Pwyse, I think understand what you are saying and attempting to convey to CNC and I'll try to give an example. If it is off base, please feel free to correct me on it.
Alabama has roughly 250,000 licensed hunters. If just 2% of that number have not been participating in game check and decide, for whatever reason, to start reporting this year, that equates to 5,000 additional people checking in deer that previously had not been doing so. If each of those 5,000 people kills on average 4 deer in total, be it 1 buck and 3 does, 0 bucks and 4 does, 2 bucks and 2 does, or any combination of the two, that is 20,000 additional deer that will be logged into game check this year that were not being logged in previously. Since only about 200,000 deer are logged in annually, an increase of 20,000 deer reported makes it look like there's been a 10% increase in the total number of deer "harvested" as far as the charts go. Same thing goes in the other direction. If just 2% of the people that had previously been checking their deer say "screw it, I'm not going to take the time to report because I can process my own deer and the state is just going to do what it wants based solely on politics and $$$ anyway so why bother", those 5000 people dropping out will cause the number of deer "harvested" to look like it has declined by 20,000 deer year over year. Bad data and incomplete statistical analysis of that data, leads to incorrect assumptions and can enable the promotion of confirmation bias. Either one or both, in this case, can be used to substantiate your theory about the herd being decimated statewide. Could it be true? Yes it absolutely could. Our game regs and enforcement are pure trash when it comes to protecting and improving wildlife throughout the state. Could it be false? Also a yes. First situation above, with the harvest number increase, under your theory indicates that the sky is about to fall because we are killing way more/too many deer. Second situation, with a harvest decrease, says that the sky has already fallen, because there are not as many being killed and the only logical reason for that would be that there are now less deer on the landscape statewide, available to kill. Has there really been any significant change? We dont know because we really dont know how many people have the app and are in the reporting pool, how many in that pool are actually reporting and checking in every deer they kill year over year, how many checked deer last year but decided not to participate in checking their deer this year, and how many new people have joined the system and are just now checking deer in and adding to the total harvest number for the first time. As the numbers above show, just a 1-2% increase or decrease in GC participation can drastically influence the numbers up or down and affect the way the charts look. ^^^The fact that we dont really know the answers to all of the above is a big issue.
The above doesnt even begin to take into account year over year external factors such as temps, drought, things like Covid allowing everyone to hunt 3-4X more, was food abundant or scarce, more rainy or excessively hot weather on the weekends and holidays when most people try to hunt, overall economy (do people have the money to hunt), price of gas, seed, fert and most importantly now, CORN prices, etc etc. All of which absolutely affect the way people hunt, their number of harvest opportunities in a given season, and ultimately the number of deer harvested. Game check numbers show generalities and can be useful to some extent, but fail to provide context for, or account for any of the external factors that can and do drastically influence the harvest numbers from year to year.
