What do you think the buck doe ratio is in your area,remember fawns are not counted.

Charlie P wrote: If you don't mind I'd rather talk doe:buck ratio rather than buck:doe ratio. That's how I'm used to seeing and working with the data. I guess you are talking mature ratio as opposed to the total or the perceived ratio as you don't want to include fawns. No problem, for NY state as a whole the the mature ratio is a little less than 2 to 1 just before the season opens. By the end of the season it rises typically to a little over 6 to 1. Perceived ratio which tends to be what the average hunter "observes" begins at a little over 4 to 1 and rises to pretty close to 15 to 1. From what I observe in my local hunting area I think its pretty close to that. It's tough to put an accurate number on it through field observation alone as doe:buck ratio numbers are changing rapidly throughout the hunting season. IMO the only reliable way to do it is on a large scale and through computer modeling with harvest, fawn mortality rates, winter mortality rates, deer/car etc data as input. I think only the state has the resources and data input to do it reliably. They have the resourses and the expertise to implement my proposal if that is the point of your question.

What planet is your Allegany co. NY on?????
AR's aren't going to do %^*^(% without proper food & minerials.
Bottom line less deer & less big bucks because of UH LET ME SEE
[size=7]NOFOOD.[size=1]
Allegany co. has 1/3 the # of farms it had 40 years ago= less food.

Ge: whiff you sure are in great shape what do you do to keep in such great shape?
Your profile says you 100 years old.

That Ohio system sounds pretty reasonable to me. Ideally, I like the season structures that they have in Illinois and Iowa...where there are a couple of short firearms seasons in December after the peak rut. Between the bow, muzzleloader and regular firearms seasons in these states you can still take 2-3 bucks. Just having the gun season when the bucks aren't at their most vulnerable period of the year would still save a pile of bucks without the need for ARs. I realize that most hunters in NY would be totally against this proposal because the numbers of buck sightings would be down significantly. I can never image this happening in NY anyways.

I just can't understand what everyone has against seeing more older buck in the herd. Where I'm from here in NE Steuben County (and throughout most of the state) its the same thing in most areas every year...we have a lot of yearlings bucks in the herd before season and most get killed off during gun season. Then the next year, all of last years button bucks will have their first racks and all of them will get shot off and then its time to make way for the next years button buck crop again. It goes over and over with no variety in the herd. It gets old after a while. On other properties in the area its common to see entire bachelor groups made up of 2-3 yr. old and sometimes older bucks. On one little 1/2 mile strip of hayfields near my house a couple of summers ago I videoed / saw around 3 dozen different bucks with 16 different bucks that were at least 8-pts. with spreads as wide as there ears, with several being really nice 130-150+" deer. I don't hunt here but it sure was awesome to see all of these nice bucks in such a small area. It sure isn't a common site here in hard hunted western NY. Is it a bad thing that there were all of these nice bucks in the area and some of the local hunters got the chance to tie their tags onto a nice set of antlers for a change? In case you're wondering, there are two really big tracts of land surrounding these fields that are totally off-limits to hunting that give the deer a good place to retreat to during deer season. The bucks sightings were way down in this area last summer mainly due to the hayfields remaining uncut all summer and not to mention that a really high number of bucks were killed in this area during the 2003 season. Although this farm was a major let down, I saw over 30 bucks on a different farm a couple of miles from there. From what I hear hardly any bucks were killed in this area this past season. Although I don't hunt here either, I still can't wait until this summer just to see how many nice bucks I can get on video from this farm.

What's my point? What a difference in the age class of the bucks in a deer herd when a number of those first year bucks can make it another year or two. For me, it sure is awesome just to see large racked bucks doing what the do in the wild as opposed to the little scubby yearlings that everyone is used to seeing, even if its on a farm you can't hunt on. I just like driving around looking for these big bucks. As far as hunting goes...wouldn't you rather be sitting in a treestand on one of this farms where you just might get the opportunity to see or even get a shot at a nice buck. I gotta say for me personally, its not that little forkhorn that I dream about in the weeks leading up to deer season. With AR's is everyone gonna get a crack at a big buck every season and are boone and crockett bucks gonna be running aroung like squirrels just begging to be shot? I don't think so. So, if beening sick and tired of seeing 90% of the yearling bucks being harvested out of our of the herd every season makes me one of those "brain-washed" followers of "trophy hunting" so be it [:'(].

Fastfire;

You're right...NY can never be an IL, IA or KS because of lack of high quality forage. Like you said, here in Steuben County the number of active farms have gone down dramatically over the past few decades. AR can't make up for the lack of quality food throughout the state but I believe that they can allow more younger bucks to escape the gun for a year or two if they are giving a chance.

