When it’s not actually population management; Or, the lies we tell ourselves and how to fix them.

[daniel craig]

We as hunters, like to make the claim that hunting is an important tool for managing populations. We like to use the science of environmental carrying capacity/load, Fecundity etc.

In my state of NY, for deer, hunting is far from a population management tool we like to claim it is.

So, this past season in the “southern” zone, bow season started 1October and runs to 20November (inclusive).
Regular season is from 21Nov to 13Dec (inclusive).
Late bow/muzzleloader 14Dec-22Dec (inclusive).

When you buy your big game license you automatically get a “buck tag” but antlerless deer tags are based on availability in the management unit (arbitrary zones) you hunt. Some places have ton available and some have none. In THEORY the number of doe tags available is based on population size in that area, based on observation and the previous year harvest.

In many places tags go unused for many reasons. There are areas with a plethora of deer that don’t get hunted.
.......................…………………......................

Now, in my mind, if we really wanted to manage the populations, here’s what we’d do:

0.) Reduce the cost of a license and tags.

1.) When you buy a license you automatically get a DOE tag that’s useable anywhere in the state. Buck tags are ONLY issued if you’ve already harvested a doe.

2.) Change the seasons:
- 2a.) Make the bow season the month of September and the first two weeks of October.
—2a1.) Allow crossbows the entire season.
- 2b.) Make the rifle/shotgun season the last two weeks of October, and the entire month of November.
- 2c.) Make the late bow/muzzleloader season the entire month of December.
- 2d.) leave room for a January/February or March hunt if the regular season hunt harvest were too low.

5.) Any and all municipal parks over a certain acreage have to allow hunting of some kind, even if it’s just bow season (regulations allowing for skill testing are allowed).

6.) All private land over a certain acreage will have a portion of that next year’s property tax waived if they have a certain number of non related hunters (based on acreage) hunt their land.
——Property tax waivers based on number of DIFFERENT hunters per acre size (the more hunters you have the more property tax you can waive, up to 65%) and tags used, allowing the property owners to let hunters use any nuisance tags the property owner might have.

7.) Make venison donation and sale easier for hunters to do so the trophy hunters can donate the doe meat they may not want, provided they drop the deer off at a licensed deer processor (to ensure meat quality/health).

BONUS/OPTIONAL

7.) Municipalities will receive tax incentives to allow hunters to bow hunt areas normally off limits (those areas behind rural schools).

8.) Colleges with adequate space will receive additional funding from the state for allowing on campus hunting

 

[Thomasss]

You make some good points and some bad. I don't hunt in your state, but you should consider what the DNR has attempted to do for you and then maybe some of your ideas could be implemented. I contribute information every year to our hunter input congress. Some ideas that stick out are 1)Licenses help pay for wardens and public land upkeep. Eliminating that money won't work. 2) Most people don't understand that there is a good ratio of bucks to does. When that ratio is out of whack, then it needs to be adjusted in certain zoned areas. In addition, in large private property areas, it is very hard to maintain the good ratio, so again adjustments need to be made. Property tax incentives is a good idea. After all farming is a business and hunting is recreation and they can co-exist. You might add "no property owner liability" when allowing hunters on private lands. And finally public education should also be in that mix somewhere. There are still a lot of hunters that believe killing a doe also kills several generations of deer.

 

[daniel craig]

You make some good points and some bad. I don't hunt in your state, but you should consider what the DNR has attempted to do for you and then maybe some of your ideas could be implemented. I contribute information every year to our hunter input congress. Some ideas that stick out are 1)Licenses help pay for wardens and public land upkeep. Eliminating that money won't work. 2) Most people don't understand that there is a good ratio of bucks to does. When that ratio is out of whack, then it needs to be adjusted in certain zoned areas. In addition, in large private property areas, it is very hard to maintain the good ratio, so again adjustments need to be made. Property tax incentives is a good idea. After all farming is a business and hunting is recreation and they can co-exist. You might add "no property owner liability" when allowing hunters on private lands. And finally public education should also be in that mix somewhere. There are still a lot of hunters that believe killing a doe also kills several generations of deer.

