What they found was that some years, especially following poor mast crop or hard winter years, that as many as 33% of all of the button bucks checked during the antler less deer harvests were actually 1 ½ year old bucks that didn’t have legal spikes. I too checked hundreds of 1 ½ year old bucks harvested as antler less deer during those years that had a button that was less then a couple inches long though they were often as large in diameter as my finger. Even on a mild winter year as many as 20% of the button buck were 1 ½ years old back in those days.
The fact that those 1.5 buck BB were included in the antlerless harvest proves they were not a protected class of deer as 1.5 and 2.5+ spike bucks are with ARs. Also, the fact that it only happened due to poor mast crops means that it was exception and not the rule. The negative effects of ARs happen every year and it is worse in years with good mast crop since a higher percentage of the buck are AR legal, which increases high grading.