Does QDM work?

Well, first let's define what "QDM" (Quality Deer Management) really is. I see a lot of hunters, magazine articles, and TV hunting shows that have little understanding about what QDM is and how it came about. In addition, although I don't disagree with them in principle, the QDMA (Quality Deer Management Association--an organization that was created in an effort to educate hunters and promote the ideas of QDM) has greatly expanded the definition of what QDM is. Although I think these expansions in definition can be a good thing, I also believe they may give the wrong impression about what is required to practice QDM.

QDM started out as a scientifically based harvest strategy intended to compensate for the over-exploitation of bucks and over-protection of does that had been occurring across parts of the U.S. after many, many years of Restoration Management. This should not be seen as an indictment of Restoration Management--it was highly effective at doing what it was intended to do: restore deer herds wiped out by market hunting. However, eventually, a new form of management was needed once deer herds were restored, and many state wildlife agencies were a bit slow in realizing this. Too many years of Restoration Management, and its practice of allowing very heavy harvest of the adult buck population, and almost total protection of the antlerless population, had led to deer herds with skewed adult sex ratios, male populations dominated by very young bucks, doe populations dominated by the oldest age-classes, and excessive total deer populations that were damaging the habitat.

QDM harvest guidelines were designed to alleviate these problems through selective harvests. Protection of young bucks would allow buck age structure to increase (more bucks surviving to older ages), and increases in antlerless harvests (where necessary) were designed to both decrease total deer density--to take browse pressure off the habitat, which in turn increased herd health--and to aid in balancing adult sex ratios. The entire system was designed to produce more natural and balanced herd structure: a more natural buck age structure, in which all age-classes of bucks exist; a more natural and balanced adult sex ratio; and a total deer population more in balance with the habitat's ability to feed it.

Now again, does QDM work? When practiced properly, and as so wisely stated by NightHunter, who said,"...you MUST HAVE REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS!," yes it absolutely works BIOLOGICALLY. Problems arise, and are the driving force in the few QDM "failures" I've witnessed, when hunters either have unrealistic expectations for their management, or the hunters are unprepared for the different style and skill of hunting required to be successful, or both. In essence, when designed and implemented properly, I've not yet seen a QDM program that was a biological failure (a failure to improve herd structure), but I have seen failures in design, failures in implementation, failures due to excessive biological and harvest expectations, and the failure of hunters to take advantage of the biological changes that were occurring.