A friend of mine has come with a question for his level 2.
1. at what age are red stags mature?
2. at what age are muntjac bucks mature?

The question in itself is ambiguous, and in the portfolio it leaves little or no space to explain your answer....
So if a woodland stag holds hinds in a woodland environment at 3 yrs old is he mature, or is he mature if he can serve the hinds, or at 5 years old on the open hill and holding hinds he is mature..

Muntjac on the other hand I know nothing about,apart from they are good to eat, I would have thought that a one year old buck would of been mature...

Who on earth sets these questions.

regards
griff

Griff

Go to the horses mouth on this one - the fool that sets such vapid questions!

Rgds Ian

Griff,

I believe a Red staggie is sexually mature at about 18 months old, or a little sooner, but its doesn't get its permanent 2 cusp premolar untill about 30months...

A muntjac buck supposedly reaches sexual maturity at about nine months of age, but it doesn't get its permanent 2 cusp third premolar until about 18 months old...

Regards,

Pete

As Griff says how the hell do you communicate the right answer, and also what is the right answer! I agree with you Ian, what a load of bollocks!!

DJM,
The question appears in the "new" level 2 portfolio's.
At what age is a red stag mature?

So if I shoot a Thetford stag weighing 300lbs with 10 points less than 3yrs old he is immature!
Or a cannock or Exmoor/Dartmoor monster, but if I shoot a highland red weighing 150lbs with 6 points but older than 4 years unable to hold hinds he's mature!
Is a stag mature when he can hold hinds?
Is a stag mature when he can serve hinds?

Considering the company your in(DJM) on this site your last statement of, there are Deer Managers and then there are Deer Stalkers could be interpreted as a little patronisisng..
So perhaps as an AC and obviuosly a Deer Manager you would be kind enough to answer the question in less than 30 words because that is about as much space that is provided..

I would also be curious as to how many of the stalkers here on AR work to a cull plan,ie young,mature old.Large estates with a static herd work to a cull plan, but I think the rest of us mere mortals have a different agenda,especially with the exploding population of deer, and especially the need to reduce the deer numbers to a level that the landowner accepts and doesn't look for someone else to replace you..

regards
griff

quote:

Originally posted by DJM:

A good cull plan will split the cull into young mature and old.

Roe, Muntjac & CWD are;
Young <3 yrs, Mature >3 less then 7, old >7

But it does show that there are Managers and there stalkers.

I place muntjac into one of 2 categories - safe shot or unsafe shot (obviously not taken). IMHO there are far too many excuses used to shoot too few animals - age discrimination in muntjac stalking is going to result in greatly decreased culling efficiency.

I always had a problem when completing the DMQ and when it would refer to a cull plan. I always used to think to myself - what a load of b****cks and still do. Perhaps DJM would like to come to our next of the woods where it is impossible to control the fallow population when you are trying to shoot everything on sight. It really makes me laugh to think of me trying to deploy some kind of selective culling programme.

DJM,
here we are trying to get to the bottom of this, and you throw a spanner in the works with"fully grown or phsyically developed".
so which is it "fully grown" or "physically developed"?
If I brought you my level 2 portfolio with a 300lb stag shot in Thetford which I had classed as"mature" how would you assess that?
Perhaps you could tell us wether or not 300lbs is a good stag from Thetford.

regards
griff

quote:

Originally posted by DJM:

Do you plan your culling collaboratively with the other stalkers in the area of the deer’s home range for the benefit of the herd?

Or do you as you have intimated go out and shoot every fallow deer in season that you see?

Would you care to share your approach, cull plan, acreage, acheived cull etc with us. We are obviously not going to solve this ourselves and need some learned help to stop us decimating these threatened species for our self gratification.

Does the question not differntiate between a hill and a forest stag

Rob,
the exact question was"at what age is a red stag mature", it does not differentiate between hill or woodland stags. So we don't know if its sexually mature, physically mature or what!
A hummel can be mature so can a switch so how do we define mature...
One of the reasons I feel strongly about this is because of a question that I got wrong on my level 1, the question was: do red deer come down from the hill at night or go to the open hill at night.. I answered go to the open hill at night, guess what they insisted this was wrong!!

regards
griff

Griff if I remember correctly when I did my level 1 a similar question specified a hill stag. I stalk and ghillie as often as I can on the hill and the stalkers go by age and physical maturity. Talking to them they reckon around about 8 years old. The professional stalker with whom I have stalked with for 15 years told me once that when he was out with a guest spotted a stag and he could only see the head. It only looked like a staggie. He saw him later on in the day when he could see the body and realised it was more than a staggie. He stalked it for the guest. It was one of the heaviest stags shot on the estate. Over 19st.!!!