I don't know, I'm not there, not my world.

But I would think the goal is to reduce the number of poachers. Poaching being a mind set, a criminal behavior, regardless of that actual animal they're harvesting. If someone is willing to poach deer, perhaps it's a gateway to poaching something more vulnerable. Learning how to avoid the game wardens, building an "underground" community.

Similarly, if the deer are that plentiful (and they no doubt are, there are all sorts of stories about deer populations expanding), then it would seem good policy to encourage hunting. Lower the fees, increase the bag limit, do some outreach with safety training, etc. "No out of state fees to come hunt in Minnesota!" The goal to get poachers out of the fold and into legal hunting.

And, of course, there's "dual use" concepts, as deer can be considered pests in some scenarios (which fall under different guidelines than game animals). That can always blur the lines. So, maybe not everyone running around at night with thermal imagers is, actually, a poacher. Perhaps they're doing pest control. But that's someone who shouldn't mind encounters with game enforcement.

>But I would think the goal is to reduce the number of poachers. Poaching being a mind set, a criminal behavior, regardless of that actual animal they're harvesting. If someone is willing to poach deer, perhaps it's a gateway to poaching something more vulnerable. Learning how to avoid the game wardens, building an "underground" community.

This is the exact same argument that caused a lot of teenagers to get locked up over a plant in the 90s.

I am less than un-moved by it.

If people want to blast a doe out of season off their porch with no tags I have no problem with it so long as they are doing so in places where the population can support that behavior.

This is very sensible. Unfortunately, I'm not aware of any states incentivizing demand. I suppose you could argue that license fees have not gone up at the CPI rate, so this is a discount of sorts. There are small attempts at encouraging kids to signup, but it's surprising how little dynamic control (doe tags, lotteries, etc) there is especially as most states have made the license process fully electronic.