2lumpy
Long Time Member
- Messages
- 7,994
CLOSING UNITS WILL GROW MORE FAWNS........if that's not all that's done.
Some have asked: "How can closing a unit to hunting deer fix the deer decline if all we shot are the bucks? Bucks don't have fawns so how can kill just the bucks make any difference?"
Not that this will change their mind one iota, but I'll take a whack at because it might give some of our Guest readers some food for thought. It would be helpful if Blanding_Boy and/or a few other certified/licensed/verified/bona fide/quantified biologists would also respond for credibility purposes. They don't need to agree with me but at least chime-in and give us their take on the question.
My opinion is morely based on personal observation and independent inquiry rather classroom instruction, not that I don't have great respect for those that have had both exposures.
Let me also make it perfectly clear, I hate to close any deer hunting unit. What closing a unit means is we have suffered an abject failure so far as managing the unit. Prudence, it would seem, would be a system that is nimble and organized to the degree that we fix a declining unit well before it gets to the point of having to close a unit.
In the 50 years that I've observed deer management, I've see a number of units closed to hunting deer. However, I've never seen a unit closed to deer hunting and simply left at that. I'm not saying it hasn't happened but I've not observed it. So......the scenario that cso has described don't exist, hasn't existed as far as I know, and I suggest, should never happen in the future.
If we just closed a unit and walked away for 5 years, stopped shooting the bucks, I don't think anyone knows whether the deer herd would grow to continue to decline. That scenario has never been tried, as far as I know.
If we did that, here is what I believe may happen. Unless the buck population is so low that a high percentage of the does are not being breed or not being breed in November, (not in Dec or Jan, but November) what ever is causing the fawn recruitment to be too low, will continue to cause the fawn recruitment to remain low. If on the other hand the only reason fawn recruitment is too low is because of too few bucks, then on killing the bucks will immediately throw a lot of bucks into the herd and after a year or at the most two your problem is solved. Lets look at the math. If you have a 1000 doe and only a very few buck, say 30 bucks, (3 bucks per hunt doe) for November breeding purposes and lets say with that many bucks we are only recruiting 20 fawn per hundred does, spring count, because so few doe are get bred or getting bred on time in Nov. That means we add 200 fawns to the herd, half of the fawns are bucks. If we don't kill any bucks that next fall, we now have 130 bucks and 2100 does in the herd. (We loose some of both to old age and other mortality issues but lets just ignore natural mortality for this example.) With more bucks in the herd, more doe get breed in Nov. the next year so our fawn recruitment jumps immediately because we now disperse 16 buck per 100 doe across the unit. (after one year) The following year, if we again ignore natural mortality numbers, we have 50 fawns per hundred does, spring count. We now have 1050 fawns, (amazing isn't it) half of them are bucks. We now have 525 (new bucks) + 130 (our old bucks, left over from last year because we didn't kill them) for a total of 655 bucks and 2625 does. Thus a buck/doe ratio of 24 bucks per hundred doe. The third year, because we have so many buck in the herd, every doe (nearly) gets bred in Nov. and it generates 75 fawns per hundred doe or 1968 fawns. (in three year we've gone from 1030 total deer to a total of 5248. You see what a different adequate bucks (if that's all that is lacking on herd growth?
Now consider a more typical unit, where there are more problems than just too few bucks. If all we did was close the unit AND NOTHING MORE, the numbers of deer would most likely continue to decline, because something besides buck doe ratios are causing the decline. Maybe its poor winter range, maybe, bad weather be it too much snow or too dry, maybe it's a freeway, maybe it's to many coyotes maybe it's housing encroachment, maybe its oil field development, that is causing low fawn recruitment. So, while the unit is closed you need to do more than simply walk away from the unit and wait to see if the numbers of deer increase. If you want it to growth you must fix the other problems too, ie: build underpasses, create winter range food plots (thousands of acres in size may be required) above new home construction location, rehab winter range where it is depleted, kill back the predators, then keep them in balance, forever. etc, etc. What ever is keeping fawn recruitment down must been alter until the count gets above over 50 per 100 spring count. If you can hit 70 /100 they explode rapidly.
Are real world example is the Henry Mountains. The unit go down to 300 deer, unit wide. They closed the unit but they didn't just walk away. They removed many, many coyotes and cougars, they transplanted deer on to the unit, they reseeded a huge burn. Over a relatively short period of time there were somewhere near 1600 or more deer on the unit. Then they slowed down on predator control and now the unit is loosing deer numbers again, to somewhere near 1200 estimated, if I recall.
If that is all they had done, as some have suggested, the Henry would not have improved, in fact, it is very likely there would be less than a 100 there now. So, just closing a unit will never be enough and as sportsman, we need to take it upon ourselves to make darn sure that it never happens.
Those folks who have been involved with the effort to stop the decline of our mule deer have said this from day one. Review the RAC and Wildlife Board minutes, it is a matter of record. We have always said, ?never close a unit or reduce the tags on a unit unless it is necessary to save its deer, but if you do, you must fix the problems on the unit, NOT JUST LIMIT HUNTING?.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Utah Mule Deer
1,200,000 - 900,000 = 300,000 TO GO
BRING IT ON
Some have asked: "How can closing a unit to hunting deer fix the deer decline if all we shot are the bucks? Bucks don't have fawns so how can kill just the bucks make any difference?"
