Originally Posted By: Dream Buck
Fur Flying,
I appreciate your interest in wildlife management.
Quote:
Feeding year round is supplemental feeding. Feeding during deer season is baiting. You're misleading people by claiming otherwise.
Using that logic then planting green fields year round(warm and cool) is supplemental feeding and planting them in the fall is baiting. Cause your using it as an attractant, right? I been fortunate to learn a lot from a lot of different biologist. Some of the lessons i've learned are that you need a year round approach to land management. Included in that are habitat management, warm and cool seasons plots, and supplemental feeding. The reason the bioloigist give for one of the main benefits is what
they call filling in the "nutritional gaps" Nutritional gaps is when the native browse and what you have planted are not sufficient to keep the deer healthy. This can be caused by a lot of factors, one example is a drought that limits your greenfields doing well, along with native browse suffering as well. Another example that is relevant to this bill is the winter months when native browse is mostly gone. These are the times supplemental feeding is beneficial to wildlife and really i would argue they need it during these times. The problem most honest landowners have is they will not feed during hunting season because of a horrible law that doesn't define area, and you could argue this is the time they need it most.

Allen,
We base our management program on 4 cornerstones(Age, nutrition, genetics, and stress) We try to manage all 4 of these well. We have never used steroids, hormones or anything else.
As far as wildlife belonging with the people, i generally agree with you. Since you have an issue with people raising deer, do you have an issue with the 1,000,000 plus released quail in south georgia plantations, or the hundreds of thousands of pheasant released in South Dakota Ranches and Public land, or the bass being raised to be put in ponds, what about ducks, chukar, buffalo, elk, etc. I know great stewards that own high fences and some that don't.
Moral and Ethics do matter, and I'm the one spreading facts about wildlife management, not lies about someone business

I want to make this clear, their are a lot of people that want this bill to pass(lease holders, hunting clubs, land owners), i am amazed just at the support we have received today from people on this site through emails and phone calls.


Will, we plant around 15 acres of annual foodplots, in addition to perennials. These foodplots are planted in the fall, but provide food up until May/ June. Unless you clarify by stating foodplots planted in rye, wheat or oats only then you are incorrect. I would also hope that a deer manager such as yourself doesn't lump bait feeders utilized during hunting season only and greenfields into the same category. A foodplot available 24 hours a day is very different than a feeder that throws out a pound of corn at 8 am and 4 PM. I'm not trying to get into a debate over which is more ethical but purely from a nutritional and food availability point of view the foodplot is much better.

In the 25 + years I've deer hunted on my family's farm I have never seen a shortage of food for the deer. I am not saying that there are not areas of the state with a shortage of food, but in those situations it's usually caused by thousands of acres of unmanaged pine trees and too many deer. I completely agree that it would be ideal to provide deer with a perfect diet and understand that you are trying to accomplish something 99% of hunters in Alabama are not, but what you are talking about is Trophy Deer Management. Laws should not be designed to produce trophy deer. I think it's safe to say that 90% of the deer in Alabama never miss a meal and never die of starvation.

Last edited by truedouble; 03/08/12 10:23 PM.