To your first point… Conservation is written into our states constitution so it’s something we have to budget for in the states budget and that includes game wardens in our department of environmental conservation regardless of licensing sales. To your second point I think you’re right that a lot of people don’t understand the ratio of bucks to doe, that’s why we adjust tags every year to reflect that and why we’d implement an “earn a buck” program. Harvesting does is a much more effective way of managing the population than harvesting bucks.

Definitely agree that property owner liability/protections would need to be implemented.

I do agree that education would be useful but I don’t think it would matter what people believe what matters is what tags are available. However getting people more amicable the shooting Doe would definitely help.

 

[wombat13]

I hunt in NY in both 8H and 9T. 8H is frankly overrun with deer and the DEC can't give away enough doe permits. Every year additional permits are available after the normal permit lottery. 9T is the opposite end of the spectrum. Only landowners and disabled vets get a doe permit ever year. Others typically wait 2 to 5 years before getting a doe permit. This is done to maintain a sufficient deer herd to support hunting in 9T.

I don't understand how automatically getting a doe permit valid in any WMU along with "earn-a-buck" would help the deer population in places like 9T. Imagine you're a deer hunter living in 9T or thereabouts and you get a doe permit valid anywhere. Where are you going to use it? Are you going to try to secure hunting access in a zone 2 hours away with plentiful deer, or are you going to go out where you always hunt? This proposal would likely decimate the deer herd in WMUs like 9T.

 

[Speedo66]

Cuomo is in the hole to the tune of $15 billion, I doubt he'd give up a penny in tax incentives or license fees, especially not for hunters. Hunters/gun owners, not his favorite people. On the other hand, he wants to extend the High Line to the new train station in NYC at a cost of $60 million. Go figure.

Deer management probably isn't high on his agenda, unless enough people complain of having deer strikes due to overpopulation. Then he'll publicly blame the DEC commissioner, fire him, hire a new one, and tell people the problem is solved.

 

[wombat13]

Cuomo is in the hole to the tune of $15 billion, I doubt he'd give up a penny in tax incentives or license fees, especially not for hunters. Hunters/gun owners, not his favorite people.

This is one time I'm glad the state is broke. Cuomo will think twice before doing anything that would reduce $ flow from hunters. In fact. take a look at the DEC Deer Management Plan 2021-2030. Lot's of proposals to increase the number of hunters and expand hunting access.

 

[wombat13]

I hunt in NY in both 8H and 9T. 8H is frankly overrun with deer and the DEC can't give away enough doe permits. Every year additional permits are available after the normal permit lottery. 9T is the opposite end of the spectrum. Only landowners and disabled vets get a doe permit ever year. Others typically wait 2 to 5 years before getting a doe permit. This is done to maintain a sufficient deer herd to support hunting in 9T.

I don't understand how automatically getting a doe permit valid in any WMU along with "earn-a-buck" would help the deer population in places like 9T. Imagine you're a deer hunter living in 9T or thereabouts and you get a doe permit valid anywhere. Where are you going to use it? Are you going to try to secure hunting access in a zone 2 hours away with plentiful deer, or are you going to go out where you always hunt? This proposal would likely decimate the deer herd in WMUs like 9T.

I just wanted to clarify my posted quoted above. One rarely sees a big buck in 9T, in large part because getting a doe tag is so difficult. Apparently most hunters will shoot just about any buck when they can't get a doe tag for years at a time (and I don't really blame them; I hunt mostly for the meat myself). Now, that buck tag is good anywhere in the state, just like the OP has proposed for the doe tag. Why don't the hunters go to 8H or some other unit where there are plentiful deer and bucks with big racks, rather than stay in 9T where there aren't many big bucks? Because that's where they live and have hunting access. What this tells us, is that making a doe permit good for any unit will just increase the doe take in every unit. Not many hunters are going to go out of their way to gain hunting access far from home to take a doe. Not many do it for a buck and even fewer would do it for a doe.

