RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

in last 4 years our fawn sighting have dropped to point now here in clinton county,its something to see a fawn.

looking at does necks, dont laugh, i can tell if its young doe or older doe.

i saw 1 older doe this year that i would say was 2.5 yrs old on stateforestland.

others i would bet are 1.5 yrs old.

even big bucks we see killed are not over 3 yrs old,most look like 2 yr old bucks.

this fawn thing should be a TOP PRIORITY of the pgc right now, its that serious now here in clinton county.

yet, on privateland we have fawns .

doe that comes into my yard, i would guess is a 2.5 yr old doe or more.

she has 2 fawns with her.

but her size i dont see out on state forestland,only on privateland i have..

now, here is good one too.

my friend has privateland in tamarack, pa.

his deer come on his farm from STATEFORESTLAND.

he told me he sees very few fawns,if any.

yet he has best food year round for these stateforestland deer.

i used to say and know that predators are killing fawns and i dont let those things happen on my privateland but i now feel its something else too that is happening to cause less fawns now.

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

very good info.

thatanswers why in our bass tournaments at raystown lake we hear coyotes barking like crazy at noon and seeing mothers running around june 15th.

also habitat thing too..


after no acorns this year and i am seeing bear tracks andcoyotes,like 2 per area where i hunt, i see things getting worst.


you know, we had fawns and still had bears back in 70s.

but when these coyotes showed up, fawns did decrease too.

dont know if thats any relationship.

but we had good feed last 3 years on acorns and still no fawns.

thanks for info.

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

You have some good questions that deserve an answer. I will address them one at a time.

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All the dead deer found in PA died from starvation? How is it determine cause of death? Is it possible of some disease might be cause to the death or a injury preventing the animal from feeding?

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No not all dead deer we find following the winter died of starvation. We make every attempt to determine the cause of death, sometimes we simply can’t because there isn’t enough of the deer left to make a positive determination. Some of the things we look for are the general appearance of the dead deer. Does it have antlers. If it does there is a high likelihood it didn’t die of starvation since a stressed buck will shed the antlers before it starves. Do we see any broken bones or other signs of trauma? If we do then though the deer might have starved to death there was likely another contributing cause. Next, when the entire deer is present, we look at the positioning of the neck and head. It is typical for a deer that is starving to death to die with its legs under it but its head back over the side of its body. Next we break the femur bone to see what color the bone marrow is. A head that died of malnutrition will have bone marrow that looks about strawberry jam instead of being white and pasty like that of a healthy deer.

It still isn’t always possible to make a positive determination but when you several dead deer in a small area of a wintering grounds habitat and the majority of the indicators point toward starvation we have to suspect that as the cause.

Quote:

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Why is it only deer that are dieing from starvation and not any elk or rabbits that feed the same browse as deer? Elk eat alot more than deer yet do we see any of them dead?

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I will have to say that I don’t have much knowledge or experience dealing with rabbits that have been found dead so I have no idea how many might die of starvation. I suspect any rabbit that dies of starvation is soon carried off and eaten by some predator so that is one that would be extremely difficult in which to measure starvation affects unless it were none in a controlled environment without predators.

As far as elk though I do have a good bit of experience. Elk will certainly browse but they can reach a lot higher and tend to bark aspen trees more then browse when they do feed on trees. But, in reality elk are more grazers and instead of heading into the wintering grounds, like deer do with deep snows, the elk continue to hit the fields or when there are acorns they more into the oaks. Since elk are much larger they can move through a lot more snow then deer can to get to the areas that have the food they need. Elk also have much larger and stronger legs enabling them to dig down through even crusted snow, that deer couldn’t dig through, to reach the grasses or acorns that a deer could never dig up. Elk will also eat and survive very well on grasses that have little to no nutritional value for a deer.

I have also seen many, many years when both the deer and turkeys were thriving by following the trails the elk made and then moving into the same areas as the elk to eat the grasses or acorns the elk had already dug up through the deep snow.

I know some people believe the elk out compete the deer where they overlap. Many believe that where we have elk we have fewer deer as because of the elk but studies show that is not the case. In the western states, where they have both white-tail deer and elk, they are finding that as the white-tail deer numbers increase, and especially when they over populate an area, the elk numbers start to decline because of degraded habitat and food supplies. All indication point toward the very high probability that deer out compete the elk for the food and actually limit the food supply and alter the habitat to the point that eventually both deer and elk numbers decline.

R.S. Bodenhorn

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

Thank for proving to one and all that you lack even the most basic understanding of the issues. The one age class you are referring to ,includes all does 1.5 yrs and older. The only other class of does is female fawns and we all know they have breeding rates under 50% and are not included in the statewide breeding rates for adult doe.

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

And I have provided the correct answer over and over again but since it isn’t the answer that fits your misguided agenda you work as diligently as you can to discredit the explanation.

As you just pointed out since the buck/doe ratio is better and the habitat is improving there simply is no other logical explanation for the statewide adult breeding rates to decline beyond the factual shift in sample sizes per area of the state.

I agree that we probably don’t need to protect more bucks per doe at this time since all indications are that things are improving and the past problem with the buck/doe ratio has made great strides in being corrected.



