The key to healthy deer herds (hell--to healthy populations of all wildlife) is the quality of the habitat. Sure, it's easy to over-harvest healthy deer populations in states which have lots of hunters and not much habitat. But avoiding over harvest is what limited license sales and bag limits are all about. (In the interest of full disclosure, I personally, have no use for high fence, QDM deer management--it's deer farming, not wildlife management. If you just have to have a lot of big heads on the wall and have more money than time, QDM operations are your huckleberry--but that's deer shooting, not deer hunting.)
States like Texas (and most of the southeastern states) have whitetails coming out of their ears. They are more focused on preventing overpopulation and the resultant habitat degradation and damage to crops and ornamental plants. They can afford to monkey with tying the harvest of a mature buck to the removal of x-number of does and/or "inferior" deer (like spikes and yearling bucks that don't have at least 8 antler points). This really isn't necessary in states like New York and Pennsylvania. If you try it, you risk alienating a significant chunk of the license-buying public. That's just one of the reasons that state game departments don't like it.
Multiple studies in a variety of states have shown that the most deer hunters are more interested in hunting opportunity and harvest success than killing a whopper. Big bucks are nice but what they really want is the opportunity to go deer hunting and bring home some venison, rather than holding out for a wall hanger. Since these are the large majority of the license buyers, game and fish departments make every effort to cater to their desires. The "big buck"-oriented pushes in state legislatures typically have their genesis in conversations between legislators and some of their well-to-do constituents who are significant donors to their campaigns.
I realize that all hunters are smarter and more knowledgeable than the average big game biologist
, but most big game biologists are hunters, too. They have a personal as well as a professional interest in maintaining healthy populations of deer and other big game animals in the states in which they work. Allowing game management and harvest to be dictated by your state legislature is pretty much a guaranteed train wreck.