Not that this will change their mind one iota, but I'll take a whack at because it might give some of our Guest readers some food for thought. It would be helpful if Blanding_Boy and/or a few other certified/licensed/verified/bona fide/quantified biologists would also respond for credibility purposes. They don't need to agree with me but at least chime-in and give us their take on the question.
My opinion is morely based on personal observation and independent inquiry rather classroom instruction, not that I don't have great respect for those that have had both exposures.
Let me also make it perfectly clear, I hate to close any deer hunting unit. What closing a unit means is we have suffered an abject failure so far as managing the unit. Prudence, it would seem, would be a system that is nimble and organized to the degree that we fix a declining unit well before it gets to the point of having to close a unit.
In the 50 years that I've observed deer management, I've see a number of units closed to hunting deer. However, I've never seen a unit closed to deer hunting and simply left at that. I'm not saying it hasn't happened but I've not observed it. So......the scenario that cso has described don't exist, hasn't existed as far as I know, and I suggest, should never happen in the future.
If we just closed a unit and walked away for 5 years, stopped shooting the bucks, I don't think anyone knows whether the deer herd would grow to continue to decline. That scenario has never been tried, as far as I know.
If we did that, here is what I believe may happen. Unless the buck population is so low that a high percentage of the does are not being breed or not being breed in November, (not in Dec or Jan, but November) what ever is causing the fawn recruitment to be too low, will continue to cause the fawn recruitment to remain low. If on the other hand the only reason fawn recruitment is too low is because of too few bucks, then on killing the bucks will immediately throw a lot of bucks into the herd and after a year or at the most two your problem is solved. Lets look at the math. If you have a 1000 doe and only a very few buck, say 30 bucks, (3 bucks per hunt doe) for November breeding purposes and lets say with that many bucks we are only recruiting 20 fawn per hundred does, spring count, because so few doe are get bred or getting bred on time in Nov. That means we add 200 fawns to the herd, half of the fawns are bucks. If we don't kill any bucks that next fall, we now have 130 bucks and 2100 does in the herd. (We loose some of both to old age and other mortality issues but lets just ignore natural mortality for this example.) With more bucks in the herd, more doe get breed in Nov. the next year so our fawn recruitment jumps immediately because we now disperse 16 buck per 100 doe across the unit. (after one year) The following year, if we again ignore natural mortality numbers, we have 50 fawns per hundred does, spring count. We now have 1050 fawns, (amazing isn't it) half of them are bucks. We now have 525 (new bucks) + 130 (our old bucks, left over from last year because we didn't kill them) for a total of 655 bucks and 2625 does. Thus a buck/doe ratio of 24 bucks per hundred doe. The third year, because we have so many buck in the herd, every doe (nearly) gets bred in Nov. and it generates 75 fawns per hundred doe or 1968 fawns. (in three year we've gone from 1030 total deer to a total of 5248. You see what a different adequate bucks (if that's all that is lacking on herd growth?
Now consider a more typical unit, where there are more problems than just too few bucks. If all we did was close the unit AND NOTHING MORE, the numbers of deer would most likely continue to decline, because something besides buck doe ratios are causing the decline. Maybe its poor winter range, maybe, bad weather be it too much snow or too dry, maybe it's a freeway, maybe it's to many coyotes maybe it's housing encroachment, maybe its oil field development, that is causing low fawn recruitment. So, while the unit is closed you need to do more than simply walk away from the unit and wait to see if the numbers of deer increase. If you want it to growth you must fix the other problems too, ie: build underpasses, create winter range food plots (thousands of acres in size may be required) above new home construction location, rehab winter range where it is depleted, kill back the predators, then keep them in balance, forever. etc, etc. What ever is keeping fawn recruitment down must been alter until the count gets above over 50 per 100 spring count. If you can hit 70 /100 they explode rapidly.
Are real world example is the Henry Mountains. The unit go down to 300 deer, unit wide. They closed the unit but they didn't just walk away. They removed many, many coyotes and cougars, they transplanted deer on to the unit, they reseeded a huge burn. Over a relatively short period of time there were somewhere near 1600 or more deer on the unit. Then they slowed down on predator control and now the unit is loosing deer numbers again, to somewhere near 1200 estimated, if I recall.
If that is all they had done, as some have suggested, the Henry would not have improved, in fact, it is very likely there would be less than a 100 there now. So, just closing a unit will never be enough and as sportsman, we need to take it upon ourselves to make darn sure that it never happens.
Those folks who have been involved with the effort to stop the decline of our mule deer have said this from day one. Review the RAC and Wildlife Board minutes, it is a matter of record. We have always said, ?never close a unit or reduce the tags on a unit unless it is necessary to save its deer, but if you do, you must fix the problems on the unit, NOT JUST LIMIT HUNTING?.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.
Utah Mule Deer
1,200,000 - 900,000 = 300,000 TO GO
BRING IT ON