 

[earlthegoat2]

Since this post can be pertinent to every state but I kind of think there is a NY slant going on, I just want to say and ask:

The policies in place are for wildlife management and not specifically wildlife reduction. Wildlife reduction regulations are part of the process and vary year to year. There are many ways to attempt to manipulate the populations and it involves plenty of restrictions, incentives, and game theory.

My question is, what is the concern specifically? I seem to remember a thread started by the OP a ways back about the high cost of NY licenses and tags. Is this a big part of the problem?

In my state of NY, for deer, hunting is far from a population management tool we like to claim it is.

You do an excellent job of providing a solution suggestion but please elaborate more on this claim. Is it a money grab? Ponzi scheme? What exactly?

 

[daniel craig]

Since this post can be pertinent to every state but I kind of think there is a NY slant going on, I just want to say and ask:

The policies in place are for wildlife management and not specifically wildlife reduction. Wildlife reduction regulations are part of the process and vary year to year. There are many ways to attempt to manipulate the populations and it involves plenty of restrictions, incentives, and game theory.

My question is, what is the concern specifically? I seem to remember a thread started by the OP a ways back about the high cost of NY licenses and tags. Is this a big part of the problem?



You do an excellent job of providing a solution suggestion but please elaborate more on this claim. Is it a money grab? Ponzi scheme? What exactly?

Standby (the answer is yes I just have to find where I saved it).


Found it. Upload size is too large. Lemme see if I can create a Google drive link.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rfwurS5DULRjJCPWN--Iy03j8pTcvZXW/view?usp=drivesdk
if you read nothing else (these sort of things can really get long winded) read the abstract.

 

[jmr40]

It is population management. There are just many different approaches to management. And bringing in money from tag sales are part of the equation. I don't have any idea how NY does it or if it is effective or not.

When I started deer hunting here in GA in the 1970's the deer population was small. You got one buck per year and the seasons were only 2-3 weeks. There were 2-3 doe days at the end of the season after the rut was over and deer were almost impossible to kill. Those policies kept the number of deer taken quite low and allowed the population to grow.

We now have so many deer that they are a nuisance and on top of that the number of hunting licenses has declined sharply. Our archery season now opens in mid September to mid October when rifle season opens then runs to mid January. Bag limit is 12 deer per year with only 2 bucks. The other 10 must be does. And on top of that any deer killed on a WMA doesn't count toward your 12 deer bag limit. In theory you could legally kill 20+ deer here if you were successful on a lot of WMA hunts and took your 12 on private land.

In the 1970's and 80's game laws were aggressively enforced. But today I see a much different approach. About the only thing I see being aggressively enforced is trespassing and hunting without permission. Baiting was illegal until recently, but was so common on private property they finally gave up and made it legal.

Colorado has the largest elk population in the country, and they get a large portion of their money from out of state hunters. A bull tag is right at $700 for a non-resident. And they know the odds of a non-resident taking an elk on public land is very low. But they sell unlimited tags during most of the seasons. It is a huge money maker for their game management department. But they still manage to keep the number of animals up.

Colorado has the opposite problem with deer. The numbers are low, and if you get a tag the chances of killing one are much better. As a result they only issue a limited number of tags. Virtually all of them by being drawn.

 

[Ohen Cepel]

I think opening with rifle season and allowing a longer rifle season is a good way to take more deer. I understand people wanting to hunt with bows and BP. However, if the goal is more deer taken let more rifles be used for longer.

No one will agree on how to do this. Sadly, at the state level money and politics matter more to them than conservation, the game, and surely not the hunters.

 

[daniel craig]

I hunt in NY in both 8H and 9T. 8H is frankly overrun with deer and the DEC can't give away enough doe permits. Every year additional permits are available after the normal permit lottery. 9T is the opposite end of the spectrum. Only landowners and disabled vets get a doe permit ever year. Others typically wait 2 to 5 years before getting a doe permit. This is done to maintain a sufficient deer herd to support hunting in 9T.

