Pretend your state doesn't allow crossbows (except handicapped). Lets say your state sells 250,000 bowhunting licenses each year and bowhunters have an anual harvest of roughly 50,000 deer each year. Bowhunters also have the longest season for obvious reasons. Lets say your state sells 600,000 gun hunting licenses each year and the gun harvest is normally around 400,000. Your gun season is 9 days long. Adding the two harvests together gives you an anual harvest of 450,000 deer. Your deer herd is estimated at 1 million. Your game division has calculated that keeping the anual harvest rate slightly under half of the total estimated population will be good management , keeping the deer herd in check while offering plenty opportunities each year.

Now , pretend you ARE one of the game managers (DNR) in your state and for whatever reason you have to make a decision on where to put crossbows (crossbows were voted into use by all).
I would imagine in your decision process that you would take into account all possible effects it could have on the deer herd. The only current info you have to base your decision on is three states that dont have the same amount of hunters , the same size deer herd , the same monitoring/registering process , or the same herd estimation process.
Do you just toss it into the archery season?
Or do you put it into a seperate season to accurately monitor it's effects?

Does anyone want to make an honest attempt at answering my question?