Well the numbers in my area dropped dramatically. I talked to one friend of mine today who's girlfriend works at a registration station. She said they were 38% down from last year. Add that to the year before, and its kind of scary. I asked him how many deer he saw in the gun season. He only had a buck tag. None was his reply, not even a doe. And he hunted all day every day. He also took his kid with him this year. The sorry part is the young man does not want to hunt next year. I guess too many days of squirrels and wood peckers is not too exciting. He said he's not going to hunt anymore until the numbers come back up. He's (like many of us) is a meat hunter not a horn hunter.
I think you might see even more hunters hang up their rifles until the herd comes back. So the DNR's solution is to extend the season.