Wes Parrish said:
I think many hunter-managers should give a lot of thought about what BSK pointed out here, for which I totally agree.
BSK said:
Well I hate to tell hunters/managers this, but unless they're censusing an area of 40,000 to 50,000 acres, those density numbers are virtually meaningless . . . . . deer move around.
Unless you are working with MASSIVE areas, bucks will be killed beyond the boundaries of the managed property. Even in the sited study, where study properties averaged over 12,000 acres, more than half of the harvest of some buck age-classes occurred OFF the study properties. Now think about the average hunter/manager trying to calculate buck loss rates for a 1,000 acre property? ALL of the bucks using that property probably also use surrounding properties, where they can be harvested.
I posted the above information in an attempt to dissuade hunters/managers from trying to use photo census data to "calculate out" their deer herd into the future. To accurately calculate a deer herd into the future requires a "closed system" (where addition and subtraction of deer into the population is controllable). Unfortunately, unless the manager is working with massively large areas, this isn't the case. Deer move around far too much seasonally, annually, and over their lifetimes to ever have population calculations work out (again, assuming "common-sized" properties).
However, I realize this point may make hunters/managers question the value of small-land management. In essence, if deer move around so much, and single-property management can't have that major of an impact on future herd structure, why manage at all? The answer to that question is, "because real-world testing shows it works." For me, HOW it works is the really important question. We know that deer move around so much that small-land management
shouldn't work, in theory. But it does work. So how does it work?
Nobody has the answer to that yet. Since no real answers exist yet, all we have is theory. Although I'm constantly adjusting my own personal theories on this topic, here are my top three ideas on why small-land management works, in order of importance:
1) Deer have an amazing ability to rapidly identify areas in which they are safe from human predation (hunting). They also show the ability to react to the sudden surge of hunting pressure each year by shifting their activities to these "safer" areas (sanctuaries). Once hunters on a given property set age-based limits on their buck harvests, these properties rapidly become "meccas" for hunting-pressured bucks, drawing in many more bucks than would normally use the area. This places more bucks under protective harvest restrictions than the size of the property would suggest, creating a "force multiplier" to the management's impact.
2) Most single-property management plans involve alterations of the habitat to improve conditions for deer, usually involving improvements in food sources and cover habitat. Over time, as these changes "grow into" the intended better habitat, they draw more deer onto the management property. Without question it is much easier to produce advanced buck age structures when you have more bucks to work with.
3) There are more hunters out there managing that what most of us assume. Even a "patchwork quilt" of individual hunters or hunters on individual properties practicing management has a significant effect. Those scattered individual hunters or properties under management are passing up enough young bucks that everybody in the area is benefitting.