I don't understand how automatically getting a doe permit valid in any WMU along with "earn-a-buck" would help the deer population in places like 9T. Imagine you're a deer hunter living in 9T or thereabouts and you get a doe permit valid anywhere. Where are you going to use it? Are you going to try to secure hunting access in a zone 2 hours away with plentiful deer, or are you going to go out where you always hunt? This proposal would likely decimate the deer herd in WMUs like 9T.

My idea being people will go where the deer are, in this case doe, but you’re probably right.

 

[daniel craig]

This is one time I'm glad the state is broke. Cuomo will think twice before doing anything that would reduce $ flow from hunters. In fact. take a look at the DEC Deer Management Plan 2021-2030. Lot's of proposals to increase the number of hunters and expand hunting access.

And it’s all a good start, if it gets passed.

 

[daniel craig]

I think opening with rifle season and allowing a longer rifle season is a good way to take more deer. I understand people wanting to hunt with bows and BP. However, if the goal is more deer taken let more rifles be used for longer.

No one will agree on how to do this. Sadly, at the state level money and politics matter more to them than conservation, the game, and surely not the hunters.

Exactly.

 

[daniel craig]

I just wanted to clarify my posted quoted above. One rarely sees a big buck in 9T, in large part because getting a doe tag is so difficult. Apparently most hunters will shoot just about any buck when they can't get a doe tag for years at a time (and I don't really blame them; I hunt mostly for the meat myself). Now, that buck tag is good anywhere in the state, just like the OP has proposed for the doe tag. Why don't the hunters go to 8H or some other unit where there are plentiful deer and bucks with big racks, rather than stay in 9T where there aren't many big bucks? Because that's where they live and have hunting access. What this tells us, is that making a doe permit good for any unit will just increase the doe take in every unit. Not many hunters are going to go out of their way to gain hunting access far from home to take a doe. Not many do it for a buck and even fewer would do it for a doe.

They....might... if they knew there were places to hunt, like private land now open for hunting thanks to the tax incentives. I know I’ve travelled to high deer population areas to hunt.
8H is crawling with doe but not very good in big bucks. 8M has a better spread so I travel there for my buck tag.

 

[stillquietvoice]

owners, not his favorite people. On the other hand, he wants to extend the High Line to the new train station in NYC at a cost of $60 million. Go figure.

It's always about NYC for him.

As far as deer management goes, population control is failing miserably in a lot of NY wmu's, population is do high there are deer wandering city and town streets. Feet are struck on highways every couple of miles and still the population is too high. Maybe offer extra for tags yo hunters that have already tagged out or alter price of deer tags and offer 3 deer on one tag not limited by sex

 

[wombat13]

I think NY DEC does a reasonable job, maybe even a very good job, given all of the different needs and preferences they have to balance combined with relying on NY's dysfunctional government. You have hunters and animal rights activists who want more animals, but for opposite reasons, and not the same animals; farmers who want fewer deer eating their crops; suburbanites who want enough deer to see, but don't want their landscaping eaten or car smashed in a collision, etc.

Then often their hands are tied by NY gov. Just take crossbow hunting for example. Two of the most frustrating things about NY xbow regulations are the minimum uncocked width of 17" and maximum draw weight of 200 lbs. Modern xbows are going to much narrower designs and often higher draw weights. If the width reg isn't changed, NY xbow hunters will have to use the lowest tech, entry level xbows. DEC would like to change those regs, but they are written into the law that allows for xbow hunting, so only the legislature can change it. This is also true of the xbow setback (250ft from building rather than 150ft for bow) and the restricted zones, e.g. 8C which is bow only, no xbow. IIRC, this is also true of the xbow season dates, so DEC can't even change the start/end dates of the season without the legislature.