The decline in the 2004 and 2005 buck harvests most certainly was at least in part due to the reduced number of fawns following the harsh winter and the results of the reduced fawn recruitments of 2003. I will use some data here to prove that point but first we have to recognize that the winter of 2002/2003 resulted in fewer surviving male fawns during the spring of 2003 and there is harvest data to support that fact. That decline in fawns in the spring of 2003 resulted in the number of button bucks in the fall antler less harvest declining by 11.6% from the previous year even though the antler less license allocation had increased that year. Then the next fall, 2004, when those fawns that didn’t survive in the spring of 2003 should have been 1 ½ years old bucks the number of 1 ½ year old bucks in the harvest declined by 22.8%. Then the following year, 2005, when those buck fawns from 2003, that died after birth, should have been out there as 2 ½ year old bucks there was a 7.1% decline in the 2 ½ and older buck harvest for that year.


Those facts pretty clearly indicate that the decline in fawn survival does have an effect of the buck harvest for a number of years. You can try to brush that off any way you choose but that still doesn’t change the reality of those harvest facts or what they really mean. The fact is very simple that hunters will never get the chance to harvest bucks that died as fawns because their mothers didn’t find enough food for them to survive after they were born. That isn’t even always a result of poor habitat but can simply be a result from the effects of harsh winter conditions that are beyond our control.

That is simply how nature affects wildlife populations beyond our control; all we can do is recognize that it happens and make harvest adjustments as needed and appropriate in the future. That has been done by the professionals while some hunters and the Uniformed Silly People still refuse to acknowledge those facts or understand how nature really works.

R.S. Bodenhorn

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

Whoops, I did say it wrong that time[&:]my bad. But it still doesnt change the fact that your theory is all wet. Having 5 % less in one age class to sample from still does not explain a 5% decrease in the breeding rates. Inadequate sample size (that resulted in having to use 3 year averages) and the shift of the weighting of those samples from good habitat areas to areas rated as fair or poor makes a much more sensible explanation in the breeding rates PER ADULT DOE. A difference in the total number of doe adult doesn't generate a difference in the breeding rates per adult doe.

It still flies in the face of reason that less deer competing for more food would be less healthy. BTW, twice as much food if we buy into another of your totally unsupported claims.

Who wants to bet twister comes up with another twist on his one?

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

Though it is true that a decline in the percentage of older does in the deer population could also result in a decline in the adult reproductive rates and perhaps even to a lesser degree a decline in the breeding rates I see nothing that indicates there being a decline in the percentage of older does in the adult deer population in most areas of the state nor statewide.

I can see how you could speculate that as the cause based on Table 7 of the annual report but this really is just one more example of how easy it is for lay people to jump to incorrect conclusion and take off in the wrong direction.

First off all the table just shows the percentage of button bucks, juvenile does and adult does (all over 1.5 years old) in the yearly antler less deer harvests. Therefore, that increase in the percentage of adult does you are looking at can just as easily be a result of there having been fewer juvenile deer in existence and thus harvests during those years, (from the reduced fawn recruitment I keep pointing out), as from any change in the actual number of adult does present in the herd or harvested.

Allow me to explain that even further by providing some of the antler less deer harvest facts for 2004 that hopefully will help you see the folly in your heading off in this incorrect direction.

In 2004 there were fewer antler less deer harvested of each age class then there had been in 2003. The percentage of those antler less deer harvest reductions between 2003 and 2004 were as follows:

Button buck (juvinile males)………………- 10.3 %
Juvenile does………………………………- 12.4 %
1.5 year old does…………………………..- 16.7 %
Does 2.5 and older…………………………- 9.6 %

As you can see even though the 2004 antler less harvest in the annual report reflects that 61% (the highest of any year) of that years harvest were adult does it is most likely because of the decline in the number of juvenile deer in the harvest instead of any increase in the older does being harvested. In fact you can see that the older does were in reality the age class that experienced the least decline in the percentage of harvest.


Therefore, without having more data to fully evaluate the percentages it seems more logical to suspect that the percentage decline in adult does being harvested is more a reflection on the annual fawn recruitment rates then it is on a change in the number of older does in the population.

In short the annual report simply doesn’t provide enough information to do anything more then speculate what the real reason is for those percentage changes without having the actual harvest numbers to go with it.

R.S. Bodenhorn

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

The decrease in breeding rates does not indicate the herd is less healthy. It simply indicates a significant change in the average age of our adult doe. An 88% breeding rate for a young herd is still quite acceptable and the PGC agrees, since they stated that only one WMU was below it's target goal for herd health.

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

Your analysis is flawed because the decrease in the percentage of adult doe in the harvest started in 2005 ,not 2004. Furthermore ,breeding rates were at there high in 2003 so there is no reason to expect the ratio of fawns to adult doe would change. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is the percentage of adult doe in the herd decreased ,so more hunters filled their tags with fawns.

You keep trying to shoot down my theory ,yet you have no rational answer of your own to explain such a significant decrease in such a short time when the exact opposite was to be expected.
Don't you have that data? you just posted it for 2004.

In 2002 we harvested 197,183 adult doe and it dropped to 119,767 in 2007 which is a decrease of 39%. At the same time the antlerless allocation only dropped by around 15%. So it is obvious there were a lot fewer adult doe were available to be bred and produce fawns in 2007.

RE: Pa Antler Restrictions
 

local butcher stated to a person in gun section at wal-mart that he had a lot of button bucks to butcher this season.

this is in lower part of clinton county where farms are more and not western part of clinton county where no farms are.

but i dont have info where they got the button bucks,could be in centre county, thats feeling i got from him.

i think that more fawns are near farm areas or areas where there are people more than up in sticks here in western clinton county.