RE: My take on PA deer
The goal may not be to improve the deer herd. The PGC deer managment is to mostly benefit the forest, with a secondary effect being it will improve 'herd health' by bringing it in line with its habitat.
Pa deer population is estimated at 25dpsm and our goal is to shoot enough deer to get it to 12dpsm (per pgc web) site.
So any deer will do... you shoot mature does and you lose that deer plus the fawns she would have had. Shoot the BB an you just lose one deer that might have been a decoration for the wall...no great loss. Either way they both eat trees and are ruining our ecosystem. Gary ALt in Jan 2004 at Audubons conference on deer overabundance that north of rt80 there has not been a tree regenerate in 50yrs. ??
If you buy that, then you also would understand that herd reduction to save the forest is the main goal, not providing better buck hunting.