ORIGINAL: deerfly

If the deer herd had been at or below the maximum carrying capacity it would not have been adversely affected by the winter or other environmental factors; but it was so that should tell you something you obviously don’t want to admit or accept.

You obviously have no idea what you are talking about. If the herd in 2G was at the max. carrying capacity in 2003 and 2004,natural mortality would have equaled recruitment and any deer that were harvested by man would have reduced the herd. The 2003 harvest in 2G was 7 DPSM ,so whether you know it or not you are claiming the 2003 harvest reduced the herd by 7 DPSM and the 2004 harvest reduced the herd by 4 DPSM.

If the herd was at the max. CC in 2003 and 2004 then breeding rates and recruitment should have increased dramatically in the years following 2004 and the lower harvest should have allowed the herd to increase significantly, but that didn't happen. All of the PGC data shows that the herd in 2G was at or below the MSY CC of 15 DPSM beginning in 1999 and there is no data to indicate the herd was anywhere close to the MSY carrying capacity of 40 DPSM and it certainly wasn't anywhere close to the max.CC of 80 DPSM.

 
Actually it is you, like a few others in this site, who has no idea what you are talking about. The problem with your comments are that nature will not allow deer densities as high as the numbers you call MSY or maximum carrying capacity. That is perfectly obvious to anyone who understands how nature works.
 
The real problem is that to many hunters have a very limited knowledge of how habitat and wildlife populations inter-relate and how each affects the other. The only thing some hunters understand about deer populations is that once you shot one it no longer out there.
 
Some of you have even been so goofy as to suggest that higher deer harvests are designed to reduce the need for hunters in the future. Well, that is just exactly backwards. The fastest way to get to where hunters are no longer needed is exactly the way many of you are trying to take hunting. Once you reduce the antlerless license, deer hunting opportunities and harvests to the levels they are now reduced to in unit 2G the hunters are becoming very ineffective. Hunter demands have forced deer management in units like 2G to digress to the point the anti-hunters are soon going to have a winning argument that hunters are no longer needed if the deer populations are being controlled with less than three deer being harvested per square mile.
 
In the entire twenty –five years, since 1982 when the Game Commission, first started expressing deer harvests in actual harvest numbers instead of reported harvests the deer harvests per square mile for the counties that make up unit 2G had NEVER been below seven deer per square mile. The deer harvests were sustained at those harvest levels year after year after year for twenty-five years. As a matter of fact the highest harvests for the counties that make up unit 2G occurred back in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
 
Then the hunters started with their complaining that we were killing too many deer and forced lower harvests. The deer harvests have been reduced from those 1980s levels ever since and it didn’t result in more deer. In fact it has resulted in fewer deer. That is the part that hunters just can’t seem to grasp. They can’t grasp it because of people who don’t have a clue how nature REALLY works feeding them a bunch of misinformation about how many deer THEY THINK should be able to live on the habitat even though the deer themselves keep proving them wrong.
 
Until hunters become smart enough to allow scientific deer management based on the FACTS the deer provide more and more areas of this state are going to watch both their deer hunting opportunities and deer populations decline. If hunters don’t wake up and stop fighting scientific wildlife management the Anti-hunters are going to win because a high percentage of the hunters are actually giving them exactly what they want. And, it is actually the hunters that are screaming to stop harvesting so many deer who are actually giving the anti’s their winning hand for the future. Hunters fighting sound scientific deer management have done more to harm the future of hunting in this state than the anti-hunters have even been able to do. If we lose hunting in the future, and we might, it will be because so many hunters failed to accept responsible wildlife management that worked toward the goals of matching wildlife populations to the limits of their habitat. As much as I hate to say it many of the anti-hunters already have way more wildlife knowledge that many of our most vocal hunters. Hunters will not come out the winners in the future of wildlife management decisions unless they stop fighting the REAL knowledge about sound wildlife management principles.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

RSB,
You should know by now, after reading this board alone, that the hunters are always right.  C'mon!

Ironhed

That all sounds fine RSB until the "scientific management" becomes a shuffle of which science is good and which is bad ( and I unlike most of the "other" hunters you mention, am qualified to judge that).

But you can't jam science based management down our throats when your own commissioners admit that there are MANY social and economic factors that play into management decisions.


You can prove that there are more nice bucks and healthier deer as many times as you want (which is not a point I am conceeding by the way,) But, the PGC can not survive with declining hunter numbers and whether or not they like it, hunter numbers are directly tied to deer. More deer, more hunters; bottom line.

The PFBC destroys streams and riverine habitat yearly by stocking them FAR beyond carrying capacity, with trout and steelhead.

Why?

Why does the PFBC spend a significant portion of thier budget maximixing opportunity for trout fishermen?

Because that's what pays the bills.

Someday someone will make that make sense to the PGC.

ORIGINAL: Ironhed

RSB,
You should know by now, after reading this board alone, that the hunters are always right.  C'mon!

Ironhed

 
Don't you know the customer is always right?