cynikalHC

X2

bawanajim

When it comes to managing the herd , habitat is far more important than what an individual choses to shoot.
If hunters in general spent more money on land and less on gadgets the benefits to the herd would be immeasurable.

rybohunter

I'm too tired for this debate.

PreacherTony

Aren't you glad it didn't go into OT?[&o]

Gundeck

I have to agree with this. Unfortunately, I do not have enough land to have a significant impact on the area. No matter what measures I take (beyond the habitat end of it), the morons hunting the next farm over will wipe the effects the first day of shotgun season.

nchawkeye

We own 3 farms in Eastern NC and raise corn, soybeans, peanuts, wheat and cotton...We have about 850 total acres and kill 45-50 deer a year, about 30-35 will be does...These farms all have good bedding areas, crop land, food plots and swamps around them...Some say you need a few thousand acres to "manage" your herd, I have seen different...

Last year there were about 180,000 reported deer killed in NC, we all know some were not registered so the figures are somewhat higher...Last year there were about 20,000 deer killed on the highway so certainly hunters took more than vehicles did...

Going back 25 years or so, I wouldn't take does...One evening I saw 50+ deer feeding in one of our soybean fields, only 4-5 had visible antlers and they were small...A deer will eat about 12 pounds of forage a day, we had areas where the beans were eaten down to the ground...I finally changed my mind on what I needed to do...It took about 5-6 years of really focusing on taking does to start to see a difference...Now, I take 1-2 bucks a year in a state where I can legally take 4 bucks a year...I now see as many as 12-15 does on a good evening, but I see many more bucks and larger bucks cruising for does...

I don't consider myself a "trophy" hunter but I do try to manage the deer herd that is on our property...I don't kill small racked bucks unless they are injured in some way or are large bodied deer with smaller racks...I also realize that many hunters can't really manage their herd simply because they don't own the land, hunt public land, have limited doe tags, short seasons, restrict themselves to bows only, don't eat venison, can't hunt but a few days a year, whatever...

That's what is nice about this hobby we enjoy, each of us has the opportunity to do what makes us happy, which is the way it should be...

OHbowhntr

It is, but....in the overall realm, unless you or I (and I hunt the same way you do as far as what I'll harvest) own a thousand acres or MORE, we really can't accomplish what QDM biologi$t$ recommend. To us, it's QDM, but to the biologists, it's trophy hunting.

Jim,
I'll buy that vehicles kill a LOT of deer, but I'm sure that the number of deer killed by hunters vs. vehicles is significantly more in OH. I think hunters have killed over 200K deer each of the last 4 yrs, I'm pretty sure there haven't been 800K vehicle/deer collisions in that time. Can't speak for other states, but I'm pretty sure OH doesn't have more MV killed deer than hunter killed deer.

bawanajim

Just a couple of quotes I've found.
In New York, for example, the actual deer road kill count is closer to 75,000.

Another......thats right eight minutes.[]

The deer is broken, legs akimbo, and lies ragged at the side of the road. Another car passes by, its driver scarcely noticing the carnage. Road kill, after all, is commonplace. On the average day in Michigan, a car brings down a deer once every eight minutes. In 2002, more than 100 black bears died on North Carolina roads. And in a single month, a sampling of road kill in just five states counted 15,000 dead reptiles and amphibians, 48,000 mammals, and 77,000 birds.

We know that roads fragment habitat, disrupt migration corridors, and expose sensitive species to a deadly array of hazards. And now, rather than the simple road kill accounts that dominated the literature from the 1920s to 1970s, ecologists are recognizing road kill as part of a larger threat to wildlife. For rare or isolated populations, vehicle collisions can be a matter of life or death—not just at the individual level but also for entire species.

bawanajim

To back up my own opinion with a few facts.

The suburbs, meanwhile, keep sprawling. By one estimate, 2.2 mil-lion wild acres are developed each year. "We're encroaching more and more into the deer's environment," says Keith Knapp, director of the University of Wisconsin's Deer-Vehicle Crash Information Clearinghouse. "This is a big problem."


Two point two million per year! Where are your kids gonna hunt?

MGH_PA

Even more clear as to why land is becoming one of the best investments you can make. Buy as much as you can...and hang on to it.