If you do carry more then the habitat can support for the long term all you are doing is allowing those extra deer to damage the habitat and food supply so that NATURE is guaranteeing that you will have fewer deer in the future.
But we haven't been carrying more deer than the habitat could support for at least the last 28 years. If we had the herd would not have increased to 1.6M PS deer and it wouldn't have required over 1M tags to reduce the herd.
You also have to remember that 2A is an area where the human population is growing and continuously taking a bigger bite out of the habitat. Every time someone builds a new home, a new highway, a new shopping mall or business or even if they just expand the area they affect it takes away some habitat that was available to wildlife. That means the wildlife gets crowded into a smaller area and you have to accept the fact there will be les wildlife as a result.
But the WMUs the most development are the very WMUs that have the highest harvest rates and highest deer densities because of all the fringe habitat created by development.
here is no conspiracy, by any of those groups or the Game Commission, to do anything that harms the future of hunting or deer populations, in fact it is quite the contrary. Those groups you keep bad mouthing simply have an interest in protecting the deer from destroying themselves and their future by destroying their food supply. Some hunters though simply don’t seem to understand that or just don’t have the capacity to accept the reality of it
There is no question that the herd is being managed for the benefit of DCNR and the timber industry and not for the benefit of the deer or the hunters.
BTW,what evidence can you provide to support your theory that we have been carrying more deer than the habitat can support?