Just a thought on ODFW

First of all, I don't work for ODFW. I do voluteer allot of my time to ODFW heping on various projects. I am also very involved with my local chapter of the Mule Deer Fondation. With that said, I feel I am doing my part in helping give back into the sport's that myself, my family, and friends get so much out of. I also do not agree with allot of how ODFW manages our game herd's, which is another subject.

Now to the point. I hear allot of talk about how ODFW is at fault for our Deer herd's going to nothing because of the Cougar population. Let's keep in mind that ODFW did not put this on the ballot, the Oregon Legislature did and the voter's of this state voted for it. Now, it is in ODFW's lap to deal with and have done what they can (without getting there pant's sued off by the other side) to deal with it. Cougar tag's for Res and Nonres are $14.50 and if you are lucky enough to harvest One you can go buy another tag. The same can be said for the Wolf. ODFW did not ask for the Wolf nor did the voters of Oregon. Oregon has the Wolf now and they are only going to expand if we want it or not (again another subject all together). But now, ODFW again has an uncontrolable predator set in there lap to deal with that is protected by federal law.


So, let's go back a few year's. Starting in the so called "Mule Deer Boom" of the 1960's. We could run dog's for Bear and Cougar. We could kill Coyote's as we can today (trapping for Coyote and Bobcat was much more active because of fur price's as well) and yet the Deer herd's were still on a steady downward fall from then till current time's. Also, the hunting season's for much of this era were longer, over the counter and there were more hunter's in the state. Other State's are fighting the same battle with declining Deer herd's and most of these state's can still hunt predator's with dog's.

Sorry to be long winded and I could go on. But, what do you guy's think? Not just in Oregon but other State's dealing with the decline of our game herd's. I have hunted many other state's on an every year basis and have seen first hand that it is not just Oregon. I think there is allot more fator's involved than just poor game management and predator's. What say You??

Maybe Mule Deer are just headed for extinction? Seems Whitetail deer populations are booming.

I do think that predators are THE major contribution to the problem and the very day dogs were taken away from us, we (ODFW & sportsmen) should have acted accordingly not 20 years later when herds are decimated.

Every Oregon Sportsman needs to get on board with the Oregon Outdoor Council.

http://oregonoutdoorcouncil.org/

I think we can all agree that mule deer management should be based on research and scientific principles. Given that, there is absolutely no question that a significant factor in the decline of Oregon mule deer is the severe decline in mature bucks to do the breeding.

Multiple research studies on multiple species, including some in oregon, have made it clear that females control when they breed, and which bucks they will breed with. Without exception, females seek mature males (4.5 years of age and older) during the first estrus cycle. If a mature buck is not available, or otherwise tied up, they don't breed during the first estrus cycle.

Studies going back more than 50 years also show conclusively that having fawns/calves born early in the summer, maximizing their time to grow prior to winter, is a critical factor in fawn survival rates, and thus growing a population. Even more critically, when fawns are born over 6-8 weeks, from late May til late July, which is what happens when all of the does are not bred during the first estrus cycle, predation, particularly by coyotes, is greatly increased.

In Oregon, using ODFW'w own figures, we are harvesting approxmiately 50% of the available bucks every year. The result, in my view, is a very small population of mature bucks, with large numbers of does not being bred until the second or third estrus cycle, and many of the fawns being born to those does succumbing to predation.

I suppose it is accurate to say the cause of high fawn mortality in this environment is predation, but the lack of mature bucks to breed is certainly a primary cause as well. Given our difficulties in dealing with predators, no poison, no dogs, no baiting, etc, perhaps we ought to try increasing the mature buck population as a possible solution.

