Deer Observation Data

[Mike Belt]

Wondering what's your take of observation data forms....?

I have no scientific data or camera surveys to substantiate anything. I'm strictly basing this on mine and several other credible hunters' observations and at the same time question hunter observation. On the club I hunt we have to fill out observation forms per hunt...1 per morning hunt and 1 per afternoon hunt. This is not the only data used to set club limits but it's a primary source. An example of a major fault I see in this is.... take 2 hunters hunting the same area. The first has 8 does, 5 fawns, and 1 buck come by him early on. A couple of hours later he has 6 of those same does and 5 of those same fawns come back by him. They continue on and pass by the second hunter. That's a total of 36 deer reported as sighted when it's actually only 14 individual deer. That's a mistake in numbers of deer by over -150%. Multiply that by 85-100 hunters all season long and by season's end you have a substantial "virtual" herd. In setting the goals for the following season a sustained doe harvest is required to keep those high numbers in check. Fact is though, hunters are seeing fewer and fewer deer each season. I don't buy into hunting pressure creating a new and improved avoidance system the deer have developed. In places where deer observations were typically very high you're sometimes hard pressed to even find a set of tracks. Maybe I'm missing something but I'm under the impression you have to have deer to make deer tracks.

Our club is divided into 5 units. Some of them contain agricultural fields and some don't. Naturally those that do will house and feed more deer. Some of those fields get hammered by the deer. Some just look like they did because of the timing the planting took place and they just never grew. Either way, the total doe goal numbers dictate X number of them have to be killed based on those inflated numbers from the virtual herd. It's my belief that there are areas that may need constant control albeit taking a closer analogy of numbers based on hunter observations. Flip side of that is there are also areas that don't. In fact, continued heavy doe removal may even be a contributing factor to population decline in those areas.

Input?????

 

[DocFox]

On our farm,we only keep track of buck activity. We try to video every buck seen during a setting. We all have a video camera. It took awhile to get everyone comfortable to do this. But, it is fun seeing how far bucks travel during a day. It is also amazing how many bucks are seen only once or twice.

 

[landman]

Mike

I think the one major way to collect it is with TC's too many factors can cause things to sway on hunter reports

Is one hunter a better hunter, than everyone else?

Does half of the club members only hunt the weekends with more pressure?

Weather, Moon phase ?

Mass crop?

Trespasser/poacher problems?

Coon hunters, yes I said it

I have learned that a corn pile out for 1 week, then go and turn the camera on scattered in the right locations on the property
in August/Sept and then in Jan/Feb gives you a best data

 

[huntforme7909]

I believe that the idea of trying to get or keep record of how many deer on your club is a great idea....but I agree with you that how they are going about that is not good at all. I don't hunt on a club but I also agree with you that hunting pressure isn't causing deer to gain extra senses that they've never had or avoidance system....they just do what they typically do in hunting pressure situations..(go nocturnal, or move to less pressured areas)....im not sure what kind of system would work better in keeping check on the numbers of your herd but im always interested in any post when it comes to herd and population....I hunt primarily in the mountains in east tn and I don't see as many deer all year that I know some people see in one day....I think that the mountains could certainly hold much higher numbers of deer and would love comments on why they don't.....doe seasons are pretty conservative.....I would love to go set up there and see 20 deer a day but starting each season I know that in all reality I am not going to see more than 25-30 deer all season sometimes....give or take on good years and bad.....

 

[Boll Weevil]

To help determine population density we rely more on trended/aggregated data vs. a single year...here's a thought. In your example even if the 36 reported deer was really only 14, you should be able to see population variability year-over-year. Assuming there were more deer, say 5 years ago, there might have been 60 deer reported by those same 2 hunters (although it actually may have only been 42 unique animals). Two years from now if those 2 hunters report 23 deer, even if it's actually only 11 unique animals, it might be safe to assume the population density has indeed been reduced for that particular locale.

When we first started managing it wasn't uncommon to have different groups of 6-8 does and fawns on multiple cameras during the summer census with identical timestamps such that we knew those weren't possibly the same deer. We "eased" into the doe harvest that first year so as not to overharvest until we had more data (both hunter observation and camera). The 2nd and 3rd years we incrementally increased doe harvest and it was clear by the 4th year we were much closer to our target.

Just like your club, we have places that historically show more deer activity than others that we factor into our doe harvest plan. We spread doe harvest across the property accordingly, and evaluate year-over-year based on aggregated camera and hunter observation. Those multiple doe groups of 6-8 deer are now more like 2-4 and we continually evaluate fawn recruitment. At the same time we consider some of the other variables mentioned above like weather, mast, and more recently coyotes. All that said, this hunting season was a down year for hunter observed sightings for us and I chalk it up to unfavorable weather. I'm reasonably comfortable with this assessment in part because this summer's census showed healthy deer numbers and slightly above average fawn recruitment.

 

[Crosshairy]

Mike,

I agree with Boll Weevil that the data is still valid for year-to-year trending, but the numbers themselves don't mean a whole lot within a certain range. When you start seeing absurdly high or low numbers on a large tract of land, that is probably very meaningful.

The doe kill target is a really tough concept for me to wrap my head around when it's not done by unit. Obviously the deer from Unit 1 *could* move all the way over to Unit 4/5 and eat a bunch of crops, but realistically most don't. I BELIEVE the assumption is that, by killing a bunch of deer in one area, deer from other areas will naturally shift away from where they are and towards the "vacancy". I have no idea if that's true in practice, though, especially when trying to get deer to stop eating salable crops.

Ultimately, I think that Ames management is looking at the crop damage and rough estimates of population and saying "we still have plenty of deer, let's try raising the doe target from last year's guess-timate and watch the effect". If you pair that approach with trends in sightings, surveys, and crop damage, I think it's a viable strategy. I just think it's funny that the doe I killed in Unit 1 is counted the same way as the ones in Units 3/4/5