Not to beat a dead horse...more on the WDNR
Okay, someone explain the WDNR and their language to me! As the title indicates, I'm not trying to beat a dead horse here, but again you have to question the credibility of guys like Bill Mytton when they say stuff like this (from the Wisconsin Outdoor News, Dec. 31 - Jan 13, 2002):
<font size=6>'Brown blamed for low whitetail kill</font id=size6>
By tim Eisele
Madison - Bill Mytton, DNR deer ecologist, said "it" has happened before.
"During each of the 'brown' years of 1960, 1990 and this past deer season, we got a lot of calls and letters telling us there are no deer out there," Mytton told the Natural Resources Board at its December meeting in Madison.
Those years had no snow on the ground during the gun deer season. Mytton said he now felt like he was in Afganistan, because of the amount of "scud missiles" (in the form of hunter complaints) that were coming at him. Yet, he told the board taht when looking at all 2001 deer seasons together, the harvest may be adequate, and raks fairly well with previous years.
Preliminary registrations, which won't be final until March 2002, totalled 291,563 deer during the nine-day gun season (compared to 433,511 in 2000).
Okay, let's stop there for a second. Mytton says that he hears this after seasons when it is unseasonably warm and there is no snow cover. One of the years he cites is 1990. So imagine my suprise when I went back and did a little checking of the harvest records. In 1990, there were a total of 350,040 deer harvested during the gun season. Folks, not only did that blow the snot out of what we had for a total this year (by 20-some percent!), but it was also a record harvest at that time!! So what am I missing?? If that was indeed a 'brown' year, how did we set a record for harvest during gun season?
But wait, there's more...later in the article...
Mytton said that following the 1960 and 1990 seasons the DNR became too conservative in deer quotas, because of hunter concerns over not seeing deer. He said it took years to recover from inadequate harvests following 'brown' seasons.
....so I do a little more research, and what do I find? The 1991 harvest...you know when the DNR was getting too "conservative"?...ANOTHER RECORD !! That's right! 352,520 taken that year during gun season, not to mention a jump of about 18,000 more taken during bow season that same year.
...and the DNR wonders why they have a credibility problem?
Do we actually pay this guy?