Or do they just utilize poor harvest data collection methods?

I know for a fact that during my travels in WV, very few of the deer I saw killed were going to be reported.  It was a pretty common beotch about having to travel out of their way to check the deer in.

Essox..

non-compliance, even with check station, is and will always be a problem...

make it too difficult or time consuming and guys will take their chances at getting the deer to camp/home and butcher it themselves..



That's what many states are finding out.. there is still alot of non-compliance and it is not worth the expense and are dropping the check stations...

I had an E-mail from a guy that helps "runs" the check station systems in Ohio a few years back and he said they figured there was still 30-35% of successful hunters not complying...

My experiences with check stations came from being stationed in Dover, Del from 1966-69 ..
#1 .. The nearest one to where I hunted was a 15 miles drive...
#2 .. The usual wait at the check station was a half hour before they got to me...


I did not dare "taking a chance" being in the Air Force.. I'm sure if caught the USAF would not look favorably on me.. but if I lived there as just a citizen of the state.... ....

Must be they migrate from Ohio because their top bucks compare with anyones.

Spot on Dar--
     Numbers are deceiving when some are presented in a manner that indicates something that is actually not what has really occured but is in and of itself a true statement.
Factual example is that 38% thing- True - yes----but is it a true picture of the condition over time - no.
  The 38 is therefore a true statement on one seasons experience over another however when compared to the whole it turns around a great thing and shows that in reality there were 'bad' times leading up to this number that in reality is  simply a normal (or average) number.
    Does it mean things there are gettin better - yes//does it mean that things there are suddenly great - no.
     All depends on how one wished to look at the numbers. Sometimes folks with differing 'agendas' use things like that to indicate that 'their position' is correct when in fact it may be flawed.  Also some folks simply dont have the wherewithall to take those kind of numbers to the next step and factually understand them.

  Have read some posts about narrowing the areas of Kill reports and the inability to process such info in PA.. Here in Ct we are required to submit the 'town of kill' on our mandated reports- understand you folks do that too..
    At the end of each year that 'town by town' harvest is a part of the reporting submitted by the State. - NOT a hard thing to do.
  Like most places many towns are within each management area however our state has no problem whatsoever indicating both numbers in its annual reporting.
  Kinda like Dar indicates- computer management.

Dont think you are far off Drake-
Again the Ct comparison--
     We are required to report a kill within 24 hrs. It can be made by phone or computer.  Phone or computer are within the grasp of all of us and give an immediate response- takes bout 5 minutes even for a bear pawed computer degenerate like me.
      We are then given a kill report number to put on our tag till the deer is processed. Only a few questions like lisense # , town , area, sex and size of deer  are required for data purposes.
   If ya dont do it - poacher----with so many tags out there -why not???
A better informed game management staff should make better informed decisions on future rules and regs. Its those of US who defy the system that contribute to uninformed decisions or decisions based on 'theoretical' numbers.
    Consider their side for a moment- having to make guesstimate decisions cause so many of the very people they are serving dont participate in some places. Leaves lotsa room for true error or people to get involved with out of touch perceptions.

Sometime I wonder if I even live in the same world as some of you

So do we. Your post shows you don't understand or at least pretend not to understand a sound scientific method used by business and industry over at the last half century to obtain the most accurate data possible.
Your math skills are admitedly suspect but you continue to challenge anyone who shows the numbers to prove your PGC leaders wrong and you challenge anything that could improve the reporting rate while ****ing right along with your PGC leaders that they have to use their already proven inflated numbers because they don't have accurate numbers from the hunters.
Doc--The system Dardys is talking about works---It has been proven over time to be the best system to assure accuracy----most companies use some version of the system. You can nitpick all you want but the current system has proven over time it doesn't work and shows no promise it ever will.
The only possible problem for the PGC is perhaps a new system works too well.

ORIGINAL: DarDys

ORIGINAL: RSB

Explain to me what is gained from having a person file a negative report? 
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

It's pretty simple -- you get as near a complete data set as possible and there is no need for a "guestimate," "formula," or "fudge factor."  In other words useful data that has no need to be "massaged," "manipulated," or "adjusted."  The data is what the data is.  And concrete management decisions are then able to be made.  There is a reason that businesses use such metrics such as percentage of non-conforming material produced, scrap per production credit, defects per million shipments, etc. -- if they pn;y knew how many good ones they made, they wouldn't have a complete picture of how many bad ones there were and could not adjust according to what the data told them.