Managing by Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) is also the only practical way to manage the deer herd. There is just too much variation in habitat. The high peaks region in the Adirondacks is tremendously different than flatlands near Ontario just to the west. 8H just SW of Rochester is overrun with deer because there is a lot of agriculture providing food and it is at low elevation and not too far from Ontario so the winters are relatively mild, but suburbia is encroaching bringing with it reduced hunting opportunities. 9T is in the foot hills of the Appalachian chain and has very little agriculture, so not much food, often harsh winters, and a strong hunting culture.

I own property in 9T. From my perspective, game needs to be managed on an even narrower scale than the WMUs rather than a broader state scale. We have a good number of deer because our property was logged within the past 10 years and neighboring properties have been logged within the last 5 years and some is ongoing. The unit overall, however, has struggled maintaining a deer herd because so much of it is mature forest with little deer browse. Consequently, we have plenty of deer, but only one or two doe permits among a hunting party of maybe 6 people. Most of us have to sit and watch the abundant does walk. One of the proposals in the draft deer management plan is to make it easier for landowners to apply for DMAPs (special doe permits based on deer impact on specific properties). This would be a very good thing.

 

[buck460XVR]

While I don't agree with everything my state DNR does to regulate deer populations, since I started hunting deer 55 years ago, opportunities, deer numbers and seasons/season lengths have greatly increased. That tells me they know what they are doing. I tend to have faith that those folks in charge who went to school for wildlife management/biology, know more about it than I do. Buck only seasons are all about population control. They allow hunters an opportunity to harvest a deer without decimating the population. If and when the population is too high for the area, than they issue antlerless permits with an estimated harvest rate, to control that too. It's not just population control where hunting enhances deer hunting. License fees, and fees collected from the Pittman-Robertson Act buy public land, pay for enforcement and pay for studies to enhance hunting. Hunters themselves contribute by planting food plots, being selective in their harvests and contributing to ideas of new regulations. While the DNR can issue permits and licenses, what they cannot do is dictate where folks hunt....at least here in Wisconsin. Private land owners determine who hunts their property and how many deer will be taken. While there may be 20,000 antlerless permits issued for that area, without access to the land to hunt, it may as well be 10 million. Public land while allowing access, generally has to have fewer permits because there are fewer deer due to the high pressure and hunters per acre. Lately, our DNR has been lowering antlerless permits on public land to increase the quality of the hunt. While some folks complain they can never get a doe tag for that area, at least they are seeing deer, where in the past, they may not have seen a tail all season. Need meat? Give the DNR your name and number and they will let you know if there is a car kill or confiscated deer you can have. Want to hunt? Then trust they know what they are doing, because odds are, if they didn't, there's be no hunt as you know it, at all.

 

[Chuck R.]

In "theory" hunters move to where the deer are, but access also plays a major role in where hunters are.

Case in point, this fall in western KS I encountered far more hunters than I normally do, even though the deer densities are less than in eastern KS where I live. The majority of hunt-able land in eastern KS is private, while western KS has large concentrations of walk in public areas.

I think our DNR guys do a pretty good job also. Although personally I would like to see our rifle season extended into the rut or at least closer, we do have plenty of opportunities and still see some very nice bucks. I also like how well they manage the doe tags (up to 5 in some areas), which fluctuates every couple of years based on counts etc.

 

[entropy]

We as hunters, like to make the claim that hunting is an important tool for managing populations. We like to use the science of environmental carrying capacity/load, Fecundity etc.

In my state of NY, for deer, hunting is far from a population management tool we like to claim it is.

So, this past season in the “southern” zone, bow season started 1October and runs to 20November (inclusive).
Regular season is from 21Nov to 13Dec (inclusive).
Late bow/muzzleloader 14Dec-22Dec (inclusive).

When you buy your big game license you automatically get a “buck tag” but antlerless deer tags are based on availability in the management unit (arbitrary zones) you hunt. Some places have ton available and some have none. In THEORY the number of doe tags available is based on population size in that area, based on observation and the previous year harvest.

