There’s an article at Real Clear Science entitled Deer Are a Menace and We Need to Kill a Lot More of Them

Back in the day, I posted an article by an acquaintance (Rich Young) about what deer populations, unchecked by some manner of culling (natural predation or human huning) can do to an environment. Worth a gander too.

We had a Park in Westerville, Ohio that had a gross over population of deer. The carrying capacity was 68 deer and the population over 500. All browse was gone and even the leaves and new branches were eaten off as high as a deer could reach. Finally, they had someone come in and cull. In my opinion, it would have been better to close the park a couple weeks for bow season.
Interstate 71 bordered the park on the west side, obviously, deer car accidents there were daily, sometimes several a day.

Here in Pa. it has been proven the State approved "cullers" who were associated with the Pa. Game Commission were targeting mature trophy bucks at a rate of 21 buck to 1 doe killed when thinning the herd in State parks and at Gettysburg National park.
The once stellar Pennsylvania Game Commission of the 1950-1970s is little more than a place for political appointees to draw a pension from today.

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The once stellar Pennsylvania Game Commission of the 1950-1970s is little more than a place for political appointees to draw a pension from today.

Rot at the bottom cannot persist without rot at the top. Start with the governor and work down.

Just an observation from personl experience the hard part is teaching the Public in General, hunters/non-hunters alike, proper Game Management and the basioc concept of Carrying Capacity of the available habitat, don't worry about the anti's they don't want to hear the truth.

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Originally posted by buckeyeshooter:
We had a Park in Westerville, Ohio that had a gross over population of deer. The carrying capacity was 68 deer and the population over 500. All browse was gone and even the leaves and new branches were eaten off as high as a deer could reach. Finally, they had someone come in and cull. In my opinion, it would have been better to close the park a couple weeks for bow season.
Interstate 71 bordered the park on the west side, obviously, deer car accidents there were daily, sometimes several a day.

When I lived in Indiana decades ago, the animal rights people and their useful idiot minions mounted a campaign against a proposition intended to cull deer from one of our forest areas. There were endless court battles over whether or not culling was necessary, though the habitat was being absolutely decimated.

Ultimately, and with great media attention, a decision was announced in the affirmative and hunters entered the area to kill deer, the carcasses to be sent to a meat processing facility, after to be donated to a local food bank.

The media appeared at the processing facility to interview one of the workers there. They asked the guy about the health of the deer. His answer summed up the problem in a nutshell: "Well, when we get a healthy, well-fed deer, it often takes two of us to carry it into the facility. With these deer, each of us can carry one deer under each arm."

I found that horrifying . . . the do-gooders would rather see the deer starve and forest habitat utterly destroyed (and all that implies) rather than cull the deer.

Where I live in Minnesota I am smack in the middle of a localized over population. I started killing the max I could each year focusing on mature does to knock back reproduction as much as possible The area amounts to half a section with roads bounding three sides of it. When I began it was normal to see 8-10 deer in my yards every night and not unusual at all see 30-40 out in open areas. I though that last fall would be about the end of trying to kill 4 per year. Those delusions lasted until the end of November. At which time the deer really began searching out whatever was edible. In the bad years we were killing 24 give or take with cars on the roads plus four of the does that will drop twins/triplets come spring. The vast majority of deer killed on the roads were does with fawns because their nutritional need move them a lot more than the bucks. I have a cuple neighbors now also killing them, but they are only killing 1/2 deer per year. The number inthe neighborhood now is such that what few we kill hunting them will never keep up with population growth and we have to depend on the cars to kill at least 10 or so if we are to have any hope of avoinding a worse situation next year and there after.

So far this has been a very mild winter which will only make things worse.

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I found that horrifying . . . the do-gooders would rather see the deer starve and forest habitat utterly destroyed (and all that implies) rather than cull the deer.

In parts of Texas, because of the emphasis so many hunters and land owners are placing on "Trophy" deer, people simply are not taking out anywhere near the numbers that need to be removed, legal cull bucks and antlerless.

