Okay, I am a wildlife biologist, even have the little white piece of paper to prove it. I do not intend on being combatative, and on the QDM issue all I can say is that there are times and places for it, as well as times and places it will probably never work. The good news is that you are held by no laws except the laws of the state in which you reside and can be free to participate or not. You are bound by the traditions and ethics you believe in and that is good enough for me, NO MATTER WHICH SIDE YOU ARE ON.

I do however, have to take issue with the whole "manage deer like trout or pheasant" outlook. Different species have widely variable habitat, forage, and population balance needs. Their reproductive strategies are highly variable to say the least and cannot be managed in remotely the same ways. Doves, for example, have an approximately 80% mortality rate for fledgelings (1rst year) whether they are hunted or not. Bag limits are set to keep the population levels within reason. There are no cock/hen regulations because no one can tell in the air which is which and harvest is random, thereby keeping the population balanced. In predator control most often it is the younger "juvenile delinquents" that are causing stock depredations and so forth. If you shoot out the mature predators that are keeping the juveniles in check in a particular "territory" then often the juveniles go out of control and your depredation problems worsen.

The problem with deer management can be related back to the dove example. If the harvest was random across the board AND ALWAYS HAD BEEN then populations would be in balance. There would be no issue. That is how natural predation works. The old, the young, the sick. No gender bias, taken off both ends of the age structure. We changed all that with years of intensive predator control coupled with "you don't shoot nannies", and "hold out for the big one" among other things. The thing is, everyone is part of the deer herd management effort whether they like it or not. I hear alot about hunting natural deer herds. Hell, there hasn't been a natural deer herd in North America for 150 years... Chances are they were transplanted back in by your local state dept after they were nearly wiped out by market hunting in the late 1800/early 1900s. Once again, I am not trying to fan flames here, but a question was asked (at least sort of) and I am trying to give a valid answer. I apologize in advance if I have offended anyone, but its life as I see it, you may have different glasses...