Actually it was quite easy to deuce what the outcome would be as the herd was reduced by 50%. All one had to do is look at the history of the herd and harvests to predict the outcome, since it was simply impossible for increased breeding rates and recruitment to compensate for the loss of a significant percentage of the adult doe. That is why Alt's and RSB's predictions were wrong and my predictions were right. They told hunters what they wanted to hear while I based my predictions on the facts and reality.
Some of your predictions did come to pass but certainly not all of them and the ones that did come true were only because the back to back harsh winters caused the deer herd to crash in several areas of the state.
Your predictions came true because of unforeseen natural events instead of because you were correct about what would occur when you made the predictions.
I certainly don’t know where you got the idea that Doctor Alt was telling people what they wanted to hear. He flat out told them there would be fewer deer. That was the largest part of his message. Even knowing that the majority of the hunters that attended the seminars agreed with moving in that direction because they knew it was the correct thing to do for the best possible future. Believe me it can get a lot worse and it still might if people like you get their way.
When populations exceed the carrying capacity breeding rates and recruitment decrease and natural mortality equals recruitment. That didn't happen in PA and didn't even come close to happening. So maybe it is you that needs to read a few more studies.
You got the first sentence correct but then you ended up blowing it from that point on. Though it is uncertain just how much more the deer mortality was then recruitment in some of the poor habitat areas of the state it was very obvious that the recruitment was not keeping up with the mortality. Hunters in unit 2G have harvested and average of only four deer per square mile for the past five years.
The unit that includes the city streets of Pittsburgh has averaged over fourteen deer harvested per square mile during the past five years. How can the recruitment keep up there at those harvests while in unit 2G the harvests have never been higher then eight total deer per square mile for more then a few years out the past twenty? Why is they can sustain deer harvests on our city street that two to five times as high as out remote forested areas consistently year after year for over fifteen years if it isn’t habitat related?
Your arguments that high harvests reduced the big woods deer populations don’t make sense because that contention simply isn’t supported by the facts and you claiming other wise isn’t going to change those facts.
It is all about having over protected the deer and under protected the deer food supply for way to long in the places that have few deer today.
The only place Doctor Alt failed was by not starting this deer management program ten years earlier. If he had we would have a lot more deer today in these habitat damaged areas that presently have few deer. Hopefully the professionals can keep the present deer management program in tact and on track into the future so we don’t end up with even more areas of damaged habitat and naturally declining deer populations.
R.S. Bodenhorn