Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Serious Deer Talk Forum More recruitment studies

Chris mentioned that most of their time during the fall and winter months is spent on running management areas. I've often wondered why more detailed data is not available from our WMAs.

They are scattered all over the state, the hunting pressure is pretty well regulated, and every deer killed has to be checked. I guess they must be tied up doing enforcement work or something, but it seems like WMAs would be perfect sources for data about our wildlife.

If there are less deer why would their be more predators ? Less food less predators no ?

ah no ,,,, it's not that simple .

So you are sayuing that the amount of food does not affect the amout of predators in an area ?

no, he's saying that there are way less deer in his area than in the 70's......and more yotes.

doesn't predator and prey animals cycle along side each other?

I know the grouse in WI cycle naturally anyways, cycles up and down every 8 years.

Has yotes diets change, I mean I have seen more rabbits in the past 2 years than I can recall, heck ran over 2 yesterday morning going T Hunting and dodged I don't know how many others. I flushed 3 coveys yesterday trying to get on 2 Longbeards, the last covey ended it.
Still hear as many yotes as usual down that way.

like jlcoffee mentioned on another thread, has not habitat caused some the changes in deer numbers?
Farmland transitioned back into pines etc... at first is a good thing but if the land is not managed for habitat large pine stands become low quality deer ranges.

Y'all are being hard-headed and missing the BIG picture.

There were no coyotes pre-70's.

Predator/Prey relationships are cyclic and some are taking broad generaliztions as literal.

But, it doesn't really matter to me.

no ,, i'm saying less deer may not mean not enough food . if yotes only ate fawns there would be no yote's here .

The predator prey model where the predator population is controlled by the prey population works well when the prey makes up the majority of the predators diet. Predator population goes up, prey population goes down, and then Predator population goes down, and prey population goes up.

They problem with coyote-whitetail application is the coyotes are opportunistic. They'll eat anything so less deer doesn�t necessarily equate to less yotes.


Also season long anterless deer season also can affect a population.

On one area that there are a lot of coyotes we didn't see a single fawn last season. On another place I hunt that we havn't seen or heard any coyotes the plots are full of young deer. I know out west for a long time they have tried poison, shooting, traping catching them with dogs and about any other way they can think of to get rid of them, but they are still there. I would try traping, but it is a long way to my land to try it.

Don't forget about all the deer getting run over, seen more this past year than ever on hy 72/20, even a biologist noticed the significant increase.

Don't forget that different areas have different condititons.

Since the demise of the West Jefferson Public Hunting Area, I am seeing fewer deer in my area. The land has been leased to clubs with members that have been taught that killing antlerless deer is a good management strategy to keep the population density down.

It's working here.

I'm seeing deer, or the lack of them, at about the same rate I was seeing them back in the mid-seventies. That means I go for weeks sometimes without seeing a deer at all anywhere.

Out west they fly around and shoot them out of choppers too!!


BUt ok I see what yall are saying I guess i just didnt understand and was kinda confused...

Here's some natural coyote and hog control:

Wolves v coyotes

Wolves v hogs

Yup wolves IMO are only a close second to us humans... And that is debatable...

ColdTrail:

Just so you know, I'm not picking on you by quoting yours. I could have quoted any of them on here.

There are some fundamental flaws that the majority of the postings on this thread have concerning an understanding of predator-prey ecology.

Most prey populations cycle independently of predators. Keep in mind that I said most. In "r-selected" species (those species with extremely high rates of reproduction and low investment (caring for their survival) in individual offspring (cottontails, etc.), predators do not cause populations to crash. Population cycles are driven by the habitat. For most lagomorph (rabbit) species, we see this occur in pretty regular 10-year cycles.

For a "K-selected" species like white-tailed deer, there is the potential for predator populations to exert greater control over the prey population, if one of two things is occurring.

(1) The prey population is at very low density. In this case, the predators can actually eat enough prey to control growth. This is essentially the "predator-pit" scenario that my student outlined in her thesis ( Thesis ).

(2) There are other outside influences on the prey population that might be impacting reproduction.

Finally, keep in mind that predators only cycle with individual prey populations if they are prey-specialists. An example would be the lynx, that is very dependent on snowshoe hares for food at certain times of the year. But, a species like the coyote is a generalist predator that is not dependent on the density of deer. As a result, deer density is not going to have a major influence on coyote densities.

Last few sentences make a ton of sense. Dr.D

Thanks for the lesson Dr D. D!