Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum How do we?

I agree with Clem that what you’re saying is completely apples to oranges. One of the biggest changes we’ve seen across the state though since the 1980’s is the explosion of the coyote. The presence of a vibrant predator population would never let deer reach the starving stage now except maybe in certain isolated situations. There’s a lot of big landowners in my area who do not kill enough does to even make a difference……Why are the deer not starving on Mr. McGregor’s property?? The Wilson Property???? How many thousands of acres are there around me where deer are flourishing without wholesale doe slaughtering??? The manager at Enon told me one day that the state biologist had recommended they take out 300 does….This was in January and at the time they had taken out about 60. He said we’re never gonna come close to that number. Why aren’t those deer starving to death on these properties???

No one is saying to completely do away with doe harvesting but it could be scaled way back to being more along the lines of what we used to have. I believe it would be a lot easier to keep folks happy if there were more deer to go around rather than this idea we’re going with now of cut the population in half and then fight over a bunch of nit picky rules and badger the hunters to death in order to manage what's left. I mean, we're actually to the point now of setting up roadblocks to enforce this silly chit.

If you had called Montgomery and asked for a survey, and they sent you one, that would have destroyed the validity of the survey. In order to provide numbers that are actually within the standard error, the survey had to be random. If they allowed folks to volunteer, it wouldn't be random and the info truly would be worthless.

Why does the opportunity to report your harvest make GC "better" than the survey? It may make you feel better, but it hasn't provided better data. Maybe someday it will, but not so far. Ok, you had convinced me that you weren't Chuck, but now I am wondering again. This sounds exactly like something he would say.

I agree with IKB about human nature. People will obey the law for 2 reasons. One is if they are convinced it is in their best interest to do so. The other is if they fear getting caught breaking it and penalized in some way. These are the only 2 - everything falls into one of these categories. The dcnr fell far short in convincing hunters that GC was in their best interest, and they don't have enough staff to enforce it.

Ole Teddy said to speak softly and carry a big stick. Chuck speaks loudly and carries a twig.

You said you had never seen a starving deer. I told you where there was one, many in fact. Now y’all are acting like I’m trying to prove I saw a black panther. Apples or oranges I don’t care. You said you never saw a starving deer. I told you where they were. Simple as that.

Signature line material

I sure hope it’s not after that last response. I’m still holding out hope that he’s actually typing up another one in rebuttal and he's not gonna just tuck tail and run.

I’m not Chuck. My name is Howard O’Neal. I live in Helena. I don’t know how much more clear I can make that.

The deal with Oak Mountain is it's 100% hardwoods. There ain't no food there, except for a handful of months during the year, and that's assuming you have acorns that year.
Not representative of most of Alabama. And also, OMSP borders Birmingham, so it sorta forces all the deer to congregate there.

The deer at OMSP were State owned deer on State property. Why did the State let them starve? Since those deer are part of the State deer herd, the people responsible for those deer are the same ones wanting to manage the deer on our properties. That is a horrible example of a State owned resource being mismanaged by the State. Not a single hunter was responsible for what happened to those deer.

As far as GC, I'll look at the participation at the end of this season, year 3. If the results are the same, then the " broken window theory" will be tested. If it proves true, well, I just really don't know what to say but this will be ugly.

No way to get an accurate count whether you like it or not. If someone plans to kill 50 deer they will and not report it. Bows make very little or no sound, so who knows how many are killed on any tract. Only way is a 24hr check point at an entrance or exit gate which is just not feasible due to manpower. Some people just want to kill them all.

I’m sure there’s some folks out there thinking……..”But carrying capacity!!!....If you manage the herd at a level of half the carrying capacity they would be so much “healthier”…..Deer weights would go up….Does would have more twins…..etc…..This is the right place to manage.”

And I would respond that it’s not the state’s place to micro-manage down to that level. They should just manage conservatively on a broad scale. Set some reasonable doe days across the state and let the micro-managing sort itself out. The state majorly screwed up when they set doe limits so liberally across the whole state when only a small handful of places could actually tolerate it. In hindsight, doe limits should have remained conservative and the isolated incidents handled through alternative means like DMAP. There was never any reason to have a wholesale doe slaughter across the state that has now led us to where we are with all of the GC crap…..Now that lots of hunter’s populations have tanked…..We think we need to reinvent the wheel to fix it………and now we’re about to take it to a whole new level to enforce these new fixes. I know that this is just dreaming…..but why wouldn’t it work just to go back to that point where we messed up and simply fix that one big mistake. Wasn’t the old way of doing things much, much simpler?? You bought a license and went hunting……….

That is correct for sure. The herd needs to be thinned to almost none. Selective harvesting of timber and management of land for low deer numbers is what needs to happen. Maybe planting natural plants for the deer to feed on could help out after major thinning of deer numbers if that has not been done yet.

What about deer killed by autos, Bush hogs, disease, etc. each year? Do they not count against the deer herd? You are right, there is no way for an accurate count. But what is close enough? +/-10%? +/- 20%? How do we know when we are in the accepted margin of error? As Frankie says, how many live deer did we start with and without that, what good is the number of dead deer?

How to get a good and accurate estimate on the state's deer population and overall data on the herd? Specifically, how to get accurate data on a county by county level?
DCNR does not have the manpower or resources to do any kind of widespread data collection across each county, so the data collection needs to be focused locally by hunters, foresters, property managers, landowners and other interested individuals (etc).

