who wants to fix the deer herds?

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(*Please read the below info before answering) Would you join a voluntary, unit specific, deer club?

Yes, Definently.
10
83%
Maybe
2
17%
No, its a waste of time
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 12

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The Ox
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who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by The Ox » Tue Dec 13, 2011 6:48 pm

So i was discussing a few options too further help influence the micro managment success on another Website

I am wondering how many of you would be interested in this idea so give me some feedback

I am wanting to start strictly volunteer deer clubs.
Basically we can start a club for each unit and whoever wants to join can. The purpLose is to help mule deer.
The idea is to work with the dwr biologists and CO's basically one DWR CO/Bio will be assigned a unit. For example a pine valley club will be headed by dwr biologest joe shmo, he identifies the pine valley herds main issues and informs us of projects that need to be fixed on that unit to help the herd. We as club memebers put our time into fixing the problem. Because the mule deer decline can be specific per herd such as : monroe may have predator issues causing decline while pine valley has lack of winter range due to PJ enroachment. Monroes club might be encouraged to go hunt coyotes/predators. Pine valley club will be assigned trimming trees in certain areas to create better winter range in specific areas. basically since the dwr doesnt have the funding and man power to do this alone we are working alongside of them for the satisfaction of doing our part in improving the herd. since we are micro managing now we can focus on places a lot better and keep track of data and trends and find unit specific problems to work on instead of trying to decide why the whole region/state is struggling we can fine tune each unit.
I personallly think this would be great. Yes its similar to dedicated hunter program. Id still be in favor of DH but the DH will be part of the club for the unit they have tags for.
I think if we all work together and try to fix each herds problems we can help the struggling herds.
I think if each unit had even 10-20 guys alot of things could be accomplished to help that herd. imagine what 50 guys could accomplish 50 guys go all around the unit getting the coyote problem in check, 50 guys trimming trees, or 50 guys building guzzlers if water is the problem, 50 guys could accomplish alot of stuff to help deer in a short time.
he time for pointing fingers is over we need to do something to fix it. whats done is done we cant change the past but we can fix the future. so instead of whining go do something about it
Many of you say you want you kids, grandkids etc to enjoy hunting well this is something that can help to insure that happens. So my question is how many of you would be interested in joining a club like this? The only return you would get is knowing your doing what you can to help the herd and not sitting and whining, but actually doing something. the reason the dwr needs to be invloved is because we as hunters can not just go trim trees, plant browse, build guzzlers, cut sagebrush, etc without proper authorization. Also the Dwr officer will have unit specific data where attention is needed in the unit to help keep projects better organized.

So 30 clubs all assigned a specific unit all headed by a specific DWR personnel in charge of assigning duties for deer club memebers to improve the specific needs of a specific herd, and all labor donated by sportsmen who want to find the solution. I mean look at the PR a project like this could have to show the antis that we really do care. Or show people on the fence whether hunters are good or not by showing what we do for wildlife. showing them we volunteer our time to fix wildlife issues while expecting nothing in return

PLease no comments saying negative things, if you disagree simply say i dont think it would work and i am not interested in volunteering my time to help improve deer herds.

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ABert
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by ABert » Tue Dec 13, 2011 7:25 pm

To be honest, what you are proposing is being done all throughout the south on private leases. Each and every member is expected to do what ever needs to be done to promote better hunting opportunities.

The problem you have is this is on public land, thus state or federal property. Leases in the south are on private land. Before you can organize something like this you would need cooperation from the "owners" of the property.

I am all for what you are proposing, just not sure if you know the red tape you may be facing.
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by sneekeepete » Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:45 pm

I'm in if it were to ever happen. I think Abert is right about the red tape. Even if the DWR would go along with it what does the BLM and Forrest Service think about it?
Great Idea for sure. Have you talked with anyone in the DWR about this?
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The Ox
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by The Ox » Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:52 pm

abert yes i am well aware of the red tape. We have a cattle ranch and we run on some blm they are very difficult to work with when it comes to restoring habitat they are basically almost a preservationist organization. forest is hard to work with also. but certain things can still be done. state lands(school sections) are very willing to allow habitat restorations. the prob is most winter ranges are blm but there is some state lands and private lands (may be willing to allow improvements)

Sneekee I have emailed the dwr and waiting for a return email. but i thought i would see who was all interested and if other people thought it was a good idea in the mean time so i could have a little leverage.