In many places tags go unused for many reasons. There are areas with a plethora of deer that don’t get hunted.
.......................…………………......................

Now, in my mind, if we really wanted to manage the populations, here’s what we’d do:

0.) Reduce the cost of a license and tags.

1.) When you buy a license you automatically get a DOE tag that’s useable anywhere in the state. Buck tags are ONLY issued if you’ve already harvested a doe.

2.) Change the seasons:
- 2a.) Make the bow season the month of September and the first two weeks of October.
—2a1.) Allow crossbows the entire season.
- 2b.) Make the rifle/shotgun season the last two weeks of October, and the entire month of November.
- 2c.) Make the late bow/muzzleloader season the entire month of December.
- 2d.) leave room for a January/February or March hunt if the regular season hunt harvest were too low.

5.) Any and all municipal parks over a certain acreage have to allow hunting of some kind, even if it’s just bow season (regulations allowing for skill testing are allowed).

6.) All private land over a certain acreage will have a portion of that next year’s property tax waived if they have a certain number of non related hunters (based on acreage) hunt their land.
——Property tax waivers based on number of DIFFERENT hunters per acre size (the more hunters you have the more property tax you can waive, up to 65%) and tags used, allowing the property owners to let hunters use any nuisance tags the property owner might have.

7.) Make venison donation and sale easier for hunters to do so the trophy hunters can donate the doe meat they may not want, provided they drop the deer off at a licensed deer processor (to ensure meat quality/health).

BONUS/OPTIONAL

7.) Municipalities will receive tax incentives to allow hunters to bow hunt areas normally off limits (those areas behind rural schools).

8.) Colleges with adequate space will receive additional funding from the state for allowing on campus hunting

Come to Wisconsin. We have most of those things. Plenty of deer also. Many are hit by automobiles, and yet most hunters that actually get out and hunt (versus sitting in the deer shack recovering from the night before) get deer. The firearms season isn't quite as long as you'd like, but you do get a doe tag with the buck tag (they tried the 'earn a buck' thing some years ago, the rack hunters stayed home) and can buy as many doe tags as you want in the farm zones. The tax break thing we have, and many larger parks and the military bases have bow hunts.

No state is going to reduce license fees, but WI did resist upping them until this year.

 

[wombat13]

No state is going to reduce license fees, but WI did resist upping them until this year.

NY actually did significantly reduce license fees a few years ago. I had already bought a lifetime license that was priced based on the higher rates and had been considering lifetime licenses for my kids. License price is low enough now that a lifetime license doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Only works if you know you're going to live and hunt in NY for at least 20 years, which these days, the way WNY is hemorrhaging population, isn't likely for my kids.

Come to Wisconsin. We have most of those things. Plenty of deer also. Many are hit by automobiles, and yet most hunters that actually get out and hunt (versus sitting in the deer shack recovering from the night before) get deer.

This reminds me of our first hunt after we bought our property. The neighbor let us stay in one of his campers. He didn't hunt, but his son did and stayed in the other camp. We arrived early the day before opening, confirmed tree stands were in good shape the way we left them a couple months before and settled in. The son and grandson roll into camp about 3pm (gets dark around 5). Son says hi and says he's excited for the opener even though he's been hunting dad's property for years and never gotten a deer. Tells us that he's going to sight in his new lever gun. They head up into their property. About 4pm it sounds like WWIII kicked off up the hill. Grandson had brought an AK that must have had a bump stock on it. I could not have pulled a trigger that fast. They must have blasted hundreds of rounds. We were just shaking our heads and a little worried that they would spook the deer on our property. But wait...there's more.

We turn in early so we can be up and sharp and in the stands well before light. The son, grandson, and a buddy stay up, getting drunk. Then they decide they're going to figure out where the deer have bedded down so they clamber into the truck. Buddy is going to drive (we learned all of this the next day). Son is climbing into the bed of the truck when Buddy hits the gas and Son falls off the back of the truck.

