ORIGINAL: bluebird2
Hopefully you and Doug are the only ones that believe the herd in 2G decreased because hunters failed to harvest enough deer.Here is what really happens when harvests exceed recruitment and reduce the OWDD..
Harvest Data For 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
2007 5,100 6,600 2.8 25,000
2008 6,800 6,500 3.2 25,000
So when hunters harvested more deer as you suggested they should ,they reduced the harvest rate by by 57% even though there should have been twice as much food available /deer since there was roughly half as many deer in 2008 as there were in 2003.
Now your list of false claims and predictions has increased to 0 for 13. Keep digging.
What you just posted would be about the equivalent of starting to read a book at the middle of the last chapter and then deciding you know how the whole story got to that point of the ending.
I will start the deer harvest history for the counties that make up unit 2G from twenty five years ago and bring it up through to present by using the harvests per square mile of land mass for the counties and then my unit. By doing that all can see how far from reality your comments about what caused the deer numbers to decline in recent years really are.
Year…………….Deer harvests/sq. mile(counties in 2G)…………..2G deer harvests/sq. mile
1984.………………………..7.96
1985.………………………..8.36
1986.………………………..8.65
1987.………………………..9.14
1988.……………………….10.84
1989.……………………….10.23
1990.……………………….10.78
1991.………………………..9.12
1992.………………………..7.91
1993.………………………..8.85
1994.………………………..8.18
1995.………………………..9.14
1996.………………………..6.82
1997.………………………..8.12
1998.………………………..7.27
1999.………………………..7.52
2000.………………………..9.59
2001.………………………..9.03
2002.……………………….10.40
2003.………………………..8.11.………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦................7.41
2004.………………………..6.36.………†¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦â€¦................4.18
2005.………………………..N/A………………………………............. 2.72
2006.………………………..N/A………………………………............. 2.87
2007.………………………..N/A………………………………............. 2.84
2008.………………………..N/A………………………………............. 3.84
As anyone can see the deer harvests in unit 2G have not been abnormally high during any recent times, including the years just prior to the major crash in deer populations or deer harvests.
The deer harvests in unit 2G were not only increased but sustainable higher in the late eighties and early nineties but hunters and politicians threw a fit back then, just like they are now, and the allocations and harvests were reduced to answer that public and political demand. I know I was there to see it happening.
Then through the mid to late nineties we had lower deer harvests and an increasing deer population. We got away with that mistake as long as we did only because we were having a run of good mast crop years combined with very mild winters. Those ideal environmental conditions allowed the deer herd to exist in those higher then normal numbers but those increased populations also took more of a toll on their habitat also.
Then in the early 2000s there was a push to harvest more deer to reduce that over population to levels that were more consistent with the long term food supplies. Those increased harvests were not only increased but also sustainable right up until the hard winter of 2002/2003 hit. Notice how the deer harvest started to decline in the fall of 2003 after the first hard winter? Then see how the 2004 harvest declined even more after the second back to back hard winter when the deer had to spend a second year in the same wintering grounds they had so totally depleted of food the previous year? The 2005 harvest then was down even more because the deer that hunters should have been harvesting that year had died in the spring of 2003, 2004 and 2005 following those harsh winters their mothers had gone through when they were trying to nourish the unborn fawns. Hunters can’t harvest deer that died a day or two after being born.
The affects of those hard winters are still being felt since those fawns that didn’t survive those springs are the deer hunters would have been hunting for the past couple years.
The positive side of that is that the habitat has made some rather significant recovery and the stage is now set for the deer numbers to start increasing again. But, that does not mean we should harvest fewer deer to allow the deer herd to increase. The herd will increase with the improved habitat even without hunters harvesting fewer deer. The best thing is for hunters to still harvest as many deer as they legally can.
Now hopefully everyone can see how Bluebird missed the real story when he only provided the last chapter of the story in his post.
R.S. Bodenhorn