ORIGINAL: BigJ71
With all this talk about herd management I got to thinking......
What would happen if we didn't try to kill off all these does? What would happen if we just left this process to natural selection?
Don't get me wrong, I too have been out killing does trying to get the numbers down. But the more time I spend out hunting (and thinking) I can't help but wonder what's the harm of just letting them self populate.
After all, if the deernumbers get too much for the land to hold they will die off right? Then the numbers would be right for the area. This cycle would continue (theoretically) as the years go by. I know ALL the deer won't die, for the most part just the weaker deer, so what's so wrong with that?
What's our goal here anyway? I'm starting to question it myself. Perhaps we should just hunt what we like and let Mother Nature take care of the rest? As long as we as hunters don't kill off the population (I think we are the deer populations main threat), I find it hard to believe they will kill themselves off, I don't think that's even possible.
Your thoughts?
I haven't read any of the other's postbut
NATURE"Sway of thinning the population is throughpredation. Without predation itusesdisease and starvation. Since we are the "MAIN " predatorsin most areas from an earlierhistory of wiping out the other bigpredators and changing the lay of the land... letting Nature go back to a natural cycle might not be so pretty.
Example... When I moved here 20 years ago, red fox were very abundant. Price for fur was very good and a lot of trapping was going on ( me included ). Prices droppedfrom 50 - 70 dollars to 5 dollars a fox. I loved trapping so I kept at it but most quit. The fox population exploded.The fox got mange and it basically wiped them out. It's been 15 years now and I am happy if I see 3-5 fox a year.After mange hit, itwas 5 or 6 years before I saw a total of 5 fox!!!
I wasn't a big trapper on account of my jobbut could catch40 to50 fox in a2 week period running 10 -15 sets. Before mange hit, I was seeing 3 -6 fox every day just driving to work which is 7 miles.
We haveseen eitherEHD,CWD, orTBin manystates now effecting the deer population. Do we really want to see Nature in charge of the doe population?? She knows no mercy.
Have you seen hundred's of dead deer in a very smallarea from winterkill when winter got tough and food ran out. Granted a northern thing but I have. While there may never be a massive wipe out of deer... Do your part if the area needs it and shot a doe or two.
Tim