I agree with you and this is why I think that a goal for future game management should be to try to get as close to a random harvest as possible.
Playing devil's advocate. Why do larger antlers matter to herd health, there are plenty of health animals that do not have trophy antlers to do the breeding? I have my own thoughts, but would like to hear yours.
It rained hard all day, cold rain, cold day 48 degrees, needed a fire in the wood stove. Today was a vacation day, with the rain there was no need for me to move my water irrigation lines around.
I spent most of the day studying wildlife issues.
There were once 500,000 Tule elk in California, then it went down to 2 or 3 last ones. Now there are maybe 6,000 but their genetic biodiversity piggy bank is only got a few penny's in it.
Was reading about the Sonoran "Grey Ghost" Pronghorn Antelope. In the early 2000's their population got down to 21 animals. No other pronghorn could live there, not even other Arizona Antelope. These Grey Ghost's , just like Desert Bighorn sheep have super water saving nephrons in their kidneys.
They were live trapped and given a breeding program saved just in the nick of time . There are about 450 in the US now and that many in northern Mexico.
The border wall could really hurt/block them since they chase summer monsoon thunderstorms for water.
Also was reading about Siamese Crocodiles. When all crocs were tested for super high anti-biotic properties which might be used for new human antibiotics, they scored the highest, but only with the dominant mature ones, these had won the genetic lottery but so few were are left.
I am getting mixed info about our topic, "Are hunters, by mostly taking the biggest game animals, diminishing the genetic treasure chest of the herds.?"
Sources from hunting interests say no, biologists are quite mixed.
I will see what else i can find.