ORIGINAL: rybohunter
Why is it so hard for some to believe that a healthy herd is desired by many hunters?
Because if you talk to the same person pushing that statement long enough the conversation ALWAYS falls back to just wanting to make it easier to shoot bigger bucks.
Why does it always fall back to "well the deer aren't skin & bones, they mustbe healthy"
Physical appearence and overall survival rates are about as good of an indicator as you are gonna find..............sure beats some clown telling me a deer is "healthy" because he scores 150 +
How come it is ok to believe(and in some cases WANT) a male population made up of the young and immature. Yea they may still live and eat and all, but you can't possibly think that is a normal biological trend, otherwise the "natural" life span of a buck would be 1-2 years and it would die.
There is and will never be anything normal about deer biology as long as humans exist............we influence them in so many ways it would be hard to count them all.............to yearn for a "natural" deer herd would be a pretty hypocritical stance to take considering all we have and will continue to do to throw a monkey wrench into those gears. IMO
How is it 'bad' & untruthfulof hunters to want a decent buck to doe ratio,(2:1) and a large enough population of older bucks in the breakdown to suppress the young bucks from breeding so that they can grow and maximize thier potential? Why is that such a crime?
It's not a crime...............unless you try to force everyone else to do it as well. Believe it or not, everyone doesn't think alike. When the anti's try to force their beliefs on hunters we are unified in opposition..............then some of those same guys go to the next meeting and try to force their beliefs on the other hunters they stood side by side with to fight that exact thing. Weird.
Why not manage the herd to more closely resemble the structure of a true 'natural' condition?
Who gets to define "natural"???
Butwhen hunters tryto reach these conditions, we are labeledevil, decietful trophy mongers by those without the restraint to allow it to happen.
No they're not...............it's when they try to force everyone else to do it as well that their colors show. Do what you want........and leave other guys alone to do what they want. You see a lack of restraint.........I see an expression of free will.