Our biggest problems will likely be blm and FS problems in allowing habitat improvements. But alot of things like guzzlers, and water improvements are do able on alot of these blm and fs lands as well as hunting coyotes are very do able too as well as a few other possibilities.

If we are able to get some things going maybe we can help put pressure on BLm to allow some restorations down the road it may be doubtful but you never know.

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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by sneekeepete » Wed Dec 14, 2011 2:45 pm

Well keep me posted! I'm interested to see the progress on this.
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The Ox
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by The Ox » Wed Dec 14, 2011 5:00 pm

will do!

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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by castnshoot » Wed Dec 14, 2011 7:47 pm

check pm

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The Ox
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by The Ox » Thu Dec 15, 2011 7:48 pm

no one has anything to say about this?

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ridgetop
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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by ridgetop » Thu Dec 15, 2011 8:58 pm

I think SFW and the MDF have county specific chapters that are already doing this.
There's always next year

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Re: who wants to fix the deer herds?

Post by MuleyMadness » Thu Dec 15, 2011 9:08 pm

Honestly The Ox I think your idea is a good one, I like your thinking.

I'd rather do this type of project in my neck of the woods that actually is FOR deer. Not petty ridiculous projects like some for the current DH program. One I did a couple years back was literally pull weeds around plants that they planned on using around the banks of the virgin river to help with erosion control. Guess what happened to the plants, flood comes through and wipes out any living thing in the entire flood plain. What a waist of time IMO. :))

Anyway back to the real issue, I think it would be very difficult to actually put into place and make happen. Most guys just simply aren't willing to do it. Plain and simple IMO. Sure some are, but it's like pulling teeth to get people out.

Plus I think you could do lots of things like this you mentioned and the deer herds will still struggle unless we get SERIOUS about this kind of stuff. We are trying to put band aides on certain issues that need a tourniquet IMO.

Like this I just received via Eastsmans...
Eastman's Blog. Predator Death Spiral

The Western States management systems are not set up to handle uncontrolled, "Super Predators".
We’re continuing to see an alarming trend in Western wildlife management. I am calling it the “Predator Death Spiral.” The underlying cause of this phenomina is when a wildlife agency attempts to hide or “pad” their big game population estimates when over predation begins to take hold. This in turn creates a downward spiral that cannot easily be avoided, and is often not even noticed until the state hits both a financial and PR rock bottom. Idaho was the first state to hit the wall with the “Spiral” followed by Montana and now Wyoming has begun to slip into the Spiral’s grip. The wolf situation has caused these three Western states to slide down the jagged slope of diminishing herds, shrinking revenues and bad PR among their customers and financial lifeline…out-of-state hunters.

The details of the spiral start out very subtle. The wolves, cougars and grizzly bears start to take a few more elk and moose each year as their unchecked populations grow and expand. The state does not react at first with cuts in the tag quotas. This would mean a decrease in revenue that would have to be met with either more tags somewhere else or even worse, budget cuts. So they do what most Government agencies would do in this situation…nothing! After a few years of turning a blind eye to the situation a bad winter like the winter we had in 2006 and 2011 hit and further accelerated the problem. But, the bad winter was even worse than imagined from a wildlife management perspective. The increased snowpack and cold temps caused far more than the usual winter kill. The predators did extremely well because of the increased snowpack that gathered the herds even tighter than usual, on heavy snow accumulations that created a wolves dream come true scenario. A concentrated food source stuck in a snow bank that cannot escape…perfect. After the long cold winter is over the elk and deer that did survive go into the spring in tough shape. Many of the cows and does have aborted their young in order to survive.