I'm in my stand 45 min before dawn and shoot a doe at 8:30 am. By 10 am I'm pulling into camp with the deer in the truck while Son and the rest are just waking up. Son can't believe I already got a deer. "Must be more deer on your side of the ridge." I head back out and by 2pm I'm pulling into camp with a buck in the truck. When Son and his crew got back to camp, they packed up and left, disgusted with their bad luck.

 

[daniel craig]

I think NY DEC does a reasonable job, maybe even a very good job, given all of the different needs and preferences they have to balance combined with relying on NY's dysfunctional government. You have hunters and animal rights activists who want more animals, but for opposite reasons, and not the same animals; farmers who want fewer deer eating their crops; suburbanites who want enough deer to see, but don't want their landscaping eaten or car smashed in a collision, etc.

Then often their hands are tied by NY gov. Just take crossbow hunting for example. Two of the most frustrating things about NY xbow regulations are the minimum uncocked width of 17" and maximum draw weight of 200 lbs. Modern xbows are going to much narrower designs and often higher draw weights. If the width reg isn't changed, NY xbow hunters will have to use the lowest tech, entry level xbows. DEC would like to change those regs, but they are written into the law that allows for xbow hunting, so only the legislature can change it. This is also true of the xbow setback (250ft from building rather than 150ft for bow) and the restricted zones, e.g. 8C which is bow only, no xbow. IIRC, this is also true of the xbow season dates, so DEC can't even change the start/end dates of the season without the legislature.

Managing by Wildlife Management Unit (WMU) is also the only practical way to manage the deer herd. There is just too much variation in habitat. The high peaks region in the Adirondacks is tremendously different than flatlands near Ontario just to the west. 8H just SW of Rochester is overrun with deer because there is a lot of agriculture providing food and it is at low elevation and not too far from Ontario so the winters are relatively mild, but suburbia is encroaching bringing with it reduced hunting opportunities. 9T is in the foot hills of the Appalachian chain and has very little agriculture, so not much food, often harsh winters, and a strong hunting culture.

I own property in 9T. From my perspective, game needs to be managed on an even narrower scale than the WMUs rather than a broader state scale. We have a good number of deer because our property was logged within the past 10 years and neighboring properties have been logged within the last 5 years and some is ongoing. The unit overall, however, has struggled maintaining a deer herd because so much of it is mature forest with little deer browse. Consequently, we have plenty of deer, but only one or two doe permits among a hunting party of maybe 6 people. Most of us have to sit and watch the abundant does walk. One of the proposals in the draft deer management plan is to make it easier for landowners to apply for DMAPs (special doe permits based on deer impact on specific properties). This would be a very good thing.

Well see this is where I differ because I think that European management styles do a better job of managing populations overall. A lot of those countries have very strong hunting cultures that have been around for much longer than the US has even been around and they look at populations holistically. I am unconvinced that wildlife management units actually worked that well as management units.I’m not an expert and I don’t pretend to think that the DEC doesn’t have experts because they absolutely do but it just seems to me that what they’re doing isn’t working.

 

[daniel craig]

While I don't agree with everything my state DNR does to regulate deer populations, since I started hunting deer 55 years ago, opportunities, deer numbers and seasons/season lengths have greatly increased. That tells me they know what they are doing. I tend to have faith that those folks in charge who went to school for wildlife management/biology, know more about it than I do. Buck only seasons are all about population control. They allow hunters an opportunity to harvest a deer without decimating the population. If and when the population is too high for the area, than they issue antlerless permits with an estimated harvest rate, to control that too. It's not just population control where hunting enhances deer hunting. License fees, and fees collected from the Pittman-Robertson Act buy public land, pay for enforcement and pay for studies to enhance hunting. Hunters themselves contribute by planting food plots, being selective in their harvests and contributing to ideas of new regulations. While the DNR can issue permits and licenses, what they cannot do is dictate where folks hunt....at least here in Wisconsin. Private land owners determine who hunts their property and how many deer will be taken. While there may be 20,000 antlerless permits issued for that area, without access to the land to hunt, it may as well be 10 million. Public land while allowing access, generally has to have fewer permits because there are fewer deer due to the high pressure and hunters per acre. Lately, our DNR has been lowering antlerless permits on public land to increase the quality of the hunt. While some folks complain they can never get a doe tag for that area, at least they are seeing deer, where in the past, they may not have seen a tail all season. Need meat? Give the DNR your name and number and they will let you know if there is a car kill or confiscated deer you can have. Want to hunt? Then trust they know what they are doing, because odds are, if they didn't, there's be no hunt as you know it, at all.

