A little off topic, but maybe it is time to rethink game management somewhat. Here we have a nine month season for Buck and yearling. And a five month season Doe and Fawn.
A survey is done and a shooting plan (quota) is set. Pretty much a tag system. Every animal shot gets paperwork. The fines for cheating are so high, few cheat.
Sick animals get harvested quick because the season is so long, which limits the spread of disease. The hunters here are generally pretty darned responsible. Responsibility is an intensive part of the training.
Air surveys and ground surveys keep track of the game populations. There are even forced harvests for too large game populations in specific areas, the property or lease holder is responsible for full filling the quota. If you fail to harvest a quota, you pay a professional hunter to fill the quota.
Fairly radically different than the existing system in the U.S. with short intensive hunting seasons.
Not something you could implement in a year, modifying the existing system is a long term policy change. But in the long term may help with the feast-famine cycles of overpopulation and plague.
The old Iron Curtain had a firearms exclusion zone of two miles. The game was unmolested and over populated to the extreme. Whole forests were destroyed from bark eating. Disease was rampant. The uniformed and idealists think that nature has a balance, it does, but it is cycles of feast, famine and disease. What a mess, hundreds of Roe and Red Deer carcasses littering the mostly dead forest forest floor. The whole place stank of death.
Blue Tongue and EHD is rare here. Standing water is the norm, not the exception, we have a generally wet climate. We do get some dry periods, rarely longer than two months. The vectors are usually worse when we have a mild winter, a deep hard freeze seems to kill off a lot of the breeders.
Last edited by MudderChuck; 02-13-2018 at 06:34 AM.