Actually no, I haven't even entered this discussion, just don't think you're getting your point across. But by all means, carry on.

We don't have the kind of laws you're talking about, and we've never had them.

Our game and fish laws were written to promote conservation, perpetuation and increase of all the various species of wildlife.

If you want qdm principles to be written into our laws, then you need to speak to your legislators, have them introduce a bill to that effect and see if you can get it passed.

Until then, authority to implement wildlife management rules is limited by law (9-11-300 and 9-11-301) to only properly designated wildlife management areas.

Tell your legislators to look at those WMAs where commissioners have had unbridled control of wildlife management practices since around 1940. If the miracles of wildlife management that you espouse are evident there, then you shouldn't have much trouble convincing your legislators to try to implement the laws you want to be applied statewide on privately owned and leased properties.

To advocate the expansion of the rule making authority of an agency of the executive branch of government beyond the scope of its lawfully defined limits that were set by our legislature is to engage in liberalism at its worst. That is exactly what you are doing.

You horrible liberal. Need a new avatar?

Then outside of a WMA or other laws about any wildlife or fish, you should be OK to do whatever you want, whenever you want and if you get in trouble successfully argue it in court.

So, do that.

Our game and fish laws were written to promote conservation, perpetuation and increase of all the various species of wildlife.

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Eddie. Just out of curiosity. How are the current bag limits helping conservation? Just hear me out for a minute. You said earlier that the populations grew without the current rules and regulations. To this point I agree however at that time we protected does. We currently don't protect doe's at all (From the state vantage point, I know individuals do to a certain degree) and many areas of the state have seen a decline in overall numbers. The area I hunt has definitely seen a reduction in overall numbers and at the same time more and more hunters are moving into the area due to the larger tracts of land being broken up. Now if the state takes the data from the newly required recording practices and uses that data to further tweak the seasons, bag limits, etc IN ORDER TO ENSURE CONSERVATION OF THE SPECIES, then why would you have a problem with that? I don't follow? I could care less about a state run QDMA program. The only way to get deer to 5.5 years old is to not shoot them till then and I fully understand that. What I do want from the state though is some form of decision making process that ensures the population continues to grow in areas that can support it, not decline. So the way I see it the only way for the state to make these types of decisions is to have some supporting data which is what they are trying to accomplish.

Since we are pretending.

Pretend it's the unofficial first week of summer and the DCNR system is down and it's not deer season.

What would you do?

I would go to the beach and fish all week and not give a shat about something that just don't matter right now.

Exactly.... If you own your own land ... Why worry? If one must hunt public land then dont fuss- you have no argument.

At the end of the day, private property rules and 99% of time government defers to private owners on these questions- i would gladly provide the information as would my neighbors...

where I hunt, and camp, there I is no cell service, landline, or obviously internet, what would they say I was supposed to do? It is a 8 mile ride to get any service on my cell phone. Its near Stevenson and am sure others have the same issue? Wonder if they even considered this issue?

^^Best Answer^^

Part I:

Josh,

I said the populations of deer grew from a few thousand deer to near 2 million without any requirements for reporting the number of deer killed.


Part II:

The DCNR started setting bag limits for qdm purposes in '07 Josh. The QDMA advocates killing does instead of bucks. Killing does results in fewer deer.


Part III:

Trying to "tweak" seasons and bag limits on a statewide basis is an exercise in futility as I have stated over and over. The only scientific way to "tweak" and control deer populations is to do it site-specifically.

We shared 12 years of DMAP-type records on our lease with Chris Cook a few months back. Then we gave him permission to take 10 does from our property for fetal surveys. Surveying dead deer don't tell you a lot about what you have left on the property.

Surveying dead deer statewide to appease qdm advocates is worth nothing more than making rules up that affect all hunters in order to satisfy the curiosity of those who want that kind of information.

The state's wildlife biologists are hired to survey living wildlife populations in order to set seasons and bag limits like the law requires. Instead, they are expected to spend most of their time as game wardens and "rule enforcers".


Part IV:

Then go back to the program we had before Joe Hamilton and Brain Murphy got involved.

We had the liberty to hunt or to make our own management decisions if that's what we chose to do while working within seasons and bag limits that protected the population of the species.

It was working fine. In some areas, we had far too many deer but had the option of joining DMAP to kill more does where needed. Other areas had deer for the first time since the DCNR was formed and those areas had limited doe days.

Fewer DCNR rules would mean more time for our state wildlife biologists to be wildlife biologists instead of rule enforcement cops.

Would you rather see them out surveying wildlife populations or see them checking hunters to make sure they filled out their "harvest records" or if they made their phone calls or ipad reports? Which way is more effective in getting a good idea of how many live deer are left in the woods?

