Doc

It doesn't matter what any of us "believe". What matters is the evidence of action.

One of the problems with land stewardship, is the huge variety of land uses, and land owner's motives. From our perspective, there is only one reason to own land and that is to hunt it. That's because we are all hunters. But when we look at the owners of most wild land, I think we would find all kinds of people, many or perhaps even most, who have no interest in hunting or deer, and wouldn't spend a dime or a second on deer management. There are anti-hunters, land speculators, non-hunting farmers, out-of-town landowners, loggers, inheritance recipients and all kinds of other people who really don't give a rip about the wildlife on their property. And then there are the residential kind of landowners that really don't own enough land to perform any kind of management, but when taken as a group, lock up a huge amount of deer habitat. So for us individually, it may make a lot of sense to manage our own deer grounds, but I'm afraid that is only an insignificant drop in the bucket.

We have talked about a near-perfect way of ensuring harvest reporting. That being the "one permit-one report system where every tag requires a report successful or not. A simple computer sort determines who has complied and who has not. The DEC has no interest in plans to make harvest reporting better. Their comment is that "if it's not broken, don't fix it". In other words, they are perfectly satisfied with the system they've got. I think your fears of the DEC over-shooting their goals are valid. I mean it would not be the first time that that has happened.

When it comes to access, the problem is not an easy one to solve. You cannot order people to open up their land. You can bribe them to if you can find a big pot of money laying around to use for that. But you cannot command it to be done nor use excessive strong-arm tactics to try to force it. I don't know what the answer is to the access problem. I only know that whatever methods that are effective on private closed-off lands will be flat out disasters on public lands or open private lands where the population picture looks entirely different. It is a tricky thing to manage. And I know that expecting bowhunters to be punished until the problem improves is not really going to be the answer or even part of the answer.

I really hate to say it, because I am merely an outsider looking in, but I think I am seeing another highly politicized agency that truly has far more interest in trying to keep everybody happy than anything to do with what is in the best interest of the game. When the two collide, it is the political interests that take precedence. The stakeholders rule the roost and deer be damned.

That's where all of this is coming from. It's not new news. It is simply the clarity that it all has as to where it is heading. We are now seeing the implementation and that is what is becoming the news.

I don't think that anyone is arguing that region 8 has some pretty darn good deer hunting. I think there are a lot of areas of the state that would like their hunting to be as good as ours. But as is noted in most of this thread there is a real question about some of the ridiculous ways that the DEC thinks they can change all that through singling out bowhunters-only to fix the great hunting that we are currently burdened with.

So I just got my latest issue of New York Outdoor News and they have a pretty good article on what I am starting to call the "DEC's war on bow hunting" .... lol. Well maybe it's not a war on bowhunting, but they now recognize that the crossbow issue has neutered the NY Bowhunters, and we now make an easy mark for anything they want to do to bow season. This antlerless mandate for bowhunters only, now has a part 2 added in as part of their grand plan for deer management balanced in the backs of bowhunters. Apparently there is a provision that they also have in mind that says that if the bowhunters don't do a good enough job of singlehandedly controlling the deer population, that old "early muzzleloader season" that was beaten back by NY Bowhunters a decade back, comes back as a punishment. The quote from DEC's Stang: "The next step - outlined in the Deer Management Plan - would be the implementation of a special antlerless only muzzleloader season in select WMUs. We could start to consider more aggressive tactics like an early muzzleloader season" Stang said. I believe you can interpret all of that as when the bowhunters don't take care of the antlerless harvest requirements, we will jam guns into the regular bow season to whatever extent is necessary to handle the management needs. I will resist the temptation to say "I told you so", but here comes the guns into bow season. Starts with the muzzleloaders just to set the precedent and after that? ..... Whatever they want to do. I haven't heard any of the doe harvest remedies aimed at the gun season, so I can only assume that the bowhunters organization being properly trashed now, the DEC feels that the opposition is sufficiently crippled and the time to turn bow season into a more efficient doe harvest time-slot through whatever means possible is now. And now the blueprint for doing that is publicly laid out.

I wonder if it has occurred to any of these geniuses that by restricting harvests to "doe only" that likely the overall hunting pressure in those select high population areas likely will go down as hunters opt to hunt other areas where they don't have to watch the buck of a lifetime walk by. Exactly the opposite of what they are trying to do. (Cross-posted from the other thread)

I would suggest that you more thoroughly examine the details of the DEC web page on CTFs so that you ask the right questions and understand if someone is trying to tell you something other than what they have indicated on their own page. Because I have to say that what they have described there on that page looks to me like they are trying to hand off deer management decisions that should be made in their own shop.

