I know forest and habitat health are important.But it seems the science behind pgc is failing when you look at all the stats

Douge I know the entire norther tier wont go down to 8-10 dpsm. my land wont go below 10 for sure

The fact remains that RSB support all of Alt's ridiculous claims about herd health. breeding rates , productivity, the B/D ratio and the breeding window and he was wrong on every issue Furthermore he is wrong about the history of he herd and his claims about the habitat controlling the herd. How can you continue to defend a guy that has lost all credibility?

RSBs views are more extreme than even pgcs. He thinks even areas where supposedly stabilization is the goal, there should be further reduction. He believes 2G should have far more doe tags, and many areas they should be unlimited, even when the current allocations are already causing continued decline in deer herd numbersby pgcs own data in most areas. He believe areas with 50,000+ tags are being reduced by the deer themselves and not the tags!(LOL). He basically thinks its impossible to have too many tags or too few deer.

These are not reasonable"middle of the road" fact supportedviews by any stretch of the imagination.

Because the OWDD data proves you are wrong , your only alternative is to attempt to discredit the data. When that doesn't work you manipulate the data using five year averages in a futile attempt to defend your ridiculous theory that the habitat is controlling the herd in 2G ,when it is perfectly obvious to any rational individual that the harvests are controlling the herd and every trained wildlife biologist would agree that the harvests are used to control the herd.

Only in your wildest dreams. You support the Audubon which supports the biodiversity carrying capacity of only 8-10 DPSM in a healthy forest. besides everyone of you other predictions were wrong so there is no reason to believe you are right this time. You're batting at least zero for 7 attempts and I am batting 7 fpr 7 ,who who should the hunters believe.? A dreamer like you or a realist like me?

Without a doubt RSB is more extreme that the PGC and when you think about it he is even more extreme than the Audubon. At least the Audubon acknowledges that deer harvests are controlling the herd and on;y an eco-biodiversity extremist would claim the habitat is controlling the herd in any WMU.

BTW, I enjoyed our debates while you were still supporting the plan. You worked me over pretty good but it made me think and do the research to come up with a rebuttal. It's too bad that we don't have a PGC supporter that can come up with a rational defense of the plan.

I have never claimed the harvests aren't controlling the herd.I have said that reduced recruitmentwas a factor following the winters of 2003 and 2004 but that didn't reduce the herd by itself.I have dozens of trail caM pictures to prove that RECRUITMENT WAS EFFECTED THOSE YEARS.I've stated on numerous ocassions that many remote areas with poor habitat have low deer numbers.Part of that reason is because of reduced recruitment but the main reason is because there's just no reason for deer to be there.THERE'S ALSO NO REASON TO ADD MORE DEER TO STRESSED HABITAT.Deer are very resilient and they reproduce at a high rate,even in poor habitat,unless there's a very bad winter.However,just because they're still reproducing doesn't mean the habitat is still being effected in a negative way.

That is the same thing as saying the habitat is controlling the herd. The reduced recruitment is due to the reduced number of OW doe rather than severe winters or poor habitat. The worst winter in the last 50 years was the winter of 93-94, but recruitment and harvests were a ot higher than they are now. The facts do not support either your or RSB claims.

"There's alot of people publicly asking for alot more deer than the habitat should support.I've been to several save the deer meetings.Each time,several people including state reps and other poiticians have stood up and complained that they no longer see 60-100 deer a day anymore."

Ive also heard some of them at meetings say this, though I didnt take it as them wanting to see that many, though Im sure some might. Usually when Ive heard them make the comment it was in a comparative manner to what they are seeing now and they usually say VERY few to none. I also hear them often say they dont NEED to see that many, but what they are now seeing is ridiculous. Thats been my take of most who Ive seen make those comments in person among those Ive spoken with, as well as some of the televised meetings.

"That's no lie.Lastyear G.L. from the USP wrote an article about dropping a spike buck back in the 1970's.He went on to describe how he picked that deer out of a herd of something like 45 other deer.They were what he called the good old days.It's amazing that people really don't see anything wrong with those scenarios."

I agree, but Regardless of how you feel about that Doug, there's a heckuva lot of middle ground between there and where we are. It doesnt have to be, nor should it necessarily be one extreme or the other as I see it.

"On another message board,a poster was complaing about only seeing 15 bucks in three days of bowhunting.An adminstator on that same board also claimed he didn't care one bit about the habitat as long as he was seeing enough deer running through the open timber to keep him interested."

Those people are welcome to their opinions Doug, but that has nothing to do with wether what is currently being discussed is right or wrong.

"There really are alot of hunters that expect hunting tobe just like that.The extremists are on both sides."

Agreed. But what makes the "environmentalist extremists" so much worse currently, is that they have the steering wheel. The problemis that some of those extremists happen to be dictating the management scheme right now with. Andhavingit be the "ecoweiney" agenda instead of the "hunter extremists" doesnt make it any better, nor should it be any more acceptable. We need middle ground. Currentlymiddle ground isnot any more of anoption than the ridiculous deer numbers are. Thosein control want what they want and that is that. And that isnt because "we" in the middle refuse to compromise, its because we are unheard every bit as much as the few hunter "extremists" you speak of are.

"BTW, I enjoyed our debates while you were still supporting the plan. You worked me over pretty good but it made me think and do the research to come up with a rebuttal. It's too bad that we don't have a PGC supporter that can come up with a rational defense of the plan. "

I originally supported the basic concepts the plan was supposed to be based upon. It wasnt hard to support something that was supposed to be about "herd health" and "habitat". Little did I know at the time how far and above that they were willing to go. I alsoliked, of course, the idea of more and bigger bucks as promised. I was also EXTREMELY naive in regards to the politics and groups involved. Id heard rumors and passed them off as just that. Conspiracy theories hatched by radicals. That is until years later when I really looked into and was stunned by what Id found. What Id believed all along and argued so passionately was a sham!

Now years later, more and/ormore bigger bucks didnt become reality in many if not most areas due to excessive reduction, breeding rates havent increased, embryo counts down, allocations that when compared to previous allocations for a wmu and herd size are completely clearly inappropriate for goals stated, continued reduction clearly shown on annual reports and buck harvest despite claims of stabilization....Regeneration barely crawling despite excessive reductions and in some areas abolute joke deer densities, habitat health assessment that plummet in some wmus for absolutely no reason even though the herd is much smaller there, and they were rated as fine with twice the deer previously....Pgc running themselves into the ground, Pgc ignoring hunters, hunter numbers decline at over double national average.....And on it goes....

I only wish Id known sooner what I know now.

I'm not sure what you mean by that because Inever did and probably never will agree with everything the PGC does.I do however,support the basic fundamentals of balancing the herd with the habitat.I see less deer today than I used but that hasn't effected by success or hunting experience in a nagative way.Even though I hunt where the deer densities are extremely low,compared to most other parts of the state,I still can't see whyhunters feel the hunting is poor.

the regeneration is responding very favorably in many areas where the herd has been reduced.I don't have a report to prove it but I've walked through enough areas with professionals to see that it's happening.

More and bigger bucks?That was a ridiculous and irresponsible statement for anyone to make.That kind of nonsense is what me have reservations about all of this at the beginning.It simply couldn't come true if you reduced the herd by approx 50% like they inteneded on doing.With that said.I am seeing a much higher PERCENTAGE of older age class bucks today and I know MORE BIGGER BUCKS are ending up at taxidermists around here.There was a time whenI used to pass 12-18 bucks in a season.This year I didn't pass a single one until I killed a buck,then I had to pass 5,3 of which Iwould have mounted.Iam seeing the habitat start to recover and I'm still having better success than at any time in the past.