Well, after last season Chad Steward himself said in a Newspaper article that one way they gauge a herd rising/declining is by looking at the buck kill and he confirmed the buck kill has been dropping and and that means the herd is on a decline.....he said, "its easier to track 'cause of less variables...year to year hunter efforts dont change much, so hunters all of a sudden arnt taking 3 bucks or eight bucks, they are locked into one buck(noting the OBR). If there are fewer bucks to kill with the same amount of hunter effort, not as many bucks get killed, this tells us the overall population is down", Goshen news Outdoor column, March 17, 2013.... many other states use the same analysis.....