49er, are you not for improvements or do you just want to remain status quo? Don't you desire to make things better. Reliable data is the key! It's such a small price to pay in reporting our kills.

You keep misrepresenting the QDMA. It advocates to kill does only if you need to and it advocates a disciplined approach in killing immature bucks. QDMA advocates, in addition to so many positive things, to harvest no more than what the property can absorb and keep the benefit on wildlife a major concern.

What is wrong with me? I am debating with a Sign Post.

Been on vacation 5 days, looks like some things never change.

And I killed a deer just yesterday..

Bet you left it in the woods, cause you got a busy signal.

49er, what were the conception dates on those ten does? I know you can't see it but it may provide an possible indication as to your buck-to-doe ratio. Ten is not many does to base too much but I'm not a biologist. Hopefully, all ten does' average conception dates were close together. If they're spread out over 30 to 60 days, what'cha think that means? I'm sure other data points were noted as well.

I wish today's biologists knew that they wasted all their money on their education as they don't know jackchit about the biology of the whitetail deer!!!

49er I'm glad to see you stand for freedom and less government. I'm afraid many people on here will never get it though, especially when you see the blindness in the comments made.





We've come to the point where we consider it a small price to pay when the government can take our hunting rights away for not filling out a questionnaire. And you think you're not liberal????? You think its a small price to pay because you think the so called better wildlife management that you mentioned is best for you and your hunting desires. Therefore whatever the government does is fine with you and most others who look at things in this light as long as it seems to promote your way of wanting to do things.

ghost rabbit, I can promise you that I'm not blind. Let's call it like it is. You're not "promoting" anything? Maybe promoting "your" type of hunting? You are. You're promoting no/or less government intrusion. Buddy, we've already tried the non-government intrusion and no-mgmt of wildlife approach and it didn't work. Ask the buffalo, deer or the ducks, etc... Or, ask sport fishermen how they feel about unrestricted use of mass netting! Unfortunately, society can't rely on lawless hunting because there will always be a few out there that will take advantage of the situation and ruin it for all of us.

What you seem to be more concerned about is what "YOU" want to do and nevermind the condition of the wildlife. We should include wildlife's benefit or harm in the equation, don't you think?

And yes, The State of Illinois needs to know what's been killed on the citizen's of IL WMA's. It's important data which wildlife mgmt decisions are made and if you don't participate in providing data & the collection of, you don't hunt there again as you're being "only" a consumer and not contributing to the future benefit of both hunter and hunted. Let the citizens of IL or any state find out that its WMA are not being properly managed based on biologists' opinions as the citizens are going to look at qualified professionals for answers, not you or not Eddie. And, the majority of citizens don't hunt so hunters needs the average citizen on their side and not the animal rights groups! You'd better be a good steward of land and wildlife or else the general public will turn over responsibility to another group.

I don't like big government either but sometimes the majority has to step in and overrule the minority for the common good of all involved.

If everyone will report his or her kills, the state will have accurate data and maybe.... just maybe, 49er will get Alabama divided up into zones because he, including myself, don't like a statewide, one-size-fits-all mentality. Collective data is important to any decision, right?

ghost rabbit, you don't like government intrusion? Try going to a restaurant and getting food poisoning or worse, hepatitis or your child gets either. You'll be screaming for government regulations on food handling for every restaurant! We have that now and if we didn't have laws and fines for violations, you'd probably hear about more food-born illnesses more often.

Government is like a prescribed drug... at the right amount, it's great; too much, it's a bad thing. And btw, I've never voted democrat in my life.

Let me say it one more time:

What happens on our lease was none of your business yesterday, it's none of your business today, and it won't be any of your business tomorrow.

Set up your own site-specific deer managing program with your own biologist wannabe notions and quit worrying about other people's business.

It's an easy way to keep up with how many dead deer were killed by hunters alone.

It's not a good way to determine how many deer were living in a particular area before and after those and other deer were killed by hunters, predators, cars and natural causes.

The lawful way to determine when seasons are to be closed is to allow our state biologists to survey living populations of wildlife and evaluate the site-specific conditions in particular areas of the state. The seasons are allowed to be closed, "... when, upon a survey by the department, it is found necessary to the conservation and perpetuation of such species and to reopen such closed season when it is deemed advisable."

Notice in the law that those surveys are to be conducted on "...any species of game in any county or area ..." [Code of Alabama 1975, Section 9-2-7(7)]

Keeping up with phone calls and text messages by a clerk at the DCNR office does not satisfy the requirements in the law.