ORIGINAL: BigJ71
ORIGINAL: GregH
ORIGINAL: BigJ71
ORIGINAL: GregH
1) Bucks have a naturally higher mortality rate than does. In time, the buck/doe ratio would be really out of whack causing more stress on the bucks and lesser bucks would be doing moe and more of the breeding.
2) The effects of letting deer self populate would be disasterous to the land. Deer are like rabbits, very prolific. Have you ever seen a totally over browsed area? The food sources would become depleted, the deer would begin to deteriorate and starve and we'd have a real mess on our hands. Possibly something that would take at least a decade to recover from. It could possibly lead to a closed season(s) for a while.
In this day and age with people and developement, deer need to be managed.They need to be managed by people not by themselves. Since we'll be managing them why not do it for the optimum herd?
Yeah Greg, I see your point and I have seen the results of over population. I agree, we shouldn't just let the deer do as they please. I believe in bag limits to control the overall populations and the restriction on the number of bucks that one person can kill.
Here in Illinois (as you know) a resident can only kill two bucks a year but can kill as many does as they want (archery equipment). Ithink the Illinois DNR is doing a pretty good job to date.
So why am I killing extradoes on the property(s)I hunt??
See #1 above. (excuse the ebonics
)
LOLI'm an expert in ebonics
My question is, if the states overall plan (buck number restrictions to help offset the mortality rate between the two sexes and overall bag limits to help with overall numbers) is working why do I as an individual need to do more than what the state prescribes? Why can't I just let mother nature do it's thing with what's left?
I can totally see trying to help "Fix what we have damaged" and like I said I'm all for bag limits and such because they (if implemented correctly) do work.
So if they are working in your state why the need to mess with "your herd" why not just let it take it's course?
I don't know...just thinking out loud. I just don't think there would be a damn thing different with the herds I hunt if I had or hadn't killed all those does over the years........it looks the same to me this year as it did 20 years ago...still a crap load of deer!
John,
Ill. has done an excellent job of managing the deer herd. Especially with how they run their season. Ex. shorter gun seasons, no rifles, two buck limit etc. This has helped keep the buck numbers up. However, there are still a lot of people out there that only shoot bucks. This along with #1 is where the problem starts. By trying to keep the buck/doe ratio 1/1 you'll have less chance of population explosion, more quality food available, more competition between bucks (better breeding) and over all healthier deer.