Those are all valid points - the people who return the survey may indeed kill stuff at a different level than the group that doesn't return it. But here is a key point that must be considered - whatever error factors the hunter survey might have are very likely to be the same year after year. And since we have decades of records from the survey, it gives us a statistically valid picture of the harvest. The turkey harvest according to the survey has been running around 40,000 for several years now. I don't think its really important to know whether the actual number is 35,000 or 45,000. What's important is that we can see it was 60,000 in 2007 so its obvious the harvest has declined from then. It will be a long time before Game Check can show such trends.

I will predict now that the 2017 Turkey harvest will be in the 20,000 to 30,000 range according to Game Check. I will eat crow in here if I an wrong.

I think the main benefit of Game Check in its early years will be the county info. Even if only half participate, it should still give us a better picture of each county than the survey. It will also show when the game is taken, which might be of some use. Again, I am not against the program and encourage every hunter to call in their kills. I just hope all understand the overall numbers are not gonna be reliable in the early years. The biologist at the turkey meeting I attended understood this, so I think the dcnr will understand. I'm just concerned that hunters won't and will demand changes based in faulty data