks has almost doubled as compared to the old traditional data for 2 ½ and older bucks." his attempt was clearly to misrepresent the results of ARs.
Now here are the facts without the spin and manipulation. The 2.5+ buck harvest more than doubled from 1996 when we harvested 24,865 2.5+ buck to 2002 when we harvested 52,602 ,2.5+ buck and that is an increase of 111%!!! The highest 2,5+ buck harvest occurred in 2004 when we harvested 62,399 which is only 16% more than in 2002 and far from doubling the number of 2.5+ buck harvested in 2002.
Alt claimed that, " hunters would likely see MORE and Bigger" buck than every before. He did not say they would see more big buck. In order to have bigger buck than ever before the 2.5 + buck produced by ARs would have to be bigger than the pre-AR 2.5+ buck.