I hunt on a farm in S. Wis. The country block is a square mile. At least 17 deer hunters are out opening weekend on that block.
I saw 18 doe feeding in the picked corn 4 days after season ended.

I live on that block and I had no idea there were that many deer around here.

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I found that horrifying . . . the do-gooders would rather see the deer starve and forest habitat utterly destroyed (and all that implies) rather than cull the deer

Deer/animal killed by humans very bad.

Deer killed by starvation, torn apart by predators or other so called natural causes very good.

The anti hunting crowd and anti firearm crowd work hand and hand.

No hunting one less need to own firearms.

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Originally posted by prplbkrr:
I hunt on a farm in S. Wis. The country block is a square mile. At least 17 deer hunters are out opening weekend on that block.
I saw 18 doe feeding in the picked corn 4 days after season ended.

I live on that block and I had no idea there were that many deer around here.

They do know how to really hide once the sound of shots are heard.

Then too many hunter hunt horns only.

Next spring the population could be close to double.

we got no such problems.
I'm pretty positive the out of state hunters exceeded the total number of deer in our county again this fall.

your not gonna reduce the deer numbers a whole lot when you can not shoot an antlerless animal, but your gonna make things awful tough in sustaining a population when you shoot every 1-2 Y.O. buck in sight year after year until a hard winter rolls in.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

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I found that horrifying . . . the do-gooders would rather see the deer starve and forest habitat utterly destroyed (and all that implies) rather than cull the deer.

In parts of Texas, because of the emphasis so many hunters and land owners are placing on "Trophy" deer, people simply are not taking out anywhere near the numbers that need to be removed, legal cull bucks and antlerless.

Disagree.

While the average paying hunter may only be concerned with antler score, the commercial operators and big landowners are all MLD. We have to get the ratios in check or we lose our status.
Most ranches have ratios that are significantly better than public areas in other states.

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Disagree.

Disagreeing is fine, I just know what I am seeing first hand in the area where I live and there are very few commercial operators and MLD operators in this area

You will notice I said "In Parts Of Texas"! I made no claim as to it being all over Texas.

I do not include MLD properties or Commercial High or Low Fence Properties because they have their own guidelines setup with TP&W.

The 4 county area I am most familiar with is Archer, Baylor, Throckmorton and Young, with the man I work for managing 18K in Archer and Young counties, and he has a difficult time annually getting his hunters to shoot enough does.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

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Disagree.

Disagreeing is fine, I just know what I am seeing first hand in the area where I live and there are very few commercial operators and MLD operators in this area

You will notice I said "In Parts Of Texas"! I made no claim as to it being all over Texas.

I do not include MLD properties or Commercial High or Low Fence Properties because they have their own guidelines setup with TP&W.

The 4 county area I am most familiar with is Archer, Baylor, Throckmorton and Young, with the man I work for managing 18K in Archer and Young counties, and he has a difficult time annually getting his hunters to shoot enough does.

The only reason he would have that problem is not advertosing, or charging too much.

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The only reason he would have that problem is not advertosing, or charging too much.

No Sir, neither one. All of the hunters on those properties have been there multiple years.

They are all dedicated trophy hunters and just really take out as many does as they need to annually.

Some years they do better than others some years they fall short of the goals for various reasons.

J, Robert has been managing those properties since 2000 and rarely does he have any turn over and if someone does leave there are people waiting inline for a spot.

I am out on these leases daily and visit with the hunters and they are all a great bunch of folks from all over the state and any time there is an opening they already have people lined up ready to join.

On season leases, things happen where proposed numbers of deer simply are not killed. As I pointed out Commercial/High Fence Operations and Managed Lands Deer properties are different.

Unless it has changed under the Class 3 MLD, does could be killed until almost the end of February.

