Can someone please explain to me why this is so important?...I was always wondering why everyone talks about harvesting a doe or two every year for every buck you kill.

As nature intended it. Typically a mature doe will have 2 offspring, one doe, one buck. Buck doe ratios become skewed when man interjects and manages a herd for size, and lets you shoot bucks only. this creates many problems like a skewed buck doe ratio. Ozoga says when they become unbalanced, does will often drop 2 male deer. http://www.chartingnature.com/books.cfm?book=B2073

This causes issues like late fawn dropping, as the does can't all get bred in the first estrus cycle, due to the shortage, if you will of dominant bucks. The result is fawns being dropped over several months, which causes predation skyrocketing because when they are all dropped at once there is safety in numbers. When they are dropped over several months the bears, coyotes and bobcats have a steady supply of fresh venison for several months. Also increased incidence of fawn mortality as they must reach a certain weight to carry them through the winter. Kind of defeats the purpose of bucks programs to raise herd numbers.

Great post Remnard, I totally 100% agree with you.

interesting!!! i wish we had those problems!!!

We have so many does on our land (and on neighbor's lands) that my family and I have agreed to not shoot a buck for 2010 and possibly 2011, unless it is a very mature buck. We just have to trim down our doe population.

Doe-in-heat attractants, rattling and the like aren't even effective right now. Bucks don't care becuase there are so many does.

Hopefully we can take 2-3 dozen does over the next couple of years (4 doe limit in southern Arkansas) and improve our herd.

Also, carrying capacity, say your farm can feed 100deer a year, if your ratio is 90does and 10bucks, a better ratio of 50/50 would incread the # of bucks on your property 5X! So in fact getting that ratio 50/50 can increase the # of bucks running around your property!

My view is, if you shoot a buck, shoot a doe, at least this way over time mother nature will do her work....of course neighbors and other hunters will naturally harvest more bucks than does probably, so you may want to take 1.5 or 2 does for every buck you shoot, least early on...then taper to a 1:1

May good points here.

Another one, which is pertinent to where I happen to live, is that a badly skewed buck:doe ratio means that the available bucks are running themselves ragged trying to get all the does bred (it has already been mentioned that spreading fawn births over a long time frame has disadvantages). This results in bucks being in scant condition when going into the lousy winter weather and having a hard time to survive through to spring. With this occurring, the ratio is even further reduced.

Our own f&g department doesn't seem to twig to this very well and allows only very limited doe hunting opportunities. Guess what kind of shape our herd is in.

The first thing I noticed as our buck:doe ratio tilted towards too many does was the lack of sign in the form of scrapes and rubs. The forest floor was littered with scrapes, and there would be dozens of trees rubbed. Now it is a rarity to find scrapes and I can't remember the last time I saw a signpost rub on the wildernesssemi private land I hunt. It breaks my spirit a little to see a mature hunter dragging a spike or forkhorn out of the woods. Especially when I let the same deer walk by 15 minutes earlier.

Its not always about us humans. The responsibility of the hunter/conservationist is to maintain the land and its inhabitatants. Too often I encounter this selfish hunter mentality that they are owed something because they paid for their hunting license so they are going to shoot anything they see so they have some meat, because they need it. Yet they throw the deer on top of their 40,000 dollar SUV. If you need the meat, by all means take a deer, but why must you shoot the forkhorn that was running by with 4 or 5 does?