Antler Restrictions - What are your thoughts?

[WNYBuckHunter]

"you don't have a clue.  i have personally been on surveys int he early 80's on the tug hill plateau with DEC. stand of pines with hundreds of deer in various stages of starvation. "

Culver Creek,

You are wrong and this is due to the 10' of snow they get up there sometimes from lake effects.  If the open water does not freeze, those deer die from too

much snow cover and not because of over population.

Culver, I have hunted and fished all around the world - hunted whitetails from Alberta (50 miles from the nearest paved road)  to Eastern Shore to Potter Cty to the Adirondacks after backpacking 5 miles in.  I might know a thing or three and killing breeding does (which is what AR really turns out to be in practice) DECREASES the number of bucks.  There is no getting around that simple fact. 

know a thing or three.

I beg your pardon, but you sir are the one who is wrong. In our area (western NY) we had the exact conditions that I described and Culver did as well. Ask some of the older guys from around here about the deer yards and huge, out of control herds back in the 80s and 90s. The deer were in numbers far beyond the sustaining capability of the land. Maybe Doc will chime in, he remembers it. Like Culver said, read up a little on it and open your mind to the possibility that the way you were taught is not correct. 

[nyantler]

Haha Brushbuster.. you have not a clue about what you're taking about... I can tell by your responses that you have know Idea what I'm talking about either. As for PA.. I have hunted PA for many years .. what you call thriving herds is actually called over population. Until recently I have never seen a decent buck in PA. Just messed up scrub bucks. You can go on believing what you like, but you are dead wrong... Period.. Thats not my opinion,,, THAT is fact!

[nyantler]

Hey Brushbuster.. if deer are so plentiful in NJ then why do all you NJ hunters come to NY to kill deer???

[nyantler]

Even with 10' snow in tug hill... (where I have a camp by the way). If the deer can get fattened up enough early on they can survive the worst winter... its when they are competing for food and there isn't enough browse is when the problem occurs.. usually caused by more deer than available food.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

See NY...we can agree...lol

[nyantler]

I think we really agree more often than not.. i think I came on a bit too strong early on.. my apologies

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Mine as well.

[Brushbuster]

  "Hey Brushbuster.. if deer are so plentiful in NJ then why do all you NJ hunters come to NY to kill deer???"    Like I said, I have a lot more experience hunting deer than you and have done so in many places throughout the US and Canada.  I will hunt in NJ, NY, and anywhere else I want.  Believe it or not, your insults wont stop me.    And guess what?  Everywhere I go the truth is the same - the more does you kill the fewer bucks you have.    And all your "statistics" and "facts" and "experts" cant change that.    Can a spring snow put a hurt on deer?  Sure it can but this type of mortality has nothing to do with lack of food. Deer will yard up in heavy snow in areas that do not have much feed and no one knows why - it does not make much sense but that is why a heavy spring snow will find them in creek bottoms.     

[WNYBuckHunter]

Brushbuster, heres the problem with your theory, if you leave 20 does in an area that holds 5 bucks, and the carrying capacity of the land is 22 deer, then what happens when you do not shoot does? Ill tell you what happens, they eat up all of the food and there is not enough nutrition available for the bucks to survive, let alone grow a decent set of antlers. Add to that the number of fawns born in the area, and less than half of them are bucks, now you have MORE does. Eventually, you are going to have less and/or less healthy deer with smaller racks and less meat on them. You also have the chance of disease going up, car/deer accidents rise and lots of other issues. When the deer eat all of the browse from 5 feet and down, it affects other species as well. Herds NEED to be managed by hunters, which includes the killing of does.

[Brushbuster]

WNY,

No - I will tell you what the problem is.

They are killing too many does.

What part of that do you not understand?

Aerial surveys of Potter and Tioga in Pa where they decided to decimate the herd in the name of AR, they now have 2 and 3 deer PER SQUARE MILE.

Meanwhile, the buck KILL just over the border in Steuben is 4 and 5 per square mile.

Take that Mother Goose Conservation Theory and pitch it elsewhere.  Like I said, I only joined this group to warn people what happened to Pa where they once had the "Whitetail Capital of the World" and now my friends who still hunt there are now seeing more bear and coyote on opening day than deer.

[Fairgame]

Where do you see too many doe permits given out in New York's AR zones?  I believe that Pa had their own agenda and it wasn't ARs.  Ars were just something for their problem to be blamed on.

[Brushbuster]

NY is not making the same mistake and that is why we stopped hunting Potter/Tioga in Pa and moved over the border to NY.