You are an honest and rational man WNY Bowhunter. If you take a look at my posts, I have always said there is nothing wrong with wanting to go after a big buck. That's what I want too. I just get frustrated with the guys that won't admit that is why they want AR. They always hide behind the nature agument.

I don't have anything against seeing more older buck in the woods either although I don't believe its necessary for a healthy herd. I'm for increaseing the average age but at the same time I worry about the future of this great sport if we become too focused on the trophy aspects of hunting. I believe in the long run it is a bad thing. I want our young hunters to learn that killing a trophy animal is only a bonus to all the other positive things about hunting. That's why I'm against AR. It puts the focus on antlers. I think there are other just as effective ways of doing it without AR as you pointed out.

ORIGINAL: Sylvan

"They always hide behind the nature agument.

I don't have anything against seeing more older buck in the woods either although I don't believe its necessary for a healthy herd."
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What is "your" definition of a healthy herd?

Please talk about spontaneous abortions of does
Fawn mortaility, nutrition, the yearling age class or less and death associated with starvation as well as the effects of two or even three ruts and the nutritional ramifications this has on the herd.

When myself and the hunters that are associated with me mention a healthy herd these are just a few things that come to mind.

DJH

I would define a population as being healthy no different than the medical profession looks at a human population as healthy or not. If the individuals within the population display a normal or low incidence of maladies i.e. disease, genetic disorders, nutritional deficiency and also display other physical characteristics within the normal range for their age e.g. weight I would consider the herd healthy.

Age is not a criteria for health. You can have healthy 5 1/2 year olds and you can have unhealthy fawns. A herd where the average age is 2 1/2 can be just as healthy or unhealthy as a herd where the average age is 1 1/2. The incidence of maladies is the indicator.
I've addressed most of these above and would agree that if there were a high incidence of fawn mortality or malnourished individuals then the herd would be unhealthy. Age structure of the herd or the number of "ruts" that occur each year are not health criteria. You can argue that both of these may impact the health of the herd. That's certainly a legitamate argument but they are not by themselves measures of health.You can't just say the average age of bucks in the herd is X so therefore the herd is not healthy. You can't just say the herd is having X number of ruts therefore the herd is not healthy.

Sylvan, I'm glad we are both from NY and have a great passion for hunting. Hopefully a few of us can get together, maybe even for a weekend this fall and share stories as well as put in a day or two in the woods.

It really is hard to compare the human race to O. virginianus. We breed at any time of the year, no matter what Latitude we live. Deer don't. They do in some areas but not all.

Should a herd be considered healthy is if is growing and not decreasing in numbers? Some of the medical community would say that about humans. Should health only be measured if a species can survive disease? Both arguments by themselves are weak. We need to look at the entire picture when we classify a species as healthy. Should we look at an entire state and get an average of populations or should we look at a more local level to determine what is acceptable? Does population size = health. Absolutely not! If the Mohawk River for example is the divider here in NY as it is for most of the deer in the state should we consider upper NY different from lower? The question them comes down to the definition of a population. If one group has no affect on another it can be considered as NOT part of the population. This is not as simple as saying...as humans. The comparison of deer to humans is almost borderline ignorant. Don't go saying that to the entire world! We all know you are smarter than that. Your other posts have shown that!

Age can be a criteria or factor for the health on a whole but it is not the only factor. Is a mature buck more likely to make it through the winter than a yearling buck or even a fawn? Yes Does health have anything to do with strength and fat deposits throughout the body? Absolutely

You are correct that a herd of 2.5y/o can be unhealthy and you are just as correct that a 1.5 y/o herd can be healthier. We could throw all kinds of occurrances that will mess with either situation. ...more likely than not the 2.5y/o age class is healthier on the whole. They are stronger and generally (although not necessarily true especially in some regions of the Adirondacks) have a higher body fat content. When the winters here in NY are hard they have a higher probability to make it through the winter.

What would be an acceptable % of spontaneous abortions that a doe population could have?
Do you know that, that level is directly proportional to multiple ruts?
Nutrition does play a key role here but so do estrus cycles.

You say that a prolonged rut has nothing to do with the health of the herd?

What generally causes a prolonged rut?
How does a prolonged rut (that means multiple ruts) affect an adult buck? How does it affect yearlings?

How does it affect the remaining mast crop that is still on the ground as well as available last season browse? This all has to do with nutrition.
As can see by answering these questions it does play a key role in the herd health.

Simply put, AR in not QDM by itself. Don't confuse it to that.
All it does is make the average member of the herd older. That has its advantages to the herd.