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• During this 38-year period a total of 1,623,499 bucks, representing an <br />annual average of 42,724 was harvested. Broken down into the three most recent <br />five-year periods, the annual antlered harvest averaged 49,599 during 1963-67, <br />46,519 during 1968-72, and 44,553 during 1973-77. 1971 was the only year in <br />the total 38 in which the harvest was limited to bucks only. <br />Hunter success during this period has ranged from a low of 26 per cent in <br />1975 to a high of 88.6 per cent in 1957, but does not represent a function of <br />the deer population alone. The harvest regulations affecting these harvests <br />were two deer of either sex in 1957, and antlered only with some limited either <br />sex permits in 1975. <br />There is an increasing number of advocates of the concept that wildlife <br />constitutes an early warning system of ecosystem deterioration. In the Eace of <br />current knowledge this can hardly be refuted. There are many people, particu- <br />larly the general public, who are quick to lay the mule deer decline on over- <br />shooting allowed by liberal regulations. The fallacy of the antlered only <br />management concept is illustrated by the fact that states (Arizona, California <br />• and Oregon) with primarily buck only hunts have critically low buck to doe <br />ratios, while states harvesting both sexes (Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Utah) <br />have experienced only half the harvest decline of the former. <br />Inasmuch as the mule deer decline is general throughout the west, it is <br />obvious that the cause must be a composite of many factors, some of which we <br />probably have not identified to date, In view of the return to population fluc- <br />tuations of the past, is it possible that certain cyclic phenomena are being <br />exhibited in a species that we never previously considered to be cyclic? We <br />doubt this, but in the light of the habitat decrease and degradation experienced <br />in the west in the past 20 years, we will never again see the incredible har- <br />vests of a century ago, or the documented kills of the recent past. <br />The data presented in Tables ]3 and I4 on success ratio have been <br />derived from total deer license sales because of the misleading ratios derived <br />when using actual numbers of hunters during the years in which multiple licenses <br />were issued. All other success ratio data, and particularly those by Big Game <br />Management Unit, are functions of numbers of hunters. <br />1976 was the second year in a row that the total harvest of antlerless <br />• deer was restricted to the holders of a limited number of either sex licenses <br />