This may sound a little crazy, but it is an idea I've had in my mind for a while:

Similar to "weather watchers" or "Neighborhood watch" programs, a network of local eyes that are trained for a certain task are typically a very good and reliable overall method of data collection. The same could be done for the deer population. Create a network of motivated and interested parties who will either go afield to get counts in their areas or who will get counts while they are already out in the field for other purposes. When you sign up to be a deer herd reporter/watcher you have an assigned area(s) (acreage, location, habitat, any other variables). Diversity in land TYPE is important too as it will impact the sampling data. Get the data in the deer off season. This could be done by actually counting and/or through a planned game camera quantity survey. Parameters for how to count and where/when would need to be established.

Let's use Shelby County for example: DCNR manpower plus local hunters on club or gov't land, landowners, foresters, etc...sign up to participate in a population head count. Include neighborhoods too because neighborhoods border land fairly often. Try to get good coverage across the county. They report their data. Data is analyzed and extrapolated. Use that data to get a best estimate for deer per acre/square mile in sectors of the county. Farmers, ranchers, landowners, foresters, other workers, hunters, fishermen, etc...spread out over the country where they already live/work/hunt.

It would look like this in Shelby Co.:
A. Mr. Jones has a 400 acre farm outside of Columbiana that is a mix of crops, pasture and some woods. He is out there all the time and has a good idea on how many deer his land holds per the TYPE of tract he has. Well he does some counting and maybe even uses game cameras to get a more detailed count. He turns in his data.
B. Mr. Smith is member of a hunting club out near Sterrett/Vincent with 2,000 acres of pines, cut-overs and SMZs. He is often on the club doing work, turkey hunting, etc... He combines game cameras and visual counts to get a good guess as to the deer population on the club. He turns in his data.
C. Mr. Snickerdoodle has 12 acres in mini-farm community near Montevallo. He sees deer all the time out back and when riding the neighbor hood trails on his side by side. He keeps track and turns in his data.
D. Mr. Bobby and three of his good buddies always hunt the Cahaba WMA/Refuge. They go out for several trips and scout and set up cameras on WMA. The Game Wardens and DCNR staff also do the same of this public land. The volunteers help out the DCNR staff for manpower. They get to drive their ATVs and trucks to have access. They all gather data and turn it in.
E. Get others to participate to get a good cross section network or wooded large tracts, agricultural tracts, small tracts/pockets, etc...across the entire county.

Repeat for all counties.

How does the state get people to do this data collection? Well some will do it because they are interested in helping out. Use marketing to get the volunteers. DCNR calls and writes to specific property owners to ask for their help. If volunteers are short then look at offering incentives such as a free game camera or free/discounted hunting and fishing licenses for that year for participating and sending in the data. It would have to be an honor system--which means some people would just lie and never go count. To combat that, throw out any outliers with non-typical #s. Just ideas here.

If something like this were implemented and we had good participation, then the state could get enough data to make a better educated estimate on deer population per county and even drill down into areas of the county. Repeat every year? Do annually for 3 years then every other, then every three? Repeat every 3-5 years? Adjust seasons or limits based on good data. Lots of options. I'm not sure what the statistical margin of error would be, but the goal would be to be as accurate as reasonable to turn the data into an anticipated or expected # of live deer.

*************

Now as far as Game Check goes? There are far too many people who are lazy and/or resistant to change. They are going to do it the way they always have done it because they are stubborn--or don't care about the overall deer herd--or they are only interested in their property--or they are outlaws shooting tons of deer illegally and trying to stay off radar--or they are just flat lazy to take 1-2 minutes to report.. Far too many. Until the hearts and minds of the MAJORITY of hunters change, there will not be accurate reporting of deer killed through the Game Check system.

Tags, fines, penalties, heavy enforcement. Those things can work but I'm not a fan of all the gov't intrusion that so often accompanies that. I like simple. I like hassle free. Game Check is simple and hassle free method of reporting kills in reality. It is a daily updated number, not a end of the year survey. I don't have an issues with a tag either...but there still needs to be accurate reporting of the kills.

But again, far too many people don't obey the law and are out for instant gratification. No system is perfect. So let's stay with simple.

It’s not about starving deer, it’s about habitat degradation. Periods of this lead to lower recruitment and an overall decreasing herd (which is nature’s way of correcting itself). If you don’t recognize that trend quickly and over harvest that herd, it takes a while to rebound. I believe that’s what hunters are saying about Skyline these days.

And OMSP is completely different than the rest of the state, completely different from average deer in the rest of the state, and is a unique case that shouldn't be used as a comparison to the rest of the state for conservation.

As for Frankie's statement, he meant he's never seen a starving deer in the wild, average, typcial, non-park situation. You know that's what he meant.


OMS can, however, be used as a great example of preservation (not conservation) and what anti-hunters would achieve if they were able to do away with hunting - heavy browse, habitat degration, negative interactions with homeowners/vehicles (eating flowers, car crashes), diseased deer and so forth. OMSP was a textbook case of having a PC situation - "don't hunt there, don't shoot the pretty deer, Aaaagggghhhh!" - get out of hand with the whitetail population that suffered.

why dont they use those corn pile black choppers to do a live deer survey?

Have you ever been wrong? My statement was simple. Nothing more, nothing less.

Never. It's a gift.

i never heard that said or read that any where ? all i ever heard or read was we needed to kill does and balance the ratio .
never saw it where i hunted and hunted in a lot of counties . none no higher than coosa , chambers and randolph or west of the alabama river though . i've seen the hide come off a damn bunch of deer too.

i fully understand natures boom and bust cycle but i never see the start of one .

but that the thing groups were pushing to kill more does because WE NEEDED TOO.