The decision is always going to be science and data driven so no matter how many observations we hunters report its going to take alot to move the needle on this one I'm afraid.
That right there is the trouble with elusive species. Particularly predators... Bear, cougar, wolves... A study could get a poor sample and all the sudden the 'science' points to horrendous management despite mountains of first hand accounts to the contrary. I think in a LOT of cases the sample sizes are too small to get highly accurate estimates, likely because of cost of data, yet they accept the results as gospel. Models with poor data output poor results!