I was involved in some deer culling operations on 'Metro Parks' and adjacent private property conservency lands in Michigan. A select group of us would come in, quickly/efficiently conduct culling operations on antlerness deer. We weren't selected based on good-ol-boy club rules or what bureaucrat we knew, but rather invite based on proven creds. We had to comply with DNR game laws and worked hand in hand with the Salvation Army to put all the meat in their soup kitchens. One property had about 350 deer where it could cary 100. The first two years the dressed deer were scrawny; averaging 70-80 pounds. In later years the dressed deer were averaging 115 pounds. The biologist types were very happy and used us on additional properties. The costs were minimal; they fed us and hired a few extra park rangers to keep the park closed and the perimeter clear of any 'protesters' (there weren't any).

Meanwhile, other places (parks and greenspace areas) in the reqion were trying all kinds of hopeless plans that were costing about a grand+ per deer and simply weren't working. A local Sheriff got sucked in by a city council to use his swat team to cull deer in a greenspace area on the down-low and the tree-huggers went bonkers; they bussed in protestors and he got death threats.

From what I have experienced up here, one of the aspects on leases with long time leasers that are trophy minded is that all too often they get so concentratated in/on one particular size group or class of bucks, that they lose sight of the idea that the entire herd in that area has to be managed, the result being doe numbers and legal cull buck numbers have increased to a point where overall antler quality has began to dimish because the real trophy animals have too many mouths to compete with.

I don't know of any lease managers or land owners that are going to kick a good group or member of a group poff of a place simply because they didn't shoot a full quota of does for a couple of years.

Write it into the lease, make it a management mandate that they must cull inferior bucks and a certain number of does.
Simple, see that I fixed it for ya.

All,
In Texas, some of the best "bargains" for meat hunters can be found by taking excess does from MLD properties.
My son and I took two fat does yesterday morning and had them at the game processor before noon. One of the guides actually skinned and quartered them at NO charge.
The rancher himself guided me and picked out a preggie doe to harvest; the blinds were heated too.
One more deer of any kind and our freezers will be full again. We eat mostly wild game and love it! An exception would be that our eggs come from our tame chickens.

Nope it is in there, and sometimes they do it and some times they don't, and as being someone involved with it peripherally, when you get good people that you can trust to take care of the property, work at keeping their campsites in good shape and Do Not break any game laws and willing pay the lease fees on time or ahead of time with no quibbling it is not a bad thing to overlook that maybe 2 or 3 cull bucks that should have been taken weren't or that only 3 does were shot when 8 should have been.

Also, not every camp does it some of them take every deer they can, also when a person takes into account that at least in this part of the state all or the vast majority of the land is low fenced so basically free range as far as whitetails and feral hogs are concerned, it is fairly hard to get a really good population count and since everyone runs game cams and timed feeders and over most of the area it isn't much more than a quarter to a half mile beteweren game feeders.

The deer move around a lot and it can give a false reading as to actual numbers depending on the movement of the animals.

Back to the original statement, lease managers and land owners have found out over time that if they want to get and keep good, trustworthy, dependable hunters on their property, that respect them and their property you have to cut them a little slack on such things as kill quotas, because a person can go thru a lot of losers and develpop a bad/undeserved reputation that only makes it hard to find hunters that are willing to follow the rules as much as they can.

Apparently one of the causes of the demise of the North Idaho Cabinet Mountains caribou herd is Whitetail deer moving in and milder Winters.

The bear hunt I did out of Elk City in 2010 the only deer we saw were white tails.

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Originally posted by Crazyhorseconsulting:

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The only reason he would have that problem is not advertosing, or charging too much.

No Sir, neither one. All of the hunters on those properties have been there multiple years.

They are all dedicated trophy hunters and just really take out as many does as they need to annually.

Some years they do better than others some years they fall short of the goals for various reasons.

J, Robert has been managing those properties since 2000 and rarely does he have any turn over and if someone does leave there are people waiting inline for a spot.

