"Managing" The Herd

[ewheeley]

I'm a member now at arkansashunting.net. It's nowhere near as good as OSA, but I like getting feedback on local issues.

With the opening of bow season, everyone is posting pictures of their deer. There's been a lot of debate on there about what classifies a trophy. To put it simply, it's been bothering me. I'm getting pretty tired of armchair biology experts claiming that they know all about deer genetics, and that they're helping the deer population by killing bucks with less-than-satisfactory racks.

My problem is this. Is rack size the sole determinant of a quality buck? If having a small rack was actually a hindrance to successful reproduction, wouldn't spikes and bucks with sloppy racks be naturally selected against? If that were the case, then the deer population would evolve not to have spikes and bucks with trashy racks.

But apparently, nature's own method of taking care of bad genetics has failed miserably, so luckily we've appointed people to take care of the problem for us. People like...

This guy
http://www.arkansashunting.net/showthread.php?t=83276

 

[Bulls eye]

Nature has been taking care of the herd for thousands of years. Man has only been involved for a few hundred. I dont worry about what everybody else thinks. If I want to shoot it and its legal I shoot it. If I want to give a deer a pass I do. All these boys running around thinking they are something special cause they kill big deer are funny to me. Are you kidding me!!! Its a deer!!!! A glorified GOAT!!!!!!! There are a lot more important things in the world than a deer!!! Also it is a proven scientific fact that young deer do a good bit of breeding and that the buck with the biggest rack is not necessarily the dominant buck. Attitude and body size have a lot to do with dominance. You can weed out the supposedly infierior bucks but how you gonna know which DOES have the best genetics?? They add at least half the mix to the gene pool you know.

 

[HiredHand]

Or it's a good way of saving face when all your buddies killed deer with nicer racks.

Personally, I like eating venison not looking at it...

 

[Bulls eye]

Managing the herd= excuse for killing something your not proud of!!! If your gonna make excuses for it. Dont kill it!!!!! I dont care what anybody shoots but dang, if your gonna take a animals life you shouldnt have to make excuses for it. Deer are WILD animals! They are not meant to be managed like cattle!!!! Put a little pride and money into the mix and things start to go down hill quickly.

 

[Buzzgun]

I recently attended a deer management seminar hosted by the Noble Foundation. Part of the seminar dealt with "culling" deer. They had photos of deer that were captured and ear tagged, most as fawns. They had game camera photos of many of these deer through the years and knew the actual age of most of them. It was amazing to see the change in antler structure over the years! Their findings pointed out that you can't cull deer based on antler growth as antlers can and often do change drastically from year to year.

It was very interesting to see a real scientific deer study, sure showed how ridiculous most of what we have been led to believe really is!

I'd recommend these seminars to anyone interested in deer management, the cost is only $20 and includes lunch, and they aren't trying to sell anything!!

 

[Wormydog1724]

I recently attended a deer management seminar hosted by the Noble Foundation. Part of the seminar dealt with "culling" deer. They had photos of deer that were captured and ear tagged, most as fawns. They had game camera photos of many of these deer through the years and knew the actual age of most of them. It was amazing to see the change in antler structure over the years! Their findings pointed out that you can't cull deer based on antler growth as antlers can and often do change drastically from year to year.

It was very interesting to see a real scientific deer study, sure showed how ridiculous most of what we have been led to believe really is!

I'd recommend these seminars to anyone interested in deer management, the cost is only $20 and includes lunch, and they aren't trying to sell anything!!

Ive never been to one of those seminars but I partially believe in this. You can't discount good genetics entirely but you can't say that a deer with a funky rack will be funky his whole life. I've seen pen deer with a funked up racks look entirely normal the next. Also seen it in the wild by way of trail cams year round. Genetics are definitely a factor, but a small buck one year that has a messed up side may not be messed up the next. And may be a big one later down the road.

 

[dennishoddy]

I recently attended a deer management seminar hosted by the Noble Foundation. Part of the seminar dealt with "culling" deer. They had photos of deer that were captured and ear tagged, most as fawns. They had game camera photos of many of these deer through the years and knew the actual age of most of them. It was amazing to see the change in antler structure over the years! Their findings pointed out that you can't cull deer based on antler growth as antlers can and often do change drastically from year to year.

It was very interesting to see a real scientific deer study, sure showed how ridiculous most of what we have been led to believe really is!

I'd recommend these seminars to anyone interested in deer management, the cost is only $20 and includes lunch, and they aren't trying to sell anything!!

Been to a couple and have read a lot on the subject.

Lots of hunters see a yearling with a spike and say cull.
We have an area in the ODW controlled hunt program that follows that rule.
Salt Plains NWR. They have several hunts that say if its a spike they want it taken. Federal hunt.

I've seen studies showing spikes that are 18 months old developing into bucks that any of us would cherish when they get to a mature age of 4 1/2 to 6 1/2.

Antler growth and development depends on lots of things like nutrition, genetics and the enviroment.

That being said if a 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 buck shows up two years in a row with an inferior rack, there is a good possibility that it could have the genes that are not consistant with good managment.

We had a couple of bucks with a huge right side, and a tiny left, that we took out. So far, we haven't seen any more with that type of rack.

We hunt on a DMAP so its a very well managed herd that is a work in progress. We have a long way to go.

 

[Buzzgun]

While at the seminar, I asked about the antlerless/spike hunt at Salt Plains. Another person attending the seminar had actually talked to the Wildlife Dept guys out there about this. He said they told him they allowed the killing of spikes because they didn't want to penalize people who accidentally shot spikes while on doe hunts??

I can understand the problem, but they are still killing bucks.

As far as genetics go, the Noble Foundation guys say that genetics are not really a limiting factor in the deer herd in Oklahoma. We have good genetics, our bucks just need to be allowed to get older. Of course, there are exceptions in the herd that will never get to "trophy class".

Another very interesting part of the seminar was the discussion of deer aging methods. They tested biologists who were suppose to know what they were doing, the results were astoundingly WRONG.

Their bottom line was, if the deer meets your harvest criteria for antler size, shoot it and don't worry about how old it is.

Not a bad plan when you think about it!

 

[Deer Slayer]

Way to go Dennis