Scoutdog

Hawk,I know Oregon is not the only state dealing with declining deer hurds. I am in my early 40's and have seen things go down hill drasticly in my 30 years of hunting. One thing I never understood is why East side bag limit is visible antler. It still is to this day, Ive heard too many poeple say "we tagged out" then find out they shot 4 spikes and a couple forked horns. how are we going to get more breeding bucks when huters are allowed to shoot yearling buck that don't even know they should be scared of humans? Times have changed but I haven't seen ODWF adjust very many bag limits with the changes. I believe there needs to be some adjustmen made. On the prededor side, not many people are actively out hunting them, with the down economy it just cost too much to do it. ODWF asks for donations so they can try, but im not sure thats the best cure. I believe that we need an incentive program to get more hunters out helping control the predetors. Just my .02

I don't fault ODFW for the ban on lion hunting, but there is still plenty left to blame them for.

ODFW has the ability to send agents in to kill lions if the game managment requires it. why is that tool not used more when our deer herds are in the trouble they are?

The first step in mamagment is to recognize and admit you have a problem. not a problem you study, but a problem you attack. once ODFW admits there is a problem that needs fixed they should cut tag numbers, or close the season in many units. second since you now have a problem so large you closed the season then you call in the agents with hounds to thin the lion population. once deer numbers rebound to a level they can be hunted you issue a prudent number of tags and proceed on that path . maybe oversimplified but you get the drift.

All ODFW does is manage a budget, if a tag is cut one place it will be moved to another, or a new creative hunt will be issued to hold revenue steady.

Ultimately its the complacency of the Oregon hunter that allows this nutshell game and downward cycle to continue. as long as ODFW gets a free pass to do business as usual nothing will change. yes men organizations like OHA add to the problem, we don't need cheerleaders on a sinking ship we need to expose mismanagment.


If you think ODFW is doing an acceptable job you just don't hunt anywhere else. if you think I'm just one of those guys impossible to please ask me what I think of the other states I hunt.










Stay thirsty my friends

Scoutdog hit it on the head. Ask any rancher what would happen to his calves if he cut his bull numbers to say 1 bull / 50 cows. Too many tags for too few bucks = late / weaker / and less fawns. And, the abundant predators can easily single out the weaker fawns during winter.

The worst example of deer management in the state, in my opinion because I live here, is the Malheur River unit. I believe they allocated just shy of 2000 buck tags last year. THERE ARE NOT 2000 BUCKS IN THE UNIT! Now, this is, as far as I know, up to ODFW and the game commision - not the legislature. And, to allow archery hunters to hunt statewide? I've given up bowhunting locally due to the fact that too many people road hunt during archery season to try and kill the spikes that stand 40 yards off the road. RIDICULOUS!

ONLY FIRST TIME HUNTERS SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO SHOOT SPIKES / FORKED HORNS!

Scoutdog,

Very intersting thoughts... thanks for the info... would love to read some of the studies u reference. Where can they be found?

robin, was away from my office all day today and just saw your post. I will try to post some links sometime tomorrow.

Scoutdog

One thing being overlooked is the poachers,with the tough times for folks and one game guy trying to cover 8oo sq miles. talked to a sheep herder who is with his flock (bahh,bahhh) all summer on the range and he says he hears more shooting in the spring and summer day and night than he hears during hunting season.

I agree with what everybody has said. However, there are study's out there from other state's, Montana for example, that have tried the 3pt or better program in some area's and it doesn't work. I hunt Montana every other year for Deer and Elk. The wierd thing is where I hunt the Whitetail's are going up and the Mule Deer are declining. There is some info that say's the Whitetail's will destroy the Mule Deer herd's, but I haven't seen any study's the back that up.

Most of the Money to fund the predator agent's come's from the Oregon Legislator and down the line clear to a county level. So, there funding is crap. We are lucky to any at all. With as liberal as this state is I am suprised the wildlife agent's get any money period. I know the economy has hurt guy's going to far from home to hunt predators. But how many guy's are really going out hunting Cougar's getting One? Not very Damn many. I have hunted, Fished and lived in the wood's for 30 year's and seen 3 cougar's in the day light. Two of which were in the same week long hunt on Hart Mnt.

