Here are the facts.
You are right in my wheelhouse...
2007 Stakeholders meetings(prior to the 2007 deer season), it was agreed to stabilize populations.
Somehow our manager(Don Schultz) kept us at an Intensive Harvest designation that fall and again in 2008.
This chart is simple to read.
We were Intensive Harvest in 2005 as a zone 4 hunting unit.
In 2006, we were changed to zone 2 and looky what happened.... Our harvest spiked up again.
The next year(2007) was comparable and we were again Intensive Harvest.
What happened in 2008? We were Intensive Harvest and we dropped.
And we dropped again, and again and again.
What happened. We were a Managed permit area each of the next 3 years and we kept plummeting.
Why?
Very simple.... You cant have more guys all hunting the same time frame and expect deer to live.
If there is an argument that weather and wolves might be the cause, I have news for you.
I spoke to Dino DeAngelo that is one of the top dogs in the Farmland region and he told me on a phone call that winter and wolves are not factored into population managment in permit area 240. He said 95% of deer die by lead poisoning.
In permit area 240, our problem is very simple. Deer cant survive with the pressure they have.
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