You are right Alt ask us to pass on BB ,but he also encouraged hunters to shoot mature doe.
With two distinctions- no one was up in arms about it and there were plenty of times that the Commissioners ignored the Biolgists management recommendations.
The difference is the herd was either stable or increasing and hunters realized it was necessary to harvest anterless to keep the herd under control. Back then the biologists were not talking about cutting the herd by 50%. Also , they never issued 1M anterless tags.
do think the smaller racks on some older deer in areas like pike county is a suprise, but do you then really want to shoot less deer in areas that have poor habitat.
AR results in less deer being harvested in the poorest habitat. If hunters pass on BB and AR saves 50% of 1.5's and 20+% of 2.5 buck, you are bound to have more overwintering deer than without AR.
so why argue the restrictions- even in those areas they will still allow more bucks into the next age class, just fewer than expected. Maybe those areas should be four points to a side and 15 inch spread?!
In poor habitat AR saves more buck ,not less buck so restrictions should be lower ,not higher.
Also, most places in PA you would need to fence after selectivly cutting it because the deer would not let it grow up into something that would be of benifit.
That simply is not true and is just more of Alt's propaganda . I observed good oak regenration at 40 DPSM . WMU 2 G has been at or below its density goal for five years and it is currently at 12 DPSM and Alt still claims they don't have regeneration in 2 G. So ,should we kill all the deer in 2 G and who do you expect will hunt there at less than 10DPSM?