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Post by ridge on Oct 31, 2019 16:17:56 GMT -5
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Post by munster on Nov 3, 2019 8:58:48 GMT -5
Pretty good article, Durkin is a good author but I would take issue with one of his assertions. His portrayal of APR's being the driving force behind herd reduction in Pennsylvania is not accurate. Prior to APR's in PA, antlerless permits were extremely limited and antlerless and antlered seasons were individual and not concurrent. Antlered season was open prior to antlerless season, so many hunters, even some of those who did manage to get antlerless permits, shot a buck during the antlered season and were done for the year and never bothered to go out during the antlerless season since they already had a deer in the freezer. When APR's were put in place in PA, there were three changes that occurred simultaneously; APR's were put in place, antlerless permit floodgates were opened up and they were readily available and the two deer seasons were made concurrent, so that hunters had the option of shooting antlerless deer if they saw one while waiting for a buck. While there is no way to measure how much each of these changes effected the protection of yearling bucks and the increase in antlerless harvest, it's very, very unlikely that APR's by themselves would have moved the needle much. Michigan liberalized antlerless permits in the early 2000's and was successful in reducing the herd by more than a third, without having APR's in place on the primary license, so it's clear that population control can occur successfully without APR's being in place. That needs to be emphasized, as APR proponents continue to push the false meme that APR's will result in a sustained increase in antlerless harvest. The MSU study which analyzed the data from the NW12 contradicts that idea but QDMA continues to push that mis-information in an attempt to justify mandatory APR's.
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