Example (Theoretical):

PA sells 1,000,000 licenses and gets the following reports:

Did not hunt deer -- 250,000
   This shows how many PA license buyers have an interst in something other than deer an may prompt some different programs
   This also shows the total number of deer hunters in PA = 750,000

Harvested an Antlered Deer -- 115,000
   This would provide the success percentage -- in this example that would be 15.3%
   This could be even further defined by asking the question -- "Did you hunt antlered deer"  -- just in case some did not

Harvested an Anterless Deer -- 190,000
   This would provide the success percentage -- in this example that would be 25.3%
   This could be even further defined by asking the question -- "Did you hunt antlerless deer" -- in case they did not

Hunted, but did not harvest a Deer -- 440,000
    This would show how many hunted, but were not successful in harvesting a deer

Now, doing a little math, or more correctly letting a spreadsheet do a little math, adding the antlered harvest, the antlerless harvest, and the non-harvest numbers, it shows that 745,000 reports out of 750,000  identified deer hunters, or 99.3%, filed reports and 5,000 or less than 1% did not.  This means that the greatested degree of error would be +/- less than 1%, not the 30, 40, 50, or whatever the PGC uses now.

Using the other features of the required report such information such as townships, weapon, dates (used ot compare weather trends), etc. can be calculated and presented.  This data could be used to adjust season lengths and timing; antlerless tag allocation; and a host of other management decisions.

There is no such thing as too much data, becaus eit can always be edited down to what is really needed, but there is such a thing as too little data, which leads to bad decisions, lack of transparency, the guise of hiding something, and general lack of knowledge.  Unless some one has something to hide, the more data the better.

In business we have a simple statement -- "In God we trust, all others bring data."

And that is what is gained by including negative data -- full disclosure.

 
The same data you are looking for in the harvest reporting process is already, and long has been, collected in the “hunter game take survey” that gets sent out randomly to a percentage of the state’s license buyers every year. The difference is that the “game take survey” doesn’t run through the PALS system and thus doesn’t cost 50 cents per response. Granted it doesn’t survey every hunter, but anyone who really is a statistician knows it doesn’t have to hit every person to be statistically valid.
 
The game take survey, used by the Game Commission every year, is a method of double-checking the accuracy of the current calculation method used for estimating both the buck and doe harvests. The comparison of the yearly harvest data to the calculated harvest data clearly shows that there is very little variance from one data to the other year after year. The combination of the two methods has been Peer Reviewed by the Scientific Experts and they have clearly established that the present calculation methods being used by the Game Commission are Scientifically Valid and thus very accurate, without wasting additional money to get basically the same data.
 
I agree more data is of great value, because it reduces the margin of error, but that same objective can be reached by simply collecting a higher percentage of the data from successful hunters without the wasted cost of also collecting negative reports.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

Your wrong Doc it is all the PGC's fault for not enforcing the law.
If the law is so bad that they will not enforce it and do nothing to try and change it.
Then there is another reason for not wanting the true numbers and having a 50% fudge factor..
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Bings..

How can the PGC enforce a law if when they try == it gets thrown out of court ????

They almost have to catch the guy with the report card on his person.. thus proof he did not send it and it did not get lost in the mail.. if the courts side with the hunter it's not the fault of the PGC...

answer me this.. why do you think folks do not send in the card ..???

Surely you do not believe all them did report and they got lost in the mail or at PGC headquarters ???

not sending it in is the EXACT same as telling someone at a POS that you did not hunt or that you did not harvest..

when they tried it with DMAPs .. report one way or the other... they had to drop it because even that could not be upheld in front of a judge...


you really believe telling someone in person at a POS is going to make that 50% all of a sudden decide they want to report the accurate info and do the "right thing"..

now that's funny.... and simply a pipe dream.. ain't gonna happen...

"no sir, did not hunt and/or did not harvest... have a nice day"

same effect.. the PGC does not get 100% accountable by the hunters.... and has to rely on "math"....

COME ON GUYS....

I want to see you "blame the PGC" types post you TRULY believe that telling a person at a POS is going to all of a sudden make those not reporting do the right thing...

If the reports (in person)to get a new license do no better than the report cards or the surveys RSB is talking about why would they suddenly change.. there's just about the same chance of getting caught... MAYBE even less.... and if that "system" will be no better why waste the money .. ??

The fact is == not all guys will answer the questions truthfully...which makes the proposed system no better than what we got now...

I do not have to do any research.. I have this now =50% do not tell the truth now..
so I know a different system will not make them all do the right thing...

IMHO === it's silly to think that guys who do not report the truth now will all of a sudden do what's right...

you sure have more faith in your fellow hunters than I do....

50% don't lie

You are right.. they break the law and could care less about giving the PGC accurate information ...

so by tell the POS person a lie, they are not breaking the law.. just not giving a true statement... they did place a report which the law says they must...