However, it is obvious that many here are pushing this "thinning the herd" propaganda - I dont know why but it seems to be people that work in the industry and that is the reason I joined this forum is to warn against the decimation of doe herds.

[Doc]

The idea of using doe permits to "right-size" total deer populations to keep them in balance with habitat, is a useful and necessary tool, and really has nothing directly to do with AR. I really wish I had been into photography back in the 80's. If I had been, I would have been able to post pictures of the horrific deer yards at the south end of Honeoye Lake. That was a picture perfect example of deer populations run amok. It was quite an eye-opener. There were hundreds of deer standing in the woods and in the fields, pretty much just waiting to die, standing right along lumps in the snow that were deer that already had. I have never seen deer in such a pitiful state. The fences had some corpses hanging from them of deer that tried to jump them and didn't have the strength to clear them. Along the East Lake road, you could drive right up to deer that didn't have the strength to move out of the way.

They destroyed the habitat for quite a few years thereafter, as they ate everything that they could reach. The population readjustment came as a rather catestrophic population collapse that wasn't a real pretty thing to watch. The only thing that has kept this from re-occurring is the antlerless permit management tool. Once you have seen how deer populations can get out of control, you really don't want to see it again and it gets real obvious real quick that herd population control (doe harvest) is a necessary thing.

Now, having said all that, I do believe that things can be taken way too far to the other extreme as well. In fact, I have seen that too. It is entirely possible that that is what people are experiencing in PA. I'm not a regular visitor down there, so I don't know. Population control is a tricky thing, and apparently not real easy to get exactly right. However, I do defend the efforts to do so because I have seen what happens if you don't do an adequate job ...... and it's not a real pretty thing to watch.

Does the antlerless harvest impact the buck population? ...... I can't see how it couldn't. After all, it from does that bucks come last time I knew. Not only does a certain percentage of the antlerless harvest contain button bucks, but fewer does are going to produce fewer buck fawns annually. That's pretty easy to follow. The other side of the coin is that not harvesting enough deer can cause fewer bucks for the reasons stated above. So, if you want to maximize buck numbers, you have to do a very tricky balancing act. And the tool used to pull off that balancing act is the antlerless permit system. You really can't manage a herd at all without it.

Doc

[WNYBuckHunter]

WNY,

No - I will tell you what the problem is.

They are killing too many does.

What part of that do you not understand?

Aerial surveys of Potter and Tioga in Pa where they decided to decimate the herd in the name of AR, they now have 2 and 3 deer PER SQUARE MILE.

Meanwhile, the buck KILL just over the border in Steuben is 4 and 5 per square mile.

Take that Mother Goose Conservation Theory and pitch it elsewhere.  Like I said, I only joined this group to warn people what happened to Pa where they once had the "Whitetail Capital of the World" and now my friends who still hunt there are now seeing more bear and coyote on opening day than deer.

Im not talking about PA. Besides, theres a difference between killing too many does and killing the right amount of them. Killing too many will end up with results similar to killing none at all.

[Brushbuster]

"Killing too many will end up with results similar to killing none at all."

With all due respect, I disagree.  Unless there is a heavy spring snow condition, whitetails will not starve.  Also, this yarding instinct they have appears to be a throw back to when they had lots of natural predation.  It serves no use now and this behavior is counter productive.  If they did not yard up, they would find plenty of browse to see them through. 

[WNYBuckHunter]

"Killing too many will end up with results similar to killing none at all."

With all due respect, I disagree.  Unless there is a heavy spring snow condition, whitetails will not starve.  Also, this yarding instinct they have appears to be a throw back to when they had lots of natural predation.  It serves no use now and this behavior is counter productive.  If they did not yard up, they would find plenty of browse to see them through.

Are you serious? You are really saying that if deer overburden their environment and eat all available food (that has nutritional value), that they are not going to starve? Man, those whitetails are supernatural creatures, right?  :

[Brushbuster]

I am still waiting for anyone to show me where whitetail have starved - other than in a late and heavy spring snow where their instincts force them to yard up (for no good reason).

I live in an area that has more deer per square mile than anywhere in the history of the US because of no hunting for 40 years and they have NEVER starved.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Heres one example....

http://www.michigan.gov/dnr/0,1607,7-153-10370_12150_12220-26946--,00.html

and another....

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-22667148.html

more...

http://www.suwanneeriverranch.com/WTinfo.htm

want me to continue? 

