How many checkpoints would you need in each WMU?   Compare 2,693 bear to 315,813 deer to check in and I just don't see hunters waiting in line for the time it will take.  The deer herd just isn't that important to the Commission, they want them dead to appease the insurance companies, the paper industry and farmers.  They know they're not fooling us with fudged numbers every year and that should tell you something right there.

pikepredator showed a good example .. I work at a place that sells licenses.. the "puters" are not that great ..they make mistakes all the time ...
 
and 95% of the  migratory hunters NEVER tell me they shot any birds, ducks, or geese ..... they tell me =====   just put down .. "did not hunt" ....
 
guys will do the same thing for reporting deer kills ... did not get one ....
 
fewer does reported (that way) will get more tags issued the next year ....
why do you think so many do not report now .  ?????
 
there is no PERFECT way of reporting .. what we have is used by many states..
it is what it is ..as good as can be expected ....

Maybe the decrease in doe kills had nothing to due with less tags but to the  first week being no doe hunting in more deer units. Now if we could have two weeks of buck only,and 2 or 3 day of doe.

If I could change seasons around I would put rifle doe season mid October. Thin out that herd for more intense rut. Also shorten rifle buck to one week so I can use the excuse to my wife "rifle is only one week long so I will be hunting every day" of course that's only if I don't tag in archery.

The majority of the states use a correction factor or non-compliance rate to determine actual harvests, as we do here in PA.

 
Actually, that is incorrect.  About half do.  Going by memory it was either right on the nose half, or slightly less than half the states did account for harvest noncompliance by either survey method or as we do here in Pa.   Others simply counted up deer reported or brought to check stations and that was their harvest number.   I was privy to a discussion on this very subject about a year or so ago.   A copy of an email discussion was sent to me that showed a gentleman that had contacted every state to see which did and which did not.   In this discussion were 5 or 6 gentlemen, including 3 guys from qdma, one of which was Kip.    He was called out by one individual, on his state by state harvest comparisons on the qdma annual reports as being inaccurate due to states harvest estimates methods varying greatly and some taking into account reporting noncompliance while many others did not.       States with Check stations do not get 100% reporting.   And there are also other states that use mail, internet, phone in etc. harvest reporting that also do not account for reporting noncompliance in any way.    And it makes a huge difference.    It was pretty much shown we are not anywhere even close, in reality, to the rankings shown on the qdma report given any even minimal nonreporting percentages for many other states, although exact rankings are impossible to determine.
 
And I don't see where Kip pointed out the states that do and those that do not on the latest report.   He makes mention of differences and that's about it.   In his "chart" he appears to have lumped in the states with check stations etc. into his "total"  estimates, as opposed to where they belong, minimal which doesn't make much sense.