Yep, I agree. Shorter seasons for all and less licenses for NRs certainly will help, Mother Nature will also have to lend a hand.
4 pt restrictions should be good for about a couple of years, then lift them.
Curious as to why you think it will not help?
Personally happy to see no late season mule deer licenses for our areas, they threatened them for CWD measures.
Attempting to restrict buck harvest will do nothing to rebound the deer population quicker.
In fact a lot of data shows, the higher the buck to doe ratio, the less productive the herd or slower it is to rebound.
After the rough winters in the early 80’s, the buck to doe ratio hit some of its lowest numbers ever estimated, in 1985 specifically, The Wyoming range had a buck to doe ratio of 17 bucks per 100 does, significantly less than where it sits now at around 25 bucks per 100 does.
Yet in the following years after these low buck to doe ratios from 85 to 1990 the fawn to doe ratio was estimated at an amazing 80-90 fawns per 100 does and the Wyoming Range witnessed incredible rebounds, building to a herd of nearly 60k animals. For reference WY Range hasn’t hit 80 fawns per 100 does in over 20 years, in fact I think it has only hit 70 fawns per 100 does once in 20 years.
What Wyoming is doing with these recommendations is similar to a rancher losing 80% of all his cattle, and only selling a portion of his “bull calves” at the auction for 3-4 years to “build his herd”. Sure, he’s got “more animals”, but at what cost? A pasture full of bulls, consuming resources when it could be mother cows isn’t good practice.
APR’s have been in place past the point of helping. The truth is, a great many of the young 1.5 year old bucks die of natural causes anyway, letting hunters take them means little in the population.
Shortening season dates have been shown at times to do very little but restrict opportunity. And in many cases, actually have increased buck harvest and even make hunters spend more days afield than when they had longer dates. I think this is like cutting off your nose to spite your face.
The truth is, I’d bet anyone a 1k dollars, you will never see season dates increase in Western Wyoming once they are limited, history tells me all I need to know.
At the end of the day, I really don’t care what Wyoming does, as my ship has probably sailed in Western Wyoming. I don’t have a dog in the fight. I’m a nonresident and I’ll probably not be able to return unless I get shit house lucky and pull a random tag.
The residents should come first, and if this is what they desire, less opportunity, more restrictions, then so be it.
I think there are way more important places to focus the energy people are putting into restricting buck hunting.