I am out on these leases daily and visit with the hunters and they are all a great bunch of folks from all over the state and any time there is an opening they already have people lined up ready to join.

On season leases, things happen where proposed numbers of deer simply are not killed. As I pointed out Commercial/High Fence Operations and Managed Lands Deer properties are different.

Unless it has changed under the Class 3 MLD, does could be killed until almost the end of February.

10-4. Didn't realize it was season leases you were talking about.

Maybe he could make a deal with the lease holders to bring day hunters in for late doe and spike season if you have that way up north......

.

A whitetail can whip a Mule deer every time, there small spred goes inside the average 4 point mule deer and the Whitetail is quicker by a long shot..Even the Coues deer we had on our ranch growing up and later on the ranch I leased in West texas, the little buggers would run a mule deer out of the country if we didn't keep the number right..

Deer management is no different than cow management once you cut through the BS..but they will cull themselves if left to nature, the interbreed, lose their health and the end result is a mass die off...The massive antelope herds of far West Texas proved that..Almost a total die off not that long ago..Its coming back very slowly Im told. but its coming back.

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Originally posted by nobull00:
Apparently one of the causes of the demise of the North Idaho Cabinet Mountains caribou herd is Whitetail deer moving in and milder Winters.

It is actually the introduction of the aggressive non native wolf that has the biggest effect on their recent decline.
With a tiny bit of research this comes up as the major kill off.

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Maybe he could make a deal with the lease holders to bring day hunters in for late doe and spike season if you have that way up north..

That has been done but like anything else concerning wildlife sometimes things work, sometimes they don't.

In my 50+ years of hunting I have never found a one size fits all situation. I stopped in this afternoon at one of the camps and because of all the rain up here and the time frame we received it people have not been able to get out and hunt like they normally do.

In talking to the hunters, the leading buck at one of the local feed stores right now scores 115.

Normally there are multiple 140 to 160 class bucks taken in this area.

Unless it is on a High Fence operation, there are No Guarantees when it comes to free range white tails.

This year, the way things are going, all most of these guys atrer going to be shooting will be cull bucks and does!

While that may not be what they wanted for the $$$$ they spent, it means those good bucks get a chance to grow a little.

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Originally posted by Snellstrom:
It is actually the introduction of the aggressive non native wolf that has the biggest effect on their recent decline.
With a tiny bit of research this comes up as the major kill off.

the biologists even admitted this publicly.
what was left of the herd wasn't Idaho caribou anyway, they were imported dinners from Canada.

You don't need cull hunting in the pacific NW, specifically in Idaho in my opinion, although we do have some elk culls that need be, as they are multiplying like cockroaches in our part of Idaho...Harsh winters and to a lesser extent predatory animal kills and fire..One hard winter is a disaster, and poor game dept. decisions is the worst in many cases..In the1970s and 1980s in unit 55 and 54 and a few others it was not unusual to see at least one 28 to 30" buck a day and you would see 15 to 25 bucks a day, folks would go shoot a good buck after work or school with no problem..Today you see 2 maybe 5 bucks in a day if your lucky, and I have seen very few big bucks since then and in certain specific areas that seldom get hunted..

Trophy buck hunting is tough as a rough winter kills off the older big bucks as the snow and cold hits right at the end of the rut and those big boys go into winter skin and bones from fighting and breeding, A goodly number of them just don't make it. Mother nature can be a bitch for man or beast.

Idaho fish and game has not been nearly as successful as Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, by a long shot..wrought with politics..

One aspect that has not been mentioned, especially here in Texas concerns how highly selective some hunters have became.

You cannot force a person to shoot an animal they do not want to shoot!

According to my ranching shirt-tail relatives in NW Montana. Wolves have always been around that part of the country. No reason they wouldn't be in North Idaho as well. Look how they've spread from Idaho into the Southern Oregon Cascades. What would keep them in Canada? But yes the Caribou were affected by wolves as well as other factors.