Interesting work and good job.

But I have a suggestion that you folks may have already have thought about and may already in the the works, and if so then disregard.

There seems to be no advertising on the study and no information dissemination to the public. I understand this may be by design. But if the researchers didn't want the orange collared deer to be shot then it seems they would inform the public. There is nothing on outdooralabama.com that I can see. There is nothing in the hunting and fishing digest that I remember. And there is nothing in the latest AON magazine that I have seen. I'm sure there will be signs posted on public owned hunting grounds in the study?

Not bashing anything and please do not take it that way because that is not my intention, but if many of the orange collared deer get shot then it will likely be because the hunter didn't know a thing about it.

I understand your concern. There is a game plan regarding talking to landowners on private lands, and talking to hunters on public lands.

You know......

Dr. Mirarchi was a friggin genius!!!
He told us that managing wildlife was relatively easy and all the challenges lie with managing PEOPLE!

Awesome thing you are doing Doc!

Thanks Doc for all the hard work and sharing that information with us here. Please thank the grad students as well. Looking forward to seeing the results of the study.

Please keep us updated on this, thanks for putting forth the time and effort to practice these studies. I'd like to see a lot posted here when this is complete. Thanks again.

We will be trying to make the results available to the public, but it will be quite a while before all of the data are collected, analyzed, and conclusions can be drawn.

The public will never see the results. Just like the public doesn't know about the collared deer or that they might not be fit to eat. You shouldn't have to happen by a post on a private Internet site to find out about things being done to public resources and public funds. They have public websites available for that but apparently don't have anyone competent enough to get the websites working most of the time.

I have to agree with a lot of this statement. For something that was funded, even if partially, by the state then I feel that there should have been a better plan for education for the public. If it was released on public lands then adding a note to the WMA maps would have been a great idea.

Agreed..... If these deer get shot and the students lose valuable info for their thesis.... It will be because of people who don't visit this sight and have no clue what's going on with this project.... Especially with all the Florida and Georgia hunters on the Eastern side of the state who have no clue what's going on..... I hope the students do well...but if they don't....their grade lies in the hands of the person who decided not to make this public information.....

Stupid question that may have already been posted. Is it illegal to kill the orange collared deer? Not asking if you want it to happen because obviously you don't but you did collar some 3 1/2 plus year old deer if I read correctly.

It should not be illegal. The laws are written by the legislature not some researcher at a school. I wouldn't shoot it now, knowing about it but if I saw one before this year I probably would have, thinking some dumbass collared a deer and let it loose.

It is not illegal........ They just don't want you to shoot them since they are in a study being conducted by AU grad students...... That's what we are talking about here..... The only people(hunters) that even know about this are the aldeer members..... The rest of the hunting public has no clue.... Which means the general public hunters may most likely shoot them being they don't understand the reasoning behind the collars.....

Agree, a little PR in the areas where the studies are being done would have gone a long ways. Word of mouth by hunters would do the rest.

I'm sorry everyone doesn't agree with the manner in which this project has been publicized. This topic has been discussed by the parties involved, and suffice it to say that is has been publicized in a lot more venues than just aldeer.com. From a scientific perspective (how it impacts the data) in studies that involves the harvesting of research animals, there are pluses and minuses to publicizing the study prior to and during the project. This influenced much of the way in which it was publicized. But, once again, there are still things taking place (many of which have yet to occur) to make hunters in the areas aware of the study. Here is one example (and there are others):

Al.com article

Hope this helps alleviate some concerns.

I imagine about 90% of hunters get a rules and regs book every year. Wouldn't have made since to publish a article in their about this? I mean they Already waste space with all that Outdoor Alabama stuff in there.

there's a guy near me that raises deer and tags them . i never kill them .course aint no big buck with a tag in his ear walked by either . lol

if you mean a REAL reg book Daniel you can change those numbers to less that 1% get a reg book.......

Tru-dat.

Steve, did ya'll or some group you are familure with eartag some deer in dallas county 3 to 5 years ago? If so, number 9 he's dead.