There has been much discussion about shooting BB or not shooting BB and shooting adult doe instead of fawns. It is easy adopt either of the positions if you don't have to worry about keeping the herd stable, but let's look at what happens when you have to keep both the herd and the B/D ratio stable.
So just for fun let's see how many doe and BB each of our deer managers would harvest when given a specific set of parameters. For, example , lets say we have an OW herd of 21 deer ( 21 DPSM) which is at 50-60% of the max. carrying capacity of the habitat so they are at the MSY ( max. sustainable yield) goal. Therefore the goal is to keep the herd stable . Assume that the OW herd has a B/D ratio of 1:2 and the goal is to mainatain that ratio ,with an AR restriction of 3 pts. one side. There are 3 female fawns and 11 adult doe in the OW herd. Also ,assume the OW herd produces a net recruitment of 10 fawns /yr.
The adjacent properties will be managed the same as the SM where you are controling the harvest ,so assume you are managing the herd for the general public rather than a club or lease
Now if you had absolute control of the harvest, how many adult buck and doe would you harvest and how many fawns of each sex would you harvest. When making your decision , in order to keep it simple ,assume an adult doe will produce twins in the spring and the female fawn will not be bred and will not produce a fawn in the spring,
Have fun and good luck.
That's over my head, I guess I could use Pa. way and start with shooting the big rack bucks first and most of the old does, I will be aiming for about (3 DPSM) do you think that will work?
I am going to try and shoot a "mature deer" (1.5 yr or older) of whatever sex I have a tag for that presents a good shooting opportunity.
plain and simple
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If we want to understand why deer managers make the harvest choices that they do ,we have to understand how various harvest choices ,effect the herd and future harvests. This is not a trick question , nor am I trying to make anyone look silly. I am just trying to help us all understand what happens if we try to protect any particular class of deer ,while keeping the herd stable.
As a rule of thumb, you need to take out pretty close to 40% of mature females if you want to keep the population stable. BTW I have a very good mathmatical model I can run for anybody interested. Here is an example of the input requited... Light green entries control what is going to happen and dark green allow you to set the initial population...
You make the call!
