Absolutely true! You are correct that we cant go out and count the deer. I didn't mean to imply and won't say that calculating deer populations is as easy to verify as my example of election results. When verification is not exact, trends must also be studied and that is inherently more cumbersome to determine but it is certainly possible. Can we ever have an exact number? Of course not. Can we have a relatively accurate number by analyzing past data and trends, of course we can. The issue hasnt really been about whether the numbers were close enough to be statistically accurate (they have been and they get more accurate all the time) but more about the numbers the PGC now considers to be right for the habitat.