The biggest gain in breeding rates should have occurred where breeding rates were the worst prior to AR's and HR. You said that they are the very areas where the sample size was effected the least. Therefore , if breeding rates actually increased in 2G and 2F, the effect would have been a significant increase in the statewide breeding rates rather than a 5% decrease since there was no reason for the breeding rates in the southwest or southeast to decrease.
I suspect where the sample sizes stayed relatively consistent in units 2f and 2G the breeding and reproductive rates have increased. I know they have in my area. But, the sample size declined in some areas of the north central too for the some reason it declined in the southern areas, which is due to WCOs no longer handling the deer where the roads are under contract for dead deer removal.
Since I don’t have roads under contract my samples size has stayed pretty consistent. The breeding rate for adult does in my area has increased by 16.1% since the first year the affects of antler restrictions had any bearing on the breeding rates. The adult reproductive rates increased by 5.1% during the same time period. That is based on using the five year averages before to after antler restrictions.
But, even those increases can’t come close to overriding the sample size changes from those southern areas over the past decade.
George block wrote that both the numbered measure and size decreased. the average rack measured was 10" smaller than in 2000.
I’d have to see the sample size and years involved in that data collection before I would put much credence on that result. Perhaps this is just a good example of cherry picking just a couple of comparison years that would reduce the result desired instead of the truth?
Of course the numbers in the books increased from 2000-2007, we had a record number of deer during that period.
Really!
Listening to hunters it seems most of them are saying that we have had far fewer deer during the years since 2000 and the harvest records indicate is undoubtedly true.
Therefore, why shouldn’t a person have expected the number of record books to have declined instead of increasing.
R.S. Bodenhorn