And see I guess that’s where my leftist leanings come in because I understand and I appreciate and I want private land someday but I also think that something needs to change about the way game is managed on private land’s for the good of the population as a whole.

 

[buck460XVR]

And see I guess that’s where my leftist leanings come in because I understand and I appreciate and I want private land someday but I also think that something needs to change about the way game is managed on private land’s for the good of the population as a whole.

Here in Wisconsin, while the state manages the game on private lands, it has little or no control on access. They have done things like lease access rights and remove any liability of land owners when they allows others to hunt without a fee, but when so many folks own prime hunting land, expressly for hunting, odds are they are not going to let others hunt. I have spent around a thousand dollars a year for several years putting in food plots on my son's 40 acres. I have planted around 40 apple trees, and more wild plum and red osier dogwood than I can count. Why would I let someone I don't know, come and shoot deer? While we do the "handicapped" hunt for good reasons, we don;t feel obligated to let every stranger hunt. Kinda how most folks feel. Kinda why the deer population is as high as it is around there, because of lack of access to every Tom, Dick and Harry.

Come to Wisconsin. We have most of those things. Plenty of deer also. Many are hit by automobiles, and yet most hunters that actually get out and hunt (versus sitting in the deer shack recovering from the night before) get deer. The firearms season isn't quite as long as you'd like, but you do get a doe tag with the buck tag (they tried the 'earn a buck' thing some years ago, the rack hunters stayed home) and can buy as many doe tags as you want in the farm zones. The tax break thing we have, and many larger parks and the military bases have bow hunts.

No state is going to reduce license fees, but WI did resist upping them until this year.

Plenty of deer and plenty of public land compared to many other areas in the country. Problem is, where the high deer populations and the antlerless tags are available as you state, access is limited and almost impossible. Two years ago everyone where I hunt got 4 antlerless tags with every license. Having an archery and gun license, my sons and I got 8 tags apiece. That's 24 antlerless tags. We shot 2 antlerless deer total. This year we got 6 apiece and shot 2 total.Kinda how it was all around us. we don't need more than 2 and we like to see deer. One of those this year was my grand-daughter's first deer. Public land a few miles away was included in this, but because of pressure, small amount of area and amount of hunters, individual success rate is low, and many folks get frustrated because on opening weekend, it's a flood of orange. After the first day, things are better. Earn a buck didn't work because folks still shot a buck before they got a doe. Earn a buck didn't work because many landowners hunted public land to get their antlerless deer before they hunted their own private reserve. Large parcels of public land north of me in central Wisconsin(Central Forest Land)have no or very limited amounts of antlerless tags. While Wisconsin may be the land of Milk and Honey when it comes to deer hunting, you better own land, know someone, know the public lands around you like the back of your hand or just be dang lucky. I hunted public land for 40 years....still do. First 20 or so I averaged maybe one buck every 4 years and it generally was a only a spike, fork or 6. As I got to know the area and where the most pressure was, I got so between bow and gun, I generally got at least one buck a year. Sometimes 8s and 10s. Still, it was a lot of work and entailed going deep in away from roads and easy access and meant a drag of a half mile thru the swamps and blowdowns. Basically a young man's hunt. I also hunted the area for grouse and woodcock and scouted all winter long for the next season to find where the deer were left after the gun season. They are there, but they are not easy.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Many of your ideas already work quite well in other states, BUT alas due to the political geography of your situation:




LD