I may have found the answer in this quote in a PGN article on the CAC reports.
Because the habitat allowed,the CAC recommendations to increase deer populations in WMUs 2E,3A and 4A were accepted in developing antlerless allocations.
The agency however,could not allow the WMU 1A, CAC's recommendation to increase the deer population,because the unit's forest health there is considered to be only fair. For staff to recommend an increase in a WMU deer population,forest health must meet a SPECIFIC QUANTITATIVE target. If this measure improves -- the deer and forest health are checked annually--then agency staff will consider recommending a herd increase.
Although all 4 WMUs were rated as fair for forest health and at or above target for herd health the recommendation was only rejected in 1A even though it had 51% regeneration compared to 47% in 2E when the recommendation for an increase was accepted. Therefore , it appears that the PGC has specific QUANTITATIVE goals for forest health for each WMU which they haven't released to the public.
What is even more interesting is that the percent regeneration in two of the three WMUs where the recommendation was to increase the herd , decreased instead of increasing from 2004 to 2008 and the increase in 4A was only 3%.
WMU % regeneration 2004 5% regeneration 2008
1A 62% 51%
2E 60% 47%
3A 59% 55%
4A 60% 63%
It should also be noted that the 2009 antlerless allocations remained the same in all 4 WMUs.