Last night I was watching Quality Whitetails on Outdoor Channel. If you haven't seen the show, it's not all about hunting and killing but talking about managing your property for whitetails. A different perspective and some seemingly knowledgable guys.

What I thought was very interesting is when they went to the segment on the Radio Collar study that is being done in the woods of PA (I believe from Penn State) and they talked about all the research going in. From what I remember (as I was half asleep) they had caught and collared many does in an attempt to track harvest rates and survival rates. This was all done with GPS tools and they were able to track them 24/7.

Interesting Notes I heard was that not as many does are being killed as hunters want you to believe.
Does did not abandon their home range when pressure was one. They found the steepest parts of the terrain and waited it out there.

I believe this is going to be a continuing segment on the show.

Did anyone else catch this this week??

No, I didn't see it but it sounds interesting. Keep us posted.

I think that study has concluded and the results can be seen on the PGC website.

On the other hand, maybe it's something new......

This is what the PGC had to say about the results of the doe mortality study.
Also note that the study began in 2005 after the herd had been reduced and hunting pressure was lower and many hunters may have been reluctant to harvest a doe after seeing so few deer.

What Deaddeer is trying to rationalize here is the part of the study that found that only 8% of the does were killed by hunters and a mere 15% the next year.

So much for the idea that the concurrent seasons and doe allocations are the cause of the population decline in the big woods!

The study is over, I think the PGC. said something like only 7% of the doe's in the study were harvested by hunter's. Pike

BT. what the study state's is that alot of hunter's stopped harvesting doe's in the northwoods!! Pike

Do you have a link to where the study states that? I watched the whole thing and believe I've read every release and never saw any statement like that. If I missed it I'll stand corrected but I don't think that statement came from anyone involved with the study.

BT. I paid attention to the whole thing aswell, How comes the buck population didnt crash with the doe population? What you do you think we are only harvesting 8% of the available buck in the study area?
Heck with AR. that would mean we are probably harvesrting only 5% of the available antlered buck's. Pike

We really dont know because no one has studied buck mortality in those areas.

It's not that only 8-15% of the does are being harvested. Its that 8-15% of the does that die are killed by hunters. Since the buck and doe kills are running very close, wouldn't it imply that bucks are also being killed by other causes at the relatively the same rate?


BTW, look closer, the study said that hunters are less likely to shoot a COLLAREDdoe. The stuff about hunters beingreluctant to shoot does in the northwoodsis merely deaddeers embellishment of what the study said about COLLARED deer.