Your point certainly is a good one and one that I'm sure the DNR would have to think long and hard about. That said though, if the DNR goes the route of cutting off trapping for otters or bobcats in the future once the harvest hits a certain level (maybe they won't do that), then some type of similar approach might be possible in other aspects of wildlife management including deer.

It would be nice to have some overview from science, not just a bunch of deer hunters speculation, as to how widespread within a geography (one mile, five miles, ten miles, etc) that EHD typically affects a deer herd and how science then can or cannot make any assessment as to the impact on the deer herd in whatever the general geography might be. Such as, 10%, 20%, 30% or whatever of the local herd within that geography is x% likely lost to the disease.

My point is, I think we all have some mild, maybe more, thought that EHD has been a significant factor in some or many localized deer herd declines in the last few years. Assuming that might be true, and knowing that the DNR doesn't typically like to react immediately to a situation like EHD because they pretty much believe the deer herd can and will successfully rebound in future years, does that mean that there isn't some reason to simply visit or revisit this issue in the future with the DNR. I'm not sure why everything isn't up for challenge periodically in regard to management style, management goals and so on. I get this issue of the regs being published and the difficulty of changing those regs once published, but why not? Do we really have to dumb down the process so much that situational impacts can't alter the regs within some notice period via the DNR website or such? I know it's not logical or maybe even practical, but why is it that we have to expect wildlife management to be as it's always been to a large degree? Honestly, I doubt that the average deer hunter would welcome any change to the regs once published, but I don't think that the average deer hunter really cares about the resource all that much anyhow.