MeatHunter2 (or any other Pa hunters who care to respond)
What do you think Gary Alt's main goal was?
A To increase the overall health of the herd by bringing the buck to doe ratio in check while creating more trophy bucks.
B To significantly reduce the deer herd by forcing hunters who want meat in their freezers to shoot a doe instead of a young buck.
I said it a couple years ago and I still believe it to be true. Gary Alt played the antler restriction health of the herd/future trophy bucks card to get the big rack hunters salivating at his plan while his number one goal was to significantly reduce Pa's deer herd period. I'm not knocking Gary Alt at all , in fact I think it was a good plan. I'm sure he was asked if he could come up with a plan to force the hand (so to speak) of the hunters who dont desire shooting doe , to reduce a deer population which is way over the game commissions desired herd numbers.
edited..Guess I should read all replies before posting. While some of you may disagree with chickory (or his delivery
) , I believe he's absolutely correct in his assessment of Gary Alt's true intentions.
And just so there's no confusion as to why a hick from Wisconsin would reply to this thread with any clue to what's going on in Pennsylvania. Wisconsin is in the same boat as you. 2004's crack at reducing our herd was two seperate doe only seasons and earn a buck during regular seasons for both bow and gun. Premature estimates for the 2004 season last I heard was that they (DNR) didn't get close to the doe harvest (or overall harvest) they wanted. Whats next? Apply for a lottery drawing buck tag like we use to have for doe tags?
I know alot of you are still hyped about the bigger bucks but answer this.
Lets say Alt's plan worked and the number of doe harvests increases significantly every year. How long do you think a system like this could stay in place before jeopardizing the entire deer herd?
Big bucks are nice and letting the young ones grow up to breed is a nice idea , but if they dont have the doe to breed then where are they gonna go? There gonna go where the doe are , the residential areas and tracts of land that dont allow hunting. It's a pretty good short term plan to reduce the herd providing there is enough participation but for a long term plan it doesn't take a biology degree to see that it's a recipe for disaster from a hunters view point.