Wow...what a decline from 2002. The county in which I live/hunt in went from 23,000+ deer / 8,176 bucks harvested in 2002 to 11,571 deer/ 4,500 bucks in 2004...almost a 50% decline in total deer take. You'd never know it with all the deer that seem to have come outta the woodwork in the past couple of weeks. On a brighter note, there should be some dandy bucks around the area this year.
My WMU is way down too (7M) - but it should be - there were hardly any doe permits last year for this area. And - also - there were less deer.
In my opinion - the last 2 winters (and even this one to some extent) have saved our DEC officials from making the same VERY UNPOPULAR decisions that were made in PA to reduce the deer herd overall. While there was some winterkill - its the reduction in Fawn Crop due to inclement weather the previous winter that reduced the populations so much in most areas.
Now our DEC is NO WAY - going to let the populations get back to where they were in the 90s - nor should they - especially with a shrinking hunter base!
And those numbers are not what were actually reported - you will NEVER see those numbers. The DEC has an outside verified statistical analysis of several factors - that let them conclude the harvest numbers within a +/- tolerance of 3% I think was the last number I saw.