quality deer management?
03-04-2004 | 03:42 PM
#21
Typical Buck
Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 590
Likes: 0
RE: quality deer management?
In response, let me reiterate that I'm not trying to be argumentative. That said, you can sit down with a pen and paper and do age structure charts just for fun. I do it during the winter when I'm bored. Without going into too many details, it's actually not that difficult to have a 40:100 ratio in a "natural" population. (The range I gave ,4 to 8 per 10, was meant to cover the ranges I have seen in various ungulate studies.) Given the 38:62 ratio I gave for elk, you can get an adult ratio of 40:100 with 30% mortality in females and 50% mortality in males. Granted 40:100 is on the extreme end, but you'll see it in the science. Conversely, off the top of my head I can remember no studies citing 1:1 ratios in natural unhunted populations.
My main point is that we humans have a very mixed record at "improving" on nature's design. Nature must have had a reason for "setting" sex ratios the way they are (i.e. something less than 1:1). I personally know one of those people down in Texas who have there deer fenced in, and they aim for 2:1 ratios, and it really bothers me on multiple levels - the fences and the tampering with nature. If you say 1:1, the next guy's apt to think something like, "If 1:1 is good, then 1.5:1 would be better", and so on. To close this, it's not hard to imagine that as you get to the 1:1 point and beyond, you make a herd that might be more vulnerable to sudden disruptions (i.e. less able to recover from tough winters or disease outbreaks or whatever).
My main point is that we humans have a very mixed record at "improving" on nature's design. Nature must have had a reason for "setting" sex ratios the way they are (i.e. something less than 1:1). I personally know one of those people down in Texas who have there deer fenced in, and they aim for 2:1 ratios, and it really bothers me on multiple levels - the fences and the tampering with nature. If you say 1:1, the next guy's apt to think something like, "If 1:1 is good, then 1.5:1 would be better", and so on. To close this, it's not hard to imagine that as you get to the 1:1 point and beyond, you make a herd that might be more vulnerable to sudden disruptions (i.e. less able to recover from tough winters or disease outbreaks or whatever).
03-09-2004 | 06:41 PM
#22
Joined: Feb 2004
Posts: 77
Likes: 0
From: Hood County Texas
RE: quality deer management?
To age deer on the hoof can be pretty difficult there are some articles out that you can read, VCR tapes are great also. I have one that is called judging trophy whitetails. the first thing I do is forget about the Horn's they get in the way of aging. You should concentrate on the body shape. very simply put. I'm 48 years old, my son is 26 you stand us up next to each other with our shirts off and our faces covered it ain't hard to figure who the old guy is.
