Why doesn't the Department send surveys out earlier in the season?

Deer surveys have been sent out in the same systematic way for almost 50 years. Making the survey available at the start of the season would represent a departure in the way the survey has been administered in the past. The concern is that this could introduce some sort of response bias in the results that manifests as an artificial increase or decrease in deer harvested. This would make it difficult to compare harvest data to past trends, thus invalidating one of the largest long-term data sets on deer harvest in North America.