The post winter mortality counts come back into the department as an alarming number. But budgets have to be met. So being ever optimistic the state decides to give the remaining quotas just one more year to see if they might bounce back. After-all, the counts could have been flawed, there is no way we could have lost that many big game assets in one year, right?

The next fall the hunters are complaining, the harvest stats are coming back very low and things are not looking good on the PR front. Many non-resident hunters are threatening not to apply the following year and the outfitters are starting to make their voices heard.

The state reacts, and cuts the elk tags inside the wolf and winter zones. But the money has to be made up somewhere, after all a few hundred non-resident elk tags equate to big money. So the state moves to increase the quotas on elk outside the wolf zone and increase the deer and antelope tags substantially in an effort to compensate for the loss in revenue.


As wolves continue to take their toll, state Game and Fish Departments struggle to make their budgets as big game populations plummet and demand for non-resident licenses crash.
A second harsh winter strikes and wipes out the antelope and deer herd excesses. Things are looking bad, but the state budgeteers don’t give up easily. Someone recommends the idea of raising license costs to all hunters, after all supply and demand economics formulas say a non-resident elk tag should go for over $2,500. But the resident tag increases get shot down by the commission but everyone likes the idea of sticking to the non-resident hunter a bit more. They can afford it, have you seen how much a house in California is worth? (pre-2008 of course). The following fall the hunters don’t see near the game they did even the previous year. Things are getting bad. Thanks to the internet the word gets out and many of the non-resident hunters move their camps and non-resident dollars to Colorado and New Mexico to hunt elk and deer.

The next thing the state knows, they are sitting on millions of dollars worth of unclaimed and unwanted non-resident tags. Now with the wildlife resource in shambles and a multi-million dollar budget shortfall the state is finally forced to wake up and smell the coffee. This isn’t the 1970′s…it’s no surprise to us that a non-resident hunter who pays over $1,000 for an elk tag expects a good elk hunt, why should it come as a surprise to the state Game and Fish Commission? But it does. What the state fails to realize is, that once they began to charge that kind of money for tags and preference points they in affect gave up the option to simply brush it off as a “bad winter, try again next year” excuse that worked so well in the past. In the information age non-resident hunters no longer accept excuses easily.

This is the bottom. A state is stuck to come clean and admit they are in a real hole. They don’t have the wildlife any longer to support their budgetary needs and their customers know it. This is the type of situation where a little fudge in numbers here and there has created a beast that cannot be controlled and is getting bigger, badder and uglier every year until the bottom is hit.

Why? Because it would mean that the states would have to admit to contributing to their own financial demise. Some Western Fish and Game Departments have in fact become a wolf in sheep’s clothing to their constituants. Some inside the departments have, although reluctantly, in some cases went along with the Federal Government’s master plan to re-introduce super predators back into the ecosystem to eventually control big game herds without the use of hunters. It’s almost as if the state neglected to realize that this would, in fact, slit their own throats by gutting their departments of the necessary funding to run.

And this is not just a Wyoming, Montana and Idaho problem. Wolves have already begun to take hold in Washington, Oregon and Utah. Nevada, and Colorado are certainly next. And for all of you midwest whitetail hunters out there, sorry, your not safe either. The government has devised a plan to expand the Mexican wolf North from Arizona and New Mexico into Oklahoma, Kansas, Iowa, North and South Dakota and Nebraska to connect with the upper midwest wolf populations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. This would give super predators a way to control whitetail deer populations minus the use of hunting as a management tool.

This is a critical situation but all is not lost yet. There have been huge strides made in the recent wolf debate and wolves are starting to be controlled now in Montana and Idaho. We all as hunters need to keep pressure on our politicians and state agencies to make sure they do the right thing for our wildlife. We pay them to manage our wildlife resource in a responsible manner, make them earn their money. Taking the easy way out is not good enough. They need to do better, our big game wildlife resource depends on it.

Drop me a line and let me know what your thoughts are…maybe I’m just a conspiracy theorist…who knows. I know what I’ve heard and seen first hand so far, though, and it’s not looking good.

Guy

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