elkfromabove
Very Active Member
- Messages
- 2,122
Of course, because different places have different biological situations. But they ALL do what they have to do to stay alive and the bucks ALWAYS have the advantage, followed by the does and finally the fawns. In spite of what we're told in "Bambi", the bucks have no paternal instincts nor do they play a part in any kind of maternal social society like the does have. Their ONLY biological job is to impregnate the does. Once that's done, they become a biological liability taking up space and food that could be used by the does and fawns. To illustrate my point let's look at the stats BEFORE 1967:Apparently deer behave differently in different places.
1963:
Hunters Afield--199,219
Bucks Killed----67,392
Does Killed-----42,007
Total Deer Killed-109,399
1957:
Hunters Afield---173,656
Bucks Killed----61,475
Does Killed----44,124
Total Deer Killed--105,599
1951:
Hunters Afield---121,757
Bucks Killed-----67,329
Does Killed----34,308
Total Deer Killed---101,637
So, for 43 years, at least, we recruited enough fawns to replace the deer lost to hunting, roadkill, predators, diseases, winterkill, etc. Then in 1992-93 we had a real bad winter that made us re-think our management tactics and we started to manage for trophies.
Per 1994 Big Game Proclamation:
(1)-5 regions
(2)-Big Game Drawing-July 8
(3)-General Deer Season-Oct 22-28---7 days
(4)-Big game license- Res $5---No deer tag attached
(5)-General Deer tag-Res $17-Bucks only
(6)-Archery tag-Res $17-Bucks only
(7)-Muzzleloader tag-Res $17-Bucks only
(8)-Muzzleloader Season-Nov 2-8
(9)-LE Deer & PHU(CWMU) tag-Res $45
(10)-High Country Deer tag-Res $35
(11)-LE archery hunts
(12)-LE muzzleloader hunts
(13-Antlerless Deer tags-$13-one deer/$23-two deer
Harvest Results:
Hunters Afield---89,980
Bucks Killed-----29,227
Does Killed----699
Total deer killed-90,679
Admittedly, most of the years following 1994 had higher stats, but by 2004, we went below 100,000 hunters until we now have only about 70,000.