Research Bears, Deer & Asian Carp - All About Management

May Deer Management

During May both bucks and does may begin to move to summer home ranges. Does will begin looking for fawning locations, and most fawns wilbe born by mid-June.

Herd Health and Social Structure

More and more hunters are interested in hunting for trophy animals. But, because State game managers are often interested in providing a large, healthy, balanced herd, and not necessarily trophy animals, these hunters are taking it upon themselves to try to increase their chances of seeing a trophy by some type of deer management (sometimes with the emphasis on growing trophies) and improving the habitat. Hunters who are only interested in helping the animals grow bigger racks by providing food plots, minerals and limiting their hunting to larger racked animals often unwittingly improve the quality of the entire herd. Not only will the bucks use the food and minerals, but so will the does and fawns. If the hunter then passes up smaller animals he gives them a chance to mature, develop fully and contribute to the gene pool.

Deer Management Practices

The deer management practices of many wildlife agencies revolve around the need to balance the deer herds in relation to the habitat while still trying to keep deer populations high enough for hunting, with hunting as the primary method of deer reduction. The current practice of keeping deer populations high enough that they can be hunted, and the past management practice of bucks only hunting, combined with the belief by many hunters that they should only shoot bucks if they want to keep deer numbers high, is precisely the reason why there are too many deer, particularly does.

It is usually too many does (as in Minnesota and Wisconsin), not too many bucks - in a deer herd that prompts game managers to issue numerous doe permits (in the hopes that enough deer will be removed to keep their numbers at acceptable levels). Eventually this becomes a vicious cycle and both the deer and the habitat suffer. The effects of this cycle generally result in low buck:doe ratios and fewer numbers of dominant breeding bucks, which leads to breeding periods that are later, and longer, than they should be, resulting in poor spring survival rates of fawns.

To add to the problem of too many deer, but not enough bucks, the interest in trophy hunting for white-tailed deer has skyrocketed in the past few years. This interest in high scoring whitetail racks by numerous hunters puts added pressure on the already depleted number of large antlered animals, and further reduces the number of available older dominant breeding bucks. Fewer numbers of bucks, particularly older dominants, result in fewer contacts between the does and the priming pheromones deposited by bucks at rubs and scrapes. These priming pheromones are thought to cause the does to come into estrus and help synchronize the rut activity between the does and the bucks. When these pheromones are absent the does may come into estrus from as early as mid-October to as late as January.

In a deer management study by Larry Marchinton between 1981 and 1986, an increase in the buck to doe ratio from 25:100 in 1981-82, to 54:100 in 1983-84 resulted in the average breeding date changing from November 11 in 1981 to October 15 in 1982, almost a month earlier than normal, and the length of the breeding period was shortened from 96 to 43 days. In another study using quality management techniques, the average breeding date occurred almost two months earlier.

Watershed Management: Invasive Species Control

If we do not do something - no - everything - we can - to stop invasive, non-native species from overtaking the eco-systemf of Minnesota, we are going to ruin many of the eco-systems we have, and loose many of the fish species so important to Minnesotan's for fishing pleasure, and the State of Minnesota as a tourism draw. You can help in this effort - by doing the same thing you have already been doing to protect the research bears - e-mail your state representative and senator, and ask them to agree that we need to test the water of the Mississippi River near the Iowa border, and the Minnesota and St.Croix Rivers where they empty into the Mississippi River, so we can determine if Asian Carp have already entered into those water.

We also need to implement the best means of stopping these fish, or any more these fish, from geting into the Mississipi River above Iowa, and the Minnesota River and St. Croix River. And we need to do it now, or it may be too late, if is not too late already. I guess it is just coincidental that I have been talking about eco-system and watershed management this last week.

Protecting Minnesota's Research Bears - The Other Side of The Coin

I'v tried to geat an answer to the question of why the legislators on the commission overseeing the bill that contiained the Bear Protction Ammendment, did not make it into the final bill, and thus was never voted on. Unfortunately, none of the people on the commission, nor Rep. Phyllis Kahn, or Commisioner Landwehr, have bothered to answer me. However, after speaking to a few of Minnesota's influential hunting /conservation organization leaders, and reading some of the 100 posts on the Protect Minnesota's Research Bears Facebook page (at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Protect-Minnesotas-Research-Bears/160331730697185?ref=ts, and on the Lily; The Black Bear Facebook page (with a combined total of over 132,000 "likes"), and the 100+ e-mails I have received as a result of this Blog, it appears that at least one of the concerns about allowing protection for these bears is that it may result in Minnesotas citizens seeking protection for more bears, or more groups of animals, or other animal species.This is commonly refered to as the "slippery slope" argument. It also leads to the belief and statement that "if you give them an inch, they will take a mile." While this might make for a great "sound bite", it does not make for a good argument. It might be an excuse, but as a reason for not protecting the research bears. It "does not hold water".

Why do I say this? Because after spending at least an hour on the Internet, looking for examples of the protection of any animal leading to attempts to protect some other group of animals, or the entire species, or the protection of some other species, based (usually) on some frivolous reason, such as they are different than the other animals of the same species (as in white, pied or black colored deer, bears, turkey, ducks, pheasants, fish, reptiles, amphibians etc.) or some other genetic anomally - I cannot find one single instance where the protection of one group of animals has led to calls for the protection of another animal, or more animals of the same species, or an entire species.

Conservation relies on wildlife and habitat management, and wildlife and habitat management relies on research.

If you want to protect, preserve and conserve wildlife species and wildlife habitat, research (for yourself) why and how everything on the earth, is interconnected and dependent on each other If the animals are not in balance with the habitat, it makes for an unhealthy eco-system. And an unhealty eco-system either heals iteslf, is healed with the help of man, or it dies.

While it may not be neccessarily true that if a bird dies in North America, a tree in Brazil dies - it can be true that the death of a tree in Brazil, can lead to the death of a bird in North America. Look up (for yourself) how Brazilian coffee trees affect songbirds here in North America - you'll learn better if I don't have to explain it with my limited understanding. .

I'm going to be setting up Natural History Eco-Tours for Bears, Wolves, Eagles, Swans and Cranes here in Minnesota and Wisconsin, and Elk Bugling Tours to Custer State Park in early September, and Wildlife Tours to Yellowstone and Rocky Mountain National Parks in mid and late September for big game photography and viewing. If you are interested contact me at TRMichels@yahoo.com.

God bless and enjoy our Great Outdoors,