There are also some states where the professionals do see a need for antler restrictions or some method of protecting more of their younger bucks even though they haven’t been able to implement them because of a lack of public and/or political support. That actually means that those states are being mismanaged. That same problem occurred in this state for many decades. Fortunately we have improved in public education enough to have increasing support for both antler restrictions and more people better understanding the need for both professional and scientific deer management goals and objectives.
The previous deer management plan was so bad that it produced record buck harvests in 2000 and 2001 and record breeding rates during the same period. The new and improved deer management reduced breeding rates by 5% and buck harvests by 46%.
There are a number of professionals that question the results of the Mississippi study do to the methods used. But, even if their buck antlers did decline there are many possible causes. Perhaps the fact that they harvest their bucks before the rut could enter into the reason? Perhaps variables in the environmental conditions, such as more drought years, could enter into the reason? I am sure there are many more but I haven’t concerned myself with the problems in Mississippi to know what problems they might or might not have. The bottom line is that no one really knows if they really declined let alone what the reason might have been.
Not a single deer management professional has provided a valid challenge to the 12 years of decreasing rack sizes in Miss. claiming that noone knows if rack sizes declined in Miss. is asinine when they have 1 years of data documenting that decline.
The same can be said about the 5% statewide decline in the breeding rates. It hasn’t been established yet that there really was a decline but even if there really was there are a number of issues that could very possibly lead to a decline besides the affects of antler restrictions.
The PGC data has established there has been a 5% decline in breeding rates and you haven't provided a single fact to refute it and neither has the PGC.