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Originally posted by arlowe13:
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Originally posted by jjas:
[b] I've looked over the data and it's really surprising how few hunters actually take more than three deer.

According to the data, a total of 2,166 hunters took 4 or more deer last season.

That doesn't mean that there aren't areas that have been hunted too hard, but lowering those bonus permit numbers will likely make little difference.
You're right, the number of people that kill 4+ is small, but you also have to remember that those 2000+ hunters multiplied by 4, 5, 6+ deer ends up accounting for something like 10k+ deer killed (almost 9% of the harvest).

Now, if those hunters were only limited to 3 deer, it would have only saved about 3k+ deer. I saw "only" because we have seen bigger swings in total harvest naturally.

If you were limit hunters to only 2 deer, theoretically we could have saved over 10k deer.

It could also be argued that out of all those deer not killed by the hunter limited to 2 or 3 deer, not all of them would have survived because they could have been killed by another hunter nearby. All speculation, of course, but the argument could be made. [/b]
I can't argue against your point, but for the sake of argument let's say that the bundle was the only license available and it was changed from a three deer to a two deer license.

Would that lower the harvest? I'm sure it would.

Would it be enough to satisfy those in low deer density areas? I highly doubt it...

And in high deer density areas how long would it take before the DNR wanted to reduce the herd again?