ORIGINAL: bluebird2
Since you don’t seem to think unlimited antler less licenses can be a good thing for deer numbers perhaps you can explain how the areas of the state that have had unlimited license for close to two decades now have increasing deer populations even though their past five year average antler less harvest has been more then 4.5 times as high per square mile, city streets included, as it has been in unit 2G.
for the life of me ,I can't understand why you continue to flaunt your total ignorance on a subject that has been explained over and over again./ The antlerless harvests in 2B simply failed to exceed recruitment and therefore the herd expanded even with increased antlerless harvests. Despite the fact that the herd continued to increase for 2 decades the herd still did not come close to exceeding the carrying capacity of the habitat so breeding rates and recruitment remained high. But in 2G harvests exceeded recruitment and the herd was reduced to much lower levels than the habitat could support and as a result recruitment dropped like a rock along with the sustainable harvest.
And I can’t understand why anyone would fail to understand that it is that good habitat that allows that higher fawn higher recruitment in those areas with unlimited antler less harvests and that it is also the poor habitat that keeps the fawn recruitment so low hunters can’t harvest but a fifth the number of deer per square mile in those poor habitat areas.
I can’t understand howany knowledgeable or logical thinking personwould fail to see that it is largely the years of attempting to carry too many deer that created that poor habitat in the areas of the state that can’t recruit more fawns even at such low deer harvests. Nor can I understand how anyone could fail to recognize that it is that continuous demand to keep trying to support way to many deer on that poor habitat that keeps preventing the habitat from recovering enough to one day have both higher harvests and better fawn recruitment.
Just because you have never figured out how nature works or that the deer and habitat are not two separate issues doesn’t mean the professional resource managers haven’t learned those things.
When left unchecked the deer numbers will control their habitat until it reaches the point that habitat also controls the deer numbers. Once the habitat is controlling the deer numbers there is only one way to fix the resulting low deer numbers and that is to harvest as many deer as possible until the habitat can recover enough to support more deer. That is the only thing that works.
As long as hunters fail or refuse to either understand or accept that fact the deer numbers will never increase much or for long in the poor habitat areas. What is even worse is that we will continue to see more and more of those poor habitat and declining deer population areas until more hunters do understand and accept that message.
R.S. Bodenhorn