ORIGINAL: bluebird2
Blaming poachers for the decline in the herd in 2G is just plain silly. The fact is that two years of 52K doe tags reduced the herd in 2g at the request and direction of the PGC. Are there 52K poachers in 2G?
Year antlered harvest antlerless harvest harvest PSM antlerless allocation
2003 10,110 20,370 7.4 52,000 2.55 tags/deer
2004 6,400 13,100 4.7 52,000 3.95 tags/deer
2005 5,000 6,200 2.7 29,000 4.70 tags/deer
2006 7,200 4,600 2.8 19,000 4.10 tags/deer
Oh my, but you aren’t telling the rest of the story about the number of 2G antler less license or antler less harvests. You only posted the numbers for unit 2G since it was formed as a WMU. Since there were no WMU, which are much larger then the county units, prior to 2003 those number aren’t relevant to anything for comparison factors. But, they can be made relevant once you look at the allocations and antler less harvests of the counties that make up unit 2G.
I have taken the time to make those allocations for unit 2G relevant to the number of license and harvest prior to changing to WMU’s by taking the historic allocations and harvests of the counties that make up each unit so it could be compared by allocations and harvests per square mile of land mass.
Here are the allocations and harvests for the counties that make up WMU 2G compared to the resent allocations and harvests since 2003 when we shifted to the WMU. All data is in number per square mile of land mass.
Years……………….antler less allocation……………….antler less harvest
1983-1987.……………..12.90.…………………⠀¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.3.98
1988-1992.……………..16.21.…………………⠀¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.5.48
1993-1997.……………..13.08.…………………⠀¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.4.36
1998-2002.……………..12.30.…………………⠀¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.4.66
2003-2007.………………8.65.…………………⠀¦â€¦â€¦â€¦.2.35
2008.…………………….6.32.…………… ……………….Not yet available
As you can see that argument about fewer deer in unit 2G today because of increased antler less license and higher harvests is false, unless you consider the higher harvests of fifteen year ago or longer the reason for lower deer numbers now.
R.S. Bodenhorn