Seems like it worked out like a charm. I don't see how this was a failure at all we increased the doe harvest and decreased the buck harvest so to increase the bucks age group.
If it had workrd like a charm the 2003 harvest would have been greater than the 2002 harvest. There is little value in saving 1.5 bucks if they are not going to be harvested by hunters as 2.5+ buck and that is what the 2003 harvest showed
The antlered buck study showed we harvested 66% of the 2.5 buck being tracked. If that harvest rate applied to the 38K buck saved by AR in 2002 , the 2003 harvest should have increased by 25 K ,but instead it declined by 23 K. That is not good news.