[Brushbuster]

"Malnutrition is the inadequate intake of any of the required nutrients. This can even occur in an animal receiving large amounts of food, but is not able to ingest, digest, absorb, or utilize this food. Causes for this inability are injuries, poor teeth, parasitism, disease, foreign bodies in the digestive tract, tumors, or an increased motility of the digestive tract. "

Notice that the article you referenced makes no mention of overpopulation causing starvation and that is the point I am making.

Proponents of excessive doe hunting want you to believe it is to "keep them from starving" when this occurs only in extreme environments.

[Culvercreek hunt club]

I am still waiting for anyone to show me where whitetail have starved - other than in a late and heavy spring snow where their instincts force them to yard up (for no good reason).

There are several reasons to yard and food is not one of them. The instinct breed into them to avoid predators is one of them. there is safety in numbers and this is a learned and passed on behavior. The drive to yard up is also driven by a bigger factor. the conservation of energy. Ever walk on snow shoes or better yet with out them...in snow a foot deep? is it easier  to break the trail or follow a person in front of you? or a well worn trail that several are traveling?

If you read any articles on this behavior they will all tell you the northern range of the whitetail use this survival tool more than the southern ranging deer.

I do not know what HIGh population area you are living in but, I don't understand your position and you inability to understand basic science. Do you totally dispute the notion that every environment has a maximum capacity? Factor in the human tolerance element that manifests itself in ways like displeasure with deer/car accidents and there is a need to control the herd above hunter satisfaction

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Hey WNY----how did those deer die ont eh island?---if bush is right they should have been able to put as many deer on there as possible....just stack them 3 or 4 deep and they will do just fine ???

[Culvercreek hunt club]

Perfect example

The fecundity of deer -- potentially tragic because of the artificial imbalances in nature -- can be illustrated again in the case of South Fox Island, a little more than 3,000 acres, about 5 square miles, some 17 miles from the northern Michigan mainland into Lake Michigan...Owners of the timberland who were logging the island [in 1962] convinced game officers to plant deer on the island. In September 1962, the Michigan Department of Conservation, now the Department of Natural Resources, released six bucks and eleven does. At least two died that winter, so no more than fifteen deer were alive on the island to begin its repopulation.

In 1969, seven years after the first deer were planted on the island, the herd numbered at least five hundred. At least forty more deer had been taken by hunters.  A special hunting season was established, as the DNR decided that the herd was too large for the available food. Hunters killed 188 deer that fall. Conservation officers believed the herd was still too large.  In the fall of 1970, an even more intense effort was made to harvest deer from the island so that the herd would again be in balance with food supplies. The DNR issued licenses to 612 persons, who killed 382 deer, including bucks, does, and fawns. In the spring of 1971, a check showed that the island had 194 deer; a population that fall of 400 was expected.  In eight years, the original 15 deer had produced a herd from which at least 620 deer had been killed and the herd still numbered 15 times larger than the number put there in the first place.  If continued intense hunting is not practiced, the herd will double each fall. The island once could provide food for approximately eight hundred deer. Its carrying capacity has now dropped to possibly four hundred."

[WNYBuckHunter]

"Malnutrition is the inadequate intake of any of the required nutrients. This can even occur in an animal receiving large amounts of food, but is not able to ingest, digest, absorb, or utilize this food. Causes for this inability are injuries, poor teeth, parasitism, disease, foreign bodies in the digestive tract, tumors, or an increased motility of the digestive tract. "

Notice that the article you referenced makes no mention of overpopulation causing starvation and that is the point I am making.

Proponents of excessive doe hunting want you to believe it is to "keep them from starving" when this occurs only in extreme environments.

Overpopulation causes lack of food. Lack of food causes malnutrition. Malnutrition causes starvation. Overpopulation can happen in ANY environment if the animal numbers are not controlled. Come on man, you cant be that stupid.

[WNYBuckHunter]

Hey WNY----how did those deer die ont eh island?---if bush is right they should have been able to put as many deer on there as possible....just stack them 3 or 4 deep and they will do just fine ???

Right, the magic deer that are unable to starve, even if they eat all of the available food and no longer have anything to eat.

BTW, Western NY was apparently an extreme location back in the 80s and 90s lol.

[SteveB]

I am still waiting for anyone to show me where whitetail have starved - other than in a late and heavy spring snow where their instincts force them to yard up (for no good reason).

I live in an area that has more deer per square mile than anywhere in the history of the US because of no hunting for 40 years and they have NEVER starved.

Check out what is going on in Gettysburg.