Question for managers and biologists?

[BHC]

Just to get a baseline idea of herd dynamics, and our impact as hunters. What would you expect a deer population on a large tract of Unhunted (say in 5 years)southern middle tn hill country land(99% mature timber)?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TheLBLman]

Define "large"

 

[Hunter 257W]

You can always start with the accepted numbers for deer/sq mile for your area and calculate the population that way. Of course that is assuming the land is "average", since deer densities are going to vary a lot over the areas that the "deer density" maps show to be constant. Since you say your place is 99% mature timber that would mean deer numbers would be a lot lower than the same area if it were a thicket with lots of browse and cover. Of course the fact that it's not been hunter for 5 years would increase the deer numbers over an identical large timber area just next door that had been hunted hard.

Another factor that I think gets confused is the number of deer living on(spending most of their time on) a piece of property vs. the number of deer likely to cross that same property at least once in say a week's time. The later is what us hunters really want to know for hunting purposes as far as knowing how many deer we are likely to have a shot at. But when calculating how many deer you can actually kill, you need to really be working with the one's that spend most of their time on your land, otherwise you and 4 other neighbors are counting the same deer in your census and that could lead to killing way too many - if all your neighbors hunt. So much depends on what the neighbors do!

 

[BHC]

Yes I realise it will vary depending on many factors. Really just was trying to get an idea of what a natural population/ density would be like on a Unhunted piece of property like that. By large I mean 1500 acres or more. Would such a property be over populated? What would the sex ratio look like? Would the age structure be skewed toward mature deer?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[TheLBLman]

If BSK will jump on here, you'll get a better & more detailed answer.

By large I mean 1500 acres or more. Would such a property be over populated? What would the sex ratio look like? Would the age structure be skewed toward mature deer?

Opinions vary greatly, but imo, generally speaking, 1500 acres is not large enough for there to be lots of mature bucks on the property, although you might be skewed towards more mature does. Bucks typically simply roam over thousands of acres during the rut, and, even with 1500 acres, what is happening on that 4,500 acres surrounding you may effect the situation more than that 1500 acres in the center of a 6,000 acre land mass.

During the rut, it is not uncommon for a very identifiable buck to be photographed one day, then be killed by a hunter 2 or more miles away the next day. A typical 1500 acre tract (in TN) is going to be configured something like 3 miles long, but LESS than 1 mile wide. On a daily basis, the majority of the bucks that "live" on this tract most of the year, they may spend more time off it, during the rut, than on it. Thus, what's happening on the surrounding property has the greater effect, at least on the buck population (or buck herd dynamics).

By the way, if you had a tract 3 miles long x 1 mile wide (about 1,920 acres), draw a 2nd perimeter only an additional 1 mile around your property. That 1-mile perimeter around your property would contain a whopping 5,120 acres! So basically, that 1,920 acres becomes only 27% of that 7,040-acre land mass most of "your" deer would be roaming. Even a deer standing in the very center of your property would only be 0.5 mile from being "off" your property.

All things being equal, the deer population density SHOULD be a little higher than the surrounding area, but still largely controlled by it. Similar for sex ratio, should be a little closer to "balanced", but since "your" bucks would be getting killed outside that 1500 acre center mass, might not be hugely different than the surrounding area.

But seldom are all things "equal". If your 1500 acres is the best cover mass within say 6,000 acres, generally fewer of "your" bucks should be killed outside your perimeter. If you have most of the food sources and the cover for that 6,000-acre area within your 1500 acre center, you will fare better. Still, your 1500 acres will likely be effected more by what's happening around it, especially if that's lots of deer hunting. The fact there has been no hunting on this 1500 acres has likely highly benefited the neighbors' hunting.

Another issue: Seasonal range shifting.
Many of the bucks I see during the summer months will "shift" their fall/winter range by over a mile. What am saying is that a buck with a fairly small "core" area of maybe 100 acres, may shift that fairly small "core" area (where he spends the most of his time daily) by over a mile just between July and October. Even with 1500 acres, such a shift COULD put most of your summer-seen bucks on the adjoining properties for deer season. Similarly, you may gain bucks coming in from the adjoining properties, but they're just not the ones you were so eagerly watching all summer. Of course, there is a lot of overlapping, and all bets are off during the rut.

Lastly, "no hunting"? What has prevented it? (It usually takes more than a lack of permission or some no trespassing signs.) I have looked at numerous tracts over the years that had supposedly had "no hunting" for the past many years. Rarely has that appeared to be the case (at least across much of TN).

 

[TheLBLman]

None of the above means you shouldn't be excited about what you can do, deer management wise, with 1500 areas!

You can have extremely high quality hunting opportunities which should be gauged by lots of factors having nothing to do with deer "management". You can also expect to have a better "quality" deer herd than the surrounding area (assuming that's a goal). But again, everything effects everything, and what's happening on the adjoining properties CAN effect your experiences more than what's happening on your property. If your 1500 acres adjoins a major airport, the "quality" of the entire experience there might be greatly negatively effected by the noise pollution. Similar could be said about I-40, never mind the deer will often bed in an interstate median!

It's certainly plausible you could have twice to quadruple the number of mature bucks on 1500 acres than compared to the adjoining properties. But this could mean you have 1 mature buck per 200 acres compared to the adjoining property having 1 per 800 acres. This could equate to much better odds of your seeing one while hunting, but you'll never see a mature buck behind every tree, no matter what you do, or don't do. IMO, having 1 per 200 acres would be a high mature buck density for a free-roaming deer herd anywhere in TN, even "large" areas that have had no hunting for years.

 

[BSK]

BHC,

A couple of important points:

1) Very hard to give an average deer density or even carrying capacity number. I've seen "mature" timber that can support 15-20 deer per square mile, and then I've seen REALLY mature timber that can't support more than 5 deer per square mile.

2) Deer density numbers only "work" when thinking of very large areas, such as a quarter of a county. As Wes pointed out, deer move around too much to produce realistic deer density numbers for individual properties, even very large ones.

3) Until someone develops a satellite that can take a picture from space and see each individual deer on the landscape so the actual number of deer can be counted over a large area, there is no known way of calculating an actual deer density. Trail-camera surveys WILL NOT produce an accurate deer density. let me repeat that as strongly as I can: TRAIL-CAMERA SURVEYS WILL NOT PRODUCE ACCURATE DEER DENSITY NUMBERS. What a summer baited camera census will produce is the number of deer using a property over the duration of the census. However, deer move around a lot over the course of a census. The numbers generated from the census will include all deer crossing the property during the duration, which will produce HIGHLY inflated density numbers. In essence, the census will pick up all the deer on the census property as well as most of the deer on surrounding properties, potentially for a considerable distance. The longer the census is run, the higher the density numbers will grow. Because of the large home-ranges of individual deer, the smaller the property censused, the greater the numbers will be inflated. The larger the property, the less exaggeration. But it would take probably a quarter to a half of a county censused to produce insignificant density inflation.

 

[BSK]

BHC,

To help provide answers, I would need to know exactly what you are looking for. Are you trying to determine the number of deer that NEED to be killed from a property? Are you trying to determine how many deer COULD be killed from a property? Are you trying to determine how many bucks you would have to work with?

 

[csi-tech]

1 deer. You have 1 deer on your property.