Originally Posted by
Stonewall308
As far as I know it takes one doe and one buck to make a fawn, and thus eliminating every doe would mean that you would have no deer in a very short amount of time.
I am with Barnes on this one. It is simply annoying to hear people talking about culling bucks for genetic purposes, regardless of whether it works. Cows and dogs are bred for genetics, if an animal herd is truly wild then the only thing determining its genetics should be darwins theory of natural selection.
It is completely impossible to impove the genetics of a free ranging herd by shooting a few bucks over a couple year time period. ( its a waste of time, tags and probably hunting enjoyment) The only way to do it is to kill every female deer in the area. The reason for this is that inmature bucks ( even orphaned male fawns) disperse up to 20-30 miles where as doe fawns will spend their entire life within 2 miles from where they were born. So your buck offspring are leaving (so it doesnt matter if their sire had good or bad genetics) but your doe offspring are staying there their entire lives. And since doe's contribute atleast 50% of their DNA to their offspring the only way you have a chance of improving your herds genetics is by shooting each and every female deer you see regardless of their age.
Also I agree with natural selection but I could be wrong but I dont think Barnes does. Natural selection is the biggest and strongest males breeding the doe's, Thats what I practice on my property. I try to manage my property at 7-8 male deer for every 10 female deer and try to let every buck reach 4.5 years of age in order to have the older, stronger, smarter bucks doing the large majority of the breeding just like nature intended. It is not natural to have what ever male deer that is lucky enough to make it thru the previous hunting season being the dominant bucks in a particular area the following fall. That isnt natural selection breeding ecology, (infact its the farthest thing from it) that is called luck of the draw breeding ecology and has nothing to do with natural selection. If you truely believed ( please dont take this the wrong way because I believe the trophy is in the eyes of the beholder) in natural selection you wouldnt have harvested the buck in your avatar. Pike