Although the 2003 AL harvest was down from 2002, The AL harvest for 2002 was an absolute all time high record. If you take a ten year average of the AL harvest, you get an AL average of 278,678. The 2003 AL harvest was still above average at 322,620. I think it is negligent to state that there is something wrong with this normal fluctuation first off, and then attribute some kind of negative effect in relation to the BB harvest secondly. BTB was right in the statement that you use the stats to make your point of the day, while neglecting any real scientific study of the statistics as a whole.
The 10 yr. avg. anterless harvest is irrelevant since the herd increased by 30% during that period . Therefore, in order to reduce the herd ,larger anterless harvests are required and Alt said the harvest of 352K anterless in 2002 allowed the herd to increase by 1.6%. The anterless harvest in 2003 was the first time hunters reduced the percentage of fawns in the anterless harvest fro 46% to 39%. That is why there is only one year of stats that show the negative impact of trying to save BB.
I could make any point I would want to if I only used one or two years stats as a model. Look at the 1991 Buck harvest of 149,598. We didn't have AR then and, according to your method, 50,000 hunters went WITHOUT their prized forkie that year..
Oh my God, I bet they were pi$$ed!
But the point you made is not valid since the highest buck harvest prior to 1991 was 170K in 1990. So 20.5K hunters didn't harvest a buck, not the 50K you claim.