I agree with all of you to a certain extent. Mule deer across the west are in dire straits. I was lucky enough to see the mule deer at their peak in the 60?s & early 70?s. What most of today?s hunters/game managers don't realize is that there was an all out war on coyotes from shortly after WWII through the early 70?s by ranchers, trappers, game commissions & county governments. Just about every county in every western state had at least one full time government trapper; these ole boys were able to use strychnine, cyanine, 1080 baits & getters or anything they could invent to kill coyotes?other predators were controlled in the process.

I'm not saying that I'm a lion and wolf hugger ??.I'm all for getting rid of as many as we possibly can, it's just that they aren't the main culprit in the loss of our mule deer across the western states. Lions can kill an elk just as easy as a deer, there home ranges are considerably larger than a coyotes, I could rattle on about how they travel and normally target mature deer and such, but it's a mute point???.they kill only a small percentage of the total deer taken by predators across the western states. This is evident in that states that can still hunt lions with dogs aren't fairing much better than Oregon in handling the dwindling mule deer numbers.

State game managers just can't get it; when coyotes? were at their lowest levels??.mule deer were at their highest, it's not rocket science and you don't have to have 5 degrees and a doctorate to figure it out. Coyotes eat mule deer fawns as fast as they can find them; they also eat as many adults as they can catch. We are only one severe winter away from losing the non-agricultural population altogether. When you don't have recruitment, you run out of deer! The state managers aren't going to ever fix the problem......they make the same amount of money or more studying it.

That leaves it up to the sportsmen & ranchers to get to work on the solution???kill as many coyotes as they can. It doesn't do a hell of a lot of good to go to meetings or donate your time planting habitat...If you want to do something; learn how to trap and set snares, if every person that bought a hunting license would kill just one coyote per year, we would see a dramatic increase in the overall deer population in just one year. If every hunter would kill 5, there would be mule deer damage complaints from almost every rancher with hay meadows within two years. (This was a legitimate and common practice during the mule deer hey day). I guess I've ranted enough???..if nothing else, get some snares and traps and learn how to use them; the next time you're out think about setting a few while your hunting or scouting. (BTW, shooting them isn't a bad option?..but if you learn to catch them you will be a lot more lethal.) NOW GO GET TO WORK ON FIXING THE PROBLEM???THE STATE ISN?T EVER GOING TO DO IT!

I completely agree that the coyote is a huge problem. I myself will do what I can to remove as many as I can, snaring is a tool that I have never used. I need to start doing that. Cougar hunting is by chance now, you shoudn't even have to buy a tag IMO. ODFW could give PP for a certain amount of predetors killed and not cost the state a dime, but like you said hunt2live, the state isn't going to do anything. I agree that it is up to us. As far as a 3 point or better, I know thats not the answer either. I just wish they would at least make it fork or better. Leave the poor spikes alone, they don't have a chance, they barely have the milk off their lips! I wish the average hunter wasn't so worried about just filling tags.

There is a very good article in the current issue of Eastmans that talks about the overall decline of the mule deer in the entire West. I would agree strongly with one point they made about fire's, we dont let things burn anymore and that prevents weed control and future growth. When we look at "management" as our tool and only have control over a portion of that we are in trouble. The state doesn't have control over the cougars (in reality), poaching is a big issue just about every where , coyote's need killing and then add the wolf we are gonna have problems. My fix is runnin dogs, lettin fire's burn and more game wardens. Ah men!



My favorite hunts are because they were with friends and family not just because "I got one".

>There is a very good article
>in the current issue of
>Eastmans that talks about the
>overall decline of the mule
>deer in the entire West.
>I would agree strongly with
>one point they made about
>fire's, we dont let things
>burn anymore and that prevents
>weed control and future growth.
>When we look at "management"
>as our tool and only
>have control over a portion
>of that we are in
>trouble. The state doesn't have
>control over the cougars (in
>reality), poaching is a big
>issue just about every where
>, coyote's need killing and
>then add the wolf we
>are gonna have problems. My
>fix is runnin dogs, lettin
>fire's burn and more game
>wardens. Ah men!
>
>
>
>My favorite hunts are because they
>were with friends and family
>not just because "I got
>one".


