I just got back from a state where tagging is mandatory and guess what I didn’t hear anyone complaining. They also make the deer processors write down each tag number as they were brought in and guess what no complaints and it evidently didn’t hurt business because after three days of gun season the processor was completely full and couldn’t accept anymore deer. Sometimes it just seems that the average Alabama hunter just enjoys rebelling against the system.....
I wonder what happened to the deer that were turned away by the processor? That's a good example of why info from processors will never provide good harvest numbers. Unless you know the % of deer taken to processors, there will be no way to extrapolate the harvest, and there will be many factors unrelated to hunting that will cause that % to vary year to year.
I would guess that processor info is mainly for compliance proof. I have always suspected that GC was primarily about compliance. If you are gonna have a limit you want to be able to enforce it. GC is the law; everyone might as well comply.
All the labor of man is for his mouth, and yet the appetite is not filled.
