5 antelope?

[DoeNob]

We are getting are apps together and I'm curious what the thoughts are about being able to get 4 doe tags in wyoming. Personally I like the taste of antelope if they aren't eating sage brush and you don't get that much meat off them. I guess if they didn't want you to shoot that many they wouldn't sell the tags, but that seems kind of ridiculous for me and my hunting partner to kill 10 antelope to tag out. What are your thoughts on this, particularly after the bad drought? Should they be reducing the number of doe tags allowed to help the herd out or do they do that with the quotas well enough already?

 

[piper]

most antelope eat sagebrush, and they taste fine, the heart and liver are the only things that taste like sagebrush.

WGF manage Antelope pretty well and there are quotas in all areas, don't worry and get 5 if you wish.

 

[TOPGUN]

Overall I think piper is pretty accurate with his comment on the way G&F manages antelope on a unit by unit basis. Actually, when you come right down to it a guy can kill six in a given year because some units even allow a second buck tag.

 

[SouthernWyo]

Actually, the bad drought is all the more reason to kill additional does/fawns in herd units above objective.

From a purely biological standpoint, the objective is set due to the carrying capacity of the habitat. Units with additional doe/fawn licenses are significantly over objective, and in general, contain herds over and above what the habitat can sustain. Drought significantly diminishes the forage and overall habitat available to the animals, which means in the short term fewer animals can be realistically expected to survive.

It is far more desirable and sustainable to manage herds with doe/fawn harvests than to allow the herd to expand to unrealistic and unsustainable levels. Sound managemen of a herd unit through doe/fawn harvest, that maintains it at or near objective, should result in far less impact from drought and/or winter mortality.

Of course this is a bare-bones explanation, and doesn't take into account politics, impacts from other uses, etc., etc., but it is the "meat and potatoes" of the issue.