AIROHUNTER,

Reading your post reminded me of another practice that used to be a widely excepted; smoking/burning coyote pups out of their dens and dispatching them. (I think it's even still legal.) It is probably the easiest and quickest way to deplete the population in any given area. (##### coyotes have only one litter a year). It works a lot like what's going on with the mule deer right now????..kill off 75% of the young each year before they are big enough and strong enough to get away then in the fall harvest every male you can get someone to shoot with a bow or rifle. You could even put out a few thousand tags for females (that are howling to close to town). I think you get the point?.. Before long we would be drawing to hunt coyotes in an area where there wasn?t even a track!

One thing for sure is that the state isn't going to fix it by planting bitterbrush and having a few controlled burns???..so in my opinion that leaves us. It's just a matter of getting it done???back in the day there were a lot of people working in the mule deer habitat every day, (loggers, ranchers, cowboys, foresters & ect.) they all knew that dead predators = more deer. Now most of the rural jobs are gone??most hunters have to live and work in an urban environment. The only way to get out and work on predators is to burn some of that $4 a gallon gas/diesel, in this economy it's just not going to happen on a big enough scale. What I'm pushing is for those same hunters to learn how to trap/snare. Snares with deer stops (they don't close down all the way on a deer's foot) cost about a buck apiece, and once you figure it out; they are lethal. I'm not sure how you un-choke a wolf or a lion, but I'm sure the state has someone on the payroll that could explain it to you.
If you look into Idaho?s new wolf trapping/snaring area?s you will find out that a few guys are making a big difference using snares.

When I was out hunting in WY last year a guy drove up to our camp and started talking. He was being paid by the state for shooting coyotes. It was his side job in addition to home varmint control. There just happened to be more mule deer in this area than I have seen in Oregon in a LONG time. I've never seen a state sponsored predator control agent in the field in Oregon. Maybe there are, but I haven't run across any.

Alright, I'm a believer... I don't even know what the hell a snare trap is, but I'm ready to got buy a few. Where do I get them? How long do they take to set up? Are there legal restrictions associated with them? Any info. would be appreciated.

Trappers where very active this year in oregons high desert. Fur prices are up, but fuel price is killing the profit margine. Indian hunters in the south did very well on cougar with hounds on their hunting grounds last year but terrible this year. May have been fuel price again. In the malhure unit the mule deer are in trouble. After many years of over predation by cougar, the deer where trained to exist on the alfalfa center pivots. Now on winter range/breeding ground there are almost no deer. I'll guess about 95% of the deer exist on the agriculture fields. They no longer have the knowledge of the migration. Fencing the center pivots in some areas are needed in eastern oregon. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------support your local guzzlers. OHA life member,lapine oregon

You can buy them at any trapper supply company. A quick search for coyote snares will provide you with alot of options. You will also find several helpful pages on setting. You will need to check your states trapping laws. I think most states allow trapping/snaring year around.

+1 hunt2Live... I agree completely!

However, before one starts hanging neck snares be 100% sure you are educated in how to use them properly. One would be surprised how many deer will go under fences, or get their head through a snare you wouldn't think possible. My point is: know how they work, know what's using the trail or going under the fence, and know how to TARGET coyotes when hanging snares. I mention this because if you don't, you will kill more deer, antelope, etc. than you will coyotes! That being said, snares are a very effective tool when used properly, and are rather cheap to put out in quantity. However, they can be rather detrimental when not used properly!

IMO, even if we had any and all tools available 1080, etc.... we will never see the mule deer populations of the 60's and 70's.... there are just too many other factors. One of which are the modern freeway systems that now cross migration paths. Not as much of an issue in Oregon, but in other states where large migrations occur, and deer are hit while trying to cross. There are several others as well that pertain to wintering ground and habitat.

Although, we may never see the mule deer populations of the past, there is still A LOT of room for improvement. Predator control being the number 1 factor, and coyotes on the top of the list. Remove the predators, and once the deer population reaches carrying capacity of the current habitat, then focus on efforts to further improve habitat.

IMO


"something about the struggle and giving it everything you have, that makes success that much sweeter"