In Tennessee the game is managed by the TWRA. The agency is governed by the TWRC which is a Commission independent from the state government. While the legislature can make laws they do not control the purse strings as TWRA is entirely self funding through license sales and the federal Pitman-Robertson act. This works well most of the time as the Governor can't grab the agency money.
As far as I'm concerned TWRA has done a super job in the restoration of the deer herd. We now have what I think are very liberal seasons and bag limits which allow big game hunting from mid September to mid January. The statistics on the deer herd look very good. While Tennessee will never produce the antler size that some of the trophy states do, we have a well balanced buck doe ratio and a good percentage of older age class bucks that are harvested. By older I mean 2.5 year old and older.
I also feel they are trying to address what I personally feel is the biggest threat to our hunting legacy in Tennessee, which is the loss of acreage to urban sprawl. They have managed to find money to buy many large tracts of land in the last ten years. I saw the other day where they secured another 57,000 acres to go along with and connect the Royal Blue, Sundquist and Big South fork tracks which I believe will now total over 300,000 acres, all for hunting and outdoor recreation.
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