Do you trust and support your state/region mule deer biologist?

[Fireflyfishing]

No

 

[WRO]

Good comments!

So for the doe harvest I know a bunch of hunters are against it, but in some areas across the west, winter ranges are small and only getting smaller mainly due to encroachment. The biologists where I live say that our winter range quality is deteriorating because they are so many deer in such a small area. So they either have a doe hunt and allow hunters to harvest the does or we wait until another 22/23 winter and a ton of deer will die due to starvation because our winter range quality is poor. That’s where doe hunts can be beneficial!

If they didn’t graze the heck out of it on public lands, installed wildlife friendly fences, or just removed them the carrying capacity would be a lot higher.

 

[Coyote Commander]

The “problem” is rarely with the biologists.

It’s with the people above the biologists. Commissioners, bureaucrats, politicians, etc.

Biologists usually only get to make suggestions to these people.

I suggest things to my wife every night, she rarely follows them!


Game management, especially western big game has gotten a lot more difficult in the last 20-30 years. Increased predator pressure, habitat loss and fragmentation, and increased hunting pressure. (I know I know, but hunter numbers are down…eye roll). They have to manage people as much as the animals anymore.

 

[NDHUNTER24]

Right but they could work on a solution vs letting it ride.

Well over 90% of ND is private. Why wouldn't they cater to land owners. There's deer on public for sure, but there is way more on private. I don't have private land for what it's worth.

 

[WMDM]

Well over 90% of ND is private. Why wouldn't they cater to land owners. There's deer on public for sure, but there is way more on private. I don't have private land for what it's worth.

I get it, just feel the state shouldn't cater.

 

[NDHUNTER24]

I get it, just feel the state shouldn't cater.

I hear ya, it is frustrating. I try to look at it from both sides. Also, do i agree with everything the G&F has done. Nope. I have my different opinions when it comes to CWD.. With that said, i try not to get to frustrated at and blame the G&F. I've seen more tree rows cleaned out and dried up sloughs tilled up for farmland along with CRP that ruined nice deer country. I understand why the farmers did it, but i wish they didn't.

 

[6.5Express]

I did not read all the posts in this thread but voted no. In Wyoming the last few years the biologists have pushed for targeting more older age class bucks because they feel they are the predominant cause of cwd spreading. What a joke. I am completely unaware of one single piece of data from wyoming that supports this. In my experience with biologists here, they always point to the problems we cant do anything about (drought, bad winter, etc) but wont discuss the things we can control or manage. No, I dont trust most of them.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

No, they’ve done a terrible job of increasing the mule deer population in my state. It’s been static for at least the last 11,000 years.

 

[AHayes111]

I have for the most part liked the biologists I have dealt with. I think they all have tried to do what they felt was best for the deer herd. You can not ask for more than that.
This is where I think they have problems.
They have bosses and their bosses have bosses and somewhere up the chain of command those bosses turn into politicians.
Management strategies work the best when the harvest is as close to random as possible. The harvest today is far less random that the harvest when I first started hunting. The harvest is no longer randomly spread across the deer herd and the location of he kill is not randomly spread out in the district. For example, access issues today cause harvest often to be concentrated on public land. Biologists can no longer assume a random harvest and when they do issues happen.
Biologists are very good and understand the biological consequences of their management decisions. Not so much with the social and economic consequences of of their management decisions. Montana manages for opportunity. One of the tradeoffs of more opportunity is less quality. Biologists recognize and understand this tradeoff fully. However there are social and economic consequences that also accompany opportunity management. To a landowner opportunity is money, the easier it is to get tags and the longer the season the more someone will be willing to pay a landowner for hunting. The lower quality associated with more opportunities also drives up the price of private land hunting because people are willing to pay more for quality. More opportunity, the more commercialization of hunting you will have. This is the tradeoff biologists often miss and do not understand.