The herd crashed in 1938 when hunters reported an antlerless harvested of 171,662 antlerless deer in just 30 counties.

Of course the habitat rebounded. In 1983 72% of clearcuts regenerated successfully.

When we had 1.5 OWD they didn't include the deer in SRA counties which when added accounted for the additional 100K.

Not sure what you are getting at, or how that differs from what i said? Thats what i was referring to, the regen. Because thats also what was rated much higher the year prior to the change in assessment. 61% was referring to the plots with regeneration. Then in one year, thanks to the change in technique it dropped substantially...

...Oh, i think you may have been speaking of my observation of the condition of the habitat? In that case, I agree there is difference between the habitat current condition and regeneration. Though Id say they are pretty tied together. The habitat condition wouldnt have been good even right after our highest ever herd sizes back in 99 if we werent getting good regeneration, and our regen was not rated as poor even in the earliest assessments, therefore its safe to assume the habitat conditions werent bad either....Though many of us didnt need to see that data to know that.

Either way, they are full of...

That is exactly what I was talking about. However, in 5C the quality of the habitat is not directly related to the amount of regeneration ,especially regeneration of commercially valuable species. In 5C the deer are not nearly as dependent on browse as deer in 2F or 2G or other northern tier counties. The deer in 5C have lots of hay fields, right of ways and other fringe habitat to carry them through the winter.