theox
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LAST EDITED ON Dec-12-11 AT 05:31PM (MST)[p]So I, and just like many of you have racked my brain about our declining deer herd in the west. I have thought and thought, read many posts, journals, articles, etc. Nothing seems logically enough to be the whole problem. Deer vehicle collisions cause deer mortality but cant be the main decline, on every struggling unit, predators add to it, but i do not see the number of predators to cause a dramatic decrease. As much as i hike i have never come across a lion track here in uta(major declined herd where i hunt). seen 2 from the road on comlpletely diff units but thats it. i am constantly watching the ground for deer tracks so naturally i should see lion tracks too. none on my cams etc. so naturally i doubt its lions. coyotes are probably having some impact, and everythinh along with habitat decline, bad winters etc i just dont see why the herd continues to decline. yes all those added together probably make a nice sized impact but i don think thats the whole story. so what is it?
i am a firm believer in habitat loss but dont thin its the whole cause, we still have habitat that do not have the deer pop it should
everything added tgether cauld be the whole problem yesss.... but..
I got thinking some more, researching more and came up with something i am not sure has really been studied here and enough.
I know there are some studies, but maybe it has not been looked into as much as should be.
This all came about due to our cattle. we tested them for a disease called bovine viral diarrhea (bvd)(precautionary testing),trichomoniasis It is a form of std in cattle , and brucellosis.. these diseases can cause cattle to abort their calves.
It really got me thinking, i have seen alot of does with out fawns the last few years. So i began to wonder are our Does just not having babies? Is this why the pop is decling and not gaining when we hunt very few does in this state?
Being part of the cattle industry, its obvious if your cows are not producing they are basically worthless and cattle number obviously dont rise like they should. So you replace them. Well what if a similar disease is going around our mule deer populations here in the west?
There just might be a problem with our does. they should be gaining in pop... right? why areent they?
i think the problem is our replacement doe fawns are not plentiful enough for our mortality rates(predation,vehicles,winter). Maybe our does are not having the fawns they should be to increase the herd. problem is we need high fawn crops and low mortality. low fawn crops+ high mortality= declining herd.
so yes prdators such as coyotes are probably making big impact on fawn survival, bad habitat and etc. but is the fawn crop too low to begin with.
Maybe i missed something and they have looked into diseases i dont know, i have not found much. I think we need to invest a little money into testing some does for possible diseases that cause abortions, miscarriages, or infertility.
what do you guys all think?
i am a firm believer in habitat loss but dont thin its the whole cause, we still have habitat that do not have the deer pop it should
everything added tgether cauld be the whole problem yesss.... but..
I got thinking some more, researching more and came up with something i am not sure has really been studied here and enough.
I know there are some studies, but maybe it has not been looked into as much as should be.
This all came about due to our cattle. we tested them for a disease called bovine viral diarrhea (bvd)(precautionary testing),trichomoniasis It is a form of std in cattle , and brucellosis.. these diseases can cause cattle to abort their calves.
It really got me thinking, i have seen alot of does with out fawns the last few years. So i began to wonder are our Does just not having babies? Is this why the pop is decling and not gaining when we hunt very few does in this state?
Being part of the cattle industry, its obvious if your cows are not producing they are basically worthless and cattle number obviously dont rise like they should. So you replace them. Well what if a similar disease is going around our mule deer populations here in the west?
There just might be a problem with our does. they should be gaining in pop... right? why areent they?
i think the problem is our replacement doe fawns are not plentiful enough for our mortality rates(predation,vehicles,winter). Maybe our does are not having the fawns they should be to increase the herd. problem is we need high fawn crops and low mortality. low fawn crops+ high mortality= declining herd.
so yes prdators such as coyotes are probably making big impact on fawn survival, bad habitat and etc. but is the fawn crop too low to begin with.
Maybe i missed something and they have looked into diseases i dont know, i have not found much. I think we need to invest a little money into testing some does for possible diseases that cause abortions, miscarriages, or infertility.
what do you guys all think?