Me too .. done on this one !!!!

folks can believe what they want ....

Bed time for me ... LATER !!

The same data you are looking for in the harvest reporting process is already, and long has been, collected in the “hunter game take survey” that gets sent out randomly to a percentage of the state’s license buyers every year. The difference is that the “game take survey” doesn’t run through the PALS system and thus doesn’t cost 50 cents per response. Granted it doesn’t survey every hunter, but anyone who really is a statistician knows it doesn’t have to hit every person to be statistically valid.
 
The game take survey, used by the Game Commission every year, is a method of double-checking the accuracy of the current calculation method used for estimating both the buck and doe harvests. The comparison of the yearly harvest data to the calculated harvest data clearly shows that there is very little variance from one data to the other year after year. The combination of the two methods has been Peer Reviewed by the Scientific Experts and they have clearly established that the present calculation methods being used by the Game Commission are Scientifically Valid and thus very accurate, without wasting additional money to get basically the same data.
 
I agree more data is of great value, because it reduces the margin of error, but that same objective can be reached by simply collecting a higher percentage of the data from successful hunters without the wasted cost of also collecting negative reports.
 
R.S. Bodenhorn

 
Since you have not worked in industry, let me try to explain the difference between an "audit" and a "physical inventory"  because what we are really talking about is the deer harvest inventory.  An audit, in business is much like the survey about which you speak.  It is a random check on inventory that provides a 30,000 foot view of what is happening.  This is "good enough" to understand some trends, but lacks detail and can often be wrong (just look at election exit polls that predict a winner based on a random sample only to change as more an more votes come in).  An audit is also an ongoing thing.  In business, those audits occur as frequently as daily on a rather informal basis (a check of a computer system by workers to see if something is in stock according to "the system" vs. physically being there) or less frequently on a more formal basis by dedicated auditors whose sole job (or a major part of their job) is to conduct inventory checks and correct inventory discrepancies.
 
And while these audits work, companies typically also conduct an annual physical inventory in which everything is counted.  Why?  Because audits and surveys are not accurate enough.  While they are okay for day-to-day, the number of issues associated with them are numerous enough that a very costly count is needed.  How costly?  During the boom time at my last employer we would completely idle the plant for three days to do the count.  The average daily output of that plant at the time was $600,000 per day, putting the lost revenue for a physical inventory at $2.4 million.  In addition, while only about 300 of the 1,200 employees were needed for the physical inventory, the other 900 got paid to stay home.  This was a cost of about $350,000.  Further, departments typically started doing pre-inventory counts, cleaning, bundling, and other preparation for a week before the actual count, so production was down as resources were steered toward this activity.  During inventory, nothing could be shipped out of the plant, so already built product could not be sold and no inventory could be shipped into the plant, so once the inventory was completed, raw materials had to be checked in, inventoried, and shelcved before it could be used, thereby causing a delay in ramp up to normal production for a day or more.  The total estimated cost of the physical inventory at this one plant, in lost production, unshipped sold goods, slowed production, wages for those that did and did not conduct the inventory, and the outside auditors that did a random check of the physical inventory we did (a check on the check, if you will, to make sure that we were o****ing things correctly -- yes there are many ways to count things) was close to $4 million.  Now multiply that by 23 plants around the world, so cost less because they were smaller, but some cost much more because they were not only larger, but in countries were expatriates were need to make sure that the locals didn't fudge ther numbers to make them look better (gee, sound familiar) and they needed ot be flown in, housed, etc. during the process and the total cost of a physical inventory was approximately $90 to $100 million dollars or 2.5% of revenue.
 
Why go to that expense?  Because it was proven time and time again that the audits and subsequent inventory adustments were inaccurate to the tune of over 15% in aggregate and as high as 35% in some specific areas.  And those numbers are just too far off to make informed decisions.
 
So, yes, while your surveys may provide a ballpark, if accurate numbers are needed both positive and negative response are needed.  And, no, it won't we 100%, nothing can be, but it will be much better than a 20, 30, 40, or even 50% guess.
 
Again, the only people that don't want as an accurate or complete data set as possible are those that are afraid of what that data will show.

I have greater faith in people to be truthful than you do.

That's great .. but unforutnately when I see that 50% of the folks that know a WCO saw and touched their deer or they left it at a meat processor and those folks STILL DO NO REPORT ..


NOPE... doesn't show me any reason to believe they are truthfully... but everyone is free to feel what they want to

The system the PGC uses now is probably as good as it could get as long as such a high percentage of PA deer hunters have no desire to report accurate numbers to the PGC...