Quote:
Originally Posted by 3blade
Well let's see, we had a hunting tech thread, now a doe thread, next should be another castle thread or dogs caught in snares thread...
Do you guys not get bored of this??
They want to maintain the populations BELOW carrying capacity. At or above = high wolf numbers, disease and winter kill. If you don't want to kill a doe, don't. Just that easy.
|
Surely you Jest !
Wolves are well established in most of the Northern WMU's due to the presence of other Game species, disease is primarily due to over-population and winter kill can happen to a population of any size.
We have far more predators at the moment than are required to keep the Game populations in check, not including the hunting component.
The goal is to maintain a viable and sustainable carrying capacity for any given range, not just below the max. That goal is like a kaleidoscope that changes almost annually and depends a lot on population recruitment each year. Please tell me that those in charge of our Game management have a handle on that aspect - in every individual WMU.
With all the challenges facing our marginal WT and MD populations in many WMU's, it seems apparent that we have to seriously address the issue of what is pretty much a blanket policy (harvesting Does) - set in place to appease a few.
Last I heard, Alberta had a total WT population estimate of 250-275,000 animals. In comparison, the small heavily populated State of Pennsylvania had a herd of over 1,000,000 head with most of their available range at over capacity. Of course, we don't want to be in that situation but I'll bet the Ranch that we have room for a least twice as many Deer as we have today and more than enough hunters ready and waiting should our Deer populations even come close to the term "too many".
Many of our WMU's that are currently subjected to a Doe harvest are a far cry from hitting the "too many" redline that has apparently been established... wherever that may be. So yes, we are maintaining a "below' range capacity Deer population in many WMU's - far below, and possibly not even
retainable for hunting purposes if we get another two or three bad winters and the Predator population doesn't get corrected, not to mention the advancing CWD issue. Harvesting females at this time just doesn't make sense where the Deer populations are far below where they could, and should be. Not really bored,but that's my take anyway.