glew no offense but Charlie A is not a biologist but just a photographer of fenced in deer. And after he tried to peddle his bogus moon theory about the timing of the rut I dont believe anything he writes or claims. I will be more than happy to read any article or study you provide by a biologist or expert on Whitetails etc. but not anything written by a guy that his only studies of the whitetail deer has taken place in his couple acre fenced in pen located in NY. Pike

Touche, esp. concerning the moon theory. I still think there's some merit in what he's saying. Let's face it, when it comes to reasearch, the only way to do it is captivity; otherwise, there's no way to isolate variables. In his defense, he did seek out several other opinions when writing the article.

I still think this was productive all in all. I should have not restricted the conversation to breeding stress. I think more would have been accomplished if stress in general was the main premise of the conversation.

Bluebird...I was re-reading this thread and decided from this point forward I will refer to you as red herring.

If you do ,you will be banned for name calling.


Have you ever tried to apply your theories on the effects of stress on real world situations like VF and Getttysburg. The deer in those areas are severely over populated and have severely over browsed habitat yet they continue to survive and increase the population. Can you explain why stress isn't limiting the population and why the bucks aren't dropping dead from the stress of breeding all those doe?

Very good question. Not sure about gettyburgh but here's my two cents on valley forge. I believe the reason these deer are surviving is because of the properties that neighbor the park. The deer wreak havoc on the neighbors landscapes; and I'm sure there's a few people whop put out corn. Basically, even though they've exhausted the resources in the forest itself, I think they still manage to get by with what's available on the fringes.

One interesting thing I have noticed (not just saying this because it supports my point) is that all they bucks shed their antlers very very early. I'm talking late december early january. As I mentioned previously, early antler casting can be a sign of a stressed deer. Also, I never really see any monsters in there, I'm sure there's some there, but less than you would expect given the deer density, and ability for bucks to reach old age. The park dosen't seem to be pumping out the 150+ bucks that the neighboring areas are.

It is possible that stress is limiting the populations. Is it increasing, yes. Would it be increasing more if they weren't exposed to as much density related stress, possibly. Lastly, it's very possible bucks are dropping dead, especially considering they likely have some older age class bucks.

If the herd is increasing in VF that means that stress is not limiting the population ,even if it has a negative effect on the rate of growth. VF shows that even at 200 DPSM stress is so insignificant that it doesn't prevent the population from increasing. Yet you think stress is an issue worth addressing in our hunted herd where no WMU has a DD of over 30 DPSM and some as as low as 8 DPSM .

bluebird I cant speak for VF. but Gettysburg is one of my favorite places on earth (even if deer never lived there) and I have spent countless hours/days since I was 16 year old glassing, filming and shed hunting the battle field over the years and I can tell you without a doubt that the herd is stressed (or was prior to the sharpshooters) and their is only 2 reasons that the herd kept increasing in population over the years. 1st was the abscense of predators including hunters and the 2nd reason is the miles of fertile farmland, orchards and hardwood ridges. In my opinion the Gettysburg area is/was as perfect as it gets in regards to deer habitat prior to the over population problems. Pike

I disagree I spend time at Chesapeake Farms in Kent Co. MD. and their is alot of great research done there on their free ranging herd. As far as Charlie he has written so many articles on things that turned out be false just on order to be able to continue to make a living that I rank him right up there with Jackie Bushman.


Very productive and I have enjoyed this thread very much. Stress regardless of the cause is a factor when it comes to the health of the herd. Pike

Very cool thread. I learned quite a bit. It's very evident that the major participants (bluebird, glew, and pike) have done a lot of research and bring a lot of knowledge to the table.

Some observations, if I may. Bluebird definitely has done his homework and has a lot of quatifiable data...and an agenda. These two things together can be a dangerous thing and cloud one's judgement and ability to learn. Glew has read, attended many seminars, and done a lot of speaking with experts in the field. This is good and bad. It's good in that the next best thing to doing the research yourself and putting forth the countless hours and effort to obtain data you rely on those that have already done it. The bad is you have to rely on others not knowing what agendas they may have. Pike has done some data mining and reading, probably not as much as the others, but has come to derive much of his information based off of observations over years on property he has helped manage. This type of information is priceless.

Please don't take these observations as sleights against any of you. I have gained a tremendous amount of respect for all of you in reading your contributions.

What I have found by living and hunting in numerous states and regions of the country is that there is no "universal truth." I am 100% confident that what pike has observed is true on his property and that much of it would apply to many properties around the country. However, not all of it would apply everywhere and some would be contrary to facts found elsewhere. I am also sure that glew's theories based on studies and bluebird's numbers apply in many cases, but not all. The fact is deer poplulations are different and the differences can be seen in population groups even only a few miles apart.

I believe the only way to learn what applies to your area is to get out there and observe as much as possible, all year around and then you can draw your conclusions from there. Remembering that those conclusions may or may not apply on another property you have is a key as well.