I'm not saying that the DEC is exercising an agenda of their own, but simply creating proposals, regulations, and rules based not on their biological data, but instead on the recommendations of laymen who are selected from a group of people predominantly with an anti-deer agenda. So while we are imagining that the DEC is applying all these biological principles, studies and research in establishing seasons, regulations and deer density, it appears that those decisions are really being controlled by all kinds of people with all kinds of non-biological agendas that may not necessarily be of benefit to the deer herd. So while we are envisioning a trained, educated, and expert staff of DEC personnel applying their expertise to manage the size of the herd, it appears that they have abrogated those responsibilities to a small group of people that consist mostly of those with vested interests in keeping herd sizes as low as the public will tolerate. At least that is the way it appears if you read the webpage that I linked. The problem with letting those people dictate deer density goals, is that you begin to get ridiculous proposals like have been mentioned just so that the CTF goals can be met. If you are saying that the DEC is incapable of managing the herd, I don't believe the answer is to turn management over to a handful of untrained people that would just as soon that there be no such thing as a deer. Do you think that is a great idea? .... I don't

I am still confused as to why if the DEC is so panicked to knock down deer numbers in certain WMUs, why did they implement the fee for applying for antlerless permits. In fact, why are these permits not given out free and easily available as a printed out internet page. How seriously can one take all this panic attack that the DEC is going through over high populations when the best they can come up is to penalize bow hunters (only). You have to wonder why their actions do not involve gun hunters at all, even though that is where they would get their biggest bang for the buck. And then there is the thought that if you really want to cut deer populations down in certain select areas, why would you place doe only restrictions on those areas and likely convince hunters to vacate the problem areas and hunt other areas? Does that make sense? Not to me.

I wonder if it has occurred to any of these geniuses that by restricting harvests to "doe only" that likely the overall hunting pressure in those select high population areas likely will go down as hunters opt to hunt other areas where they don't have to watch the buck of a lifetime walk by. Exactly the opposite of what they are trying to do.

OK, now go back and actually read the DEC page on CTFs that I linked and you will see that this is the way that deer harvest goals (targets) are established. The proposals are all aimed at supporting those CTF-established goals. And that, as I pointed out, is the connection between CTFs and the actions that the DEC is now taking (Proposals). As far as who is chosen for the CTFs, let me lift a quote directly from that page that I linked to: "Stakeholders are people affected by deer who have a particular concern or interest in the overall population of deer in a WMU. Farmers, hunters, foresters, conservationists, motorists, the tourism industry, landowners, small business, etc, are all considered as potentially distinct stakeholder groups." Take out the hunters, and all of the rest of them are what I would call anti-deer interests, or at least have some potential negative interface with their local herds. The low targets established by these CTFs are what is driving these knee-jerk proposals.

Don't like snakes, for the most part. I do have one exception, and that is the black snake. They seem to have an almost friendly kind of personality, and they are great mouse and rat eaters. Also, I have heard stories that if you have black snakes, you won't have any rattlesnakes. I don't know whether that is simply a myth, or truth, but just on the outside chance that there might be some truth to it, every black snake I ever encounter are pretty safe from me.

Actually, it is a stakeholder's driven regulation ( http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7207.html ). Looking through the listing of potential stakeholder members of the Citizen Task Force that Cornell/DEC have come up with, if you divide these stakeholder candidates into pro-deer and anti-deer interests, you will see it heavily weighted toward those that would just as soon that deer didn't even exist. Yes, they try to put a face on it all that makes believe that it is being driven by biological factors in order to hold down the public outrage. But in reality it is biological decisions being made by business interests. At least that is how it all appears to me.

