ORIGINAL: Screamin Steel
The solution to the problem most certainly would not to harvest fewer deer in an area where the deer herd is already naturally reducing its own numbers. If the deer herd is reducing its own numbers of it nature is reducing the herd through natural causes it obviously because the area can’t support more deer under the present natural conditions.
Now hold on. The PGC listed 2G as fair herd health in the '07 wildlife report, based on 1.58 embryos per adult doe age 2/3 years. Why would they list herd health as fair if nature is trying to reduce the herd? Also, we as humans are predators. If nature through predation is controlling the herd and continuing to reduce it, then you are saying, we also should reduce it further? what are average DD up there now, 8,9 dpsm? And still declining naturally, as you stated? And you are saying that we should continue to prey on them? And herd health was listed as fair? Are you serious? Please tell me you are joking here. Not to mention I thought the PGC had moved to herd increase mode in 2G as of last year. Are you going against you own biologists and reccomending further reduction? Are you disagreeing with the plan? Unbelievable!
What you and some of the others are totally missing in hanging your hat on the herd health being fair or even good is that herd health evaluation is based entirely on the number of embryos that were counted in dead does.
First of all those dead does came from the highways which are typically surrounded by the best habitat in the unit. Therefore, is not only very likely but almost a certainty that the areas that are away from the highways don’t have herd health as high as the sampled does indicate.
The second point is that the number of embryos the does are carrying does not equal fawn recruitment. Fawn recruitment is the number born that are still alive at the end of the summer when hunting season arrives. You can have great reproduction and absolutely horrible recruitment simply from having poor forest health, which incidentally is what the 2G forest health is.
It doesn’t matter how many fawns the does were carrying if the vast majority of them die a day or two after they are born. Fawn die after being born because they weren’t up to survival weight when they were born, or when mom didn’t have enough milk to nourish them or if they didn’t have suitable escape cover to hide from predators and one of them ate them.
Dead fawns don’t result in increasing deer numbers no matter how you wish they did. Herd health is not based on fawn recruitment. It probably should be, but there presently is no way of accurately measuring the recruitment from year to year, so they have to use what is available. Fawn recruitment is the important factor and herd health is not based on recruitment and only looks at the number of embryos. That is why you can have data that indicates excellent herd health and still have almost no surviving fawns for the year.
R.S. Bodenhorn