ORIGINAL: deaddeer

No, I did not skirt the issue. That post was in response to livbucks post, not yours. Now here is the answer you were looking for.

The first thing I would do is revise the OWDD goals so they reflect the true carrying capacity of all the habitat used by the deer, instead of the current standard which is based on the number of deer that will allow adequate regeneration of commercially valable timber and ignores all habitat but forested habitat. MI manages their herd with a goal of 19 DPSM and in Wisc. it is even higher, while in PA te goal is 12 DPSM and the areas with the worst habitat have the highest goals and the areas with best habitat has the lowest goals.


The next thing I would do is suspend AR until the new OWDD goals are reached . Implementing AR while trying to reduce the herd by 50% insures that AR will not be successful ,at least as perceived by the hunters. As yet the PGC says we have had zero herd reduction ,but the buck harvest has declined by 30%. Now, if we begin reducing the herd by 5% /yr. as per the original plan , the buck harvest will continue to decline and we will have fewer 2.5+ buck than we did in 2002.

Finally, instead of exaggerating the problem and trying to tell hunters we have a crisis across the entire state , I would be more honest and give hunters credit for reducing the herd in 2 G , and acknowledge that herd reduction in many areas is controled by limited hunter access rather than the hunters reluctance to control the herd. I would then have the PGC launch a public relations campaign to inform the general public that hunters will not be able to control the herd in their area unless the land owners provide access to their properties. They could empsize the spread of Lyme decrease , the need to reduce road kills, crop damage and residential property damage as reasons to reduce the herd and sell the plan to increase access. They coud also emphasize giving archers more access where the use of firearms would not be appropriate.