I too raised two boys, and even though my hunting days are probably numbered, I still have a vested interest in not only preserving hunting for those two sons, but also in maintaining a quality of hunt that will maybe keep them enjoying hunting as I have for all these years. Yes, I want the enjoyment of the hunt to last into many generations beyond me, and while that thinking into a future beyond myself may be being replaced by the "me first" thinking, and the thought that all you have to do is to have hunting last through your own lifetime. I try to take a longer view of things. That may be to you a doom and gloom attitude, but to me it is pulling one's head out of the sand and actually facing problems before they become problems, if possible and not trying to see how many hunters we can regulate out of the sport. I understand that not everyone wants to hear that sort of thing, and that it is a lot easier to simply look out for yourself and the hell with the generations of the future. I can't adopt that kind of an attitude and it is specifically because my sons and their offspring have to live in the hunting world that I hand them. Doom and gloom, or just a realistic view and concern for those that come after me. Well, you have your view and I have mine, but I am thinking that perhaps it is time to listen to your dad. You might just find out that he really does know what he is talking about, and perhaps he also is taking a longer, more experienced view than you are.

Wow!.... Abortion ..... really? How do you morph a fracking topic into abortion?.....lol.

If the problem is strictly lack of access, then there is no rule or regulation that can be placed on the backs of bowmen that solves that problem. You cannot shoot does only in places that you can't even access. That shows even further how poorly thought out this proposal really is.

Actually, this is the DEC's version of an "Earn-a-Buck". You just have to spend two weeks of doe-only to earn your buck .....lol. Oh, but this applies to the nasty "buck slaying" bow hunters only. Actually, if the DEC is so concerned about bowhunters wasting that part of the season, why stop with just expanding crossbow usage. If you really want to knock the population down, let's be more straight-up about it and stuff muzzle loaders in there too. Wait a minute .... why stop there? just extend gun season forward and give the gunners that part of the season too. That'll knock the herd down even better. Does that all sound a bit facetious? Well it is on my part. As far as the DEC is concerned .... they probably would think that was a real good idea.

All right. That's great news. End of problem....right? Go ahead, you can put your head back in the sand now (or whatever place you've been keeping it stuck in).

And once again we are attacking a management problem through a campaign of harassing the very people we are expecting to do the population cuts with new additional rules and regulations. We just love heaping more and more limitations and then sit around wondering why the size of that army of population controllers dwindles every year. Never mind educational efforts or trying to get hunters on the right page of what the DEC is trying to do. No, instead let's just throw more limitations on hunting and then whine about hunters disappearing. We do love our regs, don't we? EAB, ARs, and all kinds of initial programs each designed to take more and more opportunities away, using the blunt force of the regulation stick. I think a little more persuasion, education, and trying to get hunters on the side of cooperation rather than trying to force hunters into buy-in by just throwing new restrictions and limits and harassments at them every year. I'm afraid that all these fancy fad regs is simply going to regulate hunters right out of existence, and the very thing we are trying to do will be driving out exactly the resources that we need to do it.

I don't think I have ever heard anyone say they enjoy the soothing roar of motorized vehicles echoing off the hills of an otherwise serene wooded valley .... lol. Heck, I don't enjoy the sound of chainsaws and skidders and somebody riding a motorcycle down the road. The drone of a tractor off in the distance or a plane flying overhead can be pretty annoying when you are straining to hear if there is a follow-up noise to that twig that you thought you heard snap. But, people do have the right to use all these things. Weed-eaters, leaf blowers and lawn mowers and other similar noisemakers are simply things that we have to accept. And the sound of ATV's have to get added to that list. Usually, when I hear an ATV somewhere off in the woods, I have no idea whether they are engaged in some arbitrary list of acceptable uses that I have developed. And in reality, it doesn't matter. If they believe that they have a want or need to drive that ATV on their property, it probably is no more my business than if they decide that it is time to mow the lawn or run their roto-tiller or whatever kind of noise-maker that they happen to be wanting to use. There has only been one place that I was ever at that was completely free of man-made sounds, and you wouldn't believe the crazy effort of canoeing miles and making long ugly portages required to get in there ..... lol. And then some big-mouthed loon was making an ugly ruckus that messed up all that peace and quiet .... ha-ha-ha. Let's face it, audio stimuli is just a part of life. You can complain about it, but you can't escape it. Not in this day and age.

That last bit of distance to the stand is the most important as far as being quiet is concerned. If you walk in on the deer in the dark making all kinds of noise (ATV motor), they may not go charging out of the area, but it is pretty certain that they won't be wandering around in the area that just got disturbed. So, I agree, it is a real bad idea to drive to your stand. I think when the time comes that I am so beaten down that I have to ride to my stand, perhaps I should re-evaluate whether it is even safe to be out in the woods by myself in the first place.

How seriously can you take this nonsense when the DEC decided to discourage hunters from getting permits by charging for the applications. That is the old case of them talking out of both sides of their mouths.