deer pop in experimental forest

NASCAR88

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Just looking for some opinions on a few of the questions I have on why the starkey exp forest has been producing such low harvest numbers in the last few years. Our group hunted the SEF the first year they allowed hunting and we went 7 for 7 with four of them being 4-points nothing huge 20-24 inchers. Between our group there was a couple bucks seen that went 28-30+. One by myself on our way out that ran across the road not far from the headquarters he was a toad. The first few years I believe they allowed 100 tags.

Looking back on the stats for the last few years there has been only 4 or 5 bucks harvested by hunters out of the 25 tags allowed. I know a few hunters don't even show up. A couple years ago I talked with the game guys at the entrance and they only checked in 15 of the 25 tag holders.( way to blow eight points). Here are a few of the questions I have

1. Wouldn?t you think that a deer population that has as much or less hunting pressure than deer living on private land would have, would produce better numbers?

2. Shouldn?t the SEF just be loaded with does since they are never hunted that I know of?

3. This deer population probably experiences very low if no poaching even though the predators do climb over the fence posts into the enclosure.

4. Is the ODFW letting deer out of the enclosure to control the numbers? I know the first few years during the start of winter the deer where standing up by the game fence on the West end because the fence had blocked their natural route to their wintering grounds and ODFW had to release some until they could get them to head East to the enclosures winter feeding area.

I know the main reason for the SEF is for elk studies and deer are just a small part of the big picture but don't you think that a deer herd that has light pressure and is fed during the winter would be doing better. And if a deer population can't flourish in the fenced in area then how can it in the national forests?
 
I dont have any thing to base my thoughts on, so take it for what it is worth. My son had a cow tag there a couple years ago. He shot the 13th elk shot on the 6th day of a 7 day hunt. There was 118 hunters. They even called in the pro hunters and still didn't get the numbers they were wanting. I think they had some down fence and many animals left. I saw more outside the fence than inside. After that year they cut the numbers way back. Just my 2 cents.

DZ
 
I was told in the last few years they have let out some big bulls out of the fenced in area to go breed on the outside. A friend of mine killed a nice bull about 2 miles from the experimental forest that might of been one of them. But as far as if they let out any deer I don't know.
 
Here are a couple of the responses I have received from the people working on the Starkey project.

Hello Bryan ? I have forwarded your question on to the ODFW project leader for Starkey. There are indeed very few bucks within the fence at Starkey; deer numbers overall have declined within the fence over the years. And no, the deer are not released from the fenced area to the outside.

Hello?yes our deer numbers are low and they coincide with the rest of northeast Oregon..no good explanation only that predator numbers are up& the fence does not detour predators..we do have some really good bucks but they are not easy to find? roughly 150 total head ..no we do not let any deer outside of the fence..remember starkey is 40 square miles..25 thousand acres..lots of places for deer to hide and die.. last season hunters killed 8 bucks out of 21 hunters for a success rate of 38% ?
 
Sounds like it. You would think they would want to control them inside their fence or they won't have anymore animals for all their studies. Just cattle cats and bears.
 
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