I don't think it was a conspiracy by anyone with an alternative agenda. I think it was simply mismanagement and a failure to respond to changing conditions. Were there places in the 90s with browse lines that needed population control (primarily in Southwest AL)? Yes. But most of the remaining state was still in the process of building a deer herd when they started pushing unlimited doe killing in the 90s. Then about a decade ago we started to see a massive rise in the number of coyotes (literally 5x more or higher) and proof started to emerge that they were changing their diets to primarily hunt deer. And yet the state has done nothing to change doe killing laws after the introduction of a year round 24/7 predator population. If anything they have further incentivized more doe killing by limiting the number of bucks that can be killed with no corresponding limit on doe kills.

My theory on why nothing has changed: Your big money hunters and people with influence still primarily spend their fall weekends in the high population areas in Southwest AL. They have no first hand experience of what its like to hunt a property with great habitat and see 1 deer all season. They (including Sykes) don't empathize with the hunters in low population areas and dismiss their complaints as if they need to spend more time building habitat. Or, even worse, you get the common response of "well stop killing does, no one is forcing you." With the small acreage tracts that dominate outside of SW AL, you don't individually have the power to control the doe killing over an area of several square miles. One guy on 10 acres can wipe out the doe population in a square mile tract. The whole point of a state conservation department is to use the power of the state government to control the deer herd